Thankful, Grateful, Blessed

Hello Crafters! I have a Thanksgiving card to share today. I really enjoyed creating this one because I used some new (to me anyway) tools and techniques. Most of the supplies are from Gina K Designs - my new favorites! 

Gina has a Wreath Builder system that is so easy to use but the results are spectacular! 

Here is the link to the Wreath Builder Templates:

 

Gina K Designs Wreath Builder

With these two templates you can create the most beautiful stamped wreaths for cards and so much more. Gina has several wreath builder stamp sets to go with the templates but you can really use any stamp set that has small to medium stamps included.

So here is the Thanksgiving card that I made with the Wreath Builder -

Along with the Wreath Builder Template I used the Wreath Builder Stamp Set, the Autumn Wreath Builder Stamp Set, the Take Care Stamp Set and Gina K inks to create the gorgeous wreath at the center of my card. I stamped the sentiment and the circle border - both from the Autumn Wreath Builder Stamp Set  - then cut it out with a circle die cut which I popped up with pop dots in the wreaths center. 

The lower background looks like patterned paper, doesn't it? Nope, its plain white cardstock that I used a stencil on. It's the Gina K Designs Sassy Stripes Stencil (love that name 😊)

Gina K Designs Sassy Stripes Stencil

I turned the stencil so that the stripes were vertical, taped the paper to it and, using a blending brush, blended the ink onto the cardstock. Always start blending with a very light hand and if you need more color just add a little more ink but use that light hand. Trust me, a lighter touch is key to blending!

Since I don't have some of those 'fancy' dies, I took a die that I do have and used it in a different way! The bottom scalloped on the top two layers was cut using a Lawn Fawn Scalloped Rectangle die. I put the corner of my two top layers into the corner of the die making sure that the rest of the card was on top of the die as it went into my Vagabond.

 

For a finishing touch, I added three coordinating buttons and some twine. 

Here is a peak inside my card. I love putting a little something on the inside to make it look just as nice as the front of the card. I used the same stamps that I used in the wreath on the front and stamped them on the bottom inside corner.

I hope that you enjoyed seeing this card as much as I enjoyed making it! So until next time, Happy Crafting! 

A Unicorn Card for Someone Special

I was gifted this unicorn stamp and die set from my friend Cindy whom I met in one of my favorite Facebook groups, Gina K Designs & StampTV Friends. I knew exactly what I was going to use it for - my grandnieces birthday. Fairy-Tale Friends Stamp and Die set is from My Favorite Things. After stamping the images I colored them with my Copies and added some glimmer with a clear Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen. For the background I used the cloud stencil from Lawn Fawn and Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Inks in Worn Lipstick, Wild Honey, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Tumbled Glass and Shaded Lilac to create the rainbow-colored clouds & then added a few iridescent sequins. I stamped the sentiment onto a strip of clear vellum with Hero Arts Unicorn White pigment ink then embossed it with clear embossing powder. After embossing the sentiment I realized that it disappeared in front of the card so I used a blending brush to rub a little Shaded Lilac on the back of the vellum and that made the sentiment pop.  

Usually I have more trouble with the inside of a card but this one was fun to decorate and embellish. I just hope my grandniece loves glitter 😁

Until next time, Happy Crafting

Finally, A Crafty Post! It's been too long!

I can't even remember the last time that I wrote a full and crafty blog post! But things are starting to get back to normal. I have been reorganizing my craft room and doing some crafting. I feel so blessed and happy that I'm using the gifts that God has given me! Until I get up to speed, I will go back and show you some of the projects that I have created over the last couple of years, photos of my craft room (before and after), and some new crafty projects that I have gotten involved in. If you are still following me I just want to say thank you for sticking with me. If you are new to my blog - welcome. I hope that you will find something that you like here, try something new or rediscover an older craft, and be inspired to connect with your creative side!

