Huge Give Away from my Cricut Circle Sister!

Hello my Crafty Friends! I just wanted to let you know that my Cricut Circle Sister, Melody, is having a huge give away worth over $150!!! She has some cartridges and Anna Griffin cuttlebug folder and stamps and more. Here is her widget with photos!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can just go to her blog and sign up. Easy peasy!She also has even more photos of her give away and a video! Do as much or as little as you like to participate but make sure you take a peak at all of the goodies that she is offering. Thanks!

I’ll be back on Monday morning with another challenge from the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog. And back on FCCB on Tuesday, also, with my weekly Quick Tip Tuesday! Plus I have a few other projects that are finished that I need to post and share with you. And I still have some exciting news that I have been meaning to share for a while – it’s coming soon! Promise!

My Grandson is growing so fast! He’s only 3 months old but he likes to sit up straight, wants to crawl so badly (head goes down and all 4 limbs move at such a flurried pace but right now they’re not coordinated enough to lift his body and take him wherever he’s trying to go!), he tries his best to hold a conversation with you and he knows that I AM GRANDMA! and I get special privileges because of that – smiles, grins, and all the kisses I want!

  And he likes to help his Grandma with her crafting time!!!

Well until next time, Happy Crafting!

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge #157 ~ 3-D Project

Good Monday morning to all my crafty friends! I’m on the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog Design Team and today we are starting a new challenge – create a 3-D project with at least one cut image cut with your Cricut! Well, this challenge was right up my alley. I LOVE creating 3-D items! So I decided to use one of the Cricut Craft Room Exclusives that I bought a while ago when it was on sale but until now I have never used it. I created the Branches Lantern from 3-D Lanterns. If you are just coming from FCCB, then this is the lantern that you saw -

But after living with it for a while, I had to add some more stuff to it! It’s not finished until I say it’s finished and it just was not finished! So here is my new and improved 3-D Lantern -

As you can see I added layered flowers to all of the branches, a handle at the top that is secured with a bundle of beautiful rolled flowers and leaves. But let’s start at the beginning. These lanterns are so easy to put together and make great pieces for your home. If you use flameless candles you can even use these as night lights for little children.

You just need to cut out 4 of the same panel for this lantern and the 4 pieces of vellum for the inside. I cut this lantern out at 11.11”. But I added something a little different – I cut out 4 extra panels in Kraft cardstock to make the branches look a little more realistic.

First I carefully cut out all of the branches from 2 of the pink panels.

Then I cut out the branches from the Kraft cardstock but this time I left a small border around the branches.I only had to cut out 2 sets of branches from each panel of the Kraft. I left them in sets of 2 and 3. I attached a very thin (1/8”) piece of Scor-Tape to the pieces that I cut out but not actually on the branches.

I carefully placed the pink panel directly over the Kraft – hiding the sides and only letting the branches show through.

I then punched out tons of little flowers from different punches in different sizes.

I inked all of the flower edges to give them more depth.

After the flowers were all inked, I used my flower shaping tools from McGill to give all of them even more dimension.

I also added some Martha Stewart Branch Punches in green and Kraft.

Here are the flowers that I put on each side of the lantern top. They were cut with a My Favorite Things die, Embossed with my Cuttlebug, inked and rolled. There are some made from cardstock and a couple made from vellum. I added a clear jewel in the center of each flower. Each butterfly was punched out in white cardstock and stamped with VersaMark ink and heat embossed with detailed embossing powder. I added some bling down the middle of the butterflies. The white on white embossing is so gorgeous – I really wish you could see the detail!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I added the tiny layered flowers with clear jewels in the centers to all of the Kraft colored branches.

A handle was added and then I put a votive candle inside and turned off the lights. (I know that a flameless candle is so much better but unfortunately I couldn’t find any and this was just for a quick  photo op. Besides I’m still here, but thanks for your concern!)

