FAAN Walk for the cure!

Please join me and my family in our efforts to support the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network Walk for Food Allergy: Moving Toward a Cure. FAAN provides much needed education and advocacy to families and individuals dealing with often life threatening food allergies. They have provided much needed funding to agencies like Medic Alert, to provide medical ID bracelets along with call in service for medical responders, free of charge to children. Please read more about their mission statement by clicking here.


We found that when Abigayil was diagnosed at 10 months old after a near fatal reaction to milk, that there was not a lot of information readily available for dealing with this type of medical issue in such a young child. That was, until we were referred to FAAN a few months later. FAAN has personally helped myself and my family in our ongoing quest to provide for our 3year old daughter, Abigayil. Abigayil suffers from severe multiple food allergies to dairy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, and many common food additives. FAAN has provided the networking, recipies, recall alerts, and allergen alerts needed to keep her healthy and growing. My hope is that together we can raise enough money to keep this going for many more families facing the distress of food allergy and anaphylaxis.


The butterflies love her allergy alert bracelet too!

I would love to give something back to this wonderful resource. My family and I will be participating in the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network: Walk For the Cure on September 19th, 2010 in Lincoln, NE. Please help us reach our family goal of $150.00 by donating online at the Team Safety MAP walk page. You can click on my name (Sarah) and use the Support Me button to make your donation. Thank you for your support!

Intersted in participating in a local walk? Check out the 2010 Walk Locations page and sign up for one in your area.

So Sweet!

Here is a simple little 8x8 layout I did for a friend. It's almost too cute to give away. I should have made 2!



Cartridges used:
Once Upon a Princess: title (2.5")
Sweet Treats: icecream cone (3")
Create a Critter: smiley heart (.5-1.25"), icecream face(from 2" smiley heart), cupcake(3.25")

The cupcake frosting and icecream cone are embossed with folders from the asian cuttlebug set. Click to view larger image.

Hoot 'n' Holler

I was out with my kids on saturday, looking at bikes at Walmart. The bike section happens to be accross the aisle from the cricut section. Much to my surprise my small town store had all 24 of the new Cricut Lite cartridges!

We all looked at them and thought about which ones we would use and talked about how cute/fun/cool the designs are. An excited scream filled the store, "MY OWLS! MOMMY! MY OWLS!" followed by cart kicking clatter as my 3 year old tried frantically to move the cart with her buckled into the seat over to the display.

She'd spotted Hoot 'n' Holler and it was love at first sight.

As soon as we got home we had to immediately make an owl. I can't think of anything much cuter than a girl and her owl fettish.


Knowing there are a lot of new Cricut users, and layers are a little bit of an issue for most newbies, here is a simple picture how to for layering using owl5 on Hoot 'n' Holler.

Tip: If you want to load the mat once, you can use (4) 6x6 papers, 1 for each layer color. If you have an Expression, put your bottom base layer color in the bottom left of the cutting mat. Navigate to the top right corner of the base color and hit the Set Paper Size key. You can now use the Fit To Page function key to make the owl as big as it will go on a 6x6 paper. This particular owl wound up being 5.5". After cutting the base layer (and paying attention to what size it told you it cut at) turn the Fit To Page off, and navigate to your next color. Make sure you set the dial size to what your base layer cut at!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's day to all the dads, grandads, husbands, brothers and uncles out there today. I really hope you are having a special day. Ours started out with Daddy sleeping late, getting showered with candy and treats from the kids. Hand made pictures and notes and sweets in honor of that special guy we can't live without. Daddy also got a special little album with a secret message inside! Can you find the message?

















The album is small enough to take to work and show off. Daddy is pretty proud of the fact that he has 6 kids and a SAHM wife. He loves shocking the guys at work with those little tidbits! We are proud to have such an awesome hardworking guy in our lives.Cover artwork is courtesy of Ellie (front) and Avram (back). The back just cracks me up. Avram left the message in magnets the other day and I couldn't help snapping a picture. Then while going through my 8x8 Cosmo Cricket Get Happy paper pad I found the "pop quiz" journaling card. A perfect match! Did you find the secret message yet?

Owl thank you cards

I rarely buy wood mounted stamps, but I found this darling new release from Hero Arts after noticing a 40% off sign at Michael's. I really can not resist owls, and I needed to make some thank you cards. Here is the result:



A close up of the stamped image:


This stamp lends itself easily to peicing. I stamped the image on 3 different K&Co papers. The news print owl was cut away from the paper and layered over the green with pop dots for added dimension. The Green was cut away from the border of the stamp and layered over the tan/dot paper. The tan/dot mat was cut from the Cricut cartridge, A Child's Year. All in all a very different effect over just stamping the image.

Thanks for looking!

Super Cute Clear Stamp Storage

This handy little 10 page 4.5"x6" clear acrylic stamp album houses all 26 sets of monograms from Studio G series 23. To make this stamp album you will need 9"x12" acrylic sheets from Accucut.com. I quartered them into 4.5" x 6" and punched 10 holes along the 6" side and bound the book with 1.25" black O wires with my Bind-It-All. I also rounded the corners with the Crop-a-Dile Corner Chomper 1/4" side. You can also use the blue Round-It-All from Zutter. I would reccomend making the album with 8-9pages though. 10 was just a tad too bulky with all the stamps in, but I needed the pages to fit the entire 5 font alphabet in.

Front view:

The ribbon does not need to be untied. It can just be slipped off and on. It stays attached through some eyelets in the back cover.

Back view:


Inside page:

If you mount the clear stamps facing down on left hand side of the book as you look at it when opened, you will be able to see the images facing correctly when you flip the page back to the right hand side.


What a cute way to keep your clear stamps accessible for use. You can display your clear stamp collection along with your craft room decor! You can also purchase an 8x8" kit from Zutter...But I like this smaller one better. It was a LOT cheaper than $19.99 plus shipping. I did not come up with the idea, I just made it a lot cuter and cheaper. Hee hee!

Give Away Today! Sweet!

There is a give away today featuring one of my all time favorite companies, Imaginisce! WOOT! Go check it out at Give Away Today.