First, I have a new Cricut! Well it's not new anymore but I realized that I have never had a chance to blog about it. It's the Cricut Explore and it has really changed my crafting life! This machine is incredible! It cuts like butter, it can score, it can write, it prints then cuts... it does a little of everything! It cuts not only our Cricut cartridges but also other types of cutting files. So for the last couple of years, I have been collecting a lot files - some I've already cut and put together but there are so many projects that I still have on my "To Do" list! 

Here is one of the first 3-D projects that I created. It is a SVG that I bought from SVGCuts.com, It's the Seaside kit and I made the lighthouse from the kit for a friend of mine. It's pretty tall at about 15" and the very top section lifts off so I added an electronic tealight candle that shines through the vellum windows. The very bottom is also a gift box! I love how it came out especially since this was the first 3-D SVG file that I had used with my Explore. And it was very easy to put together!

Here is a closeup of the top that has the tealight. I really wished that I had taken a photo of the light on inside the lighthouse but I guess that I'm lucky that I have any photos at all. Now that I'm back in the game, I hope to start taking better pics!

This is the part that opens up to add a gift! It's hard to tell in the photo but I embossed the panels on the bottom part with two different embossing folders.

Next is a card that I made for my friend after she was married two years ago. It's a great example of how well the Explore works! It not only cut out the roses beautifully, it also scored the card and wrote the "Congratulations" on the front and....

...a sentiment on the inside! I'm in love with my Explore! And this was just the beginning!

Well, that's it for today but I will be back with more! It's so good to be back! 

Thank you for stopping by! Until next time, Happy Crafting!



Valentine’s Day Blog Hop

Happy Saturday morning and welcome to our 2014 Valentine’s Day Blog Hop! You should have reached here from D’s blog at Designs By Dragonfly.  If you are just joining me here, please go to  RockinRenee's blog to start at the beginning so you won’t miss any of the fun.  There are so many great projects and I don't want you to miss a single one!  Today we are highlighting Valentine's Day inspired projects.  I made a “Card in a Box” for Valentine’s Day. I first saw these on Split Coast Stampers site and I couldn’t wait to try it myself.

These are so much fun to make and very easy also. You can change it up to make one for any occasion. A tutorial for making these can be found at Tina Wetter’s blog, SereneStamper.com (since I followed her tutorial, I want to give her credit for this!). It only takes one sheet of cardstock to make the foundation of the ‘box’ and then you can decorate it however you’d like. There are two small pieces of cardstock inside of the box that you use to layer your embellishments.

I used several different images from different cartridges to create my embellishments.

The Cupid is from Artiste, the hearts are from Art Philosophy and Lyrical Letters, the rolled flowers are also from Art Philosophy, and the ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ sentiment (below on the envelope) is cut from Artiste.

In the photo above, I stamped some Tim Holtz stamps on vellum using VersaMark ink and white embossing powder then punched a couple of  butterflies with a Stampin’ Up punch. Then I dressed them up with some pearls. The Valentine tickets are also stamps by Tim Holtz. I used patterned paper by Echo Park.

 

The back panel of the box is left upright so that you can add another cardstock layer to put your greeting and sentiment on. I haven’t put that part on yet since I made this Valentine for my grandson to give to his babysitter and I want him to ‘write’ his name (I guess scribble something would be more accurate since he just turned one, lol)  or put his handprint on it. Whatever he does, I figured it would be better to adhere that part on AFTER he finishes with it!

I used my handy dandy Envelope Punch Board (I LOVE this!) to make an envelope that not only matches my card but it is also the perfect size! Here is the Valentine sentiment that I cut from the Artiste cart. It cut out beautifully at only 2.50”!

All you need to do is fold your box flat to put it in your envelope! I think this is such a neat idea and something different. I loved this card in a box idea so much that I couldn’t stop making them…

as you can see! I haven’t put the embellishments on these yet so maybe you can see the pieces of cardstock inside that you use to adhere your embellishments to. (Sorry I didn’t get a better photo of that).

Well, I hoped that you enjoyed my Valentine’s Day project and are inspired to try a Card in a Box yourself! If you have any questions please leave me a comment below (I love to receive some “blog love”!). I can’t wait for my little Charlie to give this to his babysitter!'

Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself! LOL!

Thank you for joining me today.  Your next stop on the hop is with *Violette* at Whimsical-Treasures.
And here is the entire blog list just in case you get lost on your way:
1. RockinRenee - I came, I saw, I created.
2. HappyScrapper64 - Random Thoughts of a Scrapbooker
3. gonescrappin - Col's Creative Corner
4. Hrvatica  - Croatian Crafter
5. Scootingranny - Scootingranny's World
6. MamaC - Carolyn's Creative Corner
7. Greenie8705 - Gina Beana's Crafts
8. MariaJ - Stamp, Cut, Create!
9. Di&Co - Creating Is Like Breathing
10. Dragonfly50 - Designs by Dragonfly
11. TiffysMom - Angie's Paper Passion <<---YOU ARE HERE! 12. *Violette* - Whimsical Treasures <<---GO HERE NEXT!
13. cricutaddicted - ScrappingForMoreFun
14. LoriSjogren - The Singing Shell
15. scrapalette - Around the Block with Scrapalette

I am so happy to be crafting again! Thanks for sticking with me!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

FCCB Challenge ~ Cool Treats and CRI-Kits Gel Pens

Hello everyone! Are you ready for another challenge? Well this week at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog the theme is Cool Treats and if you’ve been having temperatures with 100+ degrees like we have been having here in Texas, you’ll be ready to create something cool! Our “cool” sponsor this week is CRI-Kits! They carry an awesome line of pens and markers for your Cricut so that you can draw an image instead of just cutting it out. Their pens come in 10-pack sets that include colors such as Neon, Glitter, Metallic, and more. They have a magnetic pen holder that works great and is SO easy to use! (Keep reading for a chance to win your own set of CRI-Kits!)

For my project this week, I couldn’t help but think of ice cream as a cool summer treat!

To create the background for my card, I used the CRI-Kits Glitter Gel Pens set and the Paper Lace cartridge. After choosing my paper and cardstock colors, I picked the orange glitter pen to draw the image on page 28 in the Paper Lace handbook. It’s hard to tell from the photo but it is so pretty and glittery. I sized the image with the Real Dial Size on to 4”x5.25” so it would be a perfect mat layer on my card. Then I cut it out, inked the edges, and adhered it to the card base.

Then I used the Nifty Fifties cart to cut out the image of my chocolate ice cream soda with a cherry on top! I didn’t use a couple of the layers that included the straw image and instead I adhered a paper craft straw to the back of my image and popped the rest of the image off the card with foam dots. The cherry was coated with Fruit Punch Stickles and I added a Viva Pearl Pen in Ice White to the  highlights on the glass.

For the inside of my card, I used my CRI-Kits Glitter Pens again to “write” the sentiment with my Cricut:

The word “Yum!” is from Tags, Bags, Boxes & More 2! This cart is great to use with these pens and markers because one of the Creative Features on it is called Card Phrase and it was designed to be used with pens in your Cricut machine.

I hope that you like my ‘cool’ card today! I really had fun using the CRI-Kits and plan on using them again on my projects! All of the FCCB Design Team used the CRI-Kits gel pens this week on our Cool Treats projects so make sure to visit all of their blogs to see the creative ways they used them and then join in on the fun and create your own ‘cool treat’ project and upload it to the Fantabulous Blog for a chance to win a CRI-Kits 10 Pen set and Magnetic Pen Holder for yourself!!!

Please check out my Quick Tip Tuesday post over on the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog tomorrow – I will be sharing some tips using the CRI-Kits in your Cricut!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

50’s Inspired Note Card Set ~ #4

Happy August everyone! I can’t believe August is already here! I’ll be babysitting my little Grandson for a  few hours today and I’m so super excited! He brings me so much joy!

Well, here it is, the last card in the 50’s Inspired Note Card set! I really enjoyed creating them and I hope that you enjoyed seeing them and maybe were inspired to make your own set of note cards with your cartridges. Remember that you can create a card from many of the Cricut images – you don’t have to start out with a premade card, just pick an image and go with it. As long as it has a shape that can stand on it’s own after it’s made then you shouldn’t have any problems.

