I thought the Car was painful

Pumped up by my enthusiastic response to the race car, I thought I was up for a new challenge.  My niece is a Tinkerbell freak (as all 3 year princess girls should be) so I got the Tinkerbell and Friends cartridge for my Cricut.  Even though Coal swallowed my first Tink whole, I decided to try again. 

This should have been easier since there are far fewer pieces than the race car.  I forgot one important thing, Tink is a fairy and fairies are all feathery and light.  That means they have very detailed cuts that are absolutely teeny-tiny.  After several failed attempts at getting the speed and pressure just right for the paper, this is what I was able to come up with.

I decided that Coal wouldn't be getting a Tinkie for dessert tonight so I am going to give this one to my boss. Well, it is really for her daughter since she misses her mommy when she is gone.  I hope she likes it!

Tink went Bye-bye

Last night while baby sitting the M&M's I was looking for ways to keep them busy and happy and away from the crazy puppy that lives in my house.  We locked ourselves in my office with a huge stash of toys and all of my cropping supplies.  Heady from my weekend success at creating a race car of the most awesome proportions, I decided that we could create more race cars together.  

I quickly came to my senses and realized that 4 year old's do not have the patience to cut and assemble 40+ pieces of a race car.  We cut the initial layer of DJ from the movie "Cars" and then he quickly wanted to move on to the next car.  We one layer for Boost. Now he wanted "SnotRod".  In an effort to provide equal time to his sister, we switched from "Cars" to Tinkerbell.  We picked an really cute Tink and cut her out in no time.  All my little princess was worried about was that I didn't rip her Tink and that she had to have "sprinkles".  She carried her Tink to the dinner table and then in the after dinner confusion, she left her on the table.

After the M&M's were safely tucked in the car and headed home, I realized that Tink was still on the table.  No problem, I would just save it for her next visit, right?  Wrong!  Coal apparently thought Tinkerbell looked fun to play with so he snuck her off the table and proceeded to chew up all of Tink except for the tip of her wings that I managed to snatch away from him before he disappeared under the dining room table.

Hopefully, the M&M's have a short memory and won't remember that Tink was left behind - or I guess I could just cut a new one.  No one would be the wiser!  

A lot

A lot.  Two little words can pack a powerful punch.  Depending on how you use these two little words, it can be a good thing or a bad thing.

Earlier in the week, whenever they were uttered it wasn't with a good connotation. There were a lot of meetings, a lot to consider, and a lot to do at work and at home. There wasn't a lot of time, there wasn't a lot of sleep, and there wasn't a lot of down time.

But by the weekend, these two little words were twisted in a positive way.  We had a lot of time, a lot of things to consider, and definitely a lot to do.  There still wasn't a lot of sleep but that was because we wanted to stay up all night!  We had a lot of food, a lot of fun, and some of us had a lot of patience.  All in all we got a lot done!

This weekend was our annual girl's scrapbook escape.  We all meet at a local hotel and take over a conference room for the weekend.  We pack up all our supplies, a ton of snacks and few changes of clothes and head off to mainly relax but if we happen to get a little closer to being caught up on our books, even better!

I am not a speedy scrapbooker.  I never have been.  I have a tendency to come up with these "brilliant" ideas for a page layout that take forever to complete.  I've copied a pattern in a swimsuit for a completely coordinated page.  I have created an entire paper pieced baby album in about a month or so, while working full time, going to school full time, selling my house and moving.  Oh yeah, and this was all over the holiday season.  Yes I am a glutton for punishment!  

I'm not always happy with my creations, but everyone seems to love them.  As the 'artist', I see all of the flaws (real and perceived) and I'm not sure I will ever be thrilled until something is absolutely perfect.  After a very long week at work, I decided on Friday night to create a race car using my Cricut machine.  It looked relatively simple.  After all, all I have to do is to punch in a few buttons ad the machine does the rest, right?  Yeah, right.  This particular car ended up being created from at least 38 individual pieces of paper that all needed to be glued together.  After a very, very long week, this was not a project that should have been started after 10:30 pm.  But I have never been overly smart and I am completely determined and refused to give up.  About an hour and a half later, I had my master piece completed and I have to admit that I am pretty proud of the results.  There are a few things I would do differently next time, but overall, I think it rocks!  Let me know what you think of my creation - good, bad or indifferent.

As an extra bonus, I completed 19 pages this weekend.  I normally get about 5 or 6 done because I spend more time looking for things or thinking about what I want to do.  I was in the zone this weekend!