Live a Little

Before the dreary rain sets in tonight and while it's still warm and beautiful outside I thought I'd share a happy, warm and fuzzy card with everyone.  For most of us Spring has sprung and before we know it Summer will be here.  Well, this card depicts just that......

 

This is one of the S-Fold style cards and even though I don't make them very often I really enjoy doing so.  For me it's always fun to see what kind of 'scene' I can create in that small area.  To create this one I used:

Stretch Your Imagination for the bike - cut at 1 1/4"

Graphically Speaking for the frame - cut at 3 1/4" (but I reduced the width to make it more square)

Graphically Speaking for the inside sentiment - cut at 2 1/4"

A Child's Year for the dog - cut at 1/2"

 

Graphically Speaking for the sun and clouds - cut at 1" and 3/4" respectively

 

 

And now that I've shared my card with  you I'm going to link it up and play along in Maymay's Spring2Summer linky party.  Come check it out and play along with us.

 

 

Last of the Hot Chocolate Holders

FINALLY!  I have finished my hot chocolate mug holders that I needed to get completed for the upcoming show in a couple of weeks.  There were only 6 left to do but after making so many I started forgetting what cuts I'd already made and what ones I still wanted to make.

Enter Teddy Bear Parade............with this being a new cartridge I knew I hadn't made any with these cuts yet and went to work getting them done. 

Then I also decided to use the gingerbread from Stretch Your Imagination as well as the Santa and mitten from Simply Charmed.

And since I used scraps from my stash I'm going to enter these last holders into the Super Scraps Saturday challenge over at Hiding in My Craft Room.  If you have some scraps you should come play along......

Hello Spring

Since yesterday was the first day of Spring I wanted to share with you a card that I made back a couple years ago.  This was the very first stair step card I made and I was so proud of the way it turned out.  For this card I used several cartridges including:

Paper Pups for the butterflies - cut at 3/4"

Stretch Your Imagination for the caterpillar - cut at 1"

Cricut Sampler (I don't have Walk in My Garden) for the flowers - cut at 2"

Zooballoo for the grass - cut at varying sizes for layering on the steps

Camp Out for the sign - cut at 2 1/2"

Animal Kingdom for the hello - cut at 1/2"

Needless to say once I finish getting my craft room put together (things have been crazy here and I should hopefully have it finished this weekend minus the new trim, carpet, etc.) I'm going to have to sit down and make some more of these kind of cards.  Especially now that the warm weather is back I'm feeling more 'motivated'.  LOL

From This to That - Diaper Cake

My girlfriend Kari called me last week asking for help with some die cuts she needed to embellish a diaper cake she was making for another one of her girlfriends.  Well after talking about what images, sizes, colors, and fonts she wanted we came up with all the pieces you see here.

That's over 40 leaves - about a dozen of which I embossed and stamped for some added texture; 20 bananas, 2 palm trees and the name Ayden cut twice and 'shadowed'.  The leaves and banana are from Create a Critter, the font is Life's a Beach and the trees are from Stretch Your Imagination.

Kari was happy with the cuts and I asked her to please share pics of the finished cake so that I could blog about it.  Well she shared as asked and I'm glad she did because it turned out beautifully....

Spooks, Monsters, Ghouls and Goblins Challenge

Happy Wednesday everyone and welcome to another Cricut Cardz Challenge where this week the challenge  is "Spooks, Monsters, Ghouls and Goblins!"   Our directive?  Make a card for Halloween using any Halloween image, from any cartridge(s) and using any colors.


Now, I'm going to admit that I have been super busy preparing for a craft show this Saturday so I chose a 2009 redo that I fell in love with thanks to Papercrafts Magazine.  That was the time that using glitter on cards became all the rage and a particular project had caught my eye.


This card though I did more in a post card fashion so it doesn't open, but flips over for the sentiment.  I used Stretch Your Imagination, A Child's Year, and Paper Dolls Dress Up, and I embossed my trees to add some texture.  My background night sky is made of nothing but glitter.  I used two different colors beginning from the top and the bottom for each and then fading the one into the other.

So now that you've seen my card take a look at the other Design Team entries for this week for more inspiration then create your own and link up to share your design with us.  C'mon it'll be fun.

Christmas on the Beach

I saw a picture of the Jolly Holidays lite cartridge that came out last year and just had to have it.  And since it's July I decided to create a Christmas in July card.  For this card featuring Santa and his elf decorating a palm tree.  I used the following carts:

Stretch Your Imagination for the tree
Jolly Holidays for Santa and the elf
Handy Man for the ladder

Forever....

