Life in Full Swing: Birthday Surprises for Everyone

On Thursday, Matthew took off of work for his birthday so that we could stay home and spend time together. I spent basically all of Wednesday working on a very frustrating birthday cake which turned out decent, but not what I was hoping for. Let me just say, be sure to test out any fondant recipes before actually making the cake. I found a marshmallow fondant recipe that tasted good but it starts to "melt" a few minutes after being out of the freezer! So my Lego cake plan changed a few times and this is what I ended up with.

Melting.....melting....

After some cake, Matthew opened his presents from me. Since he loves solving Rubik's Cubes so much, I got this Rubik's game back in March when we went home for the weekend. One day in Target Matthew saw the game and said "This looks like fun, we should get this game" and I was like "Um, sometime maybe" :) I also got him a T-shirt and some vanilla wafers (favorite). The gift that is still on the way (I had to give him a printout of the recepit instead) is the Kinect for XBox! We're both really excited to try out the games that came with it.

He can't ever leave gifts alone...

So Friday night while sitting at my computer I decided to look up garage sales in the area. I made a list and map of all the garage sales in the nearest larger town - I had about 25 listed. We started out at about 8:30 and the clouds in the distance looked kind of blue (of course I wore shorts that day). And I'm thinking "Nah it can't rain today, it will pass." Yeah. It rained for pretty much the entire 4 hours we were shopping. People were covering the stuff with tarps and sheets hoping to keep out the moisture. Unfortunately we saw more than one box of ruined books. But that didn't stop us from fiding the great deals.

I found some nice baby items for my sisters baby thats coming soon, gifts for kids in the family, more books to read, craft items, movies, etc. But the deal of the day was waiting for me at the second house we visited.

I saw in the ad that this person was selling a Silhouette Cameo - yes, a Silhouette Cameo. For those who don't know what a Silhouette machine is, it's basically a printer, only with a blade that cuts designs. You find or make designs or type up things in the provided software program, and send it to the Silhouette which cuts out the design for you. If you want to see just one of the AMAZING things this machine can do, click here to watch this demo video. I've been wanting one of these machines for over a year now, but at a price of $270 on Amazon I wasn't getting it anytime soon.

Upon arriving at the sale, I started looking around for the machine. Matthew said it might be gone since a couple just came to the sale, asked a question, and left. But towards the back of the garage, Matthew spotted the machine and my eyes about doubled in size. A PRICE TAG OF ONLY $100?!? The owner said she had received it for Christmas and only used it twice and she was selling it because she didn't like taking the time to find the designs and print them. She had the mat, blade, machine, cords, and manual all with it. I was thrilled!!!! Matthew said it was my early birthday present a.k.a coolest birthday present ever :)

Here is what it looks like...

Yes, it can cut 12x12 paper! ( and fabric, vellum, vinyl, etc)

Inside the Silhouette

There is a Silhouette store where you can buy shapes to cut out, but there are also plenty of tutorials on youtube that explain how to use the trace tool to take clip art from google and make your own tracing cut out. I think I will mostly make my own tracings, but for the awesome and intricate backgrounds and borders, I might purchase a few for $1 each once and a while especially since I want to start on my wedding album soon.

Here is a page that I finished today! I used my Silhouette to cut out the doves, blue circle design, and banner with words. I'm so excited that I don't have to just use pens/markers or expensive premade letter stickers on my pages anymore.