My Last Post for Cricut Fanatics ~ A Heritage Layout

I’m so sad that our beloved Cricut Fanatics Blog has closed as of July 31st, so this was my last post as a Design Team member there. I have been very happy and honored to have had the chance to share my projects there along with the other very, very talented designers. I’d like to thank Debbie O’Neal for starting the blog and all of her hard work to keep it going. And this leads me to my layout. This layout is completely scrap lifted! I first saw this LO when I first met Debbie – at Provo Craft Demo Training back in the Spring of 2010! I had always wanted to recreate it and felt this was just the right time. (Debbie, can you believe that Cricut Fanatics Blog is a year old? And that we’ve known each other for over three years?!?! Boy does time fly!)

So here is my Heritage layout:

Since I’m a new Grandmother, I felt it was important to document my Grandson’s ancestry on both sides of his family. I had researched my family history many years ago but now I needed to find out more about my Daughter-in-law’s family. So after she gave me the names of my Grandson’s great-grand parents I created this layout for him. I am going to frame it for his bedroom wall.

I used the same cartridge, Heritage, and the same paper from DCWV (can you believe that I’ve held on to this piece of paper for over three years?). The one thing that I did change was the tree image but it still came from the Heritage cart. I typed up all of the family names in Word and placed them in the frames under the cameos and they contain my Grandson’s parent’s, all four Grandparent’s and all eight great-grand parent’s names. I know that he’ll really appreciate this when he’s older!

For all of you Cricut Fanatics, I will miss you over there but please visit me here where I will continue to post all of my crafting & Cricut projects and where I hope to continue to inspire others in their crafting pursuits!

Thanks again to all of you for visiting and to Debbie for bringing us all together!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

FCCB Challenge #169–Set the Scene ~ Country Life Layout

Hello to all my crafty friends! Thanks for coming by to see the next challenge for the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog! This week it’s “Set the Scene” so I immediately thought of my Country Life cartridge. I love the images on there because they remind me of my Grandmother’s home many years ago even down to the pot belly stove in the middle of the main room! So this layout was done in her memory. It’s called Simple Pleasures in the Country!

Here is the 2-page layout:

I used patterned paper that reminded me of wallpaper for the background and then I tried to make “wainscoting” at the bottom by scoring cardstock every 1/2” and then inking it.

Here is page 1:

Here is page 2:

Here are the details, close up photos, and cut sizes. All of the images were cut from the Country Life cart except the table and the window frame which were cut from French Manor.

Now the cat was a little tricky at that size, well, not so much the cat itself but the cat’s eye and his tongue! The chair was over 6” but those two things were itty bitty – so much so that I just didn’t even use them! (heck, I couldn’t even find them after taking them off the mat!) So I just used markers to color in the eyes and mouth.

I had to make the washboard since that is how my Grandmother washed clothes back in the day. I cut the bubbles twice – once in white cardstock and again in light blue vellum. I added Rock Candy Stickles and Glossy Accents on the bubbles.

The table from French Manor only had one layer so I put two of the table images on my mat in the Craft Room and used the Hide Contour feature to make one of the images solid and that became my base which I cut out in dark brown cardstock. Then I cut the original top layer out of some patterned paper that resembled old blue wood. I used distress markers to do some extra shading. The base of the lantern was cut from light blue vellum to make it look like glass. The window frame was also cut from French Manor but I cut the curtains and the rod free hand. I took a piece of white cardstock and used blue ink and a template to make the ‘clouds’ in the background and attached it to the back of the window frame. And who can resist a fresh warm pie cooling in the window?

There are many phrases on the Country Life cart and I used two of them to convey my feelings and welded the two phrases together. I made the pipe on the stove longer by using a rectangle from Cricut Craft Room Basics and welding it to the original pipe in CCR. You may not be able to see it but I tried to make the coffee pot look like the old fashioned kind by cutting it out in a light blue and then stamping random little dots all over it with white ink. I did the same thing with the pie dish.

Last is the old treadle sewing machine. My Grandmother had one just like it! I also added a vase full of flowers.