Isn’t that beautiful?!?!?!? I am really liking these right now and I plan to make more. They’re so quick and easy, even if you makes alterations like I did. Think of the gifts you could create and match these to the recipients home décor! Please comment and let me know what you think! Will you be making some 3-D Lanterns soon? Also, think out of the box – the image that you cut with your Cricut does not need to end up looking like the picture in the handbook – make some changes – make it your own! There is no right or wrong in Art ~ just beauty!

Please visit the other designers at FCCB and see what designs they have come up with. And don’t forget to leave some “Blog Love” for everyone!

Supplies used:

• Cricut Expression
• Assorted cardstock, Vellum
• Punches – Stampin’ Up, Fiskars, EK Success, Martha Stewart, The Paper Studio,
• Die – My Favorite Things
• Ink – VersaMark, Colorbox Chalk
• Stamps – Background stamp by SU, Damask Chair by Stampendous
• Rhinestones – Colorbok, White Blossom
• Adhesive – Scor-Tape, Glossy Accents

Thanks so much for visiting and I hope you enjoyed my project today! Now it’s your turn – go create a 3-D project and link it up at FCCB!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Cricut Class This Weekend!!!

I’m excited to let you guys know that I will be teaching a Cricut 102 class this weekend at The Crafty Scrapper in Waxahachie, TX. This is a FABULAOUS scrapbooking shop just a few miles south of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. If you’d like to learn more about their shop, please click here to get more info and see their class schedule. My class is this Saturday, April 20th, at 2:30. So grab your friends and sign up today to learn even more outstanding tips and tricks when it comes to using your Cricut Expression! For even more Cricut classes and dates, please check out my new page at the top.

I hope that I will get to meet some of my friends out there in Blogger Land so come on out to The Crafty Scrapper this weekend to shop and visit awhile!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Mother’s Day Card

Hey friends! I hope that everyone is either keeping cool or warm, depending on where you are. Or, if you’re like us in North Texas, you’re keeping warm AND cool!!! In the last week, I’ve gone from the 80’s to the high 30’s and back again! But moving on, I know that Mother’s Day is a month away but because I have a bad habit of procrastinating AND I have been taking care of my 2 month old Grandson, I hardly have time to do much crafting lately. So when I started thinking of Mother’s Day cards, I knew that I need something that was simple but still beautiful and special (my Mom just turned 93!!!). So for these reasons, if I'm going to send any cards out this year, I need to start NOW and make it simple on myself.

So I went to Cricut.com to see what my "simple" options were. I had been looking at the Craft Room Exclusives like the sets of single Mother's Day cards and I found one that I really liked:

So I bought it - cut two pieces - glue!!! Easy peasy! Plus it was 1.99 and now with the sale going on it is 1.69 (If you're a Cricut Circle member, you get an addition 10% off). No need to wait for it to be mailed to you - it will be in your Cricut Craft Room the next time you open it! Again, really simple!

I used paper from K&Company for the card and cut it a 5.5".

I just wanted to show you up close how detailed those cuts are.

All the cuts were nice and smooth for being so detailed.

But I still needed something extra on that card. I thought about it for a long time and finally can up with this (you know how I love my flowers and my bling! LOL!)

And there they are! The flowers were cut on the Cricut with the CTMH Artiste cart at 3.25' and 4'. I used some seam binding that I had hand-dyed myself with Distress Ink in Peeled Paint. Then I added some branches from a Martha Stewart hand punch and the bling is from Colorbok.

A Close Up of my rolled flowers, ribbon, and punched leaves.

Okay, so even though I did add a few things, I think it a perfect card for a special Mom! And they won't take long to make. In the Cricut Craft Room make the card base as many times as you need. The next time that you have a few minutes, cut out the flowers with the Cricut and punch some leaves with a punch (or even make those with the Cricut, too). The roses can be rolled one evening while watching T.V. I use Scotch Quick Drying Adhesive or Glossy Accents and they both work great and they DO DRY FAST! Then all you would need to do is put them all together - assembly line style! In no time at all you will have a stack of cards just waiting to be mailed.

I just wanted to share with you that you can take a simple card from CCR and make it extraordinary all for only a couple of bucks. But they won't look like it!

