A Quick Valentine’s Gift!

Here are a couple of quick projects for those last minute Valentine's Day gifts. The first one is a simple note card:

I cut the cardstock at 3x6 to make this into a 3x3 card and added a 3x3 piece of patterned paper to the front. The scalloped border is from my 'old faithful' cart - Plantin Schoolbook! Even with all of the newer carts around this one still is a wonderful cart with so many great images. I cut out about 10 borders in cardstock at 0.5". I also used Accent Essentials to cut out the heart in glitter paper at 2.25". After inking the edges of the scallops, I adhered them to the card by staggering the borders, added a piece of ribbon with glue dots, and the heart with small pop dots. Once finished I decided that it needed one more thing so I punched out a tag shape (Jewelry Tag) and stamped a Valentine's sentiment (Teeny Tiny Wishes) on it and adhered it to the heart with a tiny red brad. Both the the punch and the stamp are made by Stampin’ Up! Then I was satisfied that it was finally finished!

Next is a Tag Treat Holder:

Again, I used Plantin Schoolbook. This image is on page 71 (shift/Italic). It's one of those images that I often don't pay attention to and skip over but it makes a cute little treat holder by scoring it in the middle and folding in half. It was cut at 8" with the Fit to Length feature turned on with my Expression and scored at 3.75" and again at 4.5". I added two little hearts cut with the shift/Tall Ball feature (found on the same page) at 2.5", adhered them on to the tag, and tied it together with some twine. This would be great to give to someone with a piece of chocolate inside (think Ghirardelli chocolate squares! Yum!)

I think I will put both of these little gifts into this gift bag that was made with Plantin Schoolbook (see, I told you it was still a great cart!):

This was cut with the Fit to Page feature turned on. After putting it together with Scor-Tape, I adhered some ribbon and my flower on it. I cut three flowers out at 3” each, the leaves were cut out at 2”. After the flower was cut, I inked all the petals and rolled them towards the back with a paintbrush to give them some dimension. For the brad, I took a plain silver one and applied VersaMark ink to it and then a pink shade of ColorBox ink. I then dipped it into some Iridescent Ice embossing powder by Stampin’ Up! and used my heat gun to melt it on the brad. Instant color change! You can use this little trick to alter any metal brad to suit your needs. Now you don’t have to have every color of brad in your stash! (Or DO you?!?!)

  (Click on the photos to enlarge any of the images)

I also just want to say “Thank You” to Carolyn and Gena from The Crafty Scrapper in Waxahachie for inviting me to teach at the shop this past weekend. I had such a wonderful time and I can not wait to go back to teach (and shop) again! My students were the GREATEST and I now have 5 more crafty friends! Thanks to all of you for signing up! If you live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area (or coming to visit) and have never been to The Crafty Scrapper then get there as fast as you can! They have a wonderful and knowledgeable staff, great classes, and the shop carries everything that you need for scrapping & crafting.  It is THE place to go here in North Texas!

Today is also my day as Guest Designer over at Cricut FANatics! Please stop by to leave a comment and to see what the other designers have created!

So whatever you give (and receive) this Thursday, I hope that all of you have a sweet and happy Valentine's Day! Thanks for visiting and until next time, Happy Crafting!

Christmas Reindeer Treat Holders–Cricut FANatics

Hey everyone! It’s my day to post a project on Cricut FANatics and I wanted to share these treat holders with you. They are cute, easy to put together and I’ll show you different ways to use them this Christmas.

I saw something like these several years ago made with punches and I had always wanted to make some but never got around to it. Now that I have my Cricut, I am always trying to make life a little easier by recreating projects from years ago using my Expression along with either my Gypsy or more than ever now with Cricut CraftRoom. For this project I used December 25th cart by Teresa Collins and Cricut Craft Room Basics. I love putting most (if not all) of my cardstock for a project on my cutting mat and making just one pass through my Cricut at one time. So even though there are eight different colors to make a reindeer, I only had to do two passes with my Expression.

