Radio Fences does the job for less

They say good fences make good neighbors. This is especially true when you have a dog. The Petsafe Radio Fence not only keeps dogs out of your neighbor's yard, it can be customized to keep dogs out of garden beds, ponds, and other landscaping areas that attract animals, and it's far less money than putting up a fence around your property.

The in-ground fencing system includes the modules you plug into the wall, wire to bury under ground, or stake to grass level, software teaching you how to train your dog, training flags, a collar and receiver. If you misplace the CD or are unable to use it for some reason, training videos and instructions are also available for viewing or download on the Petsafe web site.

Safe and effective for all pets over 8 lbs. The system works by delivering mild static correction through two Contact Points that touch your pet's neck. If your pet crosses the established barrier, a correction will be sent to get your pet's attention, but will not harm him. The adjustable collar allows you to create a perfect fit for your pet. There are two different contact points available depending upon the length of your pets coat.

Extra collars and flags are available to purchase with this system, along with extra wire if you need to cover a larger area than the 500 feet of wire enclosed. If you move, you can easily take the radio fence controller with you and purchase new wire for your new home.

There are several systems available for smaller dogs, hard-to-train dogs, even systems for cats.

Infrared pet door lets your dog choose

Wouldn't it be great if your dog could open doors?
Your dog can now have access to the outside when he and you wants him to

The Staywell Electronic Infra-Red Pet Door is made for the dog on the go. This electronic pet door knows when you want your dog to go out or in, and smart enough to keep other animals out too! The Staywell Electonic Infra-Red Pet Door features infrared technology, and your dog never waits for it to unlock.

Infra-Red eliminates the problems associated with magnetic and electronic pet dog doors. With the infrared feature, this electronic pet door has no issues working in a steel door as most electronic pet doors do.

The Staywell Electronic Infra-Red Pet Door lets you control whether your dog is allowed to enter or leave your house. Just set the controls to to allow "enter/but don't leave", "leave but don't enter", "go in/go out", or locked" A small transmitter fits on your dog's collar signaling the door to open only for him and allowing only his use.

When your dog approaches the Pet Door it will unlock from a distance of two to six feet away. No other animals will be allowed in or out. The door will lock again in both directions preventing young children or animals from entering or leaving.

To read more about the specifications for this great prodcut, visit our Website.

It's the Jukebox

Do you ever get frustrated with having to switch from one cartridge to another, and then realize you didn't finish with the first cartridge after all? If you already use the Design Studio software, the Jukebox is the perfect complement. The Jukebox will hold up to six cartridges, and has space to store the books and overlays underneath. You can also hook up to three Jukeboxes together, to use up to eighteen cartridges with ease.

First you connect the Jukebox by plugging the cord into the place where you place the cartridge in your Cricut or Cricut Expressions machine. Then you load up the Jukebox with up to six cartridges each. Hook the Cricut machine to your computer and bring up the Design Studio. You can access shapes from multiple cartridges at once this way to design combined shapes or words.

If you don't have the Design Studio software, you can still use the Jukebox attached directly to your Cricut machine, but you'll have to use one cartridge at a time. Still, the Jukebox provides plenty of space for you to store those cartridges that you use often so they're right at your fingertips.

Thanksgiving dolls

I'm always finding new ways to use my Paper Dolls Dress up Cricut cartridge. For Thanksgiving I cut out a bunch of people and clothes and let my grandkids create their own little Pilgrim people. I started with a selection of hair, clothes, and bodies.

Using glue sticks and some imagination, they started piecing the dolls together.Happy girls and their creations!
This activity kept the girls busy for quite a while, cutting down on boredom and arguments.
It's important to remember when you cut out the clothes for your paper dolls that If you cut five inch dolls, you need to keep the setting at five inches on the clothes. This allows the machine to make the clothes fit the dolls.

I used the Cricut Design Studio to plan my pilgrims and clothes. Each color of paper was set up in design studio to conserve paper and to prevent me from loading and reloading the same colors onto the mat as I realized I had forgotten pieces.

Going places

Do you like to travel? With the Going Places Cricut Cartridge, you can dress up any vacation scrapbook page. Road signs, camp fires and trailers, water, boats, cars, trains, taxis and more are available on this cartridge.

Going Places even has handy sayings to go along with your pictures and shapes. Road Trip, Happy Trails, and many other great phrases are also available. There is even the ability to cut cards and envelopes to go with these shapes.

As with all Cricut cartridges, there are lots of additional options available using the shadow, blackout, and other features on your Cricut or Cricut Expressions machines. Don't forget extra mats, cutting blades, markers and other necessities while planning your holiday shopping.

