Beauty in Simplicity

Today I decided to put a card together for my aunt for Mother's Day and to enter it in several challenges.

The Callenges:

• Alphabet Challenge - Ribbon
• CRAFT - Mother's Day
• Craft You Days Away - Black and White
• Cute Card Thursday - Spring
• Delicious Doodles - A card you'd want to get
• Digi Doodles Best - Black and White
• Digi's With Attitude - Anything Goes
• One Stop Craft Challenge - Black and White plus one other color (a touch of silver from the charm)
• Paper Crafting Journey - Wings
• Pile It On - Things you see in the sky
• Simply Create - Flowers
• Stampin' For the Weekend - Spring
• Top Tip Challenge - Favorite embellishment or technique

I decided to go with a scalloped oval card.  I made the base of the card from white cardstock welding two ovals together with my Cricut Gypsy.  Then I used the Lacy Labels cartridge to cut my scalloped ovals.  My digital stamp is from The Cutting Cafe.  This is absolutely as favorite as a technique can be and I use it as often as possible.  Simply print a digital image directly onto my cut shape.  I just print onto scrap paper then tape my precut shape over the top and run it through the printer again.  I simply added an organdy bow, a few pearls to the butterflies, a butterfly charm and some Stickles to the stem.  The hardest part of this card was finding black ribbon.  I discovered I have almost no black ribbon.

BBTB2 Ladybug

Another week, another Monday, another BBTB2 challenge.  This week our fearless leader, Heather, asked the DT to use the ladybug from Boys Will Be Boys.  I don't have this cartridge so I used the ladybug from Doodlecharms.  An oldie but goodie.  I think Doodlecharms is the first cartridge I bought after I got my original Cricut.  It's hard to remember back that far.  Now ninety-some cartridges later...I don't even want to think about the fortune wrapped up in this...neither does hubby.  LOL  I just happened to have this ladybug  patterned paper from Making Memories in my stash.  I started with an A2 card made from kraft cardstock.  My ladybug is cut at  2 1/2" with a shadow from brown cardstock and patterned paper from Heidi Grace.  I cut two layers of the patterned paper so I could layer.  I found my cute little ladybug poem on the website quotegarden.com.   I typed it up on my computer and printed it in dark pink.  I added some cat's eye embellishments to the ladybug's body and a tiny bow and pink button.  Of course, it wouldn't be one of my cards without some doodling with a white gel pen. 

I'll be sending this card off to my granddaughter Payton.  She loves to get mail from Nana.  Now remember if you'd like to join the BBTB2 challenge but don't have Boys Will Be Boys you can use any cartridge with a ladybug and there are quite a few.  Thanks for stopping by.

Blog Hop Candy Winner

Thanks to all of you who visited during the monthly BBTB2 Blog Hop.  I'd like to announce the winner of my SPRING blog candy package:

Random.org picked:

#8 VeronicaA said...

The doily on your card really helps to make

the birdcage and bird stand out.

Beautifully done. Thanks for sharing and

the opportunity to win.

Thanks so much Veronica for your wonderful comment and congratulations.  If you will email me @

thomasjeri55@yahoo.com with your mailing address, I'll get your prize off to you in the mail so you can start creating with some wonderful Spring embellishments.  



The Cutting Cafe Let's Go For A Ride

I wanted to make a quick card today to send to my granddaughter.  I haven't seen her in awhile and wanted to make sure she didn't forget how much I love her.  I whipped this card together with a couple new sets from The Cutting Cafe.  I used the BICYCLE BACKGROUND PRINTABLE STAMP SET and the LET'S GO FOR A RIDE SET.  The scalloped black frame came from the older set ANIMAL AND BUG LOVE PRINTABLE STAMP SET.  The thing I love most about The Cutting Cafe sets is the quickness and ease of putting together a card on the spur of the moment.  For this card I started with a black cardstock A2 card and topped it with a kraft cardstock mat.  All of my printed elements are done on kraft cardstock.  First I printed the scalloped frame and cut it out.  Then I printed the little bicycle right on this scalloped frame.  I did that by first printing the bicycle on a scrap piece of printer paper then placing my scalloped frame over the top of that printing, aligning it so the bicycle would print on the bottom half of the scalloped frame.  All I had to do after that was print out a sheet of the background words and trim a piece to fit inside the scalloped frame.  For a little pop of color I added a scrap of red polka dot paper to separate the words from the image, added a piece of black rick rack and then placed the sentiment (from the Let's Go For A Ride set) on some pop dots.  I added a little red Copic marker to the flowers on the bicycle and a little doodling with a white gel pen to finish it off.   I know Payton is going to love getting this card in the mail from Nana.

