Kindess From the Heart

Often we hear about how crafters are the most thoughtful and kindest people...how true this is! Recently I ran into a major setback with my computer and the Make The Cut  (MTC) program that I love so much. Julie Flanagan, who hosts the MTC Tutorial Group on Yahoo came to my rescue and saved the day! I do not personally know, and have never met Julie, yet when she read my email about the problems I was experiencing, she generously provided help. Touched by her kindness, I created this card for her.

I saw a card similar to this a long while ago on the Cricut Message board using the flowered heart frame from the Love Struck cartridge. Can't believe I waited this long to give it a try!
Using Cricut Design Studio, I cut the window for the flowered heart frame. Flowers are from Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, cut in various sizes and shaped using an embossing tool. I used a Viva Liquid Pearl Pen to do the flower centers. Stamped sentiment is from Stampin Up's "Heard from the Heart" set.

Here's what the card looks like on the inside... LOL, these "familiar" pink birds were "left overs" from the favors we made for dd's wedding earlier this year...they were cut using Quickutz Love birds die. Their wings and the leafy branches are from Stampin Up's Two Step Bird Punch. Scalloped heart border was created and cut using Make the Cut and Silhouette, and the heart shaped background is acutally a shaped card created using the George cartridge and Cricut Design Studio.

This was a fun card to do...ummm...yes, a little time consuming to cut and shape all the flowers, but fun. Now that I'm finally starting to get the hang of using the embossing tool to do the flower sculpting (without my wrist getting too sore) I'll probably be doing them more often for my cards in the future.
BTW, for those of you who own the Make the Cut (MTC) program, I highly recommend getting into Julie's Yahoo tutorial group. As a member of the group, you'll receive email notifications from Julie whenever there are updates, webinars, and other valuable and helpful tips regarding MTC and your cutting machines.

Gift Bags {and tags} Galore!

Our Cricut Club celebrated our third year together with a gift bag and tag swap. Each of us had to come up with 17 gift bag with  matching tag sets to share with our fellow members. The only rule was that at least one element on the bag had to be cut using our Cricut machines. Everyone's talent and creativity was just amazing, and I'm thrilled to share the wonderful gift bags I received!
The first two bags above were created by Kris (Teddy Bear Parade) and Jean (Mickey and Friends).

 Adorable Hello Kitty bags by Kelli (ladybug) and Patrice (bee)

Teddy Bear Parade reindeer by Pat and Flower Pot (flowers pull out to reveal the tag!) by Aileen.

Straight from the Nest by Laura,  Home Accents by Robyn K., Hello Kitty Greetings by Michele C.,

Hello Kitty Font by Cheryl T., Pooh and Friends by Iris, Dinosaur Tracks by Bonnie,

Create A Critter by Michele F., and Pagoda by Sharon.
Wow, with all these fabulous gift bags in my stash, I'm certainly prepared for any gift giving occasion. Sigh, but truth be told, I think I'd have a difficult time parting with any of these to give away!

Cricut Club Gift Bag 'n Tag Project

The annual "big project" for our Cricut Club this year was to come up with a gift bag and matching tag set to share with each member. I liked the way the Mothers Day gift bags I made back in May turned out so I decided to go with something similar for this project.
This time I used premade handled kraft bags, using the same Lettering Delights Kyoto Kuties cutfile for the body, and washi paper for the kimono. I used a different doll head this time, and again added Action Wobbles for some fun bobble head movement.

 

The hanging lanterns in the background are from the Cricut Pagoda cartridge, and the corners were cut from a sizzilit die from the Architectural Accents set. For the matching tag, I used the same cutfile of the plum blossom from the kokeshi's hair, simply enlarging it to 3 inches.

 

 

Put together 17 of these to share, and after tomorrow's meeting, I should be coming home with 16 different and very cool bags that were created by my super crafty and talented fellow members... how fun is that! Can't wait!







Pinterest Inspired

Do you Pinterest? DD got me hooked on it  and I think it's just the coolest "organizing tool" ever for finding and sharing ideas and inspiration found on the internet. My card today was inspired by one of my very first pins onto my Pinterest Papercrafting board...it's actually an old idea made brand new by talented crafter and blogger, Kelly Griglione on her blog, Notable Nest. Kelly used the idea of a Free Standing Pop Up Card and added her own special twist by using clear acetate for the sliding element, a green word in script ("happy") for a fancy stem, and adding a flower to top it off.

