Charlie's Elmo Party

     Happy Monday everyone! Saturday we had a wonderful time celebrating our youngest grand child, Charlie's 2nd birthday. I love the fact we have a summer birthday since our big months are October and December. We also have a couple in the spring but the winter ones are the toughest.

     I used the Elmos party cartridge to make a few things. The banner was cut using 8.5" x 11" card stock fit to length. The only problem with this is that the letters for Happy Birthday are placed on the mat at about 4" high so I had to use the 12"x24" mat and my expression in order for the length of the phrase to fit. I love when I was hanging the banner Charlie squealed "Elmo".

     Of course you need goodie bags! I decided to try as many different Elmo's as there are on the cart. 

There are 18 bags in all.

These were all cut @ 3.5". I didn't want him to just be suspended in air so I did a little green doodling.

I thought this  running Elmo was a little big so for this image I cut the rest of this shape @ 2.5".

     I didn't do the cake this time since Joelle wanted to do it this time. She thought she should at least make one of her boys cakes, lol. She did a great job.

It was so yummy!!!!

     Now for a fun treat that I thought of. It's my take on the frozen chocolate covered bananas-Elmo style!

     I actually bought the red chocolate wafers from a cake supply shop I know of. She even had the candy eyes (I was going to make my own). Be sure to use ripe bananas when dipping.

     Needless to say, big brother Ben sure loved them as well as the other kids.

     What would a party be if I didn't make a card? Hmm could it be Elmo?

     I loved hearing Charlie giggle. That makes it so worth while when you make your own cards, just seeing the sheer joy on their a face.

Here is the Birthday Boy himself. Happy Birthday Charlie!!!

     

Altered Card Box

     Good Morning on this beautiful Memorial Day! I hope you all are enjoying beautiful weather and are not too stuffed from all the cookouts, lol. Today the Erica's  DT has some beautiful projects to share with you so I hope you will take a moment to see what we have been working on.

     I have been exploring the CCR and had just purchased the Banners digital download so I thought I would show you what I came up with. Of course I also used my Imagine!!

     I found these plain boxes @ Michaels' and thought they would be perfect to hold some handmade cards of mine. The boxes are about the size of a cigar box and are ready to paint, decoupage, stamp etc. I didn't take pictures as I went along so let's just jump into the details.

      First I painted the edges with a gold dauber and then used gel medium to decoupage my paper on the box. The sides and bottom have a faux wood looking paper. This gave me the idea to make the banner wood looking also. I started by making the banner at 5" long out of a cream card stock in the CCR. By adding another mat in the CCR, I was able to add the "Cards" font by using Divine Wedding cart at .75". I used the separate layers feature to print the font first and then cut the banner.
     I cut 3 banners and then adhered them together before I inked the edges. Once the ink was dry I applied some paper glaze to give it a little protection. Would you like to see the finished project?

     I told you you could paint, stamp and decoupage these boxes so I did all three, lol. I even added a braided ribbon and some Tim Holtz adornments to the corners. I'll show you a few more pics of the details.

     I used some Zing copper embossing powder and some Imaginisce bling for the top and bottom right hand corners.

     I have so many left over beads that I made a hanging charm to peek out of a corner of the flowers.

     Speaking of flowers I love how these turned out. I used distress inks and found I had some that even matched my paper. I even love how the leaves turned out.
   Erica is so generous with her DT that she sends us some really neat stuff to try for our projects. In one of my orders she had sent me some cuttlebug dies that had these great leaf dies. They are 2 pieces sort of like a blackout and the top part of the leaf. They look beautiful with a chalk glimmer. You can find all sort of supplies at Erica's Store and she has fabulous prices as well.
     I hope this project inspires you just a little. Please check out my team members projects back at Erica's Blog and see what else they have to help your mojo.Happy Memorial Day and thank you to all who gave their lives to keep us safe.