Cracker Cutting File from THE CUTTING CAFE

Spotted this cutting file in The Cutting Cafe and was IN LOVE! I have wanted to make Christmas Crackers since I spotted them in a store in Canada a few years back.

I thought it would be fun to fill them with stuff I actually wanted to put in there! Like favorite treats and small things.

I had a lot of fun with this one. I wanted to make it super sturdy to we could untie them and reuse them.

I KNOW, the point is to crack them open. ;-)

Check out what Regina has done with them. She has a nifty way to have you take them apart! Little half boxes that you can fill both sides and then a strip of paper holds them together.

Mine is double sided. Painted the inside with a combo of ink pads and Shimmer Modge Podge. Of course glitter is involved!

And yes, I know it's a CHRISTMAS thing. I am actually getting in that mind set these days due to a few peeps who have been posting Christmas Cards and projects already!

Antique Glass Knobs & a Wee Shelf

The other day I went to the hardware store because I was looking for inspiration. I would have gone to the second hand store, but it was closed.

Wandered around the entire store looking for an idea.

See, I wanted to make this little shelf for my scarves using these fancy antique glass door knobs I have been hoarding.

Tried looking at pre-made stuff which made me sad. Looked in garden at all the pot bound plants that were on sale and talked myself out of buying a half price ceramic pot. Wandered up and down the lumber area. Poked at the molding.

Spent an hour in hardware opening up little drawers touching stuff.

After being asked 18 times if I needed help finding something, I came home with the top part of a pine stair tread. Spent six whole dollars.

FOR THE RECORD MEN IN LOWES:  I was not lost or confused. Next time I will tell you for real what I am actually working on. I guarantee your eyes will glaze over once I say the word CRAFT PROJECT. Thanks for asking, but why do you never ask when THE MAN is dragging us all over hell's creation in that store looking for something in particular that you probably don't stock. 

My one requirement was that I use up some molding I had, all the knobs, and it was chunky. My other requirement was that the board be recycled, but some serious digging in our barn attic hadn't turned up anything all that promising.

A double layer of wood, a little top, and those edges I roughed in myself. Got to use the scroll saw even. Turns out I'm good at cutting that kind of thing!

It's come a little farther now as we worked on it again last night after finally getting some bolts to secure the knobs. Had to drill pilot holes for the bolts, recess holes for the knobs and of course re-sand the entire thing!

Will show you that in the next post after I figure out how I'm painting it! It's on the agenda for this long Labor Day weekend!

PARC SAFARI Layout for My Creative Scrapbook

Oh man what fun! In a fit of trying to cram one last family trip into the summer, we bought tickets over the border to go to Parc Safari. They claim to be Africa in the Heart of Quebec! Not sure if that was exactly true, since it looked a lot like, well Canada. ;-)

We also decided to camp in over the border, which was our first time.

The kids have been to Canada before, but as Quebec is predominately French speaking it really felt like a different country! They figured out pretty quick that the signs very very different, they used kilometers vs. miles, and candy was NOT the same!  Lexi is claiming the candy bars are better, but I am sure she would like to keep sampling both to really make sure.

Used the August sketch from My Creative Scrapbook for the layout which I spotted on Helen's blog first. I decided to change colors of paper in the middle by creating some hills with some different stamp pads. Wanted to place my photos in a little scene!




































In keeping with making a scene, I cut out a zillion pieces of grass on my Silly and a special downloaded font for the title to make it look safari like!

We must have taken a ZILLION photos of all the animals. We have been before, but forgot how cool it was to be able to drive through the park and meet all sorts of interesting beasts.

We did not think to bring carrots but that did not stop a variety of animals from poking their faces into our truck to check and see. The ones that hit their horns on the rear view mirrors made THE MAN wince.

The camel in particular was not very well behaved. He was eating carrots like a fiend and his lips were all foamy. He was pretty greedy too.

So I will leave you with Mr. Greedy Camel and wish you a happy Hump Day!

Guitars & Guns at Dick's Layout

My cell phone camera is usually in use at the oddest times.

