Cricut really does cut fabric!

i found this tutorial a few weeks back thanks to pinterest and was so excited because it claimed that the cricut machines cut fabric! now i have heard this "myth" before and i wasn't so sure since i had never actually heard it from provo craft (the makers of the cricut) so i was a little hesitant to try it. but after seeing this tutorial i decided i had to try. and then the perfect opportunity arose! every friday at work we have fun Friday's and a this past Friday happened to be favorite letter day. now how do you suppose you show off your favorite letter you ask?? well I'll tell you.. you cut it out of your cricut machine duh!!

So i decided that my favorite letter was B.. why? because my name starts with B? or because i found this really cute bumble bee fabric and bee starts with B? or maybe because all day my students said, "B.. for Ms. BRI!!" any way in order to make your cricut cut fabric you have to get something to make it stick securely to the cutting mat. i used heat and bond..

i also heard that you can use the quilt sticky spray, but this heat and bond was way cheaper than the quilting spray so i gave this a shot. (also i heard wonder under or pellon is not as good as the heat and bond.. but i wouldn't know because i didn't try it) i just followed the directions on the back of the package to apply the heat and bond to my fabric then cut it down to size to fit on my mat...

once it was cut down to size i was ready to load the mat into my cricut machine..

now this was the scary part, i know i had seen the blog and she did it just fine.. but this was my cricut not hers.. i was terrified it wouldn't work, or worse id break my machine but what do you know??



It actually worked!! i was just as surprised as I'm sure you are! and i only had to cut the fabric once! i did however slow down my cut and make my pressure as hard as it could go.



then i just peeled it off the mat and since there was already heat and bond on the fabric i used that to apply the image onto my shirt, since the heat and bond had lost some of its stick from the mat i ironed it twice and then i secured the edges with a basic stitch all the way around.



and of course i had to model the finished product! i think its safe to say i had the cutest favorite letter shirt at school :)

this seriously opened up the doors to so many possibilities! i cant wait to play with it more.. stay tuned!!



thanksgiving point gardens and talons cove golf course

a few weekends ago joey and i were blessed with the opportunity to spend time together while enjoying things that we both love. Joey was kind enough to join me for a walk through the thanksgiving point gardens and while we were purchasing our entry we discovered that they have a new "garden". It is called the light of the world garden and it is compiled of these beautiful statues of Christ and his life and the things that he taught. Joey and i wandered around the garden for a little while enjoying the scenery before we made our way to the statues, which were truly breathtaking, and then finished up our walk at the giant waterfalls.. here check it out...

oh Joey..

inside the secret garden

the italian garden

the waterfalls

joey climbing up the waterfall

and then we saw this.. oops!!

 

then Joey and i headed down to saratoga so joey could have a little fun at the Talons Cove golf course. we got on the course right away and i got to drive the golf cart while joey played the back nine holes. i only stayed for the back nine then went over to my mommy's house to do a fun halloween craft while joey played the front nine :) we both got the best of both worlds this day and we able to do it together! i love spending time with my stinky face :)

 

oh.. did i mention the course was gorgeous??

driving the cart around :)

joey posing for the peanut gallery.. that's me.. :)

 

we went to the PUMPKIN PATCH!!

as soon as fall came knocking on our door i told joey i wanted to go to a pumpkin patch. i was feeling in the fall spirit, (plus since I've been blogging i think about my life and how i can blog about things) and thought that going and picking our own pumpkins would be something fun for us to do. after i got joey to agree to go i looked up pumpkin patches around us and found one called patch's pumpkin farm, it wasn't to far away from us and sounded like it was pretty good! i started to get excited as the week went on, and it is safe to say that i was way more excited than joey.. evidence you ask?? well i made up a song on the way to the pumpkin patch that pretty much consisted of me saying pumpkin patch over and over.. but it caught on and before i knew joey was singing the quite catchy song too! (it really wasn't catchy, and joey only sang it to make fun of me but hey he was singing right?!) once we made it to patch's pumpkin farm we got to pick up a wheelbarrow and some handy dandy stem clippers to cut the pumpkins off the vine and set out to find the perfect pumpkins! it was really muddy and for some reason i was expecting the pumpkins to be huge but they were kinda just normal.. we started looking for pumpkins and we found a lot of contenders so we piled them all into our wheelbarrow to decide which ones we wanted. after looking for a few minutes we decided we had some keepers already and chose two out of our pile and took them to get weighed! our pumpkins weighed nineteen pounds!! all in all we spent six dollars and 25 cents for two great pumpkins and a walk through a pumpkin patch as well as some great pictures with scarecrows and some quality time together!

the pumpkin patch was a success and i definitely want to go back again :)

Patch's Pumpkin farm

checking out some pumpkins.. gotta make sure we get quality pumpkins!!

no comment..

pumpkin clippers to the rescue!!

clipping a pumpkin :)

joey with our winning pumpkins

the scarecrow!

joey as a scarecrow haha

Now of course you cant get pumpkins and not carve them! so we took our pumpkins home and pulled out our handy pumpkin carving kit that i bought from hobby lobby (my new favorite store, still cant believe i had never gone before!) we both chose our designs, i picked a ghost and joey picked a scary jack-o-lantern face. we had fun pulling out the pumpkin guts and carving our pumpkins together, which surprisingly turned out way better than i thought they would! here check it out..

before they got cut open

joey carving his pumpkin :)

my ghost pumpkin!

