Thank You "Beary" Much!

Needed to send out a couple thank you cards a while back, and couldn't resist using Darcie Hunter's bears again. These darling bear images were cut with SCAL and Cricut using digital images from one of her clipart CDs which I had purchased 10 years ago! Wow, who'd ever think that ten years later, I'd be using them to create die cuts for my cards. If you love Darcie's cute teddies as much as I do, head on over to Sunshine Graphics now! They are currently having a huge liquidation sale on all her old CDs, brimming with hundreds of these digital teddies...they won't last long!

These cards came together pretty quickly; the round windows and scalloped frames were cut using nestabilities; and the bees are from the Pooh and Friends cartridge. Flower embellishments are Prima and the flower centers are Dewdrops from Robin's Nest. Sentiments were computer generated, font is DJ Fancy.

A Splashin' Good Time

My very talented and good friend, Kris always makes the neatest cards ever, and I have been the lucky recipient of several of them. On one of our recent shopping outings, she presented me with this pivoting pop-up surfing Ian card which I totally fell in love with. When the card is opened, Ian pops up and rides the waves! How cool is that! And oh, did you notice that Ian is a diecut? Kris did such an awesome job of re-creating him with SCAL and her Cricut...love all the details...check out his printed board shorts and even his neck chain! I definitely had to CASE this card... The mechanism that makes Ian ride the waves is an inverted v-fold pivot. I had to disassemble Kris's card to get a good look at it, but later found the pattern for it with very detailed instructions posted by Carol on one of my favorite blogs, Extreme Cards and Papercrafting.

...and so here's my take on Kris' card...

I made this card to send to dd's bf after he stay-cationed with us this summer. One of the funnest things we did was to go jet skiing, so I decided to try a version of Kris' card with jet skiers. Only problem was I couldn't find any good images of tandem jet skiers anywhere. I finally gave up searching and ended up trying to draw my own, and used SCAL and Cricut to cut it. Lol, as you can see, I'm definitely not an artist and it came out a bit goofy looking, but I was desperate! For the water, I used the wave border from Paper Pups, and added a few quickutz dolphins to complete the scene.

For the beach scene on the front of the card, I scanned images from a coloring book, then edited, re-sized, and printed it onto white cardstock. Staedtler Aquarells with a Dove Blender were used to color, and I used foam tape on duplicate images of the coconut tree and umbrella to add dimension.

In the end, I had used so many different types of images that the finished card looked a bit cartooney. But that's okay, I had fun making it, and even more fun playing with it when it was done! With the pivot mechanism in place, opening & closing the card made the jetski bob up and down amongst the waves, reminding me of all the fun we had that day!

"Bee" Back Soon!

Summer's officially over for me once dd returns to school in Cali. This year her summer break was so short and it felt as though we had hardly any time to spend together before it was time for her to leave. Saying goodbye was difficult and I found myself missing her so much when she left.


I found what I thought would be the perfect card to send dd posted on the Cricut Messageboard by Ashley (lovemysoldier). She had created the cutest card ever, and though I usually try not to do blatant scraplifts, for this one I did. It was so perfect, I didn't want to change it too much! Thank you, Ashley!

For this card, I used the beehive cut from Walk In My Garden, welded the shadows in Design Studio to create the base card, and adhered the layers with foam tape. The little bees are from the Pooh and Friends cart, and the cute sign at the front door was simply printed on the computer and cut out. I hung the sign using dmc embroidery floss and a little mini brad.

For the sentiment on the front of the card I decided to try something new. Well, at least "new" for me... I've read about creating your own rub-ons for a while now, but never really had the chance to try it till now. Printing the sentiment directly onto the cardstock prior to cutting out the beehive would have meant a lot time measuring and still a lot of guesswork. But this technique was easy and worked like a charm! First I printed a mirror image of my sentiment using my inkjet printer onto a sheet of transparency. Then after it was dry, I simply used a popsicle stick to rub it on to my card like I would any commercially made rub on. Wallah! If you look very closely enough, you'll see a little bit of bleeding, but imo, hardly noticiable at all. For all the time and frustration it saved me, it's a wonderful technique! Oh, one thing I should mention, this technique doesn't work too well on textured papers. If your cardstock is textured, better to flip it over to the back smooth side to rub your sentiment on.


On the inside of my card, I used the flower cut from Plantin Schoolbook and grass border cut from the ZooBalloo cart. The sentiment was computer generated, fonts are DJ Fancy and DJ Inkers. Chalked everything up and added a few heart shaped raindots from Cloud 9 Designs.

I don't know why, but I've never really made very many shaped cards in the past. This one was so much fun to do, especially with all the layering. Recently I've been seeing some really neat cards like this shared by others on the Cricut Message Board Card Forum and also over at Custom Crops. I know I'll be wanting to try more like this soon!

Everything's Coming Up Roses!

