Halloween Projects...a little late

Halloween has come and gone, the end of the year is just around the corner and already I feel myself falling behind...my procrastination is