Easter Card from Spring Holiday Cards

In my last post, I shared with you the awesome items I received in an Easter Swap.  So now that my partner has hers, I can show you what I made her!  I've been waiting and waiting to post this.  I know she reads my blog (thank you) so I couldn't post them until this was over! 

Here is the card I made her, using my new cart - Spring Holiday Cards.  This is cut at 5" if I recall correctly (I could be wrong, it's been awhile).

When you make the two cuts, the front and the back, it's a pretty plain card.  You have to embellish these so I got to work! I added googly eyes, a brad nose, stickle ears, yellow paper behind Easter to make it stick out more, more Stickles, and a pretty little bow.

I cut an envelope from this cart as well and cut the single bunny image for the closure.  Here is what the top of the envelope looked like:

And the full envelope with the card in it so you can see what that looks like:

I think L.B. enjoyed it and I liked the way it came out.  Thanks for stopping by!

Easter Swap

I am so excited!   Last night I opened the box that has been sitting in my dining room for almost two weeks.  Laura of Cool Beans by L.B. was my Easter swap partner and she sent me an awesome box of stuff!

Look at all that stuff!!  She is so generous!  There is a huge stack of patterned papers, stamps, ink pads, ribbon, glitter that I am super excited about, adhesive, gems, a photo album, candy, things for my girls and more!

These are the handmade things she included.  Aren't they cute? On the left is a adorable clear bucket with "Scrapbook Queen" written on it, the middle is a photo album, and the right is the card she sent.  So cute!

She even sent my girls some stuff!

Thanks Laura - you rock!!

More First Communion cards

I'm here to share with you two more First Communion cards I made using the Lite cart, Inspired Heart!  I love these.  The first is for my niece:

It is cut at 5".  I used my Gypsy to weld the background ovals to make them into a card.  I cut the top layer twice, once in the dark purple and once in white.   I then cut the white layer to be just the girl.  I tied a ribbon around her waist and added stickles to break up the image.

 
The second card is very similar to the first, except different colors and details.  This one is for my daughter.  It is also cut at 5".  I cut the top layer 4 times, once each in light pink, white, peach, and yellow.   Then I cut them apart and started layering them.  The light pink was the full cut first with the ovals, then the peach in the full girl, next the white for the dress, and finally the yellow for the hair.

After she was assembled, I added the details.  I took my bone folder and marked along her hair to give it some texture.  This is also the way my daughter says she wants to wear her hair on the big day.  I added the ribbon around her waist and some glitter to her skirt (hard to see in these pictures because there isn't that much - just enough to make it sparkle).  She is pop-dotted off the card.

Here is the verse inside, cut using the Centerpoint feature on my E, at 4".  Both cards have the same verse inside.

Here are the two cards side by side.  While I like them both, my favorite is the pink. :)

I'm glad to have finally used this cart since I have had it since Thanksgiving!

First Communion Card

Hello! I have quite a few First Communions coming up, including my own daughters!  She is excited to be taking this next step in her faith.  I decided to make all the cards I need at once.  I will share one with you today and the other two tomorrow (they are very similar so I want to show them both at once).  All three cards are made with Inspired Heart (a Lite cart).

Here is the first card:

This is for a girl who is a little older than the typical 2nd grade time frame that First Communion occurs in.  This card is cut at 4.5".  I cut it three times. Once in the light blue and brown with the cross and pages hidden by using the Hide Contour feature on my Gypsy. I cut it the third time in white, this time only cutting the cross and pages.  I assembled it the way I wanted and added the accents.  I doodled brown around the edges with a marker, added Stickles to the cross, and a ribbon where the page marker cut is.

Instead of welding two background squares on the Gypsy, I just cut the navy cardstock to the size I needed. 

For the inside, I printed this phrase I found online and then trimmed it to fit inside the card. 

I hope you have enjoyed this card and check back tomorrow for the other two!

Easter Bunny Purses

Hi!  Look at these cute little guys that have invaded my basement!  Aren't they adorable?  They are going to be given to three of my co-workers, the 2 other kids at day care and my daughter took one to take to her teacher.  These are super easy to make.  This idea was Scrapalette's and she shared it on the Cricut message board here.  She posted full directions a few posts down.

The purse is cut from Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More at 5".  The ears are from Paper Doll Dress Up at 2.5" true dial size.  They are embossed with the Cuttlebug to give them that something extra.  Op! Here they are showing off their bottoms! :)

This purse is smaller than it appears and fits on the palm of your hand.  I was able to fit 3 pieces of Easter candy inside but even so, it was bulging a bit.  This would be perfect for M&Ms, like Scrapalette does.

My older daughter helped me put these together while we both took turns helping my younger daughter create something as well.  I have a ton of foam Easter stickers so she made this card for my parents. :)

It's not the greatest picture but she's not one to sit still for very long! Thanks for stopping by!!  I truly appreciate every visit!

Quit Buggin' Me!

This week, the Cricut Circle Blog challenge was to create a layout about something that bugs you and to include a bug on your layout.  I am not a big cook so when I am in the kitchen, I do not like to be bothered.  On this hot August day, my daughter Ashlyn refused to leave me alone.  Here she is!

Here's a close up of the journaling so you can read the story:

The title:

The word buggin' is cut with a shadow and pop dotted for dimension.  The rest of the words are just cut twice at the same size and then offset to give a shadowed effect.  Also, this is one of those carts that has a font on it but doesn't have the letters on the overlay so it's hard to figure out which button is which letter.  I take an overlay from another cart and set it on top of the Nursery Rhymes overlay.  Then I punch in my letters using that overlay and it is so much easier than trying to figure out that an M means I have to punch the Simple Simon key or whatever character it may be.