I used the Sweet Treat Cups from Stampin’ Up! for the reindeer noses. You get 12 cups for less than $3!

In one nose I placed red Skittles. You can use Red Hots, red M&M’s, or anything that you’d like to use. In the other nose I used red glitter that I adhered with Glossy Accents and after it dried, I placed oats in the cup. These are to be used on Christmas Eve as “Reindeer Food”.  (Note – you may want to use red colored sugar crystals instead of glitter so as not to harm birds or other little critters)

I did the “Reindeer Food” with my kids when they were little and they loved it! There is also a little poem that goes with it that I’ll share at the end of this post. After cutting out all of the parts of the reindeer, I inked all of the edges, added red Stickles to the holly and one of the ornaments, Glossy Accents to another ornament, popped the eyes and eyelids up with pop dots, and added the highlights to the eyes with a white gel pen.

Can you guess what I used for the antlers???

The antlers from the deer on the December 25th cart! I cut out two with one flipped and that gave me two sets of symmetrical antlers. I just cut them off by hand. Everything is then glued to the base (the one without the hole in it) and a piece of ribbon was attached to the tops with my Tiny Attacher (love this tool!).

Then you attach the cup with your treats (or the reindeer’s treats) inside and adhere it to the base. The cups already come with adhesive on them. Next, just place the face on top, attach the eyes and holly, and draw his mouth (I can not draw so excuse his lopsided mouth!).

After I put them all together, I found these plastic Christmas lights in my stash and used these instead of the ornaments that I had cut out. I just tied them on with some SU twine.

Here is the poem that I will use (these are not mine, I have just been using them for many years so I do not know where I found them):

Magic Reindeer Food -

Sprinkle this reindeer food outside on Christmas Eve night

The moon will make it sparkle bright

As Santa’s reindeer fly and roam

This magical food will guide them to your home.

 

Or I may even use one of these:

 

I wanted the perfect gift for you- 
But couldn’t decide just what to do. 
I almost sent you a dozen roses- 
Instead here’s a bag of… 
reindeer noses!

I woke up with such a scare when I heard Santa call...
"Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
I ran to the lawn, and in the snowy white drifts,
those nasty reindeer had left "little gifts".

I got an old shovel and started to scoop
Neat little piles of "reindeer poop."
but to throw them away seemed such a waste,
So I saved them, thinking you might like a taste!

As I finished my task, which took quite a while,
Old Santa passed by and he sheepishly smiled.
And I heard him exclaim as he rose to the sky~~~
"Well, they're not potty trained, but at least they can fly!"

 

 

Thank you for visiting and I hope that you enjoyed my Christmas Reindeer!

 

Christmas Reindeer Recipe:

 

From December 25th -

Holly @ 1.222

Ornament @ 1.431

Antlers – Deer @ 4.417 x 8.583

From Cricut Craft Room Basics -

Circles – 1 @ 4.25 x 2.75 (base)

                   1 @ 4.25 x 2.75 (with a 1.75 x 1.75 circle welded inside for the face)

                   2 @ 1.75 x .875 (eyelids)

                   2 @ 2 x 1.375 (outside ears)

                   2 @ 1.75 x .875 (inside ears)

                   2 @ .5 x .5 (eyes in black)

                   2 @ .75 x .75 (eyes in white)

 

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

 

                  

 

Halloween Treat Box

I want to share a Halloween treat box that I designed in the Cricut Design Studio some time ago. This was before the CraftRoom and all of the wonderful cartridges that we have now with the boxes and bags. I used square, rectangle, and tag shapes from Plantin School cartridge to create this treat box that you can use for many, many more occasions other than Halloween. These would be cute for other holidays, birthdays, showers, and wedding favors just by changing the colors and adding an different topper. Oh, and of course, changing the treats inside! I will post the CDS file on my blog for anyone who’d like it.

