Peacock Card–Finally!

Okay, I know that this should have been posted a few days ago but I have a good reason! I absolutely hated the first card that I made with my cut of the peacock!!! Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever made something and knew it didn’t work? Well, I do this a lot! Sometimes after I make a project, I just need to let it sit on my craft table and look at it for awhile – sometimes it takes a day or more before I decide what to do!  When I made the first card, I just knew that something was off. I stared at it for the longest time trying to figure exactly what was wrong with it (there ended up being more than one thing, I finally decided!). So I took it all apart and started from scratch – well, nearly - I kept the base, lol! I just couldn’t find the right paper to use. Then I remembered some older Stampin’ Up! paper that I had in my stash and used that. See, like I’ve said before, it pays to be a paper hoarder sometimes! I wish that I could post before & after photos but that first card looked so bad that I couldn’t even snap a picture of it! So here is the final card:

There are three layers to the card base. The first layer (the one the looks shiny) was sprayed with Goose Bumps, a clear texture spray made by Tsukineko. The second layer was cut a bit smaller and run through my Cuttlebug using an embossing folder by PC. The SU paper on top was cut even smaller and then cut again in the middle with a Spellbinders large oval die. Then I cut out a frame using a Spellbinders die called Floral Ovals. All of the layers and the oval frame were adhered using foam tape for dimension.

For the bird, I used pop dots to give him some added dimension also.

Since I love my bling, I added little hot fix gems from Imaginisce to the peacocks tail instead of the tiny cuts that were supposed to be there. I also added gems to the oval frame.

Then I added some ribbon that I hand dyed myself and a stick pin that I made.

To make the stick pin, I used a ready made pin that had a triple white head that did not match so I colored the top using Tim Holtz alcohol inks. I added a few drops of Eggplant and Red Pepper inks into a baggie, placed the top of the pin in the baggie, rolled it around in the ink and then let it dry. Here are the inks that I used and what the pin looked like before I altered it:

I then added some beads from Michaels and adhered them to the pin with Glossy Accents. I finished the inside of my card with some cardstock punched with a Martha Stewart edge punch and the SU paper.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my final card! I’ll be back on Monday with my Cricut FANatics post.

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge #151–Bye Bye Birdie

Good morning everyone! This is my very first challenge as a Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog Design Team member and I can’t wait to share it with you! This week is “Bye Bye Birdie” and all you need to do is create something using a Cricut cut of a bird! There are so many different kinds of birds on all of those Cricut cartridges so I know you have something to use. I picked the hummingbird from Art Nouveau.

There are some beautiful images on this cart and at first I couldn’t decide between the hummingbird and the peacock (so I actually did both – I’ll share the peacock with you on Wednesday so make sure you come back to see him!). One of my favorite things I like to do with my Cricut cuts is add dimension. To do this I used distress inks to shade the layers, used lots of pop dots, and, for this image, I cut out and added an extra layer – instead of one green layer, I added a second green cardstock in a slightly different shade! I hope that you can see the multi layers in the photo below.

I also cut out three flowers from the Artiste cartridge. After cutting them out, I inked their edges, rolled them, then misted them with different shades of Glimmer Mist and added them to the front of my card. The ribbon is seam binding that I dyed myself using Distress Stain in Peeled Paint. I love the different shadings of green in the seam binding. :)

Ok, you may think I’m a bit lazy of a perfectionist, lol, but I like to cut most, if not all, of my images in one single pass with the Cricut! So here is how I lined everything up in Cricut Craft Room to cut out my hummingbird. Each layer of the bird is on a different mat layer in CCR but I put each image in separate areas leaving enough room around each one making sure that I had enough space to lay out my cardstock.

Then using the “mat” in CCR as a guide, I placed my different colors of cardstock in the corresponding spots.

Now I only have to load my mat once and make all of my cuts before unloading! Here is what my mat looks like afterwards (did you notice the extra green layer that was cut at the bottom?):

I hope that this little tutorial can help you, too. If you have any questions please leave a comment. If you don’t have any questions, please leave a comment anyway, lol! I love hearing what you guys think and have to say, so spread some <blog> love!

Now I hope that I have inspired you to find an image of a bird and create something for the Fantabulous Cricut challenge! Head on over to FCCB to get even more inspiration from my fellow Design Team members and to link up your bird project this week! Thank you for looking and if you like what you see, please comment and follow me!

Recipe:

• Cricut Cartridges – Art Nouveau & Artiste
• Hummingbird cut @ 3.5”
• Cardstock – American Crafts & Stampin’ Up!
• Patterned Paper – K&Company
• Bead on Eye – CTMH
• Ink – Tim Holtz Distress Inks
• Ribbon – Seam binding & Tim Holtz Distress Stain
• Spray Mist – Glimmer Mist

Until next time, Happy Crafting,