I added photos mats with a bit of cream lace around them and a tag behind one of the mats to add journaling and/or extra photos.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my Country Life layout. Now head over to FCCB and see the other scenes that the other design team members have created! Then join us in the fun by creating your own scene and adding it to the blog. Any scene will be fine just as long as you have at least one Cricut cut in your project.

Here are the cut sizes.

From Country Life:

• Chair – 6.375”
• Pie – 2.5”
• Vase of flowers – 2.5”
• Stove – 6.375”
• Washboard – 3.583”
• Lantern – 2.667”
• Sewing machine – 6.167”

From French Manor:

• Table – 4.208”
• Window – 5.708”

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

4th of July Cricut Crawl–Red, White, & Blue Challenge!

Welcome to the 4th of July Fantabulous Cricut Crawl - Fantabulous Cricut's version of a Blog Hop!!

In honor of the 4th of July holiday, we're having a Red, White and Blue Crawl.  Each Design Team member has created a fabulous project using Red, White and Blue as the main colors, and of course at least one Cricut cut!

If you came from Amy’s blog at www.craftingwithamy.com, then you're in the right place!  If you've just happened across my blog and would like to see all the fabulous Design Team creations head on over to Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog to start at the beginning.

Make sure to check out each DT member's blog!  There will be Blog Candy along the way at some of our DT members' blogs, and there will be a Grand Prize up for grabs at FCCB for one participant who submits a "Red White and Blue" project at FCCB!

For my project I decided to create a scrapbook layout for my Grandsons first 4th of July! I can’t wait to take photos of him for this page!

I used 3 Cricut carts plus Cricut Craft Room Basics. You just can’t beat CCR for designing projects using multiple carts! The carts used on this layout are Stand & Salute, Independence Day, Plantin Schoolbook, and CCR Basics. I cut the exploding fireworks at the top from Stand & Salute in different sizes using glitter cardstock:

Plantin Schoolbook was used to cut out the title “My First Fourth”!

Independence Day was used to cut out the banners under the title above and the firecracker below:

To create the photo mats I resized a simple scalloped rectangle shape from CCR Basics, cut two and layered them with a piece of the patterned paper from the stack ‘Vintage Nation’ by The Paper Studio that I used throughout the layout.

After I added some ribbon to the mats I popped them up with foam tape on three sides and then added two more smaller mats behind them with stars attached so they can be taken out and used for additional photos or journaling. The stars were cut from Plantin Schoolbook.

I attached some red paper twine to the back of the banner and then attached it to both sides of the layout with my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher. I love those tiny staples!

 

Thanks for coming by to see my new 4th of July layout for my Grandson! And for doing so, I am offering some Blog Candy – a 5x7 Anna Griffin embossing folder! All you need to do is leave some blog love (comment) below. If you decide to follow my blog, you’ll have an extra chance to win. Also, I’m just about 30 followers away from having 300 (YEA!!!) so if I reach 300 this week, I’ll be adding an extra surprise to the winner’s Blog Candy!!!

Now start hopping uh crawling to see what the rest of the talented FCCB Design Team has created for you! Your next stop is Catarina at http://blog.docerelashop.com/.  Make sure to visit all the stops along the way and when you get done, make sure you link up your project to FCCB's Fantabulous Cricut Crawl post!!

Happy Crawling!!

Here is the line up in case you get lost:

Amy HS  http://thestampingtree.blogspot.com/

Amy T   www.craftingwithamy.com

                                            Angie  http://angiespaperpassion.blogspot.com <<—You are here!

Catarina  http://blog.docerelashop.com/

Cindy  http://www.cindyvernon.blogspot.com

Connie  http://www.conniecancrop.blogspot.com

Emily  molliemugsblog.blogspot.com

Felicia  Sweetcreativemess.blogspot.com

Heather http://scrappingrunnercreations.blogspot.com/

Jackie  http://luv2scrappp.blogspot.com/

Jilliene  http://jillienedesigns.blogspot.com/

JoNeita  http://createwithjoneita.weebly.com/index.html

Kim  ogdendoll.blogspot.com

LB  http://www.coolbeansbylb.blogspot.com/

Lynn  http://mycardsnstuff.blogspot.com

Michelle  http://justanutterpapercrafter.blogspot.com/

Missy  http://www.quickchickdesigns.blogspot.com

Nikki  http://craftycalamities.blogspot.com/

Rebecca  craftingmisfit.blogspot.com

Robin  http://robinscreativecottage.blogspot.com/

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Soar Layout–FCCB Challenge #153–Spring is in the Air!

