OWH Sketch 152 - I almost gave up!

When I first saw today's OWH sketch, I had lots of ideas.  But when I sat down to work on it, I really struggled.  It took me a while to realize that the two squares were not meant to be proportionate and I almost gave up. A flat background paper looked boring to me and I saw that our sample card had embossing.

 

I ended up using SEI paper with a small pattern and that satisfied me.  I colored in a digi stamp from Bird's Cards and inked around the edges with Antique Linen distress ink.  I couldn't find a place for a sentiment, so I just left it as is:

 

I made another version using different colors:

Last night I was working on more children's card using Elmo's Party cricut cartridge.  Here's one of them:

 

And what is my cat doing today?  Why, she's bathing in the sun:

The rest of my day will be wrapping presents & running out to buy a few last minute ones. I'm also packing my OWH box up to mail tomorrow and (gasp!) I plan on scrapbooking for a few days.  Hey- I'm only about 5 years behind!

Here's our sketch....I'm interested to see what our other talented ladies did with it:

 

 

 



Baby Name Collage and FCCB Challenge

I took a break from my mini-album project to make a baby name collage for a friend at work.  Her baby boy, Austin, is due in October and this will be a present for her baby shower.  Her theme is Jungle and her colors are brown and green.

The latest FCCB challenge is "Let's Get Buggy" and it challenged me to include lots of bugs in the collage.  Here's the link FCCB #72.   I'm also linking this to My Pink Stamper's "Favorites" blog hop.  Here's that link: MPS Blog Hop

I just got the Create a Critter cartridge (can you believe it took me so long to get this cartridge!) and I used tons of the images from it to decorate the collage.  I also used the Paisley cartridge.  Here's a closeup of the lion, mushroom, snail, and ladybug:

I used clear Stickles on almost every cut to add some interest, but I didn't want to do too much since this is for a boy.

The monkeys from Create a Critter are too cute!  I used the "Flip" function so the monkeys looked a tad different.  I cut them at 1 1/2 inches and 2 1/2 inches.  I used the Colorbok paper from Walmart because it really cuts well for small images.

Here's the collage in its frame (bought at Joann's):

I may also make some smaller collages to go with this one.  I can't wait to give it to the mother-to-be! 

My Pink Stamper Design Team Call

Hi everyone!  I'm back from vacation in upstate New York and back to scrapbooking and crafting.  Robyn from My Pink Stamper is having a Design Team call and I thought I'd try out.

Robyn's challenge is:

Make a card, scrapbook page, or other Cricut project with your favorite Cricut cartridge using the following colors......
Orange, Turquoise, Green, Brown, Other optional color - I chose Yellow I'm working on making 17 paper bag albums for my scrappin' girlfriends and I'm making the album cover different for each one.  For this cover, I used Robyn's challenge colors and here's the cover: 

 Recipe:Cricut ExpressionSun: Everyday Paper Dolls, page 40, cut at 1 3/4 inchesUmbrella & beach ball: SCAL and SVG filesSun/Turquoise paper: DCWV Citrus stack (loooovin' this paper!)Brown sand paper: Creative Memories (probably not sold any longer)Striped paper - unknown It would be exciting and challenging to work with Robyn and I'd love to use her stamps to make cards for our soldiers!  Her design team call is here:MPS Design Team Good luck to all of the talented ladies who are entering and I know we'll be watching this Saturday to find out who will be the next MPS Design Star! Thanks for looking!

Band Banquet place cards

I used the Quarter Note cartridge to make place cards for our Senior students at the annual band banquet.  I cut the instrument and shadow for each student's instrument and used Stickles to 'bling' up their place card.  Here are the cards sitting on the welcome table as the students arrived:

I used an oval frame file and cut it using my SCAL2 software.  For the ovals with the names, I cut them out first on my Cricut and then ran them thru my printer using the Edwardian font.

The colorguard images came from Paolo's blogpost here;  colorguard silhouettes   I had to make SVG files of the more unusual instruments, like the bass clarinet and bassoon, but it was a lot of fun.  The seniors enjoyed getting a personalized name card.

Doodlecharms cartridge

I'm giving my extra $1 Doodlecharms cartridge to Jody!  Jody - I sent you an email.  Thanks for reading my blog!

Doodlecharms Giveaway!

