Berry Sweet!

Have you met Berry Puppy? I recently came across this cute little puppy from San-X for the first time while browsing at a Morning Glory shop near my home. I found out later that she's actually been around for almost 3 years now, and quite a hit in Japan. Thinking she'd be cute to use on a birthday card for my niece, I bought a couple Berry Puppy notepads and stationery. Then when I got home, I traced her by hand, scanned my traced image and converted it into a cutfile using MTC.

I decided to use my Berry Puppy to make my first triple tiered slider card. First saw this type of card in my Annie's Attic Interactive Cards book, but found the instructions to be too confusing and difficult to follow. Then a few months ago, I saw this card again, created and shared by my very creative blogging friend Michele, on her blog, My Simple Crafts. Loved how Michele's cards turned out, and I'm so grateful that she shared the link for a much simpler tutorial by Heather Summers over at Splitcoast Stampers.

For my card, I changed the dimensions of Heather's original card just a bit to make the upper two tiers smaller so it would look more like a three tiered cake. Then instead of the tab pull Heather used at the top of the card, I glued candles onto a trimmed circle as my pull.  I used printed cardstock from DCWV for my cake layers...I liked that the borders on the paper meant less embellishing on my part except on the top layer where I used a Martha Stewart Daisy edge punch. Nestabilities Labels Four dies were used for the greetings.

Lastly, I added a piece of cardstock folded in half behind the bottom tier so my card would also open like a traditional card where I could add  a birthday sentiment and sign our names.

Pretty much happy with how this turned out, but will definitely have to make a cutfile for this in Design Studio on my next attempt. I spent too much time measuring, and cutting and scoring (and wasting paper!) this first time around...better to let my Cricut do the cutting next time!

Little Princess Birthday

For my cousin's grandaughter's first birthday, I decided I wanted to try a Sliding Pop-Up Card like the one I first saw posted by Patti of Creations by Patti. I had tried the pop up mechanism on this card as an embellishment on my Valentine treat boxes back in February, but didn't have a chance to try it on a card till now.

Pulling on the tab on the bottom of the card reveals the hidden birthday greeting and at the same time, makes the top part of the card "pop-up" perpendicular to the base card.

The princess and her castle are cuts from the Once Upon A Princess cartridge, and the label for the sentiment is from the Home Accents cartridge.Corner accents were cut with a die from the Cuttlebug Vintage corners set. Really like that this pop up card is fairly simple and pretty quick to put together. You can find the easy to follow tutorial by Kim Score over at Splitcoast Stampers. Also be sure to check out Kim Score's blog, Paper Punch Addiction for lots of neat cards she's created using this pop up technique.

Dreams Do Come True!

O Happy Day! Today goes down in my book as one of the most joyous days in my life. Dd graduated and received her Pharm.D. degree today and dh and I are so proud and happy for her! All her years of hard work and dedication has long last paid off...today she reached up and finally grabbed that elusive star!
Here's the card I made for her in celebration of this very special day. It didn't turn out quite as I had imagined, but I think she'll get the point. The photo I used for my card was one that I had taken of dd when she was about 5 years old, she's wearing my smock from work and her dad's dress shirt & tie. If you look closely, you'll see she's pouring some blue colored "medicine" into a bottle, pretending to be a pharmacist. Yup, "dreams really do come true"!

On the inside of the card, I added a quote from Walt Disney..."All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them"
Spellbinders nestabilities labels 4 dies were used for the greeting, and the flourish border as well as the frane on the front of the card are from the Home Accents cartridge. Tinkerbell is from Tinkerbell and Friends cartridge. "Dreams do come true" sentiment is LD Charming font rendered into a cut file using MTC.
This last photo shows the card folded into its easel card position. Thought it might be kind of  a neat thing for dd to keep displayed on her desk as an inspiration to continue making and reaching her future goals in life.