Thanks for dropping by and until next time, Happy Crafting,

Thanks Sew Much Card - Fantabulous Cricut Challenge #155

Good morning friends! I hope you all had a great weekend. Last weeks April Cricut Crawl was so much fun and I loved all of the comments you guys left for me! I read each and every one of them and it really warms my heart that people are seeing what I create and enjoying it, too!

Today there is another challenge over at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog. This was a very interesting challenge – it was a color and shape one using the color yellow and a triangle shape. So the possibilities were endless!

I used three different cartridges for this card – Nifty Fifties, Everyday Pop-Up Cards, & Cricut Craft Room Basics. The papers used were made by My Mind’s Eye and K&Company.

The basic card is cut from Everyday Pop-Up Cards. It already had the triangle shaped edge at the bottom so I just inked that edge yellow and placed another strip of patterned paper right above it and, voila!, instant yellow triangles! The sewing machine was cut from the Nifty Fifties cart and here I did some extra things to this image. I wrapped twine around the spool at the top and carried it across the top, wrapped it around the spindle (that is the right word, isn’t it?), and then down to the ‘needle’. I removed the little piece that was supposed to be there and decided to add a piece of a quilt that had yellow triangles on it – OK, I attempted to make a quilt piece but it just looks like a crappy little ball, LOL! Strange because I love to quilt – but with fabric! But if your eyes can get past that I think we’re good to go!

You can see it a little better in those last two photos

(And why did I think anyone wanted an even closer look???)

But here is the cool part and I love doing these cards because of this feature:

It’s a POP-UP card! I love pop-ups! And every card on this cart has one. To be honest, I was a little intimidated by them at first but they are really fun and easy to put together. So you know that I’ll be making more pop-up cards soon!

See how much it ‘pops’? And how easy it looks to put together?

I know exactly who will receive this one. That’s one of the perks about being on the Design Team – It gets you into the habit of creating something and you can always find that you’re short a card here or there. So join in on this challenge this week and create something with the color YELLOW and a TRIANGLE shape. Just remember that you need at least one Cricut cut in your design. Then head over to FCCB and link your creation up – who knows, you may be our next winner! Also check out the other designs that my Design Team Sisters have come up with!

Thank you for visiting me today. I’ve been running behind schedule since I started babysitting my precious little Grandson. (Here is his Easter photo! )

I also have some good news that I’d like to share this week with you all (I guess that should be ya’ll, right?)

But until next time, Happy Crafting!

April Fools Day Cricut Crawl!

Good Morning Friends! It’s April Fools Day so beware of anything that is said to you today or you may be the butt of someone’s joke! Speaking of jokes, today is also the April Fools Day Cricut Crawl at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog! The challenge this week is to create a card with a joke on it and for me this was a huge challenge! I don’t really know any jokes, well not any goods ones. But I tried to  do my best and here’s the result (remember, be nice! LOL):

 

Any good guesses???

 

 

 

HAHAHA! Get it! A Buccaneer! (a buck an ear!!!). See,  I warned you!

I only used one cartridge for this card – Paper Doll Dress Up. I used the Pirate Boy but I did make some changes. First I used the hair (headwear feature) from the vampire doll on this cart instead of the pirates hair. I was going for that “Jack Sparrow” look! (I said I was going for that look - I didn’t say that I actually got there, lol). I sort of roughed up the hair with my scissors and also cut down his mustache a little on each side. Then I hand cut a bandana for his head and I didn’t give him his ‘hook’ hand. I then inked up all of the pieces before layering them together. I added Stickles to his shoe buckles and gave him a Stickle earring!

For the card front, I cut out the ship and the skull & crossbones, inked them and adhered them with pop dots.

Now go over to FCCB and see what the other Design Team members have come up with for this April Fools Day! And after having fun reading all of our funny jokes, why don’t you play along with us and create a card with a joke on it. Make sure that you use your Cricut in your creation and then link it to the FCCB.

Thank you for looking and have a very funny April Fools Day! Until next time, Happy Crafting,