BBTB2 Cricut Create a Critter card

Hey All!

First order of business is to remind you all to stop by tomorrow for my very first blog hop! The details are at the under my header so swing by for a chance to win some prizes!

Today I have a simple little card for this week's challenge over at the BBTB2 blog to use balloons for a birthday card. I used the Create A Critter cartridge to make a quick and easy birthday card perfect for any kid in your life.

 

I used the teddy bear image although I didn't use the layers as they were meant to be cut, I used the "hide contour" feature in CCR to create my own spin on the layers. I think it turned out cute! I also added some Diamond Glaze and twine on the balloon to make it a bit more interesting. 

Project Ingredients

• Cricut Cartridges used: Create a Critter (bear, balloon), Lacy Labels (background shape), Sweethearts (tag)
• Patterned paper: Wood Grain (jessicasprague.com), Echo park Graceful digital collection (balloon)
• Ribbon: Midori dupioni
• Twine: house of 3 (Soiree collection)
• other: cuttlebug dots folder

The Sweet Stop and BBTB2

Hey All!

Phew! Yesterday was a crazy day. I was at the pool with the boy I nanny and a friend when I got a call from my husband saying he had a potato stuck in his throat. Now I probably would have freaked out except this kind of thing happens regularly with him because he has a cartilage ring in his esophagus called a Schotsky's ring and food gets hung up on it regularly but usually goes down after a few minutes. This time however, He had accidentally swallowed a small fingerling potato and it had been stuck for 3 hours, causing severe pain.

I called my boss and she met me to pick up the boys and I raced to where my husband was at a work conference, about 30 minutes away. We went to a local urgent care but they told us they didn't have the equipment to deal with it so we drove to another one close by and they said they could take care of it. They called a GI specialist who said he would have to do an endoscopy and that we would need to transfer to a hospital because the urgent care didn't have the right equipment.

By this time it had been 4 hours and poor Stephen hadn't been able to even swallow his own saliva and his gag reflex had been making him try to vomit for 4 hours. Plus, the potato was the first thing he had tried to eat all day so he had practically gone without any food or drink for the whole day. We took an ambulance to the hospital where they put him under and extracted the blockage...It had been stuck for 5 hours. It took awhile for him to come out of anesthesia but by around 10:00 we were able to leave the hospital and go to a restaurant so Stephen could finally eat. Got home at 11:30 and went straight to bed. Now we have to schedule a procedure so Stephen can get that ring stretched out and hopefully not have to deal with this ever again.

Anyway, on to more pleasant topics! I have a card for you today that was inspired by two Challenges: First is the weekly challenge over at the BBTB2 blog to make a card using a shamrock Cricut cut. Mine is from A Child's year. The sketch came from the weekly challenge over at The Sweet Stop blog.
Here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it:
Reason #476 why I like digital paper: perfectly matching projects. I only used 1 paper for the background, the scalloped square, and the shamrocks. For the background, I just increased the opacity to make it lighter. For the scalloped square, I just used the eye dropper tool to grab the color from the patterned paper to make a coordinating solid and then the shamrocks are just the polkadotted paper. The paper is from one of my favorite Etsy sellers: Babapuff. It comes in a set of 24 polkadotted papers of all different colors and is super versatile (and only costs $3!). Check back in on Monday because i may or may not be giving away some of their products *wink*

I put diamond glaze and chunky clear glitter on the shamrocks and although they look kinda puffy in the photo, they are actually just clear and sparkly.
The fox is from the give a Hoot Cartridge and is filled with another digi pattern by Lori Whitlock called Spring Celebration available at designhousedigital.com.

Ingredients:

• Cricut Cartridges used: Lacy labels (scalloped square), Give a Hoot (fox), A Child's Year (shamrocks), Sweethearts (tag)
• Software: CCR and Silhouette Design Studio
• Cardstock: Conqueror
• Digital Papers: Babapuff (polkadots), Lori Whitlock (orange on fox), Dana Zarling (green stripe
• Sentiment: American Typewriter and Annabel Antique Script
  
• Other: Tim Holtz Distress Ink (vintage photo), Craft Essentials rhinestones, Martha Stewart chunky glitter, diamond glaze
  

Mojo Monday #231

Hey All!

Today I have a card to share that I made for this week's Mojo Monday sketch challenge. The first Monday of each month the challenge is a competition and the winner gets a set of Verve's beautiful stamps. Check out the challenge here.

