Yappy Easter

It's time for a challenge at Exploring Cricut. This week's challenge is Easter with a fame and an embellishment. 

As I thought about what I might do for this project, I decided that I wanted to go nontraditional. In the very, very back of my mind, I remembered that the Cricut cartridge, Paper Pups, had some holiday sayings. Yappy Easter was perfect. The cartridge Nate's ABCs also has several images with dogs. I loved this image of the puppy in the red wagon, and immediately, my card came together. I love the way the red just pops off of the card. 

Here you can see a close up of this sweet puppy and the flower jewels I added to the paper. The patterned paper is from Fancy Pants, the Park Bench stack.

Challenges Entered:

Aud Sentiments Challenge: Easter Sentiment

Simply Create Too: Easter

Craft for Craic: Easter

Eclectic Ellapu: Easter

Dream Valley Challenge: Easter

Don't Blink!

This week's Exploring Cricut (and More) Design Team Inspiration: 

This is the second in a series of Doctor Who themed cards. Doctor Who is a science fiction British television show - lately it's lost some of it's science for some fairytale flair, but I don't care. To me, anything Doctor Who is OK.

This card was created entirely based on the episode, Blink, from season 3. Fans of the show, will pick out the carefully planned elements. For example, the background fence to represent the Wester Drumlins, a expanse of land with a large Victorian home and a wrought iron fence around it where the episode takes place. It is here that we first meet the Weeping Angels (the very scary monster from the episode). The familiar Doctor Who police box - his disguised time machine (TARDIS) cut from a .jpg in blue vinyl stands behind the lonely Weeping Angel cut from a .svg file (from Pretty Papers, Pretty Ribbons), finally, I added the TARDIS key and an Easter Egg - both crucial in the episode.

The background paper is from The Paper Studio: Blanco.

Challenges Entered:
The Male Room: Science Fiction
Scrapping 4 Fun: Anything Goes
Jo's Scrap Shack: Anything Goes
Alphabet Challenge: D is for Die cut
Crafty Calendar: Things with Wings

Celebtrate Art

Exploring Cricut is hosting their second challenge of the month. The challenge is to use 1 pattern + color. I'm so pleased to share my project with you today.

Crafters are truly artists. I find that we dabble in with many different styles and types and tools. When I found this Paper House, Artist paper stack, I fell in love. I wanted to push my own style with these patterns that are all about art, love, and imagination. For this card, I let the paper be the focal point of the card. I used a matching blue cardstock for the frame, and then used the same blue in a pearlescent style to punch the paint splotch for EK. Finally, I cut the sentiment from a scrap of pearlescent paper, so the sentiments would shine. The cut is from the Cricut cartridge, Quarter Note.

Discover Camping

I'm so excited to share this card for Exploring Cricut. There is definitely a fun story behind this card. While some families participate in sports like baseball or basketball, my family competes in canine sports with our dogs. Our favorite sport is agility. It's like an obstacle course with you and your dog. There is a group of us that camp at competitions that are far from home. It's a lot of fun. At one competition, I was practicing some new functions I learned about my Cricut Craft Room. So there I was designing. I was working off of a sketch that I liked. A friend came over, and she suggested I make the theme about camping. And here is the finished product:

I started with the base green and embossed it with a tree bark folder from CuttleBug. Next, I added the brown tags and scalloped border. The tent and background was cut from Cricut's Camping Critters, and I wanted to add pops of color here. The two blue pattern papers (the outer circle is cream and blue dots) was cut from BasicGrey, Hey Girl! stack and Crate Paper unknown paper stack. I used the same cream and blue dot papers to cut the word "discover" to place across the tags. This was cut using the Cricut cartridge Boys will be Boys. 

Challenges Entered:

Fab n Funky: Masculine

Stampavie and More: Sports

Crafty Girls: Anything Goes

Aud Sentiments: Anything Goes + a sentiment

Cute Card Thursday: Wild World

Happy St. Paddy's Day

It's time for a challenge at Exploring Cricut. This week's challenge is St. Patrick's Day. It's only fitting since St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner. For my project this week, SURPISE, I used green and yellow!!!

I started with a green base, and added a layer (yellow dots) from BasicGrey's Hey Girl! stack. I used the Cricut cartridge, Elegant Edges, for the center frames. From Cricut's Celebrate with Flourish, I layered the shamrocks, and made sure to add green glitter as the top layer. Finally, I added a felt sentiment at the top of the frame. The felt sentiment is from Celebrate It. 

Challenges Entered: 

Time for Scrap: St. Patrick's Day (2W, S)

Brown Sugar Challenge: Make it Sparkle (W, F)

Craft for the Craic: Something Green (1M, F)

Cut it Up: St. Patrick's Day (2W, F)

Happy Birthday Boy

I'm thrilled to be posting this project for Exploring Cricut.

The story for this card starts with the fact that I have 5 nephews from age 2 to age 9. That means I always need 5 of everything and all boy related... and birthdays are starting up again. Five sets of boy cards can be a challenge. Here is what I came up with for my youngest. I wanted to use plenty of blue and primary colors... (a touch of pink never hurt a boy). I used "boy" themed sentiment paper (scraps) and and added the blue dot border from The Paper Studio, Basics stack. Then, I cut the banner from the Cricut Birthday Bash cartridge and dusted the banner with glitter. I recreated the bird to place over the sentiment (mat in blue) and added the orange dimensional balloon (stash) to finish it up.

Challenges Entered:
Fussy and Fancy: Birthdays (F, 2W)
Crafty Creations: Birthday (W, 2W)

Holiday Tag

Exploring Cricut is hosting their second challenge of the month. The theme is "bag, box, or tag with ribbon." I never miss an opportunity to start my holiday tags early. So I'm proud to present this DT sample of the challenge.