This week's Cricut Cardz Challenge was to create a wedding card using any colors and cartridges of our choosing.  I chose to use Home Decor and Stretch Your Imagination.

My hearts are cut at 1" and the scallop type oval was cut at 4" - both from Home Decor

The couple was cut at 3 3/4" with the top layer cut twice to provide the black and white.

Added a little bling in the form of silver metallic ribbon and a silver charm and viola.  Only 'problem' was that the photo didn't capture the colors and vibrancy of the card very well.

Fall Into Reading

This week's Cricut Cardz Challenge #64 is not your usual card challenge.  This week we were asked to create a bookmark in honor of National Read Across America Week. 

I have to tell you that I had a lot of fun designing this bookmark and will definitely have to design and create more.  For this one though I used the following carts and cuts:

Tags, Bags, Boxes & More for the bookmark base - I skewed the size to 2 1/4" x 6 1/2"

Stretch Your Imagination for the tree cut at 2"

Graphically Speaking for the couple reading a book cut at 1"

Going Places for the Clouds - I cut the large one at 1" and then skewed the others to 1/4"

And now that you've seen my design for this week's challenge I hope that you'll take a trip to the blogs of the other ladies on the design team and check out their fabulous designs.  After you do that, create your own bookmark, link it to the challenge and let us see yours.

Happy Holidays

This is a card that I created for one of the Santa Slacker's challenges over on the Cricut MB.  We were given a specific sketch to follow and had to use one of our Christmas carts.

I decided to go with a little bit more of a distressed type look.  I used Stretch Your Imagination for the Christmas tree and Christmas Cheer for the gift.  The background square used for the gift was distressed along the edges using the Tim Holtz paper distresser.  For a little bling, I applied glitter to the gift bow and used gold stickles for the 'ornaments' on the tree.

2011 CD Calendar - September & October

Yeah!  I am almost done with my current calendar project.  I just wish that our home remodeling was going as well.  It rained on us all weekend and because of that it left us in a holding pattern because we are at the point where we need to get the front door replaced but in order to do that we need to get the new deck built and even though we got the deck up we only managed to get four of the boards nailed down before the heaven's broke open.  Oh well, such is life and we'll get it done this evening I'm sure.  :o)

In the meantime though I was able to complete two more months of my calendar pages.  For these two I used:

Designer's Calendar for the names of the months
Graphically Speaking for the 'couple' reading the book
SYI for the tree
Punch for the leaves
A Child's Year for the trick or treaters
Mini Monsters for the fence which I also embossed with the script folder from cuttlebug and inked
Paper Dolls for the moon and stars

And I love the background papers I used for both of these but I am so sad because I'm almost out of them and can't find them anymore......

2011 CD Calendar Pages

I decided yesterday that it was time to begin working on some 2011 CD calendars because if I waited too long they just wouldn't get done.  (Kinda like what happened for 2010)  So I pulled up my old templates from 2009 and started to rework some of them to include the cartridges I've purchased since then.

By the time all was said and done I was only able to finish January and February for two calendars.

I used:

Designer's Calendar for the names of the months
Stand & Salute for the fireworks on Jan.
SYI for the wine glasses
Sweethearts for the girl on her scooter

Today I'm working on March and April and will be incorporating some of my Sizzix dies as well.  Not sure how far I'll get since I also have to get some "painting" done in our living room that we are in process of remodeling.

Songbird

I had this card laid out in Design Studio for some time now and had forgotten all about it until I was cleaning up my files yesterday.  So while we were waiting for our first appointment of the day I decided to cut and finish creating what I started.

For this card I used:
Accent Essentials for the scalloped circles - cut twice at 2 3/4" and 2 1/2"
Stretch Your Imagination for the birdhouse - cut at 1 3/4" and the bird cut at 1" both of which are pop dotted to the card
The song notes were cut from a punch

My inside sentiment is an old Proverb that says, "Those who wish to sing always find a song"

Ghoul School - Early Halloween

I realize it's a little early for Halloween cards, but I had this extra bus cut from the graduation cards I made for my niece.  It's been sitting on my desk for a couple weeks staring me in the face.  Taunting me.  Waiting for me to decide how I would incorporate it into a card. 

I really wanted to use a monster or alien for my "ghouls" but I felt that if I cut them as small as I'd need it would take away from them.  Then I remembered the crazy cartoonish pumpkins on Stretch Your Imagination and thus my card was born.

Not only did I use SYI for the pumpkin ghouls but also for my spider.  The bus is from Doodlecharms and my font was created using Robotz.