Good morning everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a happy St. Patty’s Day! Today on the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog our theme was ‘Spring is in the Air’ and the challenge was to create something with a kite or a balloon. So I decided to create a project with a hot air balloon! I liked the idea of soaring and dreaming as high as you can go and made a layout for my new grandson’s photo.

The hot air balloon is from the Everyday Pop-Up Cards cartridge and I cut all the layers out at 6.5”. I think there are 5 layers to this balloon but it was very easy to put together. The clouds are from Art Philosophy and were cut out at 1.5” and 2”. I love the background paper because it reminds me of wind blowing the balloon through the sky.

I ran some of the images through the Cuttlebug to give them some texture. I used the Polka Dots embossing folder for the top layer of the balloon, the Swiss Dots folder for the basket of the balloon, and D’vine Swirls for the clouds. I inked all of the edges and then inked very lightly over the embossing with a sponge to make it stand out a little.

A closer look at the clouds.

As you know, I love dimension so I HAD to use my pop dots to put the balloon layers together and pop up the clouds!

I used the Art Philosophy cart by CTMH to cut out the word “SOAR”. This font doesn’t have a shadow or second layer but I really wanted those little holes in each letter to stand out. So with the Cricut Craft Room, I created a bottom layer for my title. This is just one of the reasons why I love using CCR so much – you can do so many things with your images! First, I placed my title on the virtual mat, sized it, and then tilted it a bit. Then I made a copy of it. On the original title I simply highlighted each letter, one at a time, and hit the “Hide Contour” button that comes up when an image is highlighted. Just move your mouse over your image until the part that you want hidden, or gone, is red in color and click it. Hit “EXIT” and that part of your image has magically disappeared! I hid all of the little circles in each letter so when I cut out my title and layered it together, the circles in the top layer popped a little more with the solid white cardstock underneath.

I don’t know if you can see this next part very well but on each side of the balloon I put a dot of a liquid magic transparent pearl pen from Viva Décor. I’m really trying to use stuff in my stash that I’ve bought, put away, and then quickly forgot about! (Don’t even try to pretend that you don’t what I’m talking about!!! Go take a look in your stash and I’ll bet there’s something in there that you forgot about too! LOL!)

Then I found this poem on the internet about soaring and dreaming and it fit my layout so well that I had to include it. (The author is unknown.)

Well now it’s your turn! Please play along with us at FCCB and create your own project with either a kite or a balloon and link it at FCCB. Don’t forget that your project needs to have a least one Cricut cut. Come visit us and check out the other Design Team members wonderful projects.

Thanks for visiting and playing along with this weeks challenge. These challenges really are a lot of fun and help you get some projects done and also help you to use images and carts that you may not have used yet! I know it’s helped me – this was the first time I’ve used any image from my Everyday Pop-Up Cards cart and I’ve had it for a while now!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

My Mom is 91 Today!

Today my dear Mother is 91 years young! She stills lives by herself - not that any of her 4 kids are happy about that but she loves her independence. And even though she has been through many tough times during her life she still maintains an upbeat, happy and positive attitude. She has fought through a heart attack, open heart surgery, diabetes, double leg amputation, and many more physical problems but even in a wheelchair she gets around and tries to make it to church whenever she can. My Mom has had a tough road through life to make it this far but she taught all of us kids how to live a Christian life and becomes productive citizens. She and my Dad had 2 sons (born in 1939 & 1942) and then a surprise daughter – me – almost 20 years later! Then they adopted my little sister in 1967! So my siblings range in age from 71 to 43! Mom has11 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren, and 2 great-great grandchildren! I’m so proud of her and love her so much and I am so blessed to still have her in my life!

Here is a scrapbook layout that I made in her honor. It’s called “A Warrior’s Lessons of Love”.

This layout shows photos of my Mom at different stages of her life and the lessons I learned. I printed a beautiful poem on a transparency and placed it over a photo of my Mom after her amputation. Here is the poem:

This morning my thoughts traveled along

To a place in my life where days have long since gone.