This was created from the old vintage camera that’s on the Suburbia cart (not digital camera, lol). It’s also made just like the other three cards.

I added Glossy Accents and black gemstones along with ink for shading and foam dots for dimension. I love this image, in fact I have a camera that looks almost like this one!

I’m looking forward to putting different phrases onto my set of cards. I’m not sure yet what they’ll be but some of the phrases that keep swimming around my head are things like, “I Hope You Perk Up Soon!” for the percolator, “You’re Just My Type!” for the typewriter, and “Be Careful, I just might snap!” for the camera! (get it – I just may snap?!?!? Well, I thought it was cute!) Comment below if you can think of something else that would fit any of the cards in this set. I just may pick the cutest, funniest, or wittiest saying and send that person some blog candy as a thank you!

Today is also the first day that you can order the newest Cricut cartridge from Close To My Heart called Artbooking!

Hopefully, you’ll be able to see the entire handbook for this cart at Cricut.com by today. If you already have any of the other carts from CTMH then you know how wonderful they are! If not, then you are in for a huge surprise! As you can tell from the photo above, you get a lot of product with this cart and the images are outstanding! I have both CTMH carts Artiste and Art Philosophy and my order is already in for this one. Artiste and Art Philosophy are my top 2 go-to carts out of ALL of the carts that I own! So find a CTMH rep to look into getting one of these. (I am not a CTMH rep nor am I getting anything for this post ~ I just LOVE their carts and other products!)

Thanks for coming by today! Tomorrow I have a very special layout to share with you!

Until then, Happy Crafting!

50’s Inspired Note Card Set ~ Card #3

Good Wednesday morning everyone! Welcome back to my 50’s Inspired Note Card Set with card #3 ~ a vintage typewriter! (You know those things we has long, long ago before computers? lol)

I used the same patterned papers and the same techniques to weld this together in CCR.

It’s hard to tell through the photos but I added a little Glossy Accents to that small ‘opening’ at the very top. And again to add that bit of 50’s glam, I adhered a ‘string’ of pearls right above the ‘keys’.

All of my cards are popped up in some way with foam dots to give them dimension. The typewriter keys on this card are popped up

Well, tomorrow I’ll show you the last card in this set. I hope that you have enjoyed seeing them! Please comment below on what you think! Thanks again for visiting and I’ll see you tomorrow!

Until then, Happy Crafting!

50’s Inspired Note Card Set ~ Card #2

Thanks for checking back in to see the next card in the 50’s Inspired Note Card Set! The next card is created from the percolator image in the Suburbia cart. Now if you don’t know what a percolator is – please go Google it because you are still very young, lol!

I used patterned papers from the same paper stack made by Prima – love everything Prima! It’s a  6x6 stack called Almanac. I created it the same way that I created the old telephone card from yesterday – by welding two of the pots shadow images together in Cricut Craft Room to make the card base.

For the embellishments, I added Glossy Accents to the handle, the spout, and the lid’s handle to give them some texture and shine. (hard to see that clearly in the photo below, sorry!)

I also added ink for shading and another one of my flowers that I made with Artiste and some more of that seam binding that I hand dyed with Tim Holtz Distress Stains. And to give it that 50’s glam, I added some black gemstones.

Thanks for visiting! Don’t forget that there are two more cards to this set that I’ll be showing you on Wednesday and Thursday so I’ll see you tomorrow!

Until then, Happy Crafting!

50’s Inspired Set of Shaped Note Cards ~ FCCB Challenge #171

Good morning everyone!  It’s Challenge Me Monday at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog and the theme this week is Shaped Cards! So after seeing my project, please go to FCCB and check out what the other Design Team members have created and then join in on the fun and make a shaped card yourself – any card as long as you have one Cricut cut on it – and upload it for a chance to win a prize from one of our sponsors!

For this week, I created a set of note cards that were inspired from the 1950’s and of course they were all made with the Suburbia cartridge!