We celebrated my mil's birthday this past weekend, and here's the card I created for her. Decided to do a second try with the flower pot card I had done a few months ago for a card swap. My first card, imo, came out a bit too large so I re-did the cutfile this time around to create a smaller sized card, which I'm much happier with.

For this second card, I also changed the flowers "planted" in the flower pot to the roses from the Walk In My Garden cartridge. Chalked them up and layered them with foam tape for some added dimmension. The base card for the flowers and the insert was created in Design Studio by welding several shadow images of the roses together with a rectangle shape from the George cartridge.

For the flower pot (also from Walk in My Garden cartridge), the bottoms of two flower pot images were welded together in Design Studio to create a pocket for the card insert. The front of this was then chalked and embossed with a Sizzix embossing folder. Added a grosgrain ribbon to the pot and it was done! I really like how this actually came together fairly quickly. Next time around, I think I'll want to experiment with some different types of flowers... poinsettias for Christmas might be cute, huh.

Hidden Message Slider Card

Here's the card I sent to Joy of "A Place To Be Me" for August's One Card Swap. I wanted to try something new, but was stumped until I came across Michele's Hidden Message Slider Card posted on her blog, "My Simple Crafts". Michele had created the cutest sliding graduation card but I just could not figure it out. Being that I enjoy cards that move and slide and pop the most, I really loved this card. Did a search on the Splitcoast Message board and lo, and behold, found the instructions shared by Beate. (click on the link to the message board then scroll down to Beate's response for her link to the instructions)

For my card for Joy, I used a cut created using SCAL a digital bear image from Darcie Hunter and cut with Cricut, then chalked. The butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch, stickled and popped with some foam tape, and the rhinestone blings are from Photocraft. Sentiments are computer generated, font is DJ Doodlers, and rubber stamped flowers are from Dandelion Designs. Of course, I had to use Joy's favorite purple and my favorite pink! Pulling down on the tab at the bottom of the card makes the bear slide down to reveal the "hidden message" at the top of the card. Neat, huh. Looks complicated, but it's actually very easy! Hope Joy enjoyed her card as much as I had fun making it!

And if you think you might be interested in participating in the One Card Swap, pop on over to Teri's blog, "Big Ideas from a Little Girl" to sign up now for the month of September. It's really a fun swap and all it takes is one card you've made to participate and you too will have the opportunity to meet some of the nicest people ever.

August OCS and RAKs

Been getting a lot of "happy mail" recently and wanted to share...

I signed up for Teri's OCS (One Card Swap) again this month and was so excited to learn I had been partnered with Joy from A Place To Be Me! Her blog is such a fun place to visit because there's always something new... she has the cutest cards and projects and it's amazing how quickly she puts things together. I just love this Miss Anya card I received from her last week. Such an AWESOME card with a great color combo and embellishments! Joy used the "Out of Frame Technique" on this card to create the look of Miss Anya sitting in the nestie with her legs dangling...neat, huh. You can find the the link to the instructions for this technique on her blog. I'm gonna have to give this a try too. Thank you, Joy!

Next is a "Things I Love" Mini Envelope Book created and sent to me by my friend Patti Lee of Creations by Patti. All I can say is "Wow!" This little book is nothing short of AWESOME! All the stamping, cutting, crimping, gluing involved, all the attention to detail ... just amazing!

Here's the book opened...

The pages inside...

And these tabbed pages that slide out...super cool, huh. Thank you, Patti!

If you love this as much as I do, you can create your own with the tutorial Patti has posted on her blog. Thank you, Patti ... this is really a treasure!

And most recently, I received this lovely card, from my new friend, Kyoko of Cards and Tags Mania. I was lucky enough to meet Kyoko in person last month when she generously offered to share some of her very precious patterned papers with me. She is one of the warmest, sweetest people I have ever met!

Kyoko's card is my very first Magnolia stamped card...love the colors she chose for her and all the pretty layering. Really like how she accented her swiss dots embossed layer with silver ink ... can't wait to try that too.

And as if that weren't enough, Kyoko also sent along a whole bunch of Gorjuss Girls stamped images for me to play with! Thank you, Kyoko...you are the bestest!

It never ceases to amaze me how many wonderful new friends I have made through this blogging network. Everyone is always so thoughtful and so generous in giving and sharing ... heartfelt thanks to all!

His Music Will Live On...

Okay, so this is not a card, but it was something I felt I needed to do for myself, to help me get through the shock and grief. I grew up together with the music of Michael Jackson. Rockin Robin, Dancing Machine, Thriller, Billie Jean... I loved it all. So when I learned of his untimely death in June, suddenly a part of me seemed to crumble away, leaving a feeling of sad emptiness. Adding a few of my favorite Michael Jackson music to my blog playlist helped some, but still the emptiness remained. I felt I needed to create something to help fill the void. I found this silhouette image of Michael and decided to try to replicate it with SCAL and Cricut. I was pleased with the result, and have decided to save it for when I finally get around to scrapbooking Michael's 1997 Aloha Stadium concert in Hawaii.