Paper Cutz Challenge #81 St. Patrick's Day Treat Cup



I'm not Irish nor do I know anyone who is Irish, but Mary asked the Paper Cutz DT to create a card, layout or project this week for St. Patrick's day.  I recently obtained round plastic treat cups from  Stampin' Up and was anxious to use them.  I knew I could cut any size circle I wanted with my Cricut so began to think about how I could go about it.  I started looking through my Cricut cartridges for something circular that I could incorporated into my treat cups.  I found this particular cut on the Celebrate With a Flourish Lite Cricut cartridge.  After cutting and discarding a few scraps of paper I managed to get the look I was going for.  The hole for the treat cup is 1.75".  It was just a matter of getting the circle to line up on the paper where I needed it to be for the "O" in the sentiment. As you can see, I placed the "O" on top of the treat cup.  I filled the treat cup with white M & Ms so the green "O" would show up.    

I hope you're able to join Paper Cutz this week with a little luck o' the Irish of your own.  Glad you've visited today.  Just a reminder that I have some blog candy up for grabs.  You can see that post here.  I'll be drawing a winner tomorrow so you still have 24 hrs. to leave a comment on that post.

The Cutting Cafe Book Box

There's a new set out at The Cutting Cafe and I just love it.  If you're looking for a clever and unique way to give a book for a gift...you've found it here.  This set is called the BOOK BOX TEMPLATE/CUTTING FILE.  There are some special cutting instructions that come with this box.  You need to set your printer to print an 8 1/2" x 14" piece of paper.  I used a 12" x 12" piece of DCWV textured cardstock and trimmed it down to 8 1/2" x 12" before placing in my printer tray.  After assembling the box cover and bottom I cut a scalloped rectangle using my Cricut Storybook cartridge to place on the cover.  I wanted my box to look real girly and feminine.  I used pink tulle for my bow and tied it around the scalloped rectangle before attacing it to the box.  Now I had my basic structure and it was time to decorate.  I used a sketch from Mojo Monday to get me started.  The scalloped circle base was cut at 5" with my Cricut using the Easter 2010 cartridge.  On top of this I placed a circle cut from pink cardstock at 4 1/2", then a piece of patterned paper from DCWV Nursery stack for girls cut at 4 1/4".  I punched a pink lace edge with a MS punch and placed a strip from the Book Box set printed with I LIKE BOOKS phrases.  I changed the color of the words from black to dark pink using my computer and Word 2007.  Regina has instructions on The Cutting Cafe site on how to change the size and color of her digi stamps.  Then I printed out the circle sentiment which says, There's nothing like a good book.  I punched it out with a circle punch measuring 1 11/16", punched a pink cardstock circle at 1 1/2" for the center and then printed the Just for You from another new Cutting Cafe set called EVERYDAY 1 INCH GREETINGS.

Here is a side view of the box showing the depth.  It's the perfect size for a paperback but I'll be using it for picture book for my four year old granddaughter.  I have another box in the works that will have a Dr. Seuss theme.  My daughter-in-law's baby shower is coming up on March 19th and it's going to have a Dr. Seuss theme and everyone was asked to bring a book for the new baby.  I think mine will look so cute presented in a box.  After the shower the box can be used for baby keepsakes like the identification bracelet and birth announcement. 

Cricut Cardz Challenge #64

Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday and we're celebrating at Cricut Cardz Challenge.  It's also Read Across America week and in many school's they are celebrating Reading Month.  As a retired educator, this is a cause dear to my heart and I remember fondly many of our Reading Month activities.  This week's challenge at Cricut Cardz is to make a bookmark incorporating any Cricut cartridge and using any colors.  I used the bookmark feature from the Animal Kingdom cartridge and some clip art of Dr. Seuss that I found online.  Some of you may know that I have been working on a scrapbook for my ninth grandchild (a boy) that is due in May.  My son and dauther-in-law are doing the baby's nursery in a Dr. Seuss theme. I have posted some of the pages from the scrapbook here on my blog.  I've been working on making  shower favors for the baby shower on March 19th.  So I've had lots of exposure to Dr. Seuss lately. 

I designed a little pocket on the front of the card for the bookmark to slip into.  The colors I used here are the colors from the Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat book.  The red polka dot paper is from October Afternoon.  This card measures 6 1/2 x 5" and I used white cardstock for the base.  I topped it with a turquoise mat cut at 4 3/4 x 6 1/4" and a polka dot mat at 4 1/2 x 6".  The pocket for the bookmark is a piece of turquoise cut at 5 1/2 x 2 1/4" and polka dot cut at 2 x 5 1/4".  The bookmark is cut at 5" width. (It cuts sideways on the mat).  I placed another Dr. Seuss image on the bookmark and topped it with a big red button for easy grabbing.  The quote on the front is from Dr. Seuss' book The Places You'll Go.  I used my computer to type it up with a Dr. Seuss font I downloaded from the Internet.  It was a free font and I've used it a ton in my scrapbook for the baby with my SCAL software to make titles for the pages.  If you'd like to see some of my Dr. Seuss scrapbook pages they are here, here and here.  You can look at my baby shower favors here.  I hope you can join Cricut Cardz this week and make your own bookmark.  Thanks for looking in today.