I'm sad that I didn't take photos of this card at different angles to more clearly show how it's put together, but Kelly has a very detailed tutorial with lots of pics to explain how to make your own. I had to improvise a bit since I didn't have all the supplies Kelly used...I used my Silhouette machine to cut out the words "happy" and "birthday" using LD Charming Bold font, and changed up the flower to one that looks more like a rose.
The rose petals were cut with my Cricut from the Mothers Day Bouquet cartridge and sculpted using embossing tools from the Punch Bunch Craft Kit with a foam mat. The shaping technique was learned from many years of repeatedly watching Norice over at Creations Unlimited demo it and lots of practice. Yeah, I know, I still need more practice! There's also a video by Just Laury on YouTube that's quite inspiring.
I attached a brad to the center of the flower to attach it to the top of the acetate strip, then finished off with pearls to hide the brad.

Here's what the card looks like when it's folded flat. I simply tied a ribbon around it to keep it closed. This was a really fun and not too hard card to put together using Kelly's tutorial. Just keep in mind that if you use a heavier flower like I did, you'll need to use a sturdy acetate (or more layers of a thinner acetate) to support it. (Otherwise you'll end up with a drooping flower like I did on my first try at this.) I also had to increase the width (by 1") and height (by 1/4") of the base to compensate for the extra weight of the flower so that the card would stand balanced.

Okay...back to Pinterest to get more fresh ideas!





Having Fun with Vinyl

 

Thought the Pucca cut looked so cute on Patti's card that I decided to try a few more of her, this time in vinyl. Found an image of Pucca with her boyfriend, Garo that I liked and rendered it into a cutfile in MTC. Unfortunately my stash of vinyl is limited to only a few basic colors so Pucca and Garo's faces had to be very very pink!

 Adhered them to a plastic scrapbook supply case and personalized it with Patti's name...

 

 Also tried the same Pucca and chopsticks image that I used on Patti's card in vinyl and adhered her onto a clear red acrylic cup. I used Oracal 651 and Scotchcal 220 vinyl for my projects since these are permanent vinyls which differ from most of the vinyls typically sold in scrapbooking stores which are usually only intended for "indoor use".  The permanent vinyls have a more durable adhesive on them which can withstand higher temperatures and detergents and therefore are more suitable for cars, windows, cups and food storage items that need to be washed.

Having successfully finished Patti's cup and case, I was feeling pretty confident and decided I was ready to try a more "permanent" project...decorating my netbook!  I had been wanting to do this for quite a while but was always too afraid that I'd mess up...LOL, everything else can be dumped if I made a mistake, but I wouldn't be able to throw away my netbook...!

 

 I started by drawing an image of my doggie Latte...just couldn't find a cute image of a Maltese that I liked so finally decided to draw my own...and saved it as a jpeg image. Used MTC (Make the Cut) to render it into a cutfile and had my Silhouette Cameo do the cut in vinyl. Happily it turned out just as I hoped...it brings a smile to my heart and reminds me of my little doggie everytime I use my netbook!

 And finally, here's a pic of our little Latte (minus her top knot)...haven't posted a photo of her in quite awhile, but she's the reason for the white doggie you see in many of my card projects created for dh and dd.

 

 

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.



Baby Brooke's Shoes

This was the baby card I recently came up with to celebrate the arrival of my cousin's brand new grandaughter. For this, I knew before I started that I wanted to try some stitching. I love the look of stitching on cards, but have always been too afraid to try it. So when I came across the Sew Easy tool byWe R Memory Keepers, I bought it right away, thinking I could easily add fancy stitching on my projects without having to take out my sewing machine. I spent quite a bit of time practicing with my new toy on scrap pieces of paper, but wasn't too pleased with the results. I had a difficult time trying to get the tool to pierce consistently through cardstock. I used a foam type mat underneath, and when I used enough pressure to pierce the cardstock, it left unsightly crease marks....not happy!
I ended up taking out my sewing machine afterall, and found that it wasn't as difficult as I had thought it would be. Still haven't quite figured out how to properly adjust the tension and stitch length/width to vary the stitch length, though. (If anyone can give me any advice on how to do this, it would truly be appreciated!) I was pretty happy how the stitching turned out for my first attempt at this...only wish I had used a different colored thread so it would have shown up a little better...

The baby shoes were cut using a MTC cutfile I had created a last year for another baby card. This time I sized them down a bit so they would fit my card and added tiny blossoms punched with a mini Punch Bunch punch. The lacy border behind the shoes was made using  Martha Stewart's Valentine Lace edge and EK Success Large Scroll Pattern edge punches. Added a pink satin bow and baby's name to complete the card.

Kept it simple on the inside with a repeat of  the patterned paper and theValentine Lace edge border.

FYI, just did a search for reviews on the Sew Easy Tool and to my surprise, found that mostly everyone else who purchased this tool absolutely loves it! Hmmm...maybe I need to play around with it a bit more...