Evie's First Halloween

Halloween is tomorrow, and I'm happy to say I got all my treats delivered and mailed in time! This is the Halloween card I made for my granddaughter's first Halloween. She just turned 6 months old and is still too young to understand, but of course gramma just had to make her a card anyway!

Kept it simple by making a center step style card.

The svg cutting file for this cute paper pieced kitty is a retired freebie from Kadoodle Bug Designs. Used an oval stitched die behind little kitty and added an oval scalloped frame created in Make the cut.

Fancy label template is also a freebie, from Make a Wedding blog. I used DJ Doodlers font with the label template to do a print and cut, then added a shadow layer cut from Best Creations black glitter cardstock plus a couple flatback rhinestone flowers for some fun bling.

Here's our sentiment inside the card. Cute Halloween patterned paper comes from Doodlebug Designs' Halloween Parade collection.

And finally, the treats for our furbaby's doggie pals... isn't that skeleton plush toy the cutest?

Orange handled gift bags decorated with Pochacco were made to put the doggie treats in. I started with a coloring book image of Pochacco sitting to create a cut file in Make the Cut, then added the witch's hat from Designs On Cloud Nine's Halloween Kitty file, and the jack o lantern from Kadoodlebug Design's Candy Corn Witch file.

This year our little Latte got to take Halloween pictures with a new "friend", our granddaughter! Lol! So much fun trying to get the two of them to look toward the camera and smile at the same time! Happy Halloween, everyone!

Celebrating with Sushi

This is a fun side step style card I recently made for my crafting bestie, Kris for her birthday. Kris loves little Pochacco, so when I created the cutfile of Pochacco for my son in law's Boys Day card last month, I knew I wanted to use it again on a card for Kris.

This time around, I added on Pochacco's body with a happi coat with a pair of zori slippers, joining them with his head in MTC. Added on his hachimaki (headband) and Pochacco was ready to make sushi!

I couldn't resist mounting him on an action wobbler...see, he's welcoming his customers to his sushi shop..."Irrashaimasse!!!"

And here's the lineup of the sushi being served. Lets see, there's ebi, maki, tamago in the top row followed by ikura, musubi and maguro in the next. These totally kawaii sushi are cutting files I picked up from SVG Cutting Files and Pretty Paper Pretty Ribbons. By the time I was done piecing everything together I had such a huge craving for sushi!

Here's a view of the card from the side; I added panels to the accordian folds or "steps" to get them to be the heights I wanted so the sushi would display nicely.

This is the card on the inside. I used the gift card holder die from Jaded Blossom to place the gift card to the side.

Soup, Shoyu bottle, and shrimp tempura cutting files are from Pretty Paper Pretty Ribbons. Had so much fun putting this card together...and LOL got pretty darned hungry too!

Golfing with Mickey

We celebrated hubby's birthday earlier this month and for his card I decided to stick to his favorite golf theme again. This time I used a side step style card and a coloring book image found online of Mickey at the tee. Used Make the Cut to render golfing Mickey into a paper piecing cut file and the Silhouette Cameo to cut him out.

The golf and putting greens, tee, hole and flag were hand cut. Cloud cuts are a free digital cutfile from Bird's Cards. This creative lady comes up with some of the best and useful cutting files, and always generously shares them at no cost! Grassy borders were cut using a die from Dienamics. I attached the golf ball to strip of acetate and onto the card to try to make it look like it was in flight after Mickey's swing.

Here's what the card looks like on the inside...

Lined the panels with more of the same BoBunny Double Dot cardstock I had used on the front of the card. added my sentiment together with  more grass. clouds and a golf bag with clubs.

The golf bag and clubs is also a freebie cutfile created and generously shared by Vicki on her blog, Vicki's Creative Crafting Corner. Love the design of the golf bag and the detailing on the clubs!
Hubby seemed pretty happy with his golf card, although I'm starting to feel like all the golf themed cards I've been making for him recently all look basically same. LOL...I think of "golf" as pretty boring and I'm afraid  it's beginning to show in my cards too. But if hubby likes 'em, guess I'll keep on  making 'em!

Center Step Fan Card

Whew! I'm afraid I'm still trying to catch up on posting my projects from 2012...I think this is finally the last one, a birthday card made for my mom who celebrated her birthday in December. Had to try and keep it simple since I was already falling behind on my holiday projects at that time. It's hard since so many of my family have birthdays during the last three months of the year. I always tell myself I need to get started earlier, but heck, that never happens!

Since it was December, I was in the midst of frantically trying to finish 50 center step Christmas cards around this time. I didn't have the time or energy to think of something new and creative so I decided mom was getting a center step card for her birthday as well. LOL, just had to change it up enough so she wouldn't notice. I like that I'm able to change the size of the center step panel on this type of card to accommodate whatever embellishment I decide on using, in this case, a fan cut from Cricut Pagoda cartridge. I also added Sister Stamps' adorable little Mariko to the front thinking she'd be perfect for a birthday card. Used Stampin' Up Modern Label punch to create a label for my sentiment, "Celebrating You".

