Trick or Treat!

Hello! Have you missed me? I took the whole month of September off! It was a nice break to hang out with my husband & the kids and get ready for winter. We have all started to try and predict when we will get our first snow fall. I say Oct 25th. I guess we will wait and see! The leaves are almost all out of the trees and in my gutters lol. I plan on putting up my Christmas lights soon so I will clean them out then. For this weeks project I was back and forth on what to do. I had at first had a great idea I planned to use from a wreath I had seen over on Splitcoaststampers back in August. But that idea was seen by another popular blogger and caught fire so there was tons of people making this style of wreath. I just couldnt bring myself to make it after that. So I sat and sulked for awhile until I got this brilliant idea. Back in July I hosted a baby shower for my sister. I made tissue paper flowers for it and I thought 'hummmmmm I bet I could make a bunch of these flowers and glue them down onto a circle and make a wreath!' Thats just what I did. I dug through my tissue paper stash and pulled out the Halloween colors I wanted and as they say....the rest was history. Take a look to see how I did it below....

I wanted to make a somewhat circle so I used the ole string and pencil trick (it looks like a toilet seat)


Gathered up my tissue paper and cut it into rectangles


After layering the tissue I folded it accordion style then tied it in the center


Trimed the ends into a point then unfolded them


Started pulling the paper up one layer at a time


Until you are all done with the layers and then glue them to your toilet seat I mean paper ring



I cut out some spooky shapes on my Cricut using the Post It craft paper that I peeled the back off and glittered the sticky side


I made the words 'Trick or Treat' on my Gypsy using Blackletter and glittered them as well and wrapped the weath with green Fun Fur yarn and a purple ribbon

~*Recipe*~
~*Cardboard circle
~*Tissue paper
~*Post-it craft paper
~*Cricut Cartridges Blackletter, Gypsy Wanderings, Doodlecharms and Indie Art
~*Green Fun Fur Yarn
~*Purple ribbon
~*Lots of glitter
~*Jen*~ www.mymentalinstability.blogspot.comhttp://www.mymentalinstability.blogspot.com/

Family Reunion!

Good Morning! This is Jen from 3 Cats and a Bug

The theme this week for SweetSassyDiva's; DT is Picnic, which comes at a great time for me! Every year my family has a reunion at the end of July at Fox Lake. My Grandparents bought a place there about 40 years ago, so my family has been going there for a long time. My parents bought my Grandparents place just before they died and my husband and I bought a place two doors down about 5 years ago. It's on a small island, so not only is there fishing, but there's also a lot of wildlife to see, hence the animals in my LO. (I wasn't trying to "say" anything about my family! LOL)



I used 11 different carts for this project. The background paper is My Mind's Eye, the Penny Lane collection. The photo mats were left overs, so I'm not sure what collection they are from. I always use Core'dination paper, I think it cuts the best in my expression. I added glossy accents to the firefly's wings, black enamel accents to the watermelon and the grill, white enamel accents to the frogs and liquid pearls to the deer. All the cuts were just regular cuts, so I didn't take pictures of each step.

Country Life: the banner cut @ 3, the white letters were also the banner, but I used hide contour on the banner to get just the letters in the correct size without too much work. The "July 2011" was cut @ 2.



George and Basic Shapes: the photo mats in different sizes



MS Seasonal: the grass was cut @ 1 and welded together in Design Studio



Walk in my Garden: the caterpillar was cut @ 1



Animal Kingdom: the frogs (3) were cut @ 1



Kates ABC's: the bunny was cut @ 2.5 and flipped in DS



Doodlecharms: the fireflies were cut @ 1.5



Paper Dolls for Everyday: the grill was cut @ 8.25. The utensils were cut @ 4



Indie Art: the birds were cut @ 2



A Childs Year: the watermelon was cut @ 1



Cindy Loo: the deer was cut @ 4 and the squirrel was cut @ 3

Soaring High!

This weeks theme was 'Kite'. When I think of kites I think of fun, warm summer days and kids laughing. I love watching my kids fly kites. They are so determined to get that thing up in the air and once they do, they have the biggest smile and the look of wonder on their face. Watching their kite fly high in the sky is like them themselves flying in the sky.

I started with just a cream colored card and then added layers of blues and yellows. I cut the sun from Accent Essentials and the clouds from Indie Art. Cut the kite out by hand and added in some string with bows and a card was born ;) I also faux stitched the edge with my white gel pen. I figured I could write or stamp a sentiment in the space below the clouds and the kite. School is almost out for us so I hope to get my kids out soon and fly some kites!! ~*Jen*~

~*Recipe*~

~*Colored cardstock

~*Accent Essentials cartridge

~*Indie Art cartridge

~*String

~*Brown ink for the edges