We were eating subs at this little place in the middle of nowhere when I hopped off the tail gate of our truck to take this photo.

THE MAN said, what are you doing?

And I said, well taking a photo. (duh, baby!)

Last Friday we were on route to Canada by way of the middle of nowhere when the oldest from the back seat claimed we were trying to starve her to death.

Now we had perfectly good food in the camper, but had to find either a pull off so we could make sandwiches or a Diner. (not sure if you peeps in other parts of the world have the term diner so linking it up for you)

We found Dick's Country Store and Music Oasis:  Groceries-Gas-Guns-Guitars.

THE MAN remarked that Dick was probably one of the happiest guys on the planet.

When I asked him why, he said well, because he has all of his passions under one roof!

Actually I think there is another reason Dick is so happy. Can you see my little bottle cap windmills? I made those special for this page.

Dick is in luck.

They built the headquarters to a wind farm across the road from his place. In fact, my red arrow is pointing to a windmill he sees out his front window.

When we got there around the noon hour, he had a bunch of white trucks lined up and guys eating lunch on his picnic tables.

When I asked the girl at the register if things had picked up since the windfarm, she shook her head emphastically.

Said business has been rip roaring the past couple of years.

Yeah. Dick is in Florida on a yacht! I am pretty sure of it!

Today I am not in sunny Florida, but enjoying our rain (can you see our wet deck!) and memories of our trip North.

One last photo of my Mike's Hard Lemon-aide bottle cap all smashed and added to a paper windmill!

Happy Tuesday almost hump day!

(thanks Lisa! I owe you a twinkie for passing that along!)

Radical Camp Overlook Layout for Scrap Africa Challenge

I have had photos from Luke's visit to Camp Overlook since early this summer. And they have been on my list to scrap the last couple of weeks.

Seems wrong to head into the new school year without having the fun times from the summer glued down!

Thankfully Scrap Africa has a blue/green/white with more than one photo challenge going on! It was perfect for these camp photos.

The photos I got from Luke's little throw away camera were not that great, so two of them I used as cut-outs. The one of Tommy is the best. That kid makes me LAUGH AND LAUGH!

He told me the funniest story about the dance they had at camp.

Evidently Luke was pretty traumatized over having to dance with a REAL GIRL and two girl camp councilors (who were wearing dresses!!!!!) Tommy not so much. He told me that this one girl kept coming back for MORE!! I am sure Luke was wishing Tommy would STOP telling stories on the car ride home.

Kinda looks like Tommy is wearing a skirt here...maybe that will cheer Luke up!

Hope you are having a great Monday!

An Explosion at Pratt Inc. and DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

OKkkkkk, this is a very lame video. But, I actually uploaded it to YouTube and it worked so I'm calling it a win. Baby steps here with the whole video thing!


Next thing I'll figure out how to edit.  ;-)

It WOULD have been posted Friday, but it was oober large and I had to think through how blogger might want it, which was of course via YouTube and super easy.

PLUS, we spent the weekend in Canada where we did not have cell phone or wifi coverage. Got to see zebras and pet an ostrich so more on that later!

Besides something blows up. That is always a good thing in a video regardless of when it's posted.

See, Luke took Rocketry at Camp earlier this summer and came home with a cool model rocket he called SS 71 Black Thunder. It was painted black.

I say was, because he got the urge recently to blow it up. We had just built a newer better one so, perhaps that was why.

THE MAN filled it with black power and taped it up.

And, this is all that is left.

We laughed like HYENAS after it blew up. (We saw those in Canada too).

Just a little fun on a Sunday afternoon!

Mommy: My Favorite Cup of Tea Layout for The Cutting Cafe

Regina over at THE CUTTING CAFE  hooked me up with some cool cutting files for the copper kettle I made for this page.

I was going to make a card out of this cutie-pie kettle, but then decided to make my own layered embellishment! COMPLETE with real embossed copper!

Since it's a card cutting file, it's kinda like cheating since you have extra layers already! Can you see them here? Use double sided paper in your Silly Machine and it's even pretty from the side!


