 

On the inside, I created a base using Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 9 dies and an embossing folder from Provocraft Asian Bundle for my favorite Sister Stamps' BFF stamp and adhered it between the two inside step panels. Thankfully this came together pretty quickly and mom seemed pretty happy with her card...I don't think she even noticed it was almost the same as the Christmas card I had sent her!

 

Christmas 2012

It's Christmas! Whew, I really struggled this year just to get a few projects done on time. Every year DH takes twenty jars of sweet cereal mix to work to share with his co-workers. I decided to go with a penguin theme this year to decorate the jars.

The cut file for these penguins came from a set of candy wrappers from Treasure Box Designs, and I used  Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four die for the labels. Thank goodness these were super quick and easy! In addition to the penguin, this candy wrapper set included cutfiles for 4 other adorable holiday characters: a gingerbread man, reindeer, snowman, and teddy bear. Maybe I'll do the snowman or reindeer next year.

Though I didn't have much time to do any Christmas crafting, I'm lucky enough to have friends and a mom that did! Mom put together these cute beaded wreath lapel pins for me to share with my friends at work. Thanks Mom, you're the best!

These two very special holiday treat holders were lovingly created by friends Kris and Lorna.

Isn't this chocolate filled Christmas tree from Kris stunningly yummy? Love it! Amazing what people come up with using a bit of cardstock, glue and ribbon. You can find the tutorial by Brenda Quinata at her blog, Qbee's Quest. I know it's a little too late for this year...or maybe not...how about keeping the kids at your Christmas dinner busy by having them make their own?

Once again, Lorna didn't fail to amaze us! This time she brought by these cute chimney boxes filled with goodies for each of us at work. Oh, look! Don't you just love the way she perched a chocolate Santa right on top of the chimney box. So clever!!!

Last year, for the first time in over twenty years, I didn't send out Christmas cards because we were so busy putting together my daughter's wedding invitations. This year, I thought, "It was so nice not having to stress over Christmas cards last year, maybe I won't do them again this year..." Let's face it, when you've done Christmas cards featuring photos of your only child every year for over twenty years, what is there to do when she gets married and moves away?

ANSWER: ...Christmas cards featuring a photo of your DOG!

LOL, I actually did include another photo of all of us together on the inside. For my card, I used the center step card template shared by Sandy Hulsart, Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four and Labels One dies, and a Sizzix Holly embossing folder to put sixty of these together.

Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, and I still have gifts to wrap...need to get hoppin'! Sending blessings to all for a very Merry Christmas!

Sister Stamps Chinese Zodiac Collection: Release Day!

Today is Release Day for the first two stamps in a series from Sister Stamps new Chinese Zodiac Collection! The cute snake and horse images are available for purchase at many of your favorite craft and scrapbook stores, you'll find them listed on the sidebar over at the Sister Stamps official blog.

For my card today, I chose to use the new Horse stamp from this collection. The thing I really love about these stamps are that they are so versatile...not only can they be used for all your creative New Years projects...they're so darned cute that you'll find yourself wanting to use them year round on many other occasions as well!
As an example, I decided to try a fantasy themed center step card.

Used copics to color the adorable horse in shades of pink, glittering her mane and tail and placed her on a bed of puffy clouds embossed with the Cuttlebug swirls folder...

 

Added a lavendar magical castle cut from the Cricut Once Upon A Princess cartridge in the background, a colorful rainbow and a few stars to complete a fun card perfect for any little girl's birthday.

I gotta admit that I'm not much of a stamper anymore, but I did have fun getting my fingers inky again for this new Sister Stamps release! Thank you, Jenny for allowing me to play along. Looking forward to joining you all again in February to kick off the release of the next two Zodiac animals in this series!



Meet Pucca!

Have you met Pucca (pronunced: puka)? Originally created by Korean animation company Vooz, she's a cute young Chinese girl, whose character has taken Asia by storm. Typically sweet and shy as an Asian girl should be, Pucca also posseses super strength ninja powers and an explosive personality when the need arises. LOL, she reminds me a little of my dear friend Patti of Creations by Patti, and I have been itching to do a card for her using little Pucca!

After creating a cutfile for Pucca using MTC, I decided to try my first center step style card. There are tons of different sized center step templates on the web, but for my card I decided to go with the one created and shared by Sandy Hulsart.
I used Spellbinders Label 9 for the center step, embossing it with  Crafts-Too's Blossom Mums folder.After attaching it to the center step, I trimmed away the excess from the center step to allow the front panel to stand out. Label for my sentiment was created by welding a rectangle from the George cartridge to the modern cube from the Paper Lace cartridge in Cricut Design Studio. Font used was WonTon, and patterned paper is digitized washi paper.