(Don’t you just LOVE the purple M&M’s?)

This is the box after it is cut with the Cricut.

Now just score! Starting from the left (the side with the window) score at 1”, 3”, 4”, 6”, 7”  and 9”. Turn 90 degrees and score at 1” and 3”. (This cut was embossed with the Big Shot)

Place Scor-Tape on the ends on the 4 tabs.

Cut or punch out a square piece of transparency paper that is slightly larger than the window opening. I used a 1 3/4” punch. Use the Scor-Tape to adhere the transparency to the underside of the window opening.

(I tried to take a photo of the top to get the transparency but I can’t tell if you can see it or not)

Put it all together and you have a treat box!

Do not adhere the back flap. This is where you will add your treats!

Decorate the top….

and the inside and you’re done! I used Chic & Scary for the spider web on this one and I used Happy Hauntings for the tombstones in the first photo.

Here’s the link to download the Candy Box CDS file - Candy Box - CDS

I will be recreating the Treat Box in the Craftroom and will post the CCR file tomorrow!

Thank you visiting and I hope that you enjoyed today’s Treat Box! Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

Cricut Info & Supplies Used:

Designed by: Angela Cromwell

Cartridges Used: Plantin SchoolBook, Happy Hauntings, Chic & Scary

Cricut Machines Used: Cricut Expression, Cricut Design Studio

Other Supplies Used: K&Co. cardstock, Sixxiz Big Shot, Tim Holtz Tattered Banners Die, gemstones, Scor-Tape, pop dots, transparency sheet, square punch, ink, stamp by Stampin’ Up, PC embossing folder, Scor-Pal

Falling for Halloween Blog Hop ~ Day 2

First I’d like to thank Maria for hosting this incredible Blog Hop this weekend and to also thank her for letting me participate in it. I’ve had a wonderful time and I hope that you have too.

Remember, you should have arrived here from Khrista’s blog. If not, you missed the beginning of the hop, so please go to Maria's blog to start so you don't miss any of the projects. I will also be picking one lucky visitor on Monday to receive a box of Blog Candy so be sure to leave comments on both days of the hop and become a follower! Now on to today’s projects!

I guess I wasn’t quite ready to put the vinyl away since I used it here in my first project. You gotta admit, this stuff is so addicting! Here is my Bewitching charger plate:

I bought the charger plate at Michaels with the bling already on it. I got it at a steal since it had some scratches on it – perfect for a Halloween craft project! For my image, I used the Cricut cartridges A Frightful Affair and Chic and Scary by Teresa Collins. I used the Cricut CraftRoom and my Expression to cut the witch from orange vinyl at 8” and the word ‘bewitching’  from iridescent vinyl at 1 1/2”.

I tried to take a photo from a different angle so you could see how beautiful this vinyl really is – but unfortunately I failed! But you can see that I blinged her up a little by placing rhinestones on her hat and shoes. After all, we all like bling – even the little witch in us, lol!

Next I made a Halloween Treat Milk box. These would be so cute to hand out to those special little ghosts and goblins that knock on your door this Halloween.

I used CTMH’s Artist cartridge and cut it out at 8” using paper from DCWV (Midnight Spell pad). The nice thing about this cart is that there is an extra handbook that comes with it with assembly instructions. After I adhered it together, I inked all of the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Spiced Marmalade. I inked a piece of patterned paper from The Paper Studio and wrapped it around the box, added some rhinestones,

and the potion bottles that were cut from A Frightful Affair at 3”. The “liquid” in the potion bottles and the skull and crossbones were cut from glitter cardstock. I used pop-dots to give the bottles some dimension and added more bling.

The potion bottles cut is actually one piece that I cut into two separate pieces and placed on each side of the box. Just because a cut is a certain way in the handbook doesn’t mean that it has to end up on your project that way!

