BBTB2 Celebrations Cake

This week's cut at BBTB2 was chosen by our fabulous DT member Carole.  She's fantastic and I get so much inspiration from her designs.  Carole asked us to use the cake on page 99 of the Celebrations cartridge manual.  I used my Gypsy to attach the cake cut to a rectangle for a stand up shape card.  I cut the base from kraft cardstock, used a darker brown for the cake stand and the patterned cake paper was printed with my Cricut Imagine Best Friends cartridge.  I loved the stripes on the paper and thought it looked like cake layers. Making this card reminded me of when I used to decorate cakes years ago and making the sugar roses to go on the top of the cake.  In this case, I used paper roses.  I cut the word celebrate using the Wild card cartridge.

Honoring the Military

This post will stay at the top until after Memorial Day in honor of my military son and all the wonderful men and women serving our country in the military.  God Bless them All and their Families.

I came across a new challenge blog today called Creative Cutter Room.  They have a challenge just posted for a Memorial Day project to honor our vets.  It was just the incentive I needed to get a layout done for my son's Marine Corp album.  I'm very proud of my son's duty to his country and his choice to enter the Marines.  These photos were taken at his graduation from boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina in 2004.  The pomp and circumstance was awe inspiring and a true time to reflect on his honor, citizenship, courage, bravery and commitment.  He is my HERO. 

This page has a photo of my son in his uniform in front of the memorial for Marine Corp members who have given their lives for our country since 1775.  It is a place for great reflection of the freedoms we enjoy at the expense of all the brave men and women who have served and lost their lives.

The element I'm most proud of on this second page is the picture of my son that I edited in Photoshop to place atop the American flag that I cut from the Stand and Salute cartridge. 

 I've had Photoshop for a couple of years and have yet to learn much about it.  To get this look I took a photo and selected Filter, then Sketch, then Stamp and printed it on vellum.  I was quite proud of myself when it was finished.  Here is a close up shot of the element.  That's MY BOY.

My American flag was cut at 6" and the My Hero cut at 2.75". As you enjoy the Memorial Day weekend this year I hope that you'll take a few moments to reflect on the sacrifices of the men and woman of our country's great military and their families. 

I'm also entering this layout in The Kraft Journal Stand and Salute challenge and Crazy About Cricut Thankful Thursday challenge.  You can click on the links to check out their challenges.

Flower Pot Card

 I was dying to make something using my new DCWV paper stack called Lemon Flower. It seems to be popular with quite a few people because I've seen it on lots of blogs.  In fact, I made this card for a challenge going on over at My Creative Time and Emma used the same stack for her cute little snail card.  The challenge calls for use of an older cartridge and the colors green and yellow.  I used my Gypsy and the Walk In My Garden cartridge for the flower pot and flowers.  I used two flower pot shadows, flipping one and welding it at the bottom.  I folded it in the center and stitched around the edges leaving the top open.  Then I used the border feature for the bottom row of flowers and welded two single flowers to the top to make a cluster of five.  I then welded a rectangle from the Plantin' Schoolbook cartridge so I could slide it into the flower pot.  I cut the welded flowers and rectangle from white cardstock and then I deleted the rectangle and cut the flowers again from yellow and then cut five individual flowers so I could do some layering with pop dots.

I added small green buttons to the center of each flower and embellished the pot with a gingham checked ribbon and a punched tag.  My inside sentiment was done on my computer.

Paper Cutz Challenge #93 Banner

Geez, Friday's seem to roll around so quickly lately.  It's time for this week's Paper Cutz Challenge and Mary asked the design team to use a banner on their card, project or scrapbook page.  I just happened to need a birthday card for my daughter-in-law so went with that theme.  This bird and banner were cut with my Cricut Birthday Bash cartridge.  I used all soft pastel scraps from my bin.  My sentiment is a Penny Black stamp and I mounted it onto a label cut from Cricuts Fabulous Finds and attached with a couple brads.  I was very excited to get my sewing machine back from repairs so I could do some stitching on this card.  Back in the day I used to do a ton of sewing.  I used to make matching hand smocked dresses for my four daughters when they were little.  They grew up and I hadn't used my machine in years until I decided to get it out one day for paper.  I was a little worried to use it on paper because it's a really nice and expensive machine.  Then it started making bad noises as I was stitching on my paper and I thought I ruined it.  I took it to the repair shop and thought I should mention what I used it for.  I was so happy when I was told sewing on paper wouldn't hurt it at all.  In fact, they told me that's how they teach kids in school now to use machines.  It's cheaper than giving kids fabric.  Who would have thought?