And here's how the card opens up...

I added another image of Pucca, this time with her best friend Ching, both created in MTC. This was a fun card to put together, although I did run into a problem with the weight of all the layers on the front center step not allowing the card to stand up properly. I ended up having to glue an additional layer of card stock to the base card to try and balance the weight of the card and that seemed to have fixed the problem somewhat. Have to remember to use a sturdier cardstock for my base next time around with this type of card.



Hang In There...Don't Go Bananas!

This was my first attempt at a double staircase card, and a shameful copy of a super cute card origninally created by a super creative blogging pal, Jenny of Crazy for Paper Crafting. When I first laid eyes on Jenny's "Let's Hang Out" card, I knew it would be just the perfect card to send to dd during exam time to cheer her up. Cute little monkey is from the Create A Critter cart. I changed the sentiment on the card to "Hang In There" to fit the occasion of dd's stressful week of studying for finals, using MTC and true type fonts LD Charming Bold and Arial for this.

I didn't have any of that cute Doodlebug nature walk paper Jenny used for her card, or for that matter, any forest themed papers at all. My card looked pretty much "bleh", and really needed something, so I added a couple of trees from the ZooBallo cartridge. Unfortunately, in order to be able to hang the vine in the trees, they had to be cut quite large, and as a result their leaves and branches hide the sentiment from full view. *Sigh*

Here's the "inside" sentiment I added to the back of my card. Smiling banana is also a Create A Critter cut.

One of the "big issues" I always have with these staircase type cards is how they tend to want to open up and flatten when I add a lot of die cuts and embellishments to them...

So I decided to add on strips of cardstock to the bottom on both sides of the card to prevent the card from opening more than I wanted. This seems to have done the trick!

Sent this together with her requested care package of Tomoe sakura arare ("gotta be Tomoe, mom!") to dd as she faces her scariest and final finals before she starts her year of rotations. "You can do it, babee!"

From the Heart

This is the Valentine's Day card I created and sent to dd this year...truly a labour of love. It took me weeks to put this one together, mostly because I was testing out and learning a new design program that recently became available called Make The Cut. I used the free trial demo program to design my Tokidoki cuts, and when I saw how EASY it was to learn and use, I just knew I had to have it! Dh agreed to get me this program as my early Valentine's Day gift, and I had so much fun using it to create many of my Valentine goodies!

I had been wanting to try out the side step or concertina card for some time now, and decided it might be a great way to showcase my new Tokidoki cuts. And since I was sending dd a Tokidoki cosmetic bag for her Valentine surprise, this card was perfect.

The side step card was really simple to do. There are many tutorials for this on the web, but I liked Julie Dawson's version the best.

I think one the hardest things about making this card was finding suitable images to import into the Make The Cut program. I'm still a rookie with this program so I wanted to stick to black and white line drawings. I used Photoshop to clean up and change the color images into black and white line drawings, and this is what took me the longest to do. Once that was done, Make The Cut easily rendered them into cutfiles that I could cut with my Cricut.

The sentiment on the card was cut using Stone Script font, welded in Design Studio. Printed glittered cardstock is from Best Creation Inc.

Did you know the Tokidoki characters all have names? This is "Mozarella" from the "Moofia" line of characters.
Here's the back view of the sidestep card where I adhered a few hearts so I could sign and add a personal note.

My second Valentine project were these Dove chocolate heart bouquets.


When I saw these darling mugs on display at Target, I just HAD to have them!

Pink and hearts and teddy bears...nothing could possibly be cuter than that!
These came together fairly quickly. The mugs were filled with pieces of styrofoam cut to fit and I used popsicle sticks for stems to hold the chocolate hearts.
Found it was easiest to arrange the popsicle sticks in the mugs at desired heights first, then I used glue dots to adhere the chocolate hearts to the sticks. Added organza ribbon last to fill in any empty spaces and conceal the sticks.

This teddy Bear gift tag is another Make The Cut file created using a Darcy Hunter digital image. Up till now, I had been using Sure Cuts A Lot to create cutfiles with my Darcy Hunter bear imaages, but I'm finding it is really so much quicker and easier to do with Make The Cut.


This little (or not so little) box was one of my favorite projects. I call it my "pizelle box" because I created it just to hold round plastic containers of pizelle cookies I made up to share with friends and family.
These boxes are rather large, nearly 5 inches square and 2-1/2 inches deep, with the handle sticking up another 1-1/4 inches. It takes two full sheets of 12 inch cardstock to make this box. Because of its size, I used the 12 x 24 inch virtual mat to create this file in Design Studio using the George cartridge. Now that I think about it, I guess I could have gotten it to fit on the 12 inch mat, but for now, if you want to use this file, you will need a 12 x 24 inch mat to cut it. Actually it shouldn't be too difficult to move the file onto the 12 inch virtual mat and I probably will try to do it before I use this file again.