Before and after

The Happy Halloween is stamped with a Stampin’ Up stamp onto a Tim Holtz Sizzix die cut called Tattered Banners which I distressed with Distress Ink and Glimmer Mist then adhered with pop dots. I also used the mist and some Distressed Stains on some white seam binding to change the color of it. The flowers were punched out and also distressed and misted then adhered with glue dots and I placed a rhinestone in the center. Can you tell that I’m also addicted to distressing stuff? (Sorry, the ribbon looks washed out in the photo but looks much better IRL!)

But the following is still one of my favorite projects that I made last year – my little mummy and his tomb cut from the Happy Hauntings cart! Can you tell what the mummy is?

It’s a mini candy bar wrapped up in some plain white gauze with a couple of googly eyes attached!

Thanks so much for joining in on the hop today. Please be sure to check out all the participant's wonderful projects. I've posted the list below in case you've missed anyone. The next blog you will be visiting belongs to the very talented Nadia at http://www.withglitteringeyes.com/. Enjoy!

Maria @  stampcutcreate.blogspot.com

Michele @   scrap-n-dance.blogspot.com

Paulette @  http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/

Cindy @  http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/

Beth @  http://seaswancreations.blogspot.com/

Renee @   icameisawicreated.blogspot.com

Debbie @ www.debseclecticthoughts.blogspot.com

Khrista @ http://creativeandcraftyteacher.blogspot.com/

Angela @ Angie's Paper Passion YOU ARE HERE!

Nadia @  http://www.withglitteringeyes.com/ 

Donna @  http://CarolinasCreativeCropper.blogspot.com/

Diane @ http://dianesdribble.blogspot.com/

Sara @  http://www.sarawandrews.com/

Michele @ www.michelegreen.com

Please come by again because I have more projects to keep you crafting!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

Falling for Halloween Blog Hop

There’s a chill in the air so that means Fall has arrived! Well, ok, it’s not that chilly here in Texas but I am still excited about the Fall season! So welcome to the Falling for Halloween Blog Hop where we will be enjoying all the wonderful crafty inspiration for the Fall and Halloween season.
You should have arrived here from Khrista’s blog. If not, you missed the beginning of the hop, so please go to Maria's blog to start so you don't miss any of the projects.
Here at My Paper Passion I will be giving away some Blog Candy to one lucky visitor! All you will need to do is visit here during the weekend Blog Hop and leave a comment on both days and become a follower. I will then enter your name into the drawing and pick a winner next week. 

So here is my first project (yes, there are two projects today! I made more than one and I just couldn’t decide which to post so you are getting to see both!)

I love Halloween! I love to decorate my home with little ghosts and witches. And I also love working and decorating with vinyl. So for this project I mixed these two loves together and came up with this:

I used a glass block that I purchased from Hobby Lobby and sprayed it with a Specialty Frosted Glass spray made by Rust-oleum.

To see my original post about how I used the frosted spray, please go HERE. Then I used the new Cricut cartridge A Frightful Affair. This is a fabulous cartridge! I cut out the image from page 45 using the Silhouette feature in black vinyl. Since this image is not square, I used the Cricut CraftRoom to size it to 7.25x7.25 using Real Dial size and cut out the vinyl using a “kiss cut” – that means that you are just cutting the vinyl and not the vinyl backing. My Cricut Expression was set at Pressure - medium and Blade - 2.

After cutting the vinyl and adhering it to the glass block, I inserted two strands of Halloween lights that I purchased at Michaels – one orange and one purple. This looks great with the room lights off.

So since I had my vinyl out I just had to make something else. So I cut out this for my living room wall:

For this project, I used two different Cricut cartridges – the new one by Teresa Collins, December 25th, and Songbird. The original image, from December 25th, for the decorative parts of this wall art has the word ‘December’ in the middle so I used the Hide Contour feature in Cricut CraftRoom to hide it. Then I used Songbird to spell out the word ‘Thankful’. Can you see how versatile these Cricut cartridges can be? You can take a Christmas cartridge and use it for any occasion! So go through your cartridges and see what you can come up with! 