 For the graduation lunch after the ceremony, I made up mini take-out boxes embellished with the same photo and theme. But first take a look at these handmade leis dd received from friends.The  pretty orange & black one was crocheted out of  yarns and rattail cords, and the beautiful pikake lei was created out of paper clay by my super talented and good friend Kris. I can't get over how realistic the flowers on this lei look! Kris did an amazing job painstakingly shaping and creating each delicate blossom (must be over 400 of them!), then meticulously strung them into lei strands. She even added the sweet scent of pikake...so much attention to detail...this lei is truly a work of art from the heart! Thank you so much Kris!

Here's a closeup of the front & back of the favor boxes. I used MTC to trace the template of a takeout box found over at Mirkwood Designs and had my Cricut cut them out. Design for the front and back of the boxes were done using Printshop, printed onto gold ice text weight paper, cut with my Cricut to fit onto the box panels, then glued onto the boxes.

Then finally, these were the leis I made for dd to pass out to her fellow graduating classmates. I wanted to do something different so I used empty Rx stock bottles collected at work and strung them together with prescription vials filled with dollar bills in cellophane tubes to look like candy leis. They didn't look very pretty, but they were kind of fun and the kids got a kick out of them.

Dd also received several other beautiful handmade leis and cards from friends and family, of which I was unable to get photos today, but hope to post later, as soon as I can get dd to send me photos. We send our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all of you for helping to make this such a special and memorable day for our family. Mahalo from the heart!

Mothers Day

Been so pre-occupied lately with "other stuff" that need to get done that I haven't had the chance to do much crafting at all. So when it came time to make cards for Mothers Day, I just couldn't get the creative mojo working. Luckily, I came across a beautiful birthday card created and shared by Sandi on the Cricut Message Board, which I thought would be perfect for Mothers Day. Another blatant scraplift, I'm afraid, but mine is a far cry from being as pretty as Sandi's card with all her layering and distressing.

The base for this card with its cut-out rose border and tag is a cutfile straight from the Wrap it Up cartridge so it was easy to put together. Simply cut it at 6.5 inches and did a few tweaks in Design Studio to add the leaves to the border. Ran the tag through the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder, added ribbon and a few flatback pearls and it was done.

Also decorated a few gift bags for some sweets to pass out at our Mothers Day dinner. For these, I used the flowering branch cut from Gypsy Wanderings. Added a topper to the bag with a slit cut at the top to slide the handles through to keep the bag nicely closed. Font for the "Happy Mothers Day" is Kiev. Used MTC to render it into a cutfile with a shadow.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Mothers Day today.

Last Minute Easter Bunny

"I'm late! I'm LATE! For a very important DATE!" so said the rabbit in Alice In Wonderland, and that accurately sums up me at Easter this year. Have so much going on right now that I didn't think I'd have time to create anything at all for Easter. But being that Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays, I scrambled to put these little fence boxes together at the very last minute. Managed to get a few of these done for dh to take to work on Good Friday, and got ten more done this morning just in time to take to our family Easter lunch. Whew, what a frantic rush!

Luckily these came together pretty quickly once I got the hang of assembling the fence boxes. These boxes are a cutfile from  the Wrap It Up cartridge. Didn't think I'd ever have a use for a fence box, until I saw the adorable ones created and posted by Tina on her blog, Tina Time.
I altered the fence "box" cutfile just a tad because on the original cutfile, the fence box sides are connected only on the bottom where you see the grass. I didn't like the way the fence bulged at the seams when filled with goodies, so I used Design Studio to weld tabs (rectangle shape from the George cartridge) to the corners of the fence so I could glue the sides together, resulting in a sturdier box.

I loved the cute ducklings Tina used for her box, but since I don't own the Just Because Cards cartridge, I needed a quick substitute. Decided to use the rabbit from the Cottage Cutz "Made Easy" Bunny & Butterflies die, which was just the right size.

Didn't care for the butterfly cut on the die too much, so I used my Martha Stewart butterfly punch instead. To add a little fun dimmension, I cut the wings off of two butterflies, glued them together at the body at slightly different angles, then folded the one in front down at the wing.
Attached bunnies and butterflies to the boxes with foam tape, taped in a bag filled with treats and it was done.
Lucky for me, my crafting friends aren't procastinators like me...look at all the wonderful Easter surprises they created and shared at our last Cricuteer meeting...