Beholding an image of what I use to be

As visions were stirred, and God spoke to me.

He showed me a warrior, a soldier in place,

Positioned by Heaven, yet I saw not the face.

I watched as the warrior fought enemies

They came from the darkness with destruction for me.

I saw as the warrior would dry away tears

As all of Heaven’s angels hovered so near.

I saw many wounds on the warriors face,

Yet weapons if warfare were firmly in place.

I felt my heart weeping, my eyes held so much,

As God let me feel the warrior’s prayer touched.

I thought, “How familiar”, the words that were prayed,

The prayers were like lightening that never would fade.

I said to God, “Please, the warrior’s name.”

He gave me no reply, He choose to refrain.

I asked, “Lord, who is so broken that they need so much prayer?”

He showed me an image of myself standing there.

Bound by confusion, lost and alone,

I felt prayers of the warrior carry me home.

I asked, “Please show me Lord, this Warrior so true”

I watched and I wept, For Mother, the warrior was you!

Journaling:

 

My mom has always stood by my side, stood up for me, and many, many times she has stood behind me and held me up. I’d like to think of her as a “Gentle Warrior” ~ a woman who has always remained strong and determined through the many trials in her long and sometimes difficult life (trials whose weight a lot of today’s young women, including myself, would buckle under) but also showing her very kind, gentle, and compassionate side while dishing out infinite amounts of affection, life lessons, and good moral values along with loving discipline.

Now that I am an adult and married with children of my own, I realize just how many of these lessons she taught me not only verbally but by example. As I watched her experience many hard times, make numerous life decisions that were sometimes difficult, and make many personal sacrifices for her family, I learned many lessons that have expanded my heart and have allowed me to love my family and my life more deeply and profoundly. I love my mom so much… she is my hero… and I hope to be just like her when I finally grow up!

With each experience that my mom has gone through in the past, and continues to go through, she teaches me a new Lesson of Love!

 

Sorry about the poor picture quality! It’s much nicer IRL! It actually won first place at the Great American Scrapbook Convention!  Thanks for looking and helping me celebrate my Moms special day!

 

Happy Birthday, Mom!

 

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

 

Minnie Mouse Scrapbook Page Layout using Disney’s Mickey & Friends Cartridge

Happy October everyone! I love that we are starting to feel a some cooler weather, even if it’s only early in the morning and later in the evening here in Texas. I can’t believe that there are only 3 more months left in 2010! This year has really flown by.
Today I made a quick Minnie Mouse layout using the Disney Mickey & Friends cartridge. Yes, I said quick and the Disney cartridge in the same sentence! Some people have told me that they stay away from these types of cartridges because of the layering and the time it takes to make some of the images. Well, it’s not that hard at all if you follow these tips and if you use Design Studio or the Gypsy. Now these ideas are definitely not new. When I first starting using this cartridge and hit road blocks, I either worked at it until I figured it out or I went looking for answers. So it will really help new Cricuteers and could be a refresher course for others. Just please remember that this is how I do it and for now it works for me!

These photos were taken on one of our trips to Disneyland when my daughter was a little younger and while there we took the tour of Minnie’s house. I wanted to make the layout about the house and although Minnie traditionally wears her red and white outfit, her house is very pink! I also gave the finished layout a bit of sparkle with Stickles! First, using Design Studio I took the border icon on page 109 and created an even longer border for the bottom of my page. The original icon only had 4 roses in a row. My new borders have a total of 29 roses! I welded 4 of the images together and then rotated the welded image about 45 degrees. You’ll find the rotate box in the upper right hand side under Shape Properties. This way you can get a longer border. Remember, on the 12x12 mat, you can’t cut a full 12 inches. Rotating my image let me cut my borders at almost 13 inches.

The sun, mailbox, and heart were all pretty easy to piece together. It’s mostly the images that have many, many parts, like Minnie’s house, that people have trouble with.  First, I took a look at  all of the colors of cardstock that I needed and gathered them together. Sometimes I even make a little cheat sheet for myself, especially if I’m not using the same colors that are in the handbook. Now here is the best part – there is no need to send your mat through the Cricut 8 times even if there are 8 different colors to cut! I’ll demonstrate using the Daisy Duck image on page 111. Using my Design Studio, I put all of the parts of Daisy’s image on the first mat. I cut it out at 4 1/2”. I then made a new page (you’ll find this by clicking on the View button) for each color and renamed each page according to that color. I then copied each part of the image separately and pasted it onto the page for its corresponding color. 