Thinking of You or Just Because Paisley

Here's another one of my completed assignments.  The instructions for this one was to "use SYI, using the paisley on page 79, doing a "just because" card. I'm interested in seeing the S-fold."

Coincidentally I had paper with paisley's on it as well so it all just came together.

Hello Spring Flower Garden

This week's Cricut Cardz Challenge was to create a spring themed card using flower, butterflies and/or birds. Well I used two out of three so that wasn't too bad. I also tried a new card fold - the side step, and I don't mind telling you that I had a lot of fun with this one. I found the side step to be more creator friendly than just the step card so you'll see more of these in the future.

For this card though I used several cartridges:

Paper Pups for the butterflies - cut at 3/4"

Stretch Your Imagination for the caterpillar - cut at 1"

Cricut Sampler (I don't have Walk in My Garden) for the flowers - cut at 2"

Zooballoo for the grass - cut at varying sizes for layering on the steps

Camp Out for the sign - cut at 2 1/2"

Animal Kingdom for the hello - cut at 1/2"

Happy Thoughts

I've been trying to use my Sizzix dies more lately and I've actually been pretty successful. Especially since it's been cold outside and I don't have heat installed in my craft room yet.

About a week or so ago I set a tv tray up in the living room at one end of the couch and then brought in my bucket of stamps, scrap papers, paper trimmer and Big Kick. And with the Olympics on it's been great just sitting there with my dh enjoying the best of both worlds.

Now that I have several pieces cut and put together I can create several cards and feel like I've accomplished a lot!

Tonight the card I want to share uses cuts from both Sizzix and Cricut. My tree is from the Stretch Your Imagination cart. The other cuts are from Sizzix.

New Year's Celebration CCC Challenge

This week's challenge for Cricut Cardz Challenge was to use any cartridge and colors we wanted to create a New Year's theme card. Since New Year's is supposed to be a time of joy, anticipation and celebration I was thinking fireworks and the brilliant displays of color seen during the show. Going with that idea I chose a colorful background on which to base my card.

Then I wanted to capture a couple of images that go with the theme but at the same time I didn't want to over do it. So I went with "fireworks", wine glasses and a calendar to tie them together.

For this card I used:

Designer's Calendar for January cut at 1.5"

Graphically Speaking for 2010 cut at 1"

Stand and Salute for the fireworks cut at 1.5"

Stretch Your Imagination for the wineglasses cut at 2"

The calendar was created in Excel.

No Such Thing as Too Much Candy

I finally broke out my Child's Year cartridge yesterday and started having fun with it. And I gotta tell ya' for someone who's never made Halloween cards until last month I think I'm on a little roll.

This card is my interpretation/scraplift of one featured in the Sept/Oct issue of Papercrafts in that I used the shimmer and the forest look for my card. But I wanted more of a "scene" to the look so I added the moon, stars, grass and trick or treaters.

The trees are from Stretch Your Imagination

The Moon and stars are from PPDU

For the background I applied glitter - in two shades: copper and orange topaz - to the paper. Beginning at the top and working my way down I used copper going lighter as I got to the bottom. The I repeated with the orange topaz starting at the bottom and working up.

Unlike the traditional cards this does not "open" - it's just two sided. When I created this in DS I created it so that the trees would fold up over the top of the card adding a little dimension to the overall look.

Boo to You - Card Challenge #16

For this one Shelbywoo said: i would love to see what you do with the stretch your imagination anything to do with halloween esp the spiders they are too cute and well it'd be a halloween card!

I had to cut my skeleton a couple times because I have carpal tunnel in both hands and I kept messing up whenever I tried to draw over the cuts for the facial features, etc. Finally I was able to get this one and just went with it.

I apologize for the bit of blur but my scanner didn't want to cooperate with me.

Chipmunk's Back to School - Card Challenge #9

Leah's Card Design's Homework assignment:

Cartridges: Mickey&Friends, Locker Talk

Cuts: Any from Mickey&Friends, Locker Talk something related to kindergarten

Theme: child entering into kindergarten.

Monday was my daughter's first day of her Senior year so I was up early even though I took the day off from work. Once she was on her way to school I sat down to finish this card that I started the night before but left incomplete to watch I Love You Man with the family.

I wasn't entirely sure if I liked the way that this one turned out and wondered if I should have used leaves cut with the cricut rather than the brads I chose ( from Creative Impressions - Maple Leaf - Copper, Gold, Silver)
but what's done is done.....Of course the timing couldn't be better for this card because Kim over at Kiki's Crafts has an Autumn Days card contest going and this is going to be my entry. You can visit her blog at http://www.sistahkiki.blogspot.com/ .