Patriotic Centerpiece

I love to decorate for the holidays! In the summer, I usually put out my patriotic decorations at Memorial Day, and leave them all summer long. I hadn't used my cricut to make any decorations for summer before, so I decided to make a centerpiece for my table.

I started with a blue ceramic flower pot from the garden section at Walmart. Using the Stand and Salute cartridge, I cut the stars from white vinyl at 1 1/2" to go around the rim. Then, I used the boarder feature to cut the firecracker pieces at 4 1/2". I put a half styrofoam ball in the pot and covered it with red gift basket filler. Then, I began making the pieces for my "flowers". I wanted this to go in the center of my table so I made it where both sides could be the "front".

I started with the flowers. They were cut at 2 1/2" from Plantin Schoolbook with a shadow in dark blue, and the flower in the red patterned paper. The paper was from the Blue Ribbon paper pack from Close to My Heart. The yellow center flower was cut at 1 1/2". I really wanted red glitter brads for the centers, but all I had was plain ones. So, I put a mini glue dot on the top of each brad and dipped it in garnet Martha Stewart glitter.

Next were the accents. The Uncle Sam hats and firecrackers were both cut from Stand and Salute at 2 1/2". I used Diamond stickles on the "flame" of the firecrackers. For the hats, I ran the white blackout piece through my Xyron, attached the red layer, then covered them with white Doodlebug glitter so that the white parts would sparkle. God Bless America was cut at three inches from Stand and Salute and the I Love USA was from Independence Day at three inches. I used Xmas Red stickles to glitter the heart and stars.

All of these pieces I attached to bamboo sticks from the kitchen section at walmart that I had covered in floral tape. I used large glue dots to attach them. The ribbons that I tied on to the stems were from walmart as well. Then, I just arranged it!

I hope you enjoyed this project. It was a lot of fun to make and I hope it inspired you to make your own!

4th of July Layout for CTMH Challenge

I'm taking a break today from posting my parents album to post a layout I made for a challenge. I am a part of a Close to My Heart club and our wonderful consultant Lori put out a challenge to make something to show American Pride. It had to feature Close to My Heart products, but other products could be used as well. These pictures are from July 4th, 2008. (Yes, I'm horribly behind on my scrapbooking!) My parents came over for the 4th and brought my two boys water guns. My dad went outside and had a water gun fight with them. It was a great day this was a perfect excuse to scrapbook those pics I had been needing to scrap!!

On to the layout. All of the papers used are from the Blue Ribbon Level two paper pack from CTMH. The base cardstock was Indian Corn Blue and the picture mats were Outdoor Denim which I inked with a silver Cat's Eye ink. For the accent papers, I cut the red speckled paper at 7", the striped paper at 6 1/2" and the paper with words (I love that paper) at 5 1/2 inches. The bunting across the top was from the cricut Independence Day seasonal mini and cut at 2 1/2" using Colonial White, Outdoor Denim, and Cranberry cardstock. The 4th of July was cut at 4" with red glitter cardstock and the firecracker was cut at 2" and were also from the Independence Day cart. For the journal tag I cut one of the seal cuts from Independence Day at 3 1/2" but I left out the center that is blue with stars. I stamped a journal stamp from the Frame of Mind set in Outdoor Denim. The boy cuts are from A Child's Year ( I love that old pedal car!). I cut the boy in the car at 3 1/2 " in Cranberry with an Dark blue shadow and the boy on the rocket was cut at 2 1/2".

Thanks for looking!! I had not had a chance to post this until today, but I found out that I won the challenge!! I hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July!