Thanks so much for joining in on the hop today. Please be sure to check out all the participant's wonderful projects. I've posted the list below in case you've missed anyone. The next blog you will be visiting belongs to the very talented Nadia at http://www.withglitteringeyes.com/. Enjoy!

Maria @  stampcutcreate.blogspot.com

Michele @   scrap-n-dance.blogspot.com

Paulette @  http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/

Cindy @  http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/

Beth @  http://seaswancreations.blogspot.com/

Renee @   icameisawicreated.blogspot.com

Debbie @ www.debseclecticthoughts.blogspot.com

Khrista @ http://creativeandcraftyteacher.blogspot.com/

Angela @ Angie's Paper Passion YOU ARE HERE!

Nadia @  http://www.withglitteringeyes.com/ 

Donna @  http://CarolinasCreativeCropper.blogspot.com/

Diane @ http://dianesdribble.blogspot.com/

Sara @  http://www.sarawandrews.com/

Michele @ www.michelegreen.com

Please come back tomorrow to see what else I have created for the Blog Hop. Until then, Happy Crafting,

Vivi’s Vacation Mini Album~Cricut FANatics Blog

Today is my very first post on the Cricut FANatics blog and I’m very excited to share my project with you. I made a mini album for my little Granddaughter so she can scrap her photos and memorabilia from the cruise that she took with her family last month. I used the Mini Books cartridge and I really loved how quick and easy it was to make and put together. I used my Cricut Expression and the Cricut Craftroom to create this album.

I just used some cardstock and cruise themed patterned paper that I had on hand and some glittered cardstock to create my mini album along with some ribbons, brads, inks and pop dots. To make the embellishments, I used a variety of Cricut cartridges including Life’s A Beach, Pack Your Bags, Traveler, Ole and Destinations. There were just so many cute cuts to use for a cruise vacation!

This mini album has a front and back cover, a piece for the binding, 10 pages in graduated sizes, and 3 pocket or envelope pages. And although I didn’t use all of the pages, it still is a nice sized mini with plenty of room for pictures, journaling, and extras. A couple of the pages were a little small so I cut two each of the smaller pages and adhered them together to make pockets for larger tags.

Here is the page for Vivi to scrap about their stop in Mexico ~

I used different ribbons for my binding but you can also use some binding rings.

There are 3 different envelope pages for this mini album. These are perfect for putting extra photos in your book or even all of those extras that you come home with after a vacation – tickets. souvenirs, etc.

I hope that I have inspired you to finish scrapping those vacation photos or make a mini album for yourself or as a gift for someone special like have for my Granddaughter! I know that she will enjoy putting the finishing touches on her new vacation album!

Here are the cut sizes:
Mini Books – mini album on page 14 cut at 5”
Life’s A Beach – coral @ 5”, seaweed @ 4.5”, hibiscus @ 3.75”, shells @ 4”, wave border stretched to 6.78” x 1.46” in CCR
Pack Your Bags – ship @ 4”
Destinations – Mexico tag @ 3.5”
Ole – maracas @ 2.5”
Traveler – wave @ 5.5'” x 2” (in CCR), sunglasses @ 2.8”, ‘Adventure’ @ 1.8”, ‘Memories’ @ 2”, ‘Vacation’ @ 1.7” (parts of this were cut off by hand), name @ 1” (Font 1 Shadow)
Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the mini album! I enjoy all of your “Blog Love” that you leave! Thank you.
Until next time, Happy Crafting,

PS – Please remember all of those who lost their lives and loved ones 12 years ago today and pray that we will never go through that horror again!

Origami Folded Mini Album

This is the Origami Mini Album that I posted on my blog last month but I didn’t give any details about it. So I finally did this tutorial for you – just a little late but I hope that you enjoy it! These are really easy to make and they make very nice gifts. I made several as little Mother’s Day gifts for friends a few years ago.