Anyway, here is the sketch:


and here is my take on it:


I was really happy with the way this turned out, especially since I don't usually make boy cards. All the papers here are digital papers I got from Design House digital. Right now, this kit (called For the Boys) is available absolutely free!!! Go here to get it for yourself : ).

Have you used digital papers before? Its so fabulous because you can print as much as you want on any kind of paper or medium. All you have to have is white paper and a printer and the sky's the limit! No more scraps of wasted paper, you can print several swatches on the same piece of paper and print just enough for your current project. Cricut users, this is totally fabulous because you can just layout your cuts in CCR and then position swatches on paper to align with your cuts. No more loading tons of different papers for each layer you want to cut! Ok, I will stop raving, but if you haven't tried digi papers before, you should start now!

This little teddy is a design by Rivka Williams available on the Silhouette online store. She sells them in sets of four animals. I love how you can group images and define what you want to cut or what you want to print flat. It makes cutting and layering complicated images so easy!
Ingredients:

• Cricut Cartridges Used: Lacy Labels (scalloped circle, tag, and heart), CCR exclusives: party picks and pennants
  
• Silhouette images Used: Rivka Williams (teddy bear)
• patterned papers: For the Boys Digital Papers by Karen Funk
  
• sentiment: Bell Font
• Other: Canvas thread, button, seam binding, Tim Holtz distress ink (walnut stain), adhesive pearls (Recollections)
  

~Here's to the creative journey!

I Spy sketches #5

Hey All!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I spent Friday night having a girl's night to celebrate my husband's grandma's 75th birthday. She is a sweet, Godly lady with an open and hilarious sense of humor. Happy Birthday Linda!

Today I have a card inspired by this week's sketch challenge over at I Spy Sketches. I used my new Sweetness digital papers from Pink Paislee available on Jessicasprague.com.

Here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it:

I printed the sentiment straight onto the paper but then it didn't stand out quite enough so I went over it with white gel pen to make it pop a little more.
I made the flower using m Midori Dupioni ribbon. I'm addicted to the shine and shabby texture of this ribbon, its so beautiful.

Ingredients:

• Cricut Cartridges Used: Lacy Labels
• card stock: Conqueror
• Patterned paper: Sweetness Collection by Pink Paislee (digital)
• ribbon, Midori (yellow) Simplicity (ruffled)
• other: Silhouette Cameo (for the parentheses), buttons, white gel pen, Tim Holtz distress ink

~Here's to the creative journey

Paper Playtime and Animal Kingdom Project

Hey All!

So today I'm trying a new challenge with the designers over at Paper Playtime. This weeks challenge is to use any animal image in a project. I love the animals on the Cricut Animal Kingdom Cartridge so I decided to use this adorable little penguin image.

I put diamond glaze and flower soft on the big penguin to make him look fluffy and added two glittered hearts from the Cricut 3 birds: Life's a party cartridge. The border is from the Cricut Close To My Heart Art Philosophy Cartridge and the tag is from the Cricut Lacy Labels Cartridge.

The papers are from the Merry Little Christmas mini kit by Erica Coombs that is available here for free! The papers in this kit are seriously adorable and nobody can argue with free, right?

Ingredients:

• Cricut Cartridges used: Animal Kingdom, Close to my Heart: Art Philosophy, Lacy Labels
  
• Cardstock: Conqueror
• Patterned Paper: Erica Coombs
• Sentiment: Courier font
• Other: flower soft
  

Guiness World Record and BBTB2

My giveaway for a brand new Cricut Art Nouveau cartridge ends tomorrow and there are only a few entries so your chances to win are really great! Go here to enter! Entries will close tomorrow evening at 12:00 pm and I will be announcing a winner on Monday!

Hey All!

So I wanted to take a minute to brag a little about my wonderful husband. When he was 15 years old, he broke the Guinness World Record for the farthest flying paper airplane. He designed it himself and it flew 207 ft and 4 inches. He is now 23 and still holds the record. However, a internationally recognized paper airplane guy named John has been trying to break the record for awhile now and this weekend, Stephen and I will be flying down to Sacramento California to be present for what will probably be John's record breaking attempt. John has teamed up with a semi professional football player who throws the planes that John designs and builds which obviously gives them a competitive advantage. This record has been a huge part of Stephen's life and has given him many wonderful opportunities. It helped him get into college, get his first job, and he even got a free trip to Austria to judge an international paper airplane competition hosted by Red Bull. I'm so proud of him and what a good sport he is being about this upcoming attempt. So many people have said he should take his own plane down and break the record again (which he could probably do) but he has become friends with John and wants this event to be all about him and his success. I love him!