Holy Smokes!  What is going on at Walmart?  I went there today to pick up some things and I always go down the scrapbook aisle to see if they've lowered the prices on the old cartridges they're still trying to sell.  I went down a craft aisle and saw some cartridges on a shelf at clearance prices.  The Doodlecharms cartridge was selling for $1.00!!!  Yes - that's one buck-a-roo!  I couldn't believe it.  I bought all three of them on the shelf.  Here's my Walmart receipt:

The Sans Serif cartridge was selling for $5.00 and I bought the Celebrations for $23.00 (maybe I should've waited on that one to see if they'd go lower).  I was very happy and the checkout lady couldn't believe how low the price was too!

Anyway, I don't need three Doodlecharms cartridges - I'm going to give one to a friend that I recently converted into a Cricut lover and I thought I'd give the last one away.  Just leave me one comment on my blog with your email address.  I'll draw the winner on St Patrick's Day - Thursday, March 17th.

Thanks for playing along!  This is my first blog giveaway!

And thank-you for all the kind comments on my blog.  I'm enjoying this whole blogging thing.



Laundry Room Collage

This past weekend, I put together two collage scrapbook frames to decorate my laundry room.  I painted my laundry room and wanted to spiff it up some.  I was inspired by Amy's "Gnome Sweet Gnome" collage at SVGCuts.com: http://www.svgcuts.com/blog/2011/02/24/gnome-sweet-gnome-svg-collage/.

I'm also entering this in the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge!  I used the American Crafts "Dear Lizzy" paper and the butterflies and trees are from the April Showers Cricut cartridge.  The basket is from the Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge, and I cut off the basket handle to make it look more like a laundry basket and punched two circles for the laundry in the baskets.

I used my Cri-Kit pens to write the words "Loads of fun" and cut the clouds in my Sure-Cuts-a-Lot software.  I embossed the tree tops with the Swiss dots Cuttlebug folder and then stickled each dot.  The butterflies and large cloud are also enhanced with Stickles.  It's hard to see that in the photo.

I cut out the individual clothes from the "Dear Lizzy" paper line and used the same butterflies from the April Showers cartridges.  The phrase "It all comes out in the wash" was written with my Cri-Kits pens.  I used stickles on the butterflies.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading this!

Wrap It Up cartridge - Baby Girl

The next cute box to make was the Baby Girl box on page 23 of the Wrap It Up cartridge.  Here's how the box cut at 9 inches on my Cricut:

After scoring the box, I cut out the two panels within the box feature.  This box is just like the Happy Birthday box in its structure - very easy to assemble with little glue. 

I glued the side tab and one of the bottom tabs to fold the box together.  It looks pretty cute!  These little boxes would be great for a baby shower gift or decoration.  I think the outline needs some extra something, but I can't think of a way to "bling" it up.

I also decided to make the Baby Girl card.  I cut out this card at 5 inches, which is pretty big.  The "Its a Girl" is the "shift Phrase" button on this page and the baby carriage is within the Card feature.  I wish I had tried layering the phrase....I'll try doing that on the next Wrap It Up card.

Thanks for reading!









Wrap It Up cartridge - Cupcake box

I just got the new Wrap It Up cartridge and couldn't wait to dig in and try it out.  I plan on cutting out every box and some of the other images and will share what I've learned on my blog.

I started on page 21 with the Cupcake images.  Here's the handbook page:

I cut out the cupcake box at 8 inches and here's how it looked after cutting (please ignore my dirty mat):

Next, I scored the box.  The image had cut lines along the edges so I knew right where to score it.  Here's the box after scoring:

I cut the cupcakes next to the Box.  These will decorate the outside of the box.  Here's how they cut:



I glued the cupcake pieces onto the box before folding it.  I cut another set of cupcakes out of yellow for contrast:

The great thing about this box is that only one side needs to be glued or taped.  I used my ATG gun to glue one of the tabbed edges on the side of the box:

Now the box was ready to be folded together.  I put the sides of the box together first:

Folded the bottom of the box by inserting the tabbed edge:

and then folded the top panels of the box.  Pretty cute!

I also cut out the phrase "Happy Birthday".  I thought one layer would be a shadow of the other, but both pieces cut out at the same size. I did layer the cupcake on one of the phrases and I'll save them for later use on card:

Hope you enjoyed reading my blog post!