You’ll need:

• Two pieces of chipboard – 4”x4” each
• Four pieces of patterned paper – two @ 4.5”x4.5” (the floral paper in my photos) for the mini album covers and two @ 3 7/8” x3 7/8”  (the green) for the inside covers. I used double-sided paper from the Sweet Nectar stack by K&Company
• Wide ribbon – about 2 feet. I just used some wired ribbon from my stash
• Three pieces of cardstock – 8”x8”
• Strong adhesive – I used my trusty ATG!
• Any embellishments of your choice for your pages – Used my Cricut of course!

ok. let’s start! Put your adhesive on one side of both pieces of your chipboard. Place these, adhesive side down, centered on the 4.5x4.5 pieces of the patterned paper like the example on the right side in the following photo.

Cut the corners off of the patterned paper almost to the tip of the corner of the chipboard. (Don’t cut the patterned paper all the way to the corner of the chipboard!)

Now put adhesive on each of the four sides of the patterned paper ‘tabs’ that you just created and then fold them over onto the chipboard. This makes really nice mitered corners.

Now take the smaller two pieces of patterned paper (the 3 7/8” by 3 7/8” squares) and place adhesive on them making sure that they get a good coverage of adhesive, especially on the edges, corners, and center. You are going to have to use your imagination for this part! I forgot to take that photo and didn’t realize until now – after the album is glued together!                         Sorry!

You have just created the covers for your mini album! Now on to the inside and the ‘origami’ folding using the three pieces of cardstock. I did take photos of this part – I promise. This part uses just 3 folds per piece! I used a scoring board to make the folding easier. Trust me, it really does help to have one of these!  I actually have two – the Scor-Pal and the one by Martha Stewart shown in the photos. A bone folding tool also helps by making your folds nice and crisp!

First, score and fold the first piece of cardstock in half diagonally…

and use your bone folder to crease.

Open the folded cardstock, and turn it over and make the next two folds in the opposite direction. (This will make sense in a minute). Now fold in half from side to side like this:

Now unfold and fold again in half from top to bottom.              Unfold again.                                                                                                           

Now when you press the two opposite creased corners in towards the center…

the other two corners will automatically collapse together…

Don’t forget to use your bone folder on all folds!

Repeat these steps with the other two pieces of cardstock. You are now going to adhere the three pieces together. Put adhesive on one of the folded pieces (again making sure to put adhesive close to all edges, corners, and good amount in the middle – you don’t want your mini to fall apart when it is opened!) and adhere two together with the ‘openings’ facing in opposite directions…

Adhere the third piece next with its ‘opening’ going in the same direction as the first, or bottom, piece of cardstock. I hope this all makes sense, lol! Your three pieces should look like this:

Now, let’s put it all together! With the inside pages all folded, put adhesive on one side (again, don’t skimp on the adhesive!)…

and place one of the covers on top, eyeballing the placement and making sure that the cover is centered on the ‘pages’…

Turn your album over and repeat, adhering the second cover. When you open your mini album, it will look like this…

and this…

You now have six 4”x4” square pages to place photos or journaling – four on one side and two on the other side when you turn the album around. There are also 12 squares that are folded in half giving you 24 triangles to embellish! Those triangles are great for journaling! For the closure, I used my wired ribbon to wrap around the mini and tied it into a bow. I love the wired ribbon because it holds its shape. This way you can just slip the ribbon off the mini without having to untie it! I used the Paper Lace cartridge, my Expression, and Gypsy to cut out the same image that I used on the front of my glass block in a previous post and just cut two in a smaller size and adhered them to a couple of the inside pages. I plan on embellishing the inside some more before I give it as a gift!

Here is my final mini album -

I can’t seem to stop making paper flowers lately! So I just had to make another one of my 8-layered flowers, with some bling added, and adhere it to the ribbon:

I hope that you give this a try enjoy creating your own Origami Mini Albums! If you have any questions please email me. Thanks for visiting!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,