BBTB2 Birdhouse/Birdcage Challenge and Monthly Blog Hop

Another month gone...can you believe it?  It's the last Monday of the month so time for our monthly blog hop at BBTB2.  You should have arrived here from Maria's blog.  If not you'll want to start at the beginning on the BBTB2 blog here.  Our assignment this week was to use a birdcage or birdhouse.  I haven't used my French Manor cartridge very much so that's where I got my birdcage cut.  It's cut at 4" from brown cardstock and the dp is Heidi Grace.  My base card is A2 size cut from kraft cardstock.  I used a doily behind my birdcage because I like the intricate lacy look.  The strip of pink cardstock is punched with a Fiskar's punch.  Hello is cut (at 1") from my new Cindy Loo cartridge that I found on discount at a local store.  I made a ribbon rose to embellish the top of the birdcage then added some doodling with a white 3-D Sakura gel pen and a MS marker in Sepia. 

If my bird card doesn't get you in the mood for Spring, perhaps my blog candy will.  I've got an assortment of Spring embellishments and some pastel colored paper up for grabs.  Make sure you're a follower and leave a comment to be entered into the drawing.  I will draw my winner on Saturday, March 5th. 

Now you'll want to head over to Lori's blog.  Wait until you see her design.  It's super fantastic.  Have fun hopping, have a great week and thanks for stopping by.

The Cutting Cafe Baby Shower Favor

It's so nice to work on a project with real substance to it.  This is the first of 65 pillow box favors I'll be making for my son and daughter-in-law's baby shower.  Thanks to Regina at The Cutting Cafe this project just became a whole lot easier.  I used two sets from The Cutting Cafe--Assorted Pillow Boxes (SVG file) and a brand new set of customized BABY SHOWER CIRCLES PRINTABLE  STAMPS.  Regina recently came out with the fabulous Baby Shower Thank You Set after doing a baby shower herself.  I mentioned to her that if she had a set that was blank in the middle, people could customize them for their own themes and colors.  She thought it was a fabulous idea and my creation was born.  (No Pun Intended).  I'm sure you can tell the theme of my shower favors is Dr. Seuss.  I used SCAL to cut the pillow box svg file on my Cricut.  It's cut at a width of 5" that allowed me to get four on a sheet of 12 x 12" paper.  The red polka dot paper is from October Afternoon.  As you can see, I was able to give Regina my daughter-in-law's name to personalize the sentiment circle.  The center of the circle is perfect for a one inch circle punch.  This is one way you can bring the color theme into the project.  I punched a blue circle and then topped it with a Dr. Seuss sticker.  I was able to order a big stack of Dr. Seuss stickers from Seussland.  Now I need to go and make some more.

Paper Cutz Challenge #80 Spring

Can you tell I have the "wishful thinking" going with this card?  I just can't bring myself to look out the window this morning.  We were under a Winter Storm Warning again last night.  Actually, for the first time this month the storm went a little south of us so we didn't get the heaviest snow.  But alas, we still got some and hubby had to go out and shovel.  Anyway, onto the particulars of my card.  This week at Paper Cutz, Mary asked the DT to make a Spring card.  (She's got some wishful thinking going, too).  I used my Cricut Pagoda cartridge to make the mat with the word Spring cut into it.  I used the Kanji Word feature and cut it at 6 1/4" so it would make the perfect background mat for an A6 card using Bazzill dotted cardstock.  Then I went to my Home Accents cartridge for the welcome sign and cut it at 2 3/4" from the same dotted cardstock.  After that I just added the layered flower in white and green with a gorgeous button in the center.  I don't really know where that button came from but it has a pattern carved into it and it's sure pretty, wish I had more.  Simple, easy card today, the Cricut cuts did all the work on this one.

Pop Up Card

Well, I decided to try my hand at a free standing pop up card today.  I've been wanting to design one and The Cuttlebug Spot is having a pop up card challenge.  I needed to start making some birthday cards for all the family birthdays we have in April.  All four of my daughters were born in the month of April.  Don't know how that happened...well I do know how it happened...but, nevermind!!!  I found the directions on how to make the card here on Split Coast Stampers.  They have an enormous resource library if you're ever looking for a specific design, it's the place to go.  I used black cardstock for my base and ran it through my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.  My dp is from Stemma, called Asian Cherry.  I actually picked it up from a scrapbooking store in Hawaii on a trip last year.  I love pink and black together.  This card folds flat and fits in an A2 card size envelope.