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Cricut Cardz Challenge #76

This week at Cricut Cardz the challenge is for a graduation card.  Everybody gets their inspiration for design from somewhere.  My inspiration for this card came from a TV commercial.  I have no idea what the commercial was for or what company was being advertised, but as soon as I saw it my mind went to a card design.  I used a few cartridges to put this card together and come together it did, I think.  The graduation hat came from Wrap It Up, the running man came from Going Places and the parachute harness came from Everyday Paper Dolls.  My background paper was printed with my Cricut Imagine Best Friends cartridge and the grass came from the Plantin' Schoolbook cartridge.  The sentiments were done with my computer.

BBTB2 Florals Embellished Flying Bird

Happy Monday!  It's time for a new challenge at BBTB2.  This week is being hosted by our super incredibly talented DT member Donna.  She asked us to use the flying bird from the Florals Embellished cartridge.  I don't have this cartridge so I used the flying bird from the Simply Charmed cartridge and made a little wall art.  Since we will be leaving soon to travel extensively in our fifth wheel RV I decided I would make a few things to hang on the walls inside.  Since it is an RV and we'll be moving around we don't want anything heavy and my husband has issues with putting holes in the walls to hang things.  What could be more perfect than lightweight paper?  I thought the TAKE FLIGHT sentiment was just perfect because it signifies our journey that we are really looking forward to.  Our goal is to travel to all 50 states.  We've already got the majority of them under our belt but we'll definitely be hitting the ones we haven't been to yet.  I used several cartridges to put this picture together.  The background scalloped square came from the Storybook cartridge, the polka dot frame was cut from Don Juan, the bird from Simply Charmed and the sentiment from Wall Decor.  All of my patterned papers are Cosmo Cricket Gal Friday collection except for the background sky which I printed using my Cricut Imagine Best Friends cartridge.  The scalloped square is cut at 8.25" from kraft cardstock, the frame at 6", the bird and layers at 4", and the sentiment at .75".  I made the flowers to embellish the frame quickly by cutting spirals from the Mickey and Friends cartridge at 1", 2" and 3" and then rolling them up and adding pearls for the center.  The leaves were cut from the Plantin' Schoolbook cartridge folded down the center and then accordian folded to add dimension.  I also added some pop dots to the bird's layers for dimension.  Can I just say it's so exciting to have a hobby that I can take on the road with me.  I have a dedicated area in the RV for storage and working on projects and my Cricut will be going with me.  I am sad that my Cricut Imagine is too big and heavy to travel with, but my Expression has become a seasoned traveler at the ripe old age of 3 years.  Now with the ease of WI-FI around the country I still have access to the internet and will be able to post my designs.  LIFE IS GOOD!!!

Challenges:

• Fantabulous Cricut- Blue Skies and Cloud
• Our Creative Corner-Frame It
• Papertake Weekly-Something Floral (handmade flowers and floral paper on bird)
• A Spoon Full of Sugar-Anything Goes
• Crafts and Me-Anything Goes, Kraft

Paper Cutz Challenge #92 Teacher Appreciation

Happy Friday!  The weekend is on the way.  For this week's Paper Cutz Challenge Mary asked us to make Teacher Appreciation cards.  I was excited for this challenge being a retired educator.  I would have loved to receive a handmade card like this from a student.  I did receive some handmade cards from students, but they never looked like this.  They were dear to me anyway.  I used the Cricut Locker Talk cartridge for an assist on this card for my banner and the A+ cut.  My base card is A2 size cut from black cardstock.  My background notebook lined paper is from The Cutting Cafe and the edge is punched with an EK Success border punch.  The word teacher was printed right onto the notebook background with my computer.  I was so excited when I found this font called Stencil in my font library.  I thought it was absolutely perfect for this card.  My handwriting patterned paper is from October afternoon and is double-sided with the red polka dot paper on the back.  I used a Fiskars punch on the edge of the red paper.  I still have supplies leftover from when I was working and I have a whole container of red and blue paper clips.  I thought one would be perfect on the edge of my paper with a red gingham ribbon tied around it.  I'm going to give this card to my granddaughter Payton to give to her preschool teacher.