Cricut's Best of Pixar Cartridge ~ Nemo

I am so excited that I finally have purchased the Best of Pixar cartridge!  I had a little time to test it out yesterday.  This cartridge includes images from five Disney-Pixar movies - Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, and Wall-E.  Since there are so many images on here, I decided I will review each movie over the next week or so. 

Finding Nemo is a personal favorite of mine.  This was the main reason I purchased this cartridge.  Not only are the characters great for all types of projects, but they will work perfectly for all my scrapbook pages for The Seas with Nemo and Friends Pavilion at Epcot in Walt Disney World.  The characters include Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Nemo's school friends, Crush, Squirt, Bruce and Nemo's friends from the fish tank in the dentist's office.  In addition to the characters, there is an icon for each.  These include anything from the logo for the movie title, to jellyfish, to Bruce's shark buddies.  I love the icons because not only will they be great embellishments for Nemo themed projects, but also any ocean themed projects I might create.

We made a Dory (Emily's favorite) and a Nemo.  Normally, I find the Disney cartridges to sometimes be a little tricky to cut and put together, but that is simply because of the tremendous detail to each character.  If you read my review of the princess cartridge, you know that I find those to be most difficult to use.  But making the Nemo characters was actually quite simple.  For the Nemo I created for this card, I only needed four colors and four cuts. Dory required six colors, but was still easy to assemble.  So far I really like this cartridge!

Cricut Deals on eBay

With my most recent "deal" found on eBay, I decided this would make a great entry for my blog.  I had never been on eBay in my life.  One of my friends mentioned she had gotten some great deals on Cricut cartridges through eBay.  Around here, the only craft store within 30 minutes is a Joann Fabrics.  It is so small though, they do not carry Cricut cartridges.  You have to order them.  This isn't great for someone who is looking to pick up a cartridge that day, but it does make me really consider the ones I am going to purchase - no impulse buys!  Other than that, the next store that sells Cricut cartridges is over 45 minutes away, and I rarely make it down there since my daughter has severe car sickness.

Surprise Your Valentine-Make Your Own Take Out

As you know from my previous post, My Top 5 Rachael Ray Cookbooks, I love that Rachael Ray's cookbooks feature "make your own take out" recipes.  We love to cook and it is a great family activity, since the kids like to join in on the fun too.  Around here, and I am not exaggerating, there is no good place to get take out.  So we either have to drive quite a distance or make our own.  Luckily, we have found a few recipes to make our own Chinese food feast.  Not only is this a money saver, but also a great way to make sure the food is healthy and fresh.

Here are a few of our favorite recipes.  With just the five of us, we usually make two of the items, but last week, we made all these and easily fed 6 adults and 5 children. Even better, all the recipes use a lot of similar ingredients, which means you can cut once for two or three different dishes and save time getting dinner ready.

Dressing Up is Now Easy to Do

Both my girls love to dress up in their princess dresses, jewelry, hats and shoes.  Unfortunately, we had collected so many things over the years, that our dress up bucket was overflowing.  The girls could never find what they were looking for, or if they did find something, half the contents of the tote fell out onto the floor as they were trying to pull it out to wear it.  Finally after about 3 days of having our computer room floor covered with fairy wings, dresses and countless plastic necklaces, I had enough.  The girls and I made out way to WalMart yesterday and made some purchases to better organize our dress up area. 

Disney Scrapbook Layout ~ Downtown Disney

I am a little behind on my New Year's Resolution of creating a Disney scrapbook layout each week, but I am catching up!  I have been busy with my Disney blog, Pursuing the Magic, getting ready for the next Magical Blogorail Blue loop and writing guests posts for a couple of my favorite Disney blogs, Meet the Magic and Growing Up Disney. 

Downtown Disney is one of my favorite places to visit when we are in Walt Disney World.  There are a lot of great photo opportunities, plus a lot of great shopping!  On Joey's first trip to Walt Disney World, he LOVED the stuffed animals in Once Upon a Toy.  I remember him trying so hard to get out of his stroller to get his hands on them.  When I let him loose, he went straight for a huge Pooh, which as you can see from the picture was about the same size he was.  My mom and sister-in-law Kelly were with us, since all the "boys" had gone golfing for the day.  It was a relaxing day to say the least and we enjoyed being able to peruse the shops without anyone rushing us.  Here's my 2-page Downtown Disney layout from our 2006 trip to WDW.