1st New Part Time Job

I went from not working for the past 2 1/2 years to having 2 part time jobs. My first one is at a bakery for 2 days a week while the kids are at day care. Although the oldest is now finished, he will have to come with me. I am learning a lot from working there. I really enjoy it.
Here are a couple of the cakes I have done so far.

These are the characters for a 1st birthday cake coming up.

Making Cards

I am attempting to make cards for Cards 4 Love I only have 3 cards made right now. So disappointing. I really had grand ideas from all the videos and my own ideas but then life happens and I have to put aside my wants to do what NEEDS to be done. So a new day has started and camp has ended for my oldest grandson and we are going to find paperwork so I can start a 2nd new part time job next week and get a reasonable amount of cards done with envelopes!!
I was looking around for card ideas and came across this Plane Penny Slider  I love penny slider cards and realized that I made a card using snowflakes and thought that would be great. While I am making my cards I have to think about cards that would be good for other people to put together. I will be volunteering at the Middletown Public Library in September to make cards for the same program for cards for the troops and the kids of St. Jude hospital. The first session will be for adults during the day and the second session will be for the kids in the evening. It will be fun.

Here are the cards so far.

I like side step cards. I would also like to try bendy cards as well but I am going to make some penny slider cards first and then move on to the next sets. I just have to get started. I will bring up some of the Christmas paper and put some of the summery paper packs down in the basement for storage. I am getting excited.

Tote-Ally Awesome tote and Dandy Lions bouquet

I really wanted to enter the County Fair again this year but it just didn't happen. I was hoping to enter a paper bouquet of flowers but it just didn't work out.
I did make some totes for the teachers and little dandy lion bouquets for the end of year gift for my grandson's teachers. I bought the totes from AcMoore Craft Store and Added an iron on apple swirl monogram design on them. We also added little bouquet of dandy lions my grandson helped make. The tag was made by laying the plain brights that have been drawn on by the Silhouette using the sketch ability and gel pens. The monograms on the totes were a little difficult because the design on the bag was not straight. I didn't take a pic of the actual bouquet we gave the teachers. I wrapped the stems with ribbon and tucked them into the little change purse that came with the bags.

 I had so much fun making the dandy lions that I made a bouquet for me that I placed in a jar I had found digging in the yard. I Google dandelion leaves and created the leaf from an actual pic of a leaf.
I also made some tiny daisies to put in the little bouquets but don't have pics of that yet.

Rock and Roll Birthday Banner

Here is a birthday banner I created for a 10 year old boy.

I still have to learn how to take better pictures of bigger items. I made the letters from Black Betty Font in 2 layers black and red. I also created the extra stars and purchased the flames from Silhouette store. I used DCWV Glam Rock stack from Michaels. I got it in the clearance section. It was so perfect for a rock and roll theme. I am so annoyed that I don't know how to turn the pictures around or place them where I want them to be. GRRRRRRR!!!

The SkysThe Limit In a Hot Air Balloon

I did manage to clean up enough that I can put my Cameo on a shelf when I want to clear the table to actually eat on. What a concept lol.
Some of the things that I was working on was all hush hush so I am now taking the time to post them now that the recipients have them.
One of the projects was hot air balloons for my niece who was turning 30. Her mom, my sister, had purchased a hot air balloon ride for her, which is taking forever for them to take due to the weather. I managed to complete 20 of them and mail them to Florida for her. Some designs were from Paper Matrix which has an amazing variety of paper woven designs not just balloons. They are challenging but very gratifying when done. I purchased a design, Love Is In The Air and this freebie 3D Hot Air Balloon. With the last one I didn't do because I didn't like the shape. I was going to purchase a balloon from the SVG Cuts which have absolutely amazing files but felt I could figure it out and make them my own. So I went and Googled hot air balloons and patterns and created this file. Once I had the file and it went together I could "cut" it creating stripes and zig zags. I liked the shape of this and how it went together. The top is a little challenging but I made stars or circles to go on the meeting points to maintain the shape of the balloon.

This is the shape that I wanted and was so happy that it actually went together also.
Here are the woven ones.

This is a grouping of some of the Paper Matrix balloons

 This is the hear shaped one

It is also big enough to have the minion Twinkies to sit inside and on top.

Here are the first batch of balloons I mailed -

As you will see as I went on I got crazier and crazier with the decorations. I had so much fun figuring out how to do it and then creating it in the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition software. I made different kinds of baskets and banners and bunting. I figured out how to make a zig zag design and intricate rope design. I also got more creative with embellishments adding sticker pearls, ribbons, flowers. and strings. My niece really enjoys Disney World so when I saw the Mickey Mouse paper I knew that would make great balloons.

My daughter crocheted 3 baskets and my sister sewed 7 balloons. So in the end there was a total of 30 hot air balloons. I was so happy she liked them so much. They are hanging them all around their home for right now.