My first Cricut projects!

Hello all....my name is Shelley and I'm a Cricut and Blogger newbie!  So bear with me.... :-)  I am soooo new to blogging as well as the Cricut Expression; however I seemed to have learned the Cricut much quicker than this blogging stuff!  Ha!  But I wanted to create a blog (or at least attempt to, so it can change at any moment...I'm still learning!) so I could post my first Cricut projects because I have to say that I'm quite proud of how they turned out!  I know that sounds really boastful, but I'm just so excited about this wonderful Christmas (2010) present that my wonderful hubby got me and my creative juices are just flowing, flowing, flowing!  The problem I'm having is finding the time to be creative!  Like I mentioned I'm married to a wonderful husband and we have a 13 month daughter of course named Carley!  She is my pride and joy! My Cricut now takes a close second!  Ha, just picking honey! I love you too! :-) I work full time as a computer support specialist and I'm finding that scrapbooking and crafting has been a great stress reliever....I never knew!

But at any rate, I've really enjoyed reading and browsing everyone else's blogs and getting great, inspiring ideas of crafting!  I just love it!  Like I said, I never knew how stress relieving it all can be after working on computers, etc. all day long!  So I hope that my projects and work that I post are as inspiring to many of you as your posts are so inspiring to me!  I'm open to any criticism or suggestions, so just leave me a comment!

God bless and happy scrapping, crafting, or whatever it is you like to do!  :-)
Shelley (Carley's mom)

My very first project for a dear friend's baby shower gift!  I framed it and when her precious baby girl gets here, she can insert her 4 x 6 pics! Cut from the Sweet Treats & Classic Font cartridges.

My first card.....also for a friend who had a baby girl in December!  Cut from the Sweet Treats & Paisley cartridges. Paper embellishments from Creative Memories.

I've yet to actually "cut out" a card layout on the Cricut....I just made my own with two sheets of cardstock, and wrote a personal note on lined paper attached on the inside from Creative Memories.

I've been working on some scrapbook pages from our 1st anniversary trip to Nashville TN in 2007.  I have a few pages that I completed before getting my Cricut, but I did cut a couple things on them from a friends' Cricut.  So I think they are kinda plain and I may have to go back and add to them with more Cricut cutouts!  (I'll post some of those pages later.) But we went to the Zoo (one of my favorite places) and I got so many great pictures while there!  Cut from the Classic Font & Going Places cartridges.

This is a close-up of the title and the added fur!  :)  (No animals were harmed in

the making of this page! Just a stuffed one! Ha!)

I loved photographing the giraffes while there!  Only got a couple pics of the elephants so I added one to the page. :)  Cut from the Classic Font, Pagoda, & Lite Celebrate with Flourish cartridges.

I have "birds" and "cats" pages as well that I'm working on...told you I had a lot of great pics from the zoo!  I'll post the earlier pages of the Ryman Auditorium, Country Music Hall of Fame and so on once I "Cricut" them up some!  :)

Have a great day!