Tag it or bag it

Cricut has a great cartridge called Tags, Bags, Boxes & More. This is a great cartridge with tons of options, not in in different sizes, but different shapes and other options. Many of the tags shown below can be cut in mirror images so you can fold them with a personal note inside, or you can cut a window in the tag and back it with another paper. Show below are even more tags, and a whole lot of bags and boxes. These are just a few examples of the many choices this cartridge provides. Simply cut the shapes, fold, and adhere for one-of-a-kind gift bags, party favors, labels, and scrapbook accents. Need a pretty package for a gift? Cut something just the right size out of whatever paper you want to match the theme.


There are lots of other designs available on this cartridge as well. You can check them all out here. To see the other great Cricut products we have available, check out our Web site.

Discover the Animal Kingdom

One of the funnest Cricut Cartridges we stock is the Animal Kingdom cartridge. This one has so many applications, from bookmarks, to pre-programmed words like 'Moo' and 'Roar', bookmarks, and options for borders with groupings of animals--with a little vinyl, you could decorate your child's room in anything from farm animals to jungle theme or forest dwellers.
With fifty different animals and the ability to cut different parts out of differnet colors, this cartridge could be a ball. This cartridge is a great tool to teach your children about different animals, to dress up a classroom, or to add interest to nearly any scrapbook page.
To learn more about this cartridge, or see a large variety of vinyl colors you could use with this cartridge, visit our Web site, www.hisandhertreasures.com

Make a vinyl Christmas scene

Christmas decorations are popping up everywhere and with Cricut's Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge, you can decorate your windows and walls for the holiday.

The Paper Dolls cartridge has dozens of great outfits and ideas, from a Hula girl outfit, a princess with castle and dragon, Halloween costumes, a full Nativity, to Santa, his reindeer, sleigh and elves and so much more. This year I decided to put a Santa scene on my family room wall.

First I drew out an idea of how I wanted to set it out just on a sheet of paper. You don't have to have any real artistic ability to do this--all you're trying to do is get a feel for how you want it to look.

Next I decided on the scale I wanted to use for the people, reindeer, sleigh, and trees. To do this, I cut all of the major outlines out in plain white paper. I didn't bother cutting out clothes, because I just wanted to make sure the pieces were the right scale for the scene. I taped these pieces on the wall where I was going to stick the vinyl, that way I knew I had the right spacing between pieces, and that it was centered right on the wall. After the picture below was taken, I taped them to the wall to get a better look. Setting the pieces out like this showed me that the sleigh was a little too big in proportion to the reindeer, so I cut the sleigh out a little smaller for the final version.

Next I started cutting the pieces out. The important thing to remember with the Paper Dolls cartridge is that if you cut out a ten inch person, you keep the ten inch setting for the clothing. The cartridge automatically fits the clothing to a character that size. For Mr.s Clause, I cut a person that was nine inches tall, and her clothes at nine inches as well.

If you have the Design Studio, you can plan ahead and cut all pieces from one color of vinyl at once. This can simplify the process if you think ahead.

Finally, I applied the pieces to the wall. I was pretty happy with the way it worked out.

Cupcakes aren't just for kids anymore

Our youngest daughter was married a couple of weeks ago, and we did these fun cupcakes for refreshments at the reception. The treats ended up looking elegant and were pretty quick to put together and personalize for her. Cupcakes have become very popular lately--you could probably come up with lots of great ways to adapt this idea.















We started with a basic white cake mix for the cupcakes, filled them with a cream cheese filling, then topped them with whipped topping and decorations. The recipe for the filling will be at the end of this post.















Since the bride's colors were purple and silver, we used silver cupcake liners. We put tip #230 onto a standard sized pastry bag with a standard coupler. Then we filled the bag with the cream cheese mixture.

Insert the tip into the middle of the cupcake until you the tip touches the bottom of the loner. Make sure you do this on a hard surface as the tip can break through the bottom of the cupcake liner if you have it on a cooling rack.

Then slowly withdraw the tip as you squeeze the filling into the cupcake. Normal cupcakes are pretty dense, so you will only fill the hole the tip has created. If you want to add more filling, you can make two or three holes in the cupcake.













We froze the cupcakes for a couple of weeks until the wedding, and they defrosted just fine, including the filling. Once we reached the church where we held the reception, we pulled the cupcakes out to finish them off.
























We used Cool Whip as the topping, but any similar topping would work fine. Use Atco tip #826 or any other large open star tip in the pastry bag. We filled the bag with the whipped topping, and slowly swirled it on top.

Once the pan of cupcakes was done, we sprayed the tops with a light coating of violet color mist, then topped them with sweetheart charms.










Out on the refreshment table, we set up the cupcakes on a decorative tree.







There are lots of other colors or candies you could put on the cupcakes instead if you wanted to mix it up. There are also fun party picks available to put in the cupcakes. The picks come in holiday themed snowmen, to Disney's Tinkerbell. We stock a large selection.


