Finished - Patriotic Crochet-A-Long Coasters & Placemat

Well, here are my finished coasters, plus a 4th of July potholder I made to match!









The yarn for the potholder isn't exactly thick enough to be a potholder, so instead I'm using it as a mat for under our lemonade pitcher.  Too cute.  Here's the pattern for the potholder if anyone's interested!  And, of course, the coaster pattern is here.

Thanks again to Megan for inspiring all of us to make some holiday-themed goodies.  I can't wait to use them this weekend, and I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone else's blogs to see what you all came up with :)

3-D paper flowers made with the Cricut!

A brief departure from knitting, crocheting, and crochet-a-long-ing!

Here are some 3-D paper flowers I've been making with my Cricut:







I had found this great tutorial that required a flower-shaped paper punch.  Being impatient and not wanting to spend more money, I took to the few cartridges I already have in my collection and found a flower cut-out that, with some work, could be used for this process.

I think I'm going to run to ACMoore today and buy a flower punch just for time-saving purposes (plus I have a 55% off coupon, so why not?).  I'm addicted to making these!  The ability to make professional-looking flowers without having to spend a ton of money on them just astounds me.

Okay, that's my quick update for the day :)  With any luck, I'll finish up my CAL tonight and have photos before the holiday weekend!

4th of July CAL Progress

Here are some updated photos from the 4th of July CAL!





Just need to weave in some ends and finish up a surprise coordinating project I started :)  I think it'll be super cute - wait and see!

This project has helped get me really excited for the upcoming holiday.  Especially because it falls on a Monday this year, which means I get an extra day off.  Now that classes are done, final papers are submitted, and I'm stress-free for the first time in months, I'm looking forward to eating lots of juicy hamburgers and crafting.  Maybe I'll even work up the energy to make my annual Cool-Whip, strawberry, and oreo dessert!  So yummy!

Patriotic Crochet-A-Long!

You can't see me, but I'm doing the just-typed-the-last-word-of-my-second-final-project-and-now-I-just-have-to-format-them happy dance.  You should see it - it's a hoot!

What does that mean?  It means I get more time to indulge in things I like.  Not that I don't like getting my MBA because I do.  Who knew I had a knack for accounting?  Not I.  But it's a lot of work and between two part-time classes and full-time work; I've gone off the deep end a couple times in the past year.

Ergo, I plan to fill my schedule with lots of knitting, crocheting, reading, and scrapbooking.  And of course, participating in my Traveling Scarf group.  But (you know me) I needed to add something else.

Megan over at Crochet Every Day is hosting a Patriotic Crochet-A-Long, and it's such a cute, quick little project that I had to jump in.  We'll be making a set of four star coasters and they're really adorable - and FAST!  I already made two last night.  I may wind up making more than four :)

Before starting, I took a photo of the yarn I'm going to use:



It's a mix between Caron Simply Soft (my all-time favorite affordable yarn) and Red Heart Soft Yarn (which is equally as awesome, though hard to find in many colors where I live).  I've had these sitting in my stash forever and I've gotten pertty good at busting said stash instead of buying new yarn lately.

The only requirement is that these coasters need to be made in your country's colors.  I really love the blue I chose because it's not the typical deep blue you see on flags.  I always love a hint of non-traditional colors in everything.

If you want to participate, too, just head on over to Megan's blog and leave a comment with a link to your blog post!  I hope you're all enjoying the first week of Summer and that the humidity isn't killing you like it's killing me here :)

My Birthday Cricut Craft Haul & Projects

Because I'm sure you've all been keeping track, we all know my birthday is on Thursday.  This weekend, I got one of my fabulous presents a wee bit early, and you can only imagine how excited I was.

Behold: the reason I will never accomplish nothing else in my life:



I've been holding out for one of these for at least three years.  Actually, I wanted one the first time I saw the commercial eons ago.  I can't believe I finally have one in my possession.

So of course, just getting a Cricut wasn't enough.  I had to blow all my birthday money on extra supplies, as well:



That monster in the middle is the "Big Bite" that I got for $20 with a 50% off Michaels coupon.  I've wanted one for awhile because I have a chip board album I purchased on Etsy last year that I can't punch holes through.  I figured this would come in handy, especially since I can create my own chip board shape albums now.

I also bought three new cartridges at both Michaels and ACMoore because they were all on sale.  From Michaels, I bought Damask Decor because it had a lot of frilly, fun shapes I could use as page backgrounds and on cards.  I also bought Simply Charmed because it had a lot of basic holiday imagery.  From ACMoore, I bought the Storybook cartridge because I wanted fonts.  What I loved about the Storybook cartridge is that the font looks simple enough, but you can fancy it up by layering other included shapes on top of the basic font.  Overall, I stuck with cartridges I thought were pretty versatile.

I didn't find any winter cartridges, though, and I wanted to get one so I could make snowflake window clings.  Well, apparently now is the time to buy them on ebay because I won a Winter Lace cartridge auction for $16.03 with free shipping.  Works for me.  It was shipped out this morning, so I can't wait to play around with that.

Anyway, here are my first attemps at making things with my Cricut:





I'm still trying to figure out how to get the blade to work properly and all that fun shnazzy stuff, but it's all trial and error.  I'm still having fun, even when I make a detailed design too small and it gets all FUBARed on me.  If you have any tips or tricks, feel free to let me know :)

THANK YOU, MOM AND DAD!  Can't wait to see you guys for dinner on Thursday!