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,

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,

My Fabulous & 50 Birthday Blog Hop

“Happy Birthday To Me!” Good morning and welcome to My Fabulous & 50 Birthday Blog Hop! I am celebrating my 50th birthday (which is actually TODAY!) with 11 of my good friends who have graciously agreed  to design projects for the blog hop. These are a great group of talented ladies and I want to thank them so much for helping me on this special day! Please leave them some blog love (comments) after looking at their projects – don’t we all love to be loved? After my blog, just visit the next person on the list below (Dawn) and just keep hopping! Also, at the end of my post I have some extra special blog candy to give away!

I actually made 3 projects for today’s blog hop. The first is a little box that you could make to put a special birthday gift in.

I created this file on Cricut Design Studio but then made it into a Gypsy file so I could cut it with just my Expression and my Gypsy. I used George and Basic Shapes for the box and the flower, Storybook for the label shape on top of the box, and Paper Lace for the sentiment. The paper is from K&Company.

The box is made up of rectangles and the octagon shape that is just stretched out.

I cut three label shapes – 2 from cardstock and 1 from patterned paper.

After scoring and folding the box, I attached ribbon on three sides – top, back, and bottom.

I cut about an inch from one side of both of the cardstock labels and cut the patterned paper label in half. I attached the cardstock pieces to the top and bottom of the box and the paper piece to the top. Then I used the flower from George and cut it out eight times –at 1’, 1.25”, 1.50”, 1.75”, 2”, 2.25”, 2.50”, and 2.75”. I used the Hide Contour to hide the center circle.

 

I sprayed the white cardstock flowers with Glimmer Mist in Tattered Rose then curled the petals with the end of a paint brush.

The petals were layered with a pop dot between each layer.

I cut the Happy Birthday sentiment and its shadow from the Paper Lace cartridge at 1.50”. I added bling to the flower and the sentiment. And here is the final Box!

But I just couldn’t stop there! I also made a little Birthday Origami Mini Album and a Glass Block to go with it. The design on the glass block was cut from pink vinyl.

I’ll be back later next week to give more details about the mini album and the glass block. Now for the Blog Candy Giveaway! I decided to give something that was appropriate for todays celebration -

That’s right – it’s a Nifty Fifties Cricut Cartridge!

Please just leave a comment and follow my blog to have a chance to win! Thanks so much for sharing a little of my 50th birthday with me!

Now here’s the list to follow the rest of the blog hop! Enjoy!

Angie - http://angiespaperpassion.blogspot.com/ <---Me!
Dawn - http://scrappyrn-scrappyrn.blogspot.com/ 
Janice - http://www.cricutconfessions.com/
Normea - http://mmdezigns.blogspot.com/
Nancy - http://lanancyworkshop.blogspot.com/
Michelle - http://paperaffair.blogspot.com/
Barb - http://craftinginparadise.blogspot.com/
Debbie - http://www.debseclecticthoughts.blogspot.com/
Marcia - http://scrappin-times.blogspot.com/
Veronica - http://www.iteachscraps.blogspot.com/
TinaGale - http://tiggersscrapplace.blogspot.com/
Monique - http://mixonthememories.blogspot.com/

Remember, if you ever get lost on your way, just come back here to get back on track! Thanks again for hopping with us!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,