Anyway, on to the project of the day!

I made this card for the BBTB2 challenge to use the boot cut from Nate's ABCs. The design was from this weeks Mojo Monday sketch. There are so many images from this cartridge that I love and I know I have barely scratched the surface of the potential for creative projects. I cut two pairs of the boots and trimmed one down and popped it up using dimensional adhesive. I added diamond glaze to make it look like shiny rubber.

Here is my submission:


These papers were another recent digital purchase by Lori Whitlock. There are 10 papers in the kit and the kit is currently available at designhousedigital.com for just $1.00! She also has a set of coordinating digital embellishments for $1.00 as well. A total steal!



Another new technique I learned by reading the Cricut magazine is how to print custom sentiments on your cuts. simply design your sentiment in Word or whatever program you use, print it out on normal printer paper, then lightly adhere your cut over the printed sentiment and run it through you printer again. Isn't that brilliant?

Ingredients:

• Cricut Cartridges Used: Nate's ABCs (boots), Lacy Labels (boot background), Serenade (cloud)
• Cardstock: Conqueror
• Patterned paper: digital designs by Lori Whitlock
• Ribbon: May Arts
• Ink: Memento, Tim Holtz
  
• Sentiment: Courier and Annabel script fonts
• Other: Diamond Glaze
  

Mojo Monday #228

Hey All!

The wonderful designers at Mojo Monday have once again come up with a beautiful inspirational sketch this week. This is probably the earliest I have ever completed a project based on their sketches. I just looked at it and was instantly inspired!
Here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it:


The rose and leaves shapes were both made using silhouette design studio and the sentiment was the Jane Austen font available at dafont.com. My favorite part about this card is the clock that I printed onto wood veneer paper. I got this clock in a set of vintage clocks from Martora on Etsy. She has beautiful stuff, check her out! I just printed it out on my laserjet printer and cut it out by hand.


Ingredients

• Cricut Cartridges Used: Party Picks and Pennants, Lacy Labels
• Silhouette shapes: rose and leaves
• cardstock: French paper co.
• patterned paper: K&Co.
• clock: etsy.com/shop/martora
• Wood veneer paper: Astro Converters
• ribbon: midori dupioni
  

~Here's to the creative journey

New Arrival

Hey all!

My project today was created for the challenge over at BBTB2. The challenge was to use a baby carriage. I love these challenges because it forces to use images that you might not think of otherwise and every time I look at my Cricut cartridges, I find another cute/beautiful image that I didn't remember seeing before. I used the carriage from the Spring Holiday Cricut cartridge and this is what I came up with:


I used all digital papers this time: strawberry lemonade and French Market, both available at jessicasprague.com


Ingredients:

• Cardstock:French Paper Co.
• Patterned paper: Jodie Lee French Summer (background), Jessica Sprague Strawberry Lemonade (baby carriage)
  
• Cricut Cartridges: Spring Holiday (carriage), Lacy Labels (tag),Wild Card (card base)
• Sentiment: Jane Austen font
• ribbon: midori dupioni
• silver pearls: Recollections
• glitter glue: stickles

~Here's to the creative journey

Cricut Cartridge: Art Nouveau: Project #8

Here is Another art Nouveau card that I made with Valentines Day in mind. Once again, all the layers for the flower were cut using the imagine and I painted iridescent medium on the white layer to give it some shimmer. I touched it up with copics and used a stylus on a rubber mat to give the leaves some dimension. I'm entering this one in a challenge over at Beyond Grey as well as the Little Red Wagon challenge and cardz tv challenge since they all just happened to be for Valentines day cards!

I cut the banner from the new Victorian Romance cartridge and inked it with to give it some dimension.

Ingredients:

• patterned paper: K&Company
• Cricut Cartridges Used: Victorian Romance (banner), Art Nouveau (pansy), Lacy Labels (background shapes)
• other: cuttle bug embossing folder, tim Holtz distress ink (vintage photo)