MY HERO WEARS COMBAT BOOTS!

I've been thinking about this layout for a long time. My son is currently in the middle of his 2nd tour in Iraq. I miss him terribly and I've worked on this layout since my last retreat in October but have been unable to finish it becuase I could not decide how to lay it out. My hubby recently bought me 5 new cartridges from Cricut Machine.com when they had that great sale a few weeks ago and I got the Stand and Salute cartridge. I was not disappointed! I love the combat boots. I had to leave in the middle of the boot portion of the project to buy just the right laces and it took forever to get all of the holes the right size because I don't have the big crop-a-dile, only the small one and it would not reach all of the holes! But it was so worth it. It's not perfect by any means, but I am happy with it and I know my sonny boy will be happy with it too!

For some reason the photo below uploads and is rotated as below.....I've deleted it and uploaded it multiple times and it still uploads this way. If anyone knows how I can correct this, please let me know. The photo on the page below is of my Sweet Boy! But don't tell him I called him that!

My son is the one on the far left in the top photo and the 2nd from the left on the front row in the bottom photo. I had to take a 2nd glance at the bottom photo when I printed it out because at first glance he looked like Tom Cruise with that expression on his face! If only......LOL!

WHALE OF A BIRTHDAY CARD

This is a birthday card that I made for our Sunday School teacher. I used my new Gypsy and both the "Happy Birthday" and the cute little "Whale" came from Gypsy Wanderings. I cut out some blue patterned paper with a wave on it and embossed it with one of my cuttlebug folders. Then I cut around the top of the embossed curves to make it look like waves.....I am very pleased with how the ocean turned out. If you can't read the insdie of the card it says "Have a Whale of a Birthday!"

It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do, but once I put the designs on my Gypsy, I cut it out, and it went together very very quickly compared to what I have been doing.

I'm still struggling with color and pattern. I'm a little disappointed that you can't read the Happy Birthday very well, but overall, I'm more pleased with this card than any other card I've made. Partly because I came up with the complete design myself and partly because that little whale is so darn cute.