Honest, I used only ONE sheet of paper and even cut into the bottom part that is usually unusable...

You see, I knew I was going to use that small piece of sticky copper and also alcohol ink for the handle! So there was the color I was going to add.

The cool part about making your own dimensional embellishment is that you can also use it to inspire a title!

This photo from my neighbor needed a nice title! I thought it was cool that I could come up with a creative one that links back to my kettle!

Hope you like the page, Shirley! I made it just for you! Thanks for supper the other night.

Summer Painting & Cabinet Loving

It seems LIKE ages ago when I blogged about repainting this cabinet.

The other day it came back in the house.

You would think painting in the summer would be better, but there is something about some nice wood heat in the winter to cure paint that is out of this word! Needless to say, it turned out nicely, even if the paint was easily distressed for my old fashioned look!

The piles were of scrapping stuff was getting OLD, so I was super happy to fill it all back up.

Imagine how happy I am with punches lined up in a row and stamps at my fingertips!

It's a good thing!

I will have to give you a studio tour at some point soon now that I am getting the hang of the video feature on my phone.

Look for a cool video on Friday. Involves what we like to do best here at Pratt Inc. Blow things up!

Oh So Lovely Layout for me!

We have been in the woods every free minute on the weekend cutting wood and working on trails. Excessive rain has turned our woods into a huge mushroom garden so I'm in the mood for fairies and flowers and leaves!

I guess I'm feeling organic?

Took this photo of mushrooms growing on a log the other day. Happened to be there just as the light was hitting just right and I could even see the little mushroom spores taking flight to grow more mushrooms. So pretty!

Miss Scrap Addict convinced me to give the tape you use for plastering a try. I am glad I did, but it was also because I accidentally found some while snooping around in our shop. THE MAN does not know I have lifted his tape from his stash. So, lets keep this on the down low OK?

Can you see I added some green spritz and glimmer to it? Yes, everything is truly better in my world with glitter!

Had fun with layers too and some vintage doilies snuck in!

One last photo of the little fairy image I used along with a clear acrylic dragon fly and the shimmer I added to the page!

A small shout out to Ignacio over at Nicecrane Designs as I used one of his images! I wanted it for yesterday's project, but printed it too large, so snuck it in on this page! Can you see the fairies peeking over my title?

Happy Tuesday! 

Woodland Fairy Inspired Milk Cartons from The Cutting Cafe

Hey there blog land!

Exciting times over here! I am hanging out with the designers over at THE CUTTING CAFE these days! What a cool group too!

I used a very cool cutting file called HALLOWEEN - FALL MILK CARTON to make these fairy garden inspired projects. 

There are six shapes to choose from that come along with this milk carton. I chose the leaf shape as I was going with my fairy theme!

I will tell you a secret. You don't need to have a cutting machine to cut out these files! I cut the brown one out by hand! It actually went a lot faster by hand than the one I made on my Silhouette! And took about five minutes or less! It comes in a nice little downloadable PDF file that can be printed out at any scale on your printer over your patterned paper and then cut out.

I then carefully folded the carton and ran it through an embossing machine to get the wood grain texture.

I also reused the leaf shape well...as a leaf! Do you see it there under my rose at the top?

The smaller green milk carton was cut on my Silhouette and then covered in metal tape, embossed in an embossing folder and then colored with alcohol ink. It was nice that I had cut it out with the machine though as the edges with the tape folded easier I think than one cut by hand.



My kids are getting too big to take treats in to their class (or so they tell me) so this project was designed for adding a small gift for a good friend. I just punched two holes at the top and tied off with some gauze. Easy peasy!

A small shout out to Ignacio over at Nicecrane Designs as I used one of his images!

Happy Monday!

G-Force Layout for ScrapFriends

Oh hurt me, playing along with a sketch this cool is always so hard! My husband calls me the queen of sarcasm so yes I am being sarcastic there! Thanks ScrapFriends for a great sketch & challenge!