I started with the Cricut cartridge Holiday Frames and Tags, and cut the tag on page 66. The actual tag has journaling lines down the right hand side, so I used my CRR to eliminate those cuts. I chose this tag in particular because I thought the small inside tag would be perfect for a sentiment. I really wanted a few pops of color on this tag to go beyond the traditional blue, white, and silver for Hanukkah, so I chose the orange patterned paper from Basicgrey, Hey Girl stack, and the yellow gift bag from my stash (there is a Jewish star on the bag). Across the lower part of the tag is a piece of ribbon that is printed with words such as: love, laugh, life, family, together, and more. I thought that was quite appropriate for a family Hanukkah party.

Challenges Entered:
Addicted to Stamps and More: Holidays (W, W)
Little Red Wagon: Anything but a Card (W, W)
Mark's Finest Papers: Anything but a Card (W, Saturday)

Green & Bloom

I am so thrilled to be presenting this card as part of the Design Team for the Exploring Cricut Blog.

This was such a fun card to make. I started with this tree from the Cricut cartridge "Just Because" cards. But the tree was pretty bland, so I used my Spectrum Noir markers to put in different shading and blending of various greens. What would be on this tree? And, I thought of apples. So I cut the bottom layer in red. To jazz it up, I added some silver glitter to each of the red circles. Then, using the apple image, I cut three apples popped up on the tree for further dimension, and to make it clear that the tree is an apple tree. I included one other apple at the bottom, and polished it off with the sentiment, bloom. The green cloud paper is from the American Crafts paper pad, XOXO.

Cupcake Birthday

I'm so happy to be presenting this card for the Exploring Cricut Blog.

I love this mat stack, Eat Cake, by The Paper Studio. The cardstock is so textured and shimmery, I couldn't wait to use it. I'm running low on birthday cards, so I used this opportunity to make one. I started with the cupcake. it is from the Cricut cartridge Birthday Bash. In my CCR, I was able to size the icing so that it fit into the blue background. I embossed the cupcake base with a circle embossing folder. Then, I added glitter to the icing. For the cherry on top, I added the heart punch for extra detail. Finally, three little puffy stars finished the card.

Challenges Entered:
Love to Create: Birthday

SMILE

I'm especially pleased to share this card as a Design Team member for Exploring Cricut during this week's challenge.

I quickly looked up the Gypsy Wanderings handbook and was delighted with the branch of flowers image. The branch seemed empty, so I cut three birds in different sizes from the same cartridge. I used my swirl embossing folder to give the birds a little more life. Both the flowers and the sentiment are cut in shades of blue glitter cardstock. The background is a simple yellow and white pattern.

The card seems to yell, Spring or Summer, but I think it is perfect for a friend feeling down, too.

Challenges Entered:
Rhedd & Rosie Challenges: No White.
Dragonfly Dreams: Thinking of Summer

Father's Day Fish Bowl

I'm so happy to be showcasing this card for Exploring Cricut this week.
All of my inspiration came from this adorable fish bowl cut on the Cricut Create a Critter cartridge. I spent some time thinking about the papers to use on the fish bowl: the white is a shimmer paper, the blue is from a pastel cardstock mat stack, the "sand" is a textured craft paper, and the seaweed is from  a pearlescent green cardstock. The fish and fish hook sticker were from my stash.

Challenges Entered:
Divas By Design: Anything Goes
Craft-Room Challenge: Aquarius.
Dream Valley Challenges: For boys and men.
Totally Paper Crafts: For boys.

Winter Wonderland: SKI

This is a sample card for Exploring Cricut's Winter Wonderland Challenge.

I rarely see snow living in Georgia, but I can remember many a winter day skiing back in Pennsylvania when I was in college. I tried to capture that in this card. It was inspired by the first time I took my best friend skiing. She actually slipped, and her chin hit the pole really hard. Maybe I should have made this a get well card???

I decided to use this snow sentiment paper as the background because it perfectly sums up a fun winter's day. To offset the blue, I cut all of the die cuts in black. I used the ski image from the Cricut Cartridge, Going Places and the snowflake border from Artbooking. Then I added a snowflake from the Cricut Cartridge, Gypsy Wanderings.

To really make the patterned paper work as a sentiment, I cut a circle out of the scraps and mat it on a scalloped circle. I cut the edges of the circles so that it would fit in the corner of the card. 

Happy New Year 2014

With this card, I'm happy to become part of the Design Team at the Exploring Cricut Blog.

Didn't December just fly by? Did you run out of Christmas cards to send? I sure did. I'm making up for that mistake with some New Year cards.

My favorite go-to Cricut Cartridge for last minute holiday cards is Celebrate with Flourish. The New Year hat and clock are so versatile, so I used that image in the center of a diagonal of embellishments. At the top left is a Stampin' Up tag set and below to the right are three white brads.

Christmas Sled

I'm in the homestretch on finishing holiday cards. For this card, I suddenly thought about the driveways in our neighborhoods. While it's about 70 degrees in GA today, my friends in the north are talking about their snowy yards. What would be in a snowy front yard.... snow, snowmen, sled.... I stuck with the "S" theme... 

I tore the snow from white card stock and embossed it with a swirl folder. The snowman was cut using the Snow Friends Cricut Cartridge, and the sled from the Joys of the Season Cartridge. A `simple sentiment finished the card. 

Challenges Entered: 

Pumpkin Spice: Anything Holiday

Crafty Hands: Winter Theme

Exploring Cricut: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. 

Paper Playtime: Winter Fun