joey's spooky jack-o-lantern!

the finished products

and of course after they have been lit up, not gonna lie they are quite awesome :)

SNOW!!

yep it's official we got snow in utah!

here check it out..

snow on the roof tops..



snow on the bushes..

and snow on the trees..

oh boy, am I so not ready for snow!!

i am a library member!

it's official i am a brand new member of the south davis library!! i knew i had to do something about bringing in new books to my classroom when i left my old job. you see at skool days they offered scholastic book orders which i loved since they scholastic offered books for quite a reasonable price.. each book order form had books as low as one, two and three dollars!! i mean how could you resist?? (i could not!! and usually spent about 40 bucks on books every few months eeek) The kids in my class totally loved when our book orders would come in and they were special books that they knew they had to be very careful with because when they were done with them they had to return them to the teacher shelf and ask permission to use them. i was spending so much of my own money that i wanted the books to stay in nice condition with the intention that when i have children of my own they can take over the books and have a nice size library already started for them. (good idea right? ya i thought so too..)

but then i started my new job teaching preschool at kindercare and they are wonderful about giving you books each classroom has its own special library where children can check out books and teachers can read from for their story time.. only one problem.. my classroom reads a lot of books!! we have already gone through most of our own special library and i was starting to wonder what i was going to do, just start from the beginning and read them all again?? come on, how boring is that?! i know that there are some favorite books that we have to read again every once in a while, like "Pinkalicious" great book and the kids love it.. but when your reading it everyday.. it gets old.. fast!

i had to think of something to do, A) because i was spending to much money on the scholastic book orders and B) because kindercare doesn't even offer scholastic book offers!! haha then i had a great idea, why not go down to the local library and check out some books from there?? hello light bulb! so today after work i wandered on down to the local library, found my way down to the kids section.. which was the whole bottom floor! they have so many books to choose from, my heart started doing flips in my tummy i was so excited!! i had written down a list of books i wanted to look up since our unit for the next few weeks in on pets that is what i mainly wanted to focus on in my book selection. i found so many great books and grabbed as many as i could carry and headed back upstairs to get my new library card and check out. now i haven't had a library card since i was little and i lived in california, and back in the good ol' days all i needed to get my library card was prove i could write my own name (i struggled a little bit) so i wasn't expecting much when i went to sign up for a new card and then the librarian asked me for two forms of i.d.!! two! i couldn't believe it, i needed to have a picture i.d. and something with my address on it, my heart sank.. i didn't have anything with my address on it.. i did not come prepared to the library and now i was going to have to go home without any of my treasured books. But upon announcing this to the librarian she comforted my fears and asked if i had my car registration or insurance card on me, phew i had those in the car!! she was so smart, that's why they pay her the big bucks! so i got my new library card and all of my great new books that i get to keep until november, four whole weeks!

so the trip was a success, hoorrraayy! my students are going to be so excited when i show them our new treasures tomorrow i just cant wait!!

the library!!

all my wonderful books I got!!

my new library card :)

lets play the catch up game!

Well it's been a while and a lot has happened!! Unfortunately I have been awful at taking pictures lately so this one is going to be a little scarce! (I'm going to start doing better i promise!)  But while i work on that, lets play the catch up game!! Ready?? here we go!!

First of all i had a birthday, hooorrraayyy! one year older and wiser too?? well I'm not sure about the wiser part but i definitely am starting to feel older! 22 was a great year, full of meeting my best friend, falling in love and even a wedding.. so 23 can only get better, right? i cannot wait to see what surprises are in store for this year.. Joey got me a wonderful birthday present.. dun dun dun.. a brand new cricut expression 2!! i was shocked! especially since a few weeks before my birthday i tried to buy one and found out they were sold out which meant they were gone forever.. or so i thought! surprise Joey found one a few days before my birthday and got it shipped just in time! i absolutely love it and cant wait to use it and make so many adorable things :) i also got some wonderful new books from Courtney and Nate and of course the byu tickets from josh! it was a great birthday and i look forward to my next one!

speaking of my best friend.. joey was able to play a show with one of his really good mission companions. they along with two other people played a four song set at a benefit concert in orem. they opened up for kalai! kinda awesome, ya?? well let me tell you.. yes it was! they sounded great and i had a blast seeing joey play again.. that hasn't happened since we were in high school! and hey they helped raise a little money, so it was all for a good cause.

conference was also this weekend and i was able to keep up with the little tradition that my mommy and i have where we go and sit in the tabernacle for the first Saturday session of conference. i love being able to spend that time with my mom and listen to the words of our prophet and apostles, it is always such an uplifting experience and a wonderful date with my mommy!

i got to spend more time with my mom that evening for a little girls night out when joey went to priesthood session with some of his friends. i was able to meet my mommy at Texas Roadhouse and we ate some delicious food while we watched the Utah Utes get smashed by Washington (it was fun to watch!) after eating our yummy food we headed over to hobby lobby which I've never really been to and oh my gosh!! what have i been missing out on all this time?? i was able to get some really cute Halloween decorations which were much needed, our decorations are a little on the sparse side! that store literally had everything though and i fell in love! i am going to have a hard time staying away now, especially since they have such great coupons too!!

all in all it has been a wonderful past couple of weeks and with the beginning October here i cant wait for the holiday season to be upon us and for all the wonderful memories joey and i are going to create this season! stay tuned friends!!