And the bug border from an oldie but goodie cart, Doodlecharms! I couldn't decide about the buggy eyes (I really wish I would have smaller ones) but without the bugs looked naked so they are on!

The cuts are from:

Nursery Rhymes - the font, cut at 1.0"
Doodlecharms - the bug above journaling cut at 1" and the bug border cut at 1.5".

Thanks for stopping by!

March Spring Cleaning Contest

The monthly challenge for the Cricut Circle blog is to show some of the ways you organize. It must include at least 4 Cricut items.  I'll share a few pictures with you here of a few parts of my scrap space.  You can see a wider view of my scrap space on this blog post but my space has evolved since then.  It certainly has filled up from all the enabling that happens on those Cricut message boards, that's for sure!!! :)  Love you gals!  :)

Here is a view of my shelves above my work desk:

You can see that all of my carts are stored along the top, all in alphabetical order.  *Hey, I'm a librarian so yes, they are all in alphabetical order!*  I've started to move my Lite and Imagine carts down to the second shelf since I've somehow accumulated more than enough carts!

Here is a closer view of what is hanging underneath my shelves - my mats!  This ingenious idea was in a picture of someone else's scrap space so while I can't say it is my idea, it is awesome!  This are the sticky 3M hooks you can get in the home hardware section of any mass merchant.  I have one hook for my 12x12 mats and one for my 12x24 mats.  The bigger ones just hang down behind my table, as there is about a quarter inch gap between my desk and the wall.

The picture I entered for the monthly challenge is this:

This used to be a coffee bean holder in a Gloria Jean's coffee shop! I got this from a friend of mine and I love it!  It sits under my desk like this:

I pulled it out so that you can see a little more what's in it.  From left to right, there are six drawers:
1. Spray adhesive and painter's tape
2. Cricut replacement blades for the machines and for the slide paper cutter.
3. Cricut markers of all different colors.  I particularly love this because it stores them with the tips down so they stay fresh.
4. Cricut cords and Gypsy accessories.  It's so nice to contain them all in one place!
5. Punches
6. Roll stickers and more punches.

From the front.  Each drawer has it's own pull out handle:

I hope you like my storage ideas!

Rock Star Hair

Hello everyone!  Welcome and welcome back to my blog!  Today I am sharing the most recent layout I made.  It is a 2 page 12x12 layout of my daughter when she was 9 months old.  I made a sketch and this layout as a part of this week's Cricut Circle Blog challenge.  To begin, I created the sketch based on the photos I had:

And here is the total layout that resulted, which uses only the Rock Princess cart:

The left side:

 

The right side:

For this layout, I first opened up my Gypsy to a 12x24 mat and arranged everything in the approximate layout of my sketch.  From there, I separated out the layers on to different 12x12 mats and cut them according to color.  The next challenge was to pick out my papers!  The patterned papers are from DCWV's The Stack 6.  The solid colors are all Creative Memories papers.

The Rock Star phrase was cut at 4.75".  The letters for hair were cut at 1.5".  The black music notes were cut at 3.09".  I added black stickles in small hearts on the head of the notes to make them stand out a little more.  That is hard to see in the pictures.  I also used stickles in a few other places to add some shine.

I had the basic layout put together and my words on but it was feeling kind of blah to me.  Then I cut this cute little bear and it all came together for me.  Funny how one element on a page can do that, huh?  Look at her sweet little face...

She is cut at 3.5" and all of her layers as well.  I inked around her using a Fantastix for the first time.  I'm still figuring those out...

Here is a close up of the rock on hand, cut at 4":

And lastly, here is a close up of the journaling so you can see the story behind these pictures (The stars were cut at 12" as they were originally a layer of something else.  The hearts were the negatives from the r in hair.):

After giving her a bath, we would have so much fun making her hair do crazy things.  Sometimes we'd comb it all to one side, sometimes spike it up like this rock star hair, sometimes forward so she would have bangs... and when she woke up in the morning, it would stay like that all day! 

I hope you liked my layout and thank you everyone for all the great comments this week!  They have meant so much to me! You are all awesome!!!

This Fox Rocks!

I created this card for my niece's birthday.  She is in 7th grade and isn't too girly so I wanted to create something that she would think was fun, not too kiddish, and definitely not pink with sparkles. :)

This card fits into a 5.5" x 5.5" envelope.  All of the cuts are from Birthday Bash.  I honestly can't tell you how big it is cut because I used my Imagine and the fill to page option for cutting the black card base.  I do know it is less than 6" though, because that wouldn't fit.

I then used a white pen to write a personalized message inside.  Shape cards are fun!

Celebrate Alligator

This is a quick birthday card I made for an elderly woman in our lives.  It had to be something easy to read as this woman has troubles seeing.  I went for simple. :)

The background is printed from the Imagine JT cart. All of the pieces are cut from Birthday Bash, printed with colors from JT to match the background.

I canNOT wait to share with you the layout I made for the Cricut Circle Blog challenge this week!!  That will be later this week, as it's still drying right now!

Children at Play card

In early March, the Cricut Circle blog featured a board game project.  I made my own version of that game and you can see it in THIS POST.  I gave this game to our neighbor girl when her little brother was born.  I also made this card to go with it:

This card fits in a regular business size envelope.  The pattern is printed from the Nursery Tails Imagine cart.  The girl is from Best Friends and the lettering is printed on the Imagine and cut with the Birthday Bash cart.  Here is a close up:

On the inside I put the same girl's face from Best Friends but without the sunglasses.  Breaking apart the layers on the Imagine is super simple.

I added our congratulations by hand writing on the inside and wallah - a matching card!  Thanks for stopping by!