Decorating these boxes was fun. I re-did my puppy dog file in Make The Cut for this, using a free clip art file desgined and shared by Helena Normark at her Art 4 Crafts website. Small scalloped heart in puppy's mouth was done in Design Studio using George.

The square pink cardstock was embossed with tiny hearts using a Cuttlebug card combo die and the valentine lace border on the belly band is a Martha Stewart edge punch.

"Love ya!" is a clear stamp from Hero Art's Valentines Sayings set and tiny acrylic hearts are raindots from Cloud 9 Designs.

And here's a peek at the pizelle cookies inside the box. I got turned on to these cookies by my friend Heather, who often made and shared these delicately crisp, sweet and buttery confections with us. I loved Heather's cookies so much that I asked dh for a pizelle iron of my own for Christmas this past year. Now I too can make these yummies to share with friends and family!

Also did a bunch of these boxes in red and using the same Darcy bear Make The Cut file I had previously used for the gift tag.

And here is the Valentine I made for dh this year. Talk about last minute! I barely got this finished in time.

I had this card imagined in my mind for a long time, but was waiting to receive the Paisley cartridge which I purchased on eBay last month to cut my owls. As it turned out, I have yet to get my cartridge. In last minute desperation, I found some cute owl clipart at Lettering Delights. Thank goodness to Make The Cut, creating cutfiles from the clipart didn't take too long at all, and I think my owls turned out almost as cute as the ones I had been eyeing on the Paisley Cartridge.

Though my pictures are ineffective in showing it, this is actually a pop up card using a mechanism similar to the Sizzix Pop-Up Spinning Platform die. Laurinda Heartland created and shares this Design Studio cutfile on her blog.

Here is what the card looks like on the inside. The owls sitting on the branch turns and pops up as the card is opened.

Used several font dies to do this card. I used Quickutz Maggie for the front of the card. The "Love" in pink is a Sizzix sizzlit from the old "Love Set".

On the inside, I used Sizzix Naturally Serif decorative strip die for the lettering in pink and Quickutz Revolution's Banana Split for the smaller lettering in blue.

Clouds in the background are from the Cricut Paperpups cartridge. Stamped "Happy Valentines Day" is from Hero Art's Valentines Sayings clear set.

These quick and easy tent card candy holders were actually my very first Valentines Day project this year, created to share at the last Cricut Club meeting which was held in January at Photocraft Hawaii. I saw a version of these posted on several blogs a while ago, but I apologize that I can't seem to find the links to give proper credit right now. The original projects that I saw simply used a rectangular piece of cardstock scored and folded in three to make a "tent" and with an oval hole punched at the top to pull the top of a cellophane bag of treats through.

Using that same concept, I designed these treat bag holders in Design Studio.

Hello Kitty was the easiest. I simply welded the shadows of the Hello Kitty image from the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge at the top and added an oval cut from George at the seam to cut the hole. Then I welded the rectangular shape from George to the bottom of one of the shadows to create the "floor" which connects the shadows at the bottom.

Mickey was a little trickier. Since the cut files from Mickey and Friends don't have shadows, I had to first create a shadow for him in Design Studio.

This Love A Lot Carebear one was cute, but I only made one because it took too long to piece together all the tiny pieces to put her together. Love A Lot was cut from a coloring book image and rendered to a scut file using Sure Cuts A Lot.

The photos above show the side view of the Hello Kitty one which more clearly shows the fold at the top and bottom connecting piece.

Photo on the right is of the back of the Carebear one to which I added hearts so I could add a personal note and signature.

And here are the Valentine goodies I received this year!

This beautiful covered slider card is from my friend Patti from Creations By Patti. Those of you who frequent her blog already know what an awesomely creative and generous person she is. Her work is always so beautiful and amazing, and she always very generously shares very detailed and helpful tutorials so you can try to re-create some of her projects. You can find the tutorial for this particular card on her blog here. I just love these cut and embossed butterflies from the Stampin Up catalog. Already added them to my wish list.

Isn't this little Valentine basket full of goodies the cutest ever? From my multi-talented friend Heather who always pampers us with the most delectable treats from her kitchen. Oh, take a look at these beautiful "L-O-V-E" cookies! Almost too pretty to eat...but I did...and mmmm--they were delicious!And this darling little treat bag filled with valentine sweets was created by my new friend, Dawne. She opened her home on Valentines Day to her friends to get together to create Cards for Soldiers and presented each of us with this sweet gift!
Last but not least, I couldn't do a Valentines Day post without sharing at least one photo of our Latte all decked out in her Valentines Day attire!Hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating and sharing the love!

(P.S. Next Cricut Club meeting is scheduled for Sunday, February 21st at 12:30pm. at Photocraft Hawaii)