Here is the first page with all of the images on it.  Below you can see how I labeled my pages. Here is another page.

This is how I changed the image color. On each page, I right-clicked on the image and in the box that pops up I went to Set Preview Color and picked the color that matches the color of the cardstock (or close to it) that I was going to cut that particular image with. For example, on the page with Daisy’s bow, I set the color to pink because that’s the color of cardstock that I planned on cutting the bow out of. The only exception is white – I made those images a light gray to be able to see them.

I did this for each image that I was cutting. Then I created one more page that I left blank. When you are on that last page, click Preview (the EYE icon on the far left). This is what you will see -

This helps me with paper placement on my mat. Now all I had to do was cut each color of cardstock a little bigger than the image and place it exactly on my mat like the images are placed on that last page. Just like this -

When I loaded the mat and hit the Cut With Cricut button, all of the images cut in one pass – not 7!

This is what it looks like after cutting -

So I won’t get the pieces mixed up, I leave them on the mat and only take them off one at a time as I am layering my image together. For me, this is the easiest way to cut and assemble images with multiple parts. And here is the finished Daisy Duck -

I hope that you enjoyed this quick little tutorial (hey, it’s my first!) and that you can use it to create some wonderful layered images. And I hope that I explained it clearly enough so that those living outside of my own head will understand! lol
Thanks for visiting. Please leave a comment and tell me who your favorite character is from the Disney’s Mickey & Friends cartridge. Or, if Disney’s not your thing, what cartridge do you like that uses layers and which image on that cartridge is either your favorite or one that you have trouble with. I’ll be checking to see what you have to say.

As always, Happy Crafting,

Scrapbooking Heals

First of all, I want to thank all of you who sent warm and uplifting comments of wishes for good health to me. I read each and every comment sent and those truly lifted my heart – Thank you!

Second, I so sorry about the Halloween card :-( ! I had a doctors appointment that day and it ended up a lot longer than I had imagined. In the end, I was put on complete bed rest until…??? “What, no Cricut? No paper? No Adhesive? OMG – NO EMBELLISHMENTS??????”  This can not be. Yea, ok, get me well but then I’ll be a healthy basket case, LOL! I need to create! So my wonderful DD set up a make shift ‘craft room’ all around my bed! The Baby Cricut is plugged in and placed on a table next to me (I haven’t told you guys about my Expression, did I? She got sick too! It must be going around but I’ll save that for another day). Oh well, I’m in the process of finishing up the card and getting it photographed and I hope to have it up soon.

But what my DD did for me made me stop and think. She has always been there for me, doing those little things that might go unnoticed to make me happy and cheer me up. I want to let her know that those “little” things have NEVER gone unnoticed with me!

In 2001, I had been diagnosed with cancer. It was very hard to hear since my Dad had passed away with it just one year earlier. But I did put it in perspective – I found out after 9/11 and felt extremely blessed because of that. One day earlier and I would have been a complete mess. But it didn’t seen so bad at that point compared to what I was witnessing on the news. I also felt blessed because I wasn’t on any of those planes – I had just taken a early retirement from AA as a Flight Attendant before this happened. Cancer – that’s nothing. I can bet it! And eventually I did! Thank you, Heavenly Father!

During this uncertain time, my DD who was 8 at the time made me a gift that she created with her own little hands. It made me so happy and I had to save it on a scrapbook page. And this is the result, “Through Tiffany’s Eyes I Can See Beyond Cancer”.

I added her gift to me which was made with cardstock and floss (she had never done any kind of embroidery before this so I thought it was pretty good considering), the lyrics to the song “Through my daughters eyes” by Martina McBride (a beautiful song and very fitting), and a close up photo of her beautiful eyes.

This is one of those layouts that is very personal to me and I thought that I would never share it. But I’ve received some beautiful comments over the last week and in my heart I knew that I had to share this with my new friends. Thank you for visiting and as always Happy Crafting,