This week's challenge on My Sheri Crafts blog is "Hello"! I thought about using this expression in an unexpected way, on a LO. So, here's my "Hello Reader" LO of Hannah as a baby, reading a fabric book:





Love all the glitter on this page. It doesn't come through as nicely on the photos, but "Hello" and Elmo's book are Stickled!

Supplies:
Sesame Street and Friends Cricut cartridge
Stickles
Foam Dots and adhesive
Paper: Me and My Big Ideas, "A Kid Like Me"
Font for "Hello": Vivaldi, cut with Sure Cuts A Lot 2

Cutting Chocolate with Cricut

My lovely eldest daughter has her 8th birthday fast approaching, and since it's in mid-December, we decided to have her party this weekend. I've always wanted to try cutting edible materials with my cricut, so I got out my retired Baby Bug, washed her down, got out my deep cut blade housing and set up for some edible cutting!

I made some Marshmallow Fondant and melted some white chocolate and coloured it with pink food colouring. I made some cuts on the fondant, which were quite successful, but DD decided she wanted the bunny pan instead of a round cake decorated. I still used the fondant for decorating, but only cut DD's name with the white chocolate. I think it turned out really nice, and she was thrilled!

My Sheri Crafts -- I am Thankful

In celebration of American Thanksgiving, My Sheri Crafts is doing a Thanksgiving challenge week! It got me thinking of what I'm thankful for, and I found this old picture of my mum. I don't remember seeing it much, it must have been in an old album, but it really inspired me. So, here's what I did with it:



And, I used my newest and most favorite cricut cartridge, Paper Lace. I love it, truly! I can see using it often, just like some of my favorite punches.



Supplies:

Paper: K&Co Tim Coffey Tuscan Sunflower
Liquid Pearls, Platinum
Cricut, Paper Lace for both embellishment and font
Brads

Photo Restoration with GIMP tutorial

For this week's LO I restored an old childhood photo. Here's the original:



And the edited version:



Major fixes were the large damaged area bottom right and the extensive scratching and discolouration. Less noticeable but important to the finished picture were the correction of the background and removal of the wire on the right. Here's a quick tutorial on how to do fixes like this using free software called GIMP:



Best watched on Youtube in 720p for a sharper video :-)

Thanks for stopping by! Love to hear your comments :-)

My Sheri Crafts -- Bears!

My Sheri Crafts challenge this week is Teddy Bear themed. I found this old photo of me, and decided I'd make a cute little Teddy LO for my "All About Me" book:



November 1st I was able to download six free cricut cartridges for my Gypsy, and fortunately I only had one already. I was thrilled to gain the Christmas solutions cartridge, as I'd already wanted it but couldn't justify buying it since I already had Christmas Cheer and Winter Woodland. Here's my first cut from it, the teddy bear:



He's embossed with the A2 embossing folder, Textile Texture. I cut first, then used a cricut marker, then ran through my cuttlebug and chalked with Pebbles Chalk. Love that stuff, love the effect.



I'm forever a sucker for some of the MS punches, so this one got me last week. It's a new one, called Cherish. It's a PATP set, and it's beautiful! I'm sure it'll make it on to many of my LOs!



Supplies:
DVWC WB Gypsy Baby Stack
Martha Stewart Cherish Punch
Ribbon
Martha Stewart Antique Gold Glitter
Cuttlebug A2 embossing folder, Textile Texture
Pebbles Chalk

My Sheri Crafts -- Remembrance Day

This week's challenge on My Sheri Crafts is special: it's Remembrance Day (Veteran's Day for our American friends). My Uncle Stewart is a retired member of the British Armed Forces, and this is my favorite photo of him, on exercise sometime the 80's. Being so far away, I didn't grow up knowing him; but on visits to Northern Ireland as an adult, I have grown to appreciate what an amazing man he is.







Supplies:

Martha Stewart "Modern Garland" punch
Paper: DCWV "At Home" stack
Glossy Accents and Distress Stickles ("Broken China") on Uncle
Heritage cricut cartridge

Please check out the other inspirational projects atMy Sheri Crafts and enter yours!

Finally, I'd like to share this video with you. It was shown to my students on a field trip last week to the Calgary Military Museum. Please check out the Military Museum if you can. It's truly fabulous, and well worth a full days visit.



All Canadians who fall in the line of duty are repatriated through the base at Trenton, Ontario, and driven to Canada's chief coroner in Toronto. This has been the procession of the 152 men and women who have died in Afghanistan since 2002.