Cricut Challenge 22: Old West..."Ride 'em Cowboy!" (Cricut 360 Challenge #7)

I'm waaay behind on my scrapbooking...but that's ok.  I never make it my mission to get caught up...I make it my mission to enjoy the process and in terms of that challenge I am ALWAYS successful!  Some layouts take an hour or two...some take longer.  I actually went to a crop once and spent 8 hours on a layout....seriously!  It wasn't any award winning layout when I was done but I loved it and had the greatest time working on it.  That's how I am...I'm about the process...I'm not a crank it out sort of gal...
:)

Back to my personal challenge of using all my Cricut Cartridges on a project....(and btw if you look to the right sidebar you will see all the things I've posted on my blog and I have more than 22 projects posted BUT I didn't start my personal challenge until after I'd already posted some projects!).  Of course, I am going out of order a bit...skipped down to the "o's" (Old West) for this project.  And this is entered in the Cricut 360 Challenge #7 to use the Old West cartridge on a card or layout.

This is one of the older cartridges... it doesn't have a ton of image layers but it does have a couple of cute western looking fonts.  I picked this cartridge up fairly recently at Michael's when they were having one of their super duper Cricut cartridge sales.  I think I got it for $9.99!

So here is a two page layout I did of LMM (Little Monster Man...previously known as AG...Adorable Grandson).  He still maintains a good amount of AG in him...but the LMM is definitely there, too!  Of course these photos were taken before he morphed into LMM! Actually LMM has entered into the Terrible Twos.  Remember those days???  Actually, he is a fun, funny, loving, smart little boy but is trying to exercise some independence and do things HIS WAY! LOL!!! Just getting him in his car seat is a challenge because he wants to do it HIS WAY!

Back to the layout...we took LMM out to the barn one day and set him up on one of the horses out there for his first horse ride.  My daughter is a horsewoman so I imagine there will always be horses in this little boy's life. 

I really like bigger images on my layouts and cards...don't like seeing dinky things that get swallowed up.  This was as big as I could make the horse without swallowing up my photos! :)  Another tip is to "ground" you items...don't have them floating off in space.  Here the horse is "grounded" by the grass.  I loved the banner feature, too, and thought it worked perfectly with this 2 page spread.

I also used Accent Essentials to cut the large scalloped mat and Lyrical Letters to cut the banner.  I loved what those extra layers added to my layout.  Yes...I love layers!

And now LMM just needs a cowboy hat!

(He has boots, of course!)