Loved the look of the vertical stripes so added a few myself and some banners at the top. I have heard the metallic look is IN at the moment in scrappin so I dug out some old gold doilies I had withering away. Also happened to be painting on some gold paint on an off the page project, so added it to my edges here. Kinda cool I think...as are more gold splatters...

You can really see the shimmer here in my side view. The sun caught it just right! 

And since you can clearly see here what a terrible photo I have used on this page, let me explain. Somewhere in those crazy little cages on that ride are my two freaks I mean kids. They have pushed the lever that allows that cage to roll and roll and roll. (I'd be throwing up personally). They had so much fun at the Festival! The next morning I caught them talking about the G-Forces on the Round-up. Glad they are young still and like to subject themselves to all that fun! I personally enjoyed eating cotton candy and watching! Had to make a page with a terrible IPhone picture to remember!

Happy Friday! Hope you get your hands a 'lil sticky with paint & ink this weekend!

Pachamama Layout for Scrap4Help

Always a sucker for really pretty paper...imagine my delight when I lightened this photo of Machu Picchu and printed it over top of my pretty patterned paper....and it looked so cool!

I also was overjoyed to be making a layout for Peru! I am only half way through my album from that trip and it's almost been a year!

See, there is a challenge up over at ScrapForHelp that made me think of Peru so I was inspired.

The coolest tea I have in my cupboard is from Peru. Keep in mind I did not say best tasting....Coca tea helps in altitude sickness, when your belly hurts from eating too much good food and also when you are dog tired from being a tourist. I mean honestly they have been using it for thousands of years in Peru, but I am only going off personal experience here!

It is a lighter brewing tea so I was interested to see how it would dye up some cheese cloth. It turned the cloth an off-white so I added a bit of green ink to give a little more dimension. My page now smells like Coco tea though...a green leafy smell if you will. ;-)

The little pops of hot pink are pop tops I used to loop the gauze over! Love recycling things like that!

Check out the recycled flowers I made. I had a huge metal doily I cut up the other day for a layout and the inner circle needed to be used up too!

Punched some flowers out, folded them and then used some alcohol inks to give them a stained look.

I usually drop on glitter at the same time so it dries into the ink. Everything is better with glitter. In fact, I noticed today I was wearing some on my face by accident so I feel all pretty too! ;-)

You can also see the edge of a very old vintage doily peeking out. Imagine how happy I was to find THOSE at the second hand store.

Last but not least, my title:  Pachamama is a goddess worshiped by the indigenous peeps in the Andes. I am told it translates best to Mother World. I missed the little ceremony our tour guide did with coca leaves as my Mom and I were hiking to the Sun Gate, but my Dad told us how cool it was. Trying to capture that idea and the whole feeling of the place on the paper.

Happy Thursday! We are inching towards the weekend!

Celebrate Play Time: Layout for Orange Paperie and Bird is the Word

Yesterday I blogged about wanting that dress. The one in the photo! Saw it at the Renaissance Fair in Sterling a couple of weeks back. Might pick a different color though...

I think it's cool how many people wandering around the fair were DRESSED UP! It wasn't a very hot day, but in years past it has been very hot and you still see the amazing costumes. Of course the people working AT the fair are always dressed nicely or very poorly depending on their role! The beggars & street people really do fit the part! Hot Nuts anyone? The begger is giving the poor lassy selling nuts a very hard time to our amusement.

Of course all that makes me stomp my foot and say I WANNA DRESS UP! ;-)

So, made a page to CELEBRATE my jealousy! It happens to be the word over at Bird is the Word this month, so playing along with their challenge.

Used the sketch as I fell quite in love with that scallop. Made my own by tracing a doily and fussing cutting around the edges. Can see a smidge of it here and my flower cluster which I flipped to the other side.

Also playing along with Orange Paperie & Co as well who is having a chipboard and flower challenge. Both are up my alley, but I am a bit light on the chipboard end of things right yet. Had to settle for a big chippy button tucked under the flowers. 

Here is a side view of my page. I had to take the photo on a board today due to the rain! 

Happy Hump Day!