Cream Cheese filling
8 oz block of cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup of cream for whipping

Mix the cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth. In another bowl, whip the cream until firm peaks form, then incorporate with sugar mixture. Keep refrigerated until shortly before you serve. You can add different colors or flavors to this filling too.

Partaking the Joys of the Season

Earlier this week I talked about the Christmas Cheer Cricut cartridge. Since that earlier collection of Christmas designs came out, ProvoCraft has produced a new cartridge, called the Joys of the Season. This includes many new card and tag options with different pictures, a complete collection of images for the Twelve Days of Christmas, and even Chanukah images!

The book that comes with this cartridge shows you how each image can be stretched, bolded, cut out of tags, and even has directions for a wreath project.

Whether you are planning to dress up your scrapbook, your Christmas cards, Christmas party, or decorate a wall or window (using the great vinyl colors this machine can cut for you), there something for nearly any situation.

For a full set of images from the book, click here for a look at a PDF file. To purchase this or many other Cricut products, visit our Web site.

Spreading Christmas Cheer

The holiday season is nearly upon us, and scrapbookers are on the lookout for fun ideas to dress up their pages this season. Whether you are buying for yourself, or for someone else who has a Cricut machine and Christmas fetish, there are great solutions out there for you.

Christmas Cheer is from the first group of cartridges to hit the market. It includes pictures of Santa, his sleigh, reindeer, trees, decorations, Christmas candy and much more. Among other option, this cartridge allows you to cut the shapes out of rounded-cornered squares, circles, tags, and place cards. You can even create mini boxes for Christmas goodies.

Remember these designs can be cut any size up to 12"x24"on the Cricut Expressions, enabling you to size the decorations to your project. You can even cut these out of vinyl to adhere to walls and windows!

To see images of everything this cartridge can do, visit the ProvoCraft Web site.

To purchase this or any of the other many Cricut products we have in stock, visit our Web site.

A scrapbooker's dream

If you haven't stumbled across the infomercials on ProvoCraft's Cricut machine, and you're a scrapbooker, you're missing out. Schools, businesses, and other groups have found this a great way to dress up bulletin boards and create professional-looking signs as well. This great machine makes die cuts, only the user can change the size, and with the right tools, even the shape of the items they are cutting out.

The Cricut and Cricut Expressions machines are computerized machines that take electronic cartridges which contain a selection of shapes and/or words. You attach the cartridge at the port and then select the item and size you want to make it. You can cut letters or pictures in any size up to 12x14 inches! ProvoCraft even makes a selection of markers that are made to replace the cutting blade so you can draw on the paper instead.

Cartridges come in everything from complete font sets, Disney characters, holiday themes, paper dolls, and so much more. We also carry a full line of supplies for the Cricut on our Web site. There is also a great computer program available that allows you to stretch letters, bind pictures together so they print as one piece, and much more. See the video below to learn how the Cricut Design Studio works.

Last-minute supplies for your Halloween party

There's still time to add fun touches to your kid's Halloween party. These ghost or bat-covered party bags allows the kids to take their treats home in style. The package contains 20 4"x9 1/2" bags that are sure to be a hit.


I know I've found cupcakes are much easier and less messy for kids to handle when they are settling in for a snack, these great ghost cupcake liners can brighten up a simple treat. There are 100 liners per package, so there should be plenty to share with school classes, and friends alike.


If you're planning for a smaller group and want a quick and easy way to dress up simple cupcakes, a whole cake, cookies, or even ice cream treats, these smiling candy pumpkins will fill the need. They come twelve to a pack.


Another fun and simple decorating idea for cakes and cupcakes would be to use these fun color mists. We have them in orange and black, but they are also available in half a dozen other colors. Using these great products, you can give your homemade cupcakes a professional look.



Any of these items can be ordered at our Web site. Check back for other posts about our holiday cake decorating items, holiday scrapbook supplies and much more!

New Halloween costumes abound

There's something about Halloween that intrigues both young and old, whether the chance to become someone else for an evening or to eat too much candy, I'm not sure.

In the past weeks we've been unearthing all of our Halloween things and getting them posted up on our Web sites and ebay store. We have dozens of different masks from the silly to the frankly gruesome for both children and adults, many, many costumes, witches hat and hair combinations for adults, witches hats by themselves for adults and children, and other accessories including many types of makeup, vampire blood, nail polish and lipstick and spider nail decals.

Are you planning a party for All Hallows Eve? Regardless of whether your celebration is for children, or an older audience, we have things you will need. We have spooky music CDs, games, decorations and party favors. We also have tons of decorations including giant fuzzy spiders in 20-, 30- and 50-inch sizes.


To see a full list of what we have available, visit our Web site