I cut a few of the blossoms from the paper, matted them on pink and added them to the stand of the card along with a pink ribbon.  The photo above shows what the card looks like folded down.  I used a 1" and 1 1/4" circle punch to make the little tab at the top for the brad and the ribbons to go on.  I just cut each circle in half, glued them together, added a flower from the dp and punched a small whole for the brad to go through.  This brad has a little loop attached to it so I could run the rick rack and the ribbon through it.  This card was much easier to put together than I anticipated so I will definitely make more.  My sentiment is Penny Black stamped with pink chalk ink.  I added Stickles to the center of each flower but it sure doesn't show up in this photo.  If we could ever get a sunny day around here I sure could get better pics.  I'm going to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Cuttlebug Spot - Pop Up Card
• Top Tip Tuesday - Inserts and Bling It On

17th Birthday Card

I used to sit down and do challenges all the time, but since I started designing for so many wonderful blogs I don't do it much anymore.  Today I decided to look a few up and enter a card since I needed to make a birthday card for my granddaughter's 17th birthday coming up in March.  Here are the challenges that I'll enter:

• Jitterbuggin-Birthday with Rick Rack
• For Fun-Birthday
• Fantabulous Cricut-Embossing
• Digi Doodle Shop - Anything Goes
• Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes
• Totally Paper Crafts - Do It With Digi
• Party Time Tuesdays - Anything Goes
• Crazy 4 Challenges - Use A Die Cut
• Delicious Doodles - Glitz and Glam
• Cute Card Thursday - Shiny, Happy Cards
• Paper Play - Add Shine
• Res Q - A Happy, Bright card
• Simply Create - Bright
• Mojo Monday- Sketck

I made an A6 card, used the sketch from Mojo Monday and used my new DCWV Celebration stack for glitz, glam and shine.  My circle sentiment is a digi from The Cutting Cafe.  I used my Cricut Mini Monograms cartridge for my scalloped circle and my Cuttlebug Birthday embossing folder.  I added red rick rack and stickles to the birthday candles.  Notice there are seventeen of them.  The shiny PARTY letters that I added to the banner have been in my stash forever.  I think it turned out bright, happy and FUN.

BBTB2 A Child's Year Fishing Boy

Happy Monday!  It's a new week and a new challenge at BBTB2.  Design Team member extraordinaire Miss Shelly picked our challenge this week and asked us to use the Fishing Boy from A Child's Year cartridge.  I had some fishing pictures that I wanted to scrap of my grandkids that I just came across the other day.  So I put them aside just for this challenge.  The funny part is, I finished my LO and went to get the pics and couldn't find them.  So much for keeping them in a safe place until I need them.  I guess I should write down where that safe place is so I don't forget.  I know there here somewhere!!!  I used a few cuts from the Camp Out cartridge to make this little scene.  The cabin is cut at 4", the trees at 4", the frames for my photos at 5" and the water for the fishing hole at 2".  The cuts I used from the Child's Year cartridge are the grass (cut at 2"), the fish (cut at 1") and the boys are cut at 4".  I used the flip function key to get the boys facing in the opposite direction.  My title was cut from the Old West cartridge at 2".  I used this title because that is what my grandson was screaming when he caught the fish. Now I do have to tell you that the fish I cut at 1" isn't much smaller than the fish my grandson caught.  It looked more like a minnow, but he was excited.   I'm excited to see what kind of design's our players can come up with for this cut.  If I hadn't had those fishing pictures I'm not sure what I would have come up with.  It would have been a real "challenge".

Wedding Anniversary card

After enjoying a few gorgeous weather days with the hope of Spring lurking closely we have a Winter Storm Warning for snow and ice.  Not to be deterred from my Spring state of mind I made a bright, cheerful card. (I'm trying hard not to look out the window).  I decided to make a card for a few challenges today.  I had a new design I wanted to try out with a scalloped gate fold so I looked around for a few challenges this would work for.

The Challenges:

• 365 Cards-Sketch
• Our Creative Corner-Getting Wordy
• Saturday Challenge-Fancy Fold
• Cuttlebug Spot-Gate Fold
• Stamptacular Sunday-Someone Special

This card is for a really good friend and special person in my life---I can't say who because she follows my blog and will see this post.  Of course, now she'll probably know who it's for anyway because I only have one friend with an anniversary coming up.  I used my Cricut to cut this base card from SVG Cuts in yellow.  I embossed each end with the Cuttlebug Plum Blossoms folder.  This is going to sound really odd, but I wanted the embossing to be very subtle.  So after I embossed it I ran it back through the Cuttlebug with a shim to make it tighter and it crushed the embossing down a little.  For the inside I took a small yellow check and stamped congratulations all over it with a yellow chalk ink.  The band around the card is made from the same yellow check which was just a scrap from my bin.  After attaching the two ends of the band around the card I topped it with a doily, a scalloped circle and my stamp from Paper Trey Ink.  Then I just added a few roses for embellishment.