So Inspired!

I want to share photos of two very special handmade projects I received quite awhile ago that I never had a chance to post...naughty me! Both of these projects have recently inspired me to come up with similar creations which I will post later, but I really want to be able to give credit to where the original ideas came from.  The first is this awesome thank you card from dh's super talented and creative aunt which just knocked me off my feet...

Removing the belly band reveals an amazing tri-panelled screen card which opens up to showcase a beautiful glittered lotus blossom tucked inside what I can only best describe as a framed shadowbox. I've never seen a card of this style before, and I just LOVE the way Aunty Mollie put this card together... breathtakingly beautiful!

Here's a close up of the lotus flower... with all the intricate glittering and coloring (alcohol inks?). Truth be told, this amazing card has been sitting on my craft table for over a year...with the intention that I would hopefully one day try to figure out how it was put together so I could make one too. But all the precise measuring and cutting I knew would be required to re-create of the shape of the panels and shadow box to get all the pieces to fit accurately kept me from attempting this project for a very long time.

The second project is this cute little milk carton birdhouse favor, created by a sweet friend and super talented fellow Cricuteer club member, Aileen. Aileen created a cutfile for the milk carton and roof in Design Studio, and used the Give A Hoot cartridge for the other cuts.

I was so amazed and loved all the wonderful details she added to transform her milk carton into this adorable miniature birdhouse! Later, when my dd asked if I would make birdhouse favors for her upcoming lovebirds themed wedding, I remembered and was inspired by Aileen's project.

Heartfelt thanks to Aunty Mollie and Aileen for sharing their amazing treasures with me! I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very good at coming up with new and creative ideas...but it's the extra special  creations like these that always manage to amp up my mojo to get me inspired to create!

In the Nick of Time (...barely!)

Our family Christmas cards barely got to the post office in time this year. (Note to self...no more paper piecing for Christmas cards!) Those little reindeer from Create A Critter are adorable, but piecing together 180 reindeer (2 per card) took way too long to do!
Our card this year was a swing style card. Took me a while to figure out, but I managed to create a cut file for it in Design Studio, which made cutting and scoring the card base pretty quick. I used Bazzill Bling (Feather Boa) for the base card and patterned paper is from the Provincial Princess collection at Lettering Delights, printed on ice gold text.

Holly and leaves are from a Martha Stewart punch, trees are Quickutz, and as mentioned earlier, the reindeer are from the Create A Critter cartridge. Font is LD Charming Bold. As a final touch,  a small red rhinestone was added  for one of the reindeer's nose.  Sadly, I didn't have time to do anything much else creative this Christmas, except matching tags for take out boxes filled with cereal mix for dh to take to work....

and a half a dozen more gingerbread houses, this time in a larger size, so I could fill them with pizzelles.

The larger sized houses were about 3-1/2 inches wide on the bottom. Photo on the left shows the relative comparison in size.

Wrapped these in cellophane and shared them with friends. Really had fun making these larger sized houses, they were a lot easier and came together a lot quicker than the earlier tiny version. Only wish I had more time to make more! Maybe next year...

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year! And here's our Latte....

wishing everyone a "Merry Chris-MOOSE!"

Gingerbread Villa

Inspired by an adorable milk carton birdhouse box recently created by my friend and fellow member of our local Cricut Club, Aileen H., I thought I would try a gingerbread house version to give out as favors at our Cricut Club Holiday Party. I was also inspired by a fabulous haunted house created by Michele of My Simple Crafts and this darling gingerbread house by Teri of big Ideas Fron A Little Girl. For mine, I used Design Studio to enlarge the milk carton cutfile I had used earlier this year to do my Easter milk carton boxes so the bottom would be 2-1/2 inches square.

The biggest challenge for me with these gingerbread houses was to figure out how to do the roofs. I knew I wanted to do it in a way such that the recipient could get to the goodies inside without destroying the whole house, but I couldn't remember how Aileen had done the roof on her birdhouse, and unfortunately, I had not yet seen the houses created by Michele and Teri.

My snowtopped roof was created by welding circles of various sizes to the edges of a rectangle, using the George cartridge and Design Studio. Scored and folded this 1/ 2 inch along the long edges and then in half. Notches were cut at the center point and mitered so that the angle of the roof would fit the top of the milk carton. The roof was then attached to the house by punching matching holes in the roof and milk carton and threading  ribbon through to hold it in place. I liked how the finished roof turned out, but truthfully, I knew it would be a pain to put back together once it had been opened.