Embellished paint pails were created by Ev, amazing pop-up egg card by Kris, and Cheryl made cute Hello Kitty baskets for each of us to take home!

From left to right, sweet Hello Kitty basket by Cheryl, super cute picnic basket designed by Iris, and adorable Create A Critter bunny basket created by Pat.

This very cool carrot treat box was designed and shared by Aileen and Lynette as Make and Take...so much fun to put together!
And check out these "almost too pretty to eat" decorated carrot and bunny cookies from dear friend Heather.

Then last, but not least are these paper bunnies put together by my dad. Aren't they the cutest? I'm glad that he started making these little paper animals again. Hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Easter weekend spent with family and friends!

Baby Shoes

I was so late with this baby card (baby was already 6 months old!) that it had to be quick and easy. I knew I wanted to do a card with a pair of Maryjanes, but was disappointed that there wasn't a cutfile to be found in any of the 150 plus currently available Cricut cartridges. BTW, if ever you're looking for a particular image and wondering if there might be a cutfile for it on any of the Cricut Cartridges, be sure to check out the CricutSearch.com website. It's probably the best that's available to do that sort of search, although I've found that the searches aren't always thoroughly complete.  I finally found a suitable image to render into a cutfile by doing a image search on the Google, but I think I spent more time searching than the time it took to put the whole card together.

Once I found the image I wanted to use, Make the Cut (MTC) easily rendered it into a cutfile. MTC was also used to create all the die cut words and shadows using Lettering Delights truetype font, Charming Bold.

Used my Martha Stewart doily edge punch for a border and added flatback flower buttons to the shoes and as the stop for the easel and it was done.

Butterfly Spiral Pop Up Card

Because she is so special, mom's birthday card had to be extra special too. The flower on her card was created by cutting the flower from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge in five graduated sizes, then chalking the edges, and spraying with Tsukineko crystal spritz. Petals were shaped using the molding tool from the Punch Bunch embossing tool kit, then flowers were layered and glued together. Flower center is gold vellum punched with a Nellie Snellen punch and a flatback pearl. Leaves were also cut from Plantin Schoolbook, folded in half then run thru a paper crimper at an angle.

After spending considerable time searching through all the cartridge handbooks for a butterfly image to use (they are a lot!) I finally settled on the one from the Sentimentals cartridge. Cut several layers of the butterfly using different papers...gold vellum, gold cardstock, pink cardstock and pink patterned paper. I used  narrow strips of foam tape near the center of the wings so they would pop out an an angle.
Added a strip of white cardstock punched with  Martha Stewart's Graden Trellis deep edge punch and a swirly flourish cut from the Home Decor cartridge for background embellishments, and Nestabilities Labels One die to cut out my sentiment.
Here's how the card looks on the inside...

My very first spiral pop up card! Been wanting to try this for awhile now, and thought butterflies might look pretty cool on a spiral so I decided to give it a go. Found instructions and a video tutorial for this over at Splitcoast Stampers.

Butterflies were punched from various shades of pink cardstock and vellum using a Martha Stewart punch and adhered to the spiral with glue dots. For my spiral, I decided to use clear acetate instead of cardstock, thinking it would increase the illusion of the butterflies floating in mid-air.

Also added another large butterfly from the Sentimentals cartridge, and used a simple box pop up mechanism behind it. Flourish embellishment is the same one used on the front of the card from the Home Accents cartridge, and Nestabilities Labels One dies were used for the sentiment.

To assure that the flower and butterfly on the front of the card wouldn't get crushed, I definitely needed to put it in a box. Used the George cartridge and Design Studio to make a quick and easy box. Used my Martha Stewart Layered Arches edge punch for the belly band, and for the medallion, I used Stampin Up's Scalloped Circle punch and rubber stamp with another punched butterfly added to the center. I liked how the spiral pop-up with the butterflies turned out, although I did have to practice cutting the spiral quite a few times before I got it right. Definitely want to try this again...maybe with stars or snowflakes?