The first card is the old telephone! I love all of these old images on this cart. I took two images from page 41, using the Shadow/Icon Shadow feature which is the phone’s shadow and flipped on of them upside down in the Cricut Craft Room. I made sure that they were even and then got the tops close enough together so that they could be welded. Then I cut out the two Icon shapes of the phone using two different patterned papers from Prima.

When I think of the 50’s I sometimes think of the “idealized version” (I know that my family didn’t live in that version but I often look at things with my rose-colored glasses on, lol, KWIM?) So I immediately thought of shows like Mad Men and I Love Lucy (I know, two VERY different shows lol) and of the stay-at-home wives doing their housework with their high heels on wearing a string of pearls! OK, back to reality! But I wanted my cards to have that same feeling so I added large and medium sized pearls to the dial, a flower cut from Artiste with Tim Holtz cardstock, and seam binding that I hand dyed myself with distressed stains from Tim Holtz.

I decided to add another layer to the inside so I could created my sentiment on lighter cardstock so I used the Icon feature again (no shift) and used the Hide Contour feature to hide the dial and cut it out using the TH cardstock.

Everyday this week I’ll show you another note card from this set so please come back tomorrow to see the 2nd card! Thank you so much for craving a little time out of your busy life to come visit me ~ I really appreciate it!

Now I hope that we have inspired you to create your own shaped card and upload it at FCCB! I know that my Design Team sisters have created some more great projects to inspire you as well!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Wedding Card(s)! - Fantabulous Cricut Challenge #165

Decisions, decisions, decisions!!! One of the things I love about crafting is creating something and tweaking it to make it your own – putting your own spin on it! I love to make things, leave them out for a while, and then after looking at it over a few days, I may like to change a thing or two on it. You know what I mean! But when you have deadlines to meet, that may not always be possible – at least not right away. So that leads me to why I have TWO wedding cards for our challenge this week at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog. We had to create a wedding card or gift and after I made my card (plus a couple of bride & groom gift boxes), taking my photos and uploading them, I started to have that nagging feeling that I wanted to change something. (why, oh why, can’t I make these decisions faster and make my life a little easier? LOL) So I’m going to share both of my cards with you today. Please take a look and leave me a comment on which one that you like the best! I’d really be interested in hearing your thoughts!

Here is the original card:

I used the Elegant Edges cartridge to create the card base, the white mat, and the grey frame. The card is cut at 6” and I used the Cricut Craft Room to weld two of the mats together to make the card base:

I layered the single white mat on the base and then the grey frame on top of that. The white layer is inked with light blue ink to look like clouds in the sky. I used foam adhesive to pop everything up.

The chapel is cut out at 4” from the Tie the Knot cart and the tree is cut out twice at 4.5” from the Bloom Lite cart. I used a very small flower punch to make the pink blooms for the tree. After I punched them out, I used my molding tools to shape them and then adhered them on with Glossy Accents.

“Chapel of Love” was also cut using Tie the Knot. I grouped the words together then welded them. This makes adhering so much easier! I also added a little of the Glossy Accents to the heart in the word ‘Love’.

But like I said, I had a change of heart and created this version:

I changed the frame to black, the chapel’s shadow to black, and embossed both the white background (Acanthus by Anna Griffin) and the chapel front (Swiss Dots). Oh, I also used a deeper pink cardstock for the front of the chapel (almost didn’t catch that one, lol)

The tree is the same except this time instead of using punched paper flowers, I used Flower Soft for the blooms. Have you ever tried this stuff? It’s fun to use – messy, but still fun!

So there you have it – my decision process all over the place and the two cards that are the results! Have you ever done this – made something and after living with it for awhile, make changes to it? Please leave a comment and let me know. Also let me know which card is your favorite!

Since this post was SO LONG, I’ll pop back in tomorrow and show you the two wedding boxes that I also made (I promise there are no changes to those!)

Now head on over to FCCB to see what the other Design Team members have created for this wedding challenge and then make something yourself & upload it to our blog! Thanks for visiting today and until next time, Happy Crafting!