Decorating the sides of the gingerbread house was fun. Welded circles to one edge of a rectangle in Design Studio for the snow border, welded a circle and a square for the door. Gingerbread boy is from the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge, frame for sign from George, peppermint candy from Simply Charmed, and trees and candycanes are old 2x2 Quickutz dies. I really liked Teri's idea of adding a sentiment to the back, but since I didn't have a stamp, mine had to be computer generated using LD Charming Bold and 2 Peas Flea Market fonts.

When I was finally ready to fill my gingerbread houses with candy, I stopped short of gluing the bottoms closed as orignally planned, thinking how difficult it would be to re-assemble once the roof had been taken off. Decided to try a slotted bottom closure by cutting off a square piece from each of the bottom flaps. Happy to say this worked perfectly, providing a really easy way to get to the treats without having to worry about any re-assembling afterwards. Wouldn't recommend using this type of closure if the contents of the box were too heavy, but for candies and treats, this works like a charm!

"Hoppy" Easter!

Just barely had time to finish my Easter projects this year...my poor computer crashed and burned a couple weeks ago in the midst of my preparing for a Design Studio class and I've been frantically trying to catch up on things since then.

My first project for Easter were these little milk cartons and holders. Kind of like the Sizzix ones, but larger. The Sizzix milk cartons just seemed too small to me, so I was really happy to find these larger ones created and shared by Cricut Message board member thunderbirdlindy (Beth).

Beth's milk cartons are 5-1/2 inches tall and 2-3/8ths inches wide. Plenty large enough to hold a lot of goodies! She created two cutfiles, one for Design Studio and one for the Gypsy. Both use the George cartridge. You can find the link to Beth's files here. Please be sure to leave a message thanking her if you decide to download her files.

I decided I wanted a holder for the milk cartons so I created one in Design Studio, also using the George cartridge. The milk cartons and holders were pretty easy to cut with the Cricut and assemble. The tough part for me was the embellishing! Making and decorating my first set of four milk cartons didn't seem too bad...but I ended up making twenty-four, and that took way too much time!

Two of each set were embellished with My Melody cuts which I created with Make The Cut and images found on the internet.

And for the second two cartons in each set I used Hello Kitty Sizzlits dies. I spent way too much time on all the details on these!

For the sides of the boxes I used a round Easter Greeting $1 stamp from G Studio, Stampin' Up's scallop circle punch and a Sizzlit die for the cute chickies in the middle.

Flower, circle and leaf punches were used on the tops of the boxes and the swirly cut on the holder is from a large Sizzix die.

After spending too much time making the tiny cartons, I still had more gifts I needed to make, but with time running out, I decided to "Super-Size It". Using Beth's cut file as a guide, I created a cut file for an even larger milk carton.


Though it's difficult to tell from the photos, these cartons turned out to be 9 inches tall and 3-1/2 inches wide. Large enough to hold nearly a dozen cookies! These use two sheets of 12x12 cardstock and the 12x24 inch mat to cut.

Decorating these was a lot simpler too, since everything was a lot larger! Happy Easter is a sizzlits die, and decorated egg on the top of the boxes was created using shapes from George and Plantin Schoolbook cartridges.

Peeking Bunny was created in Make The Cut (LOVE this program!) using a digital image from Darcy Hunter's "Holiday Treasures" clip art collection.

Tulips are from the Walk in My Garden cartridge, welded in Design Studio and cut at 4-1/2 inches. Got six of these done just in time for our family Easter dinner tonight!

I was the lucky recipient of some really awesome Easter goodies from my sweet and creative friends! I received this sweet basket filled to the brim with goodies from my friend Dawne, when we got together last weekend for a Stampin Up demo at her home. The basket is from the new Easter cartridge...ooh, I love that butterfly!

This Tupperware filled with Easter surprises and this super neat swivel box is from my best shopping buddy, Kris. LOVE that box! Definitely a CASE study!


And this darling little box filled with her signature decorated cookies is from none other than my dear friend Heather. Box is a x-tra large Sizzix die....don't you just love the embossing on it!

I am blessed to have such wonderfully creative and generous friends!

Oh, oh! It's little Latte in her Easter bonnet with her new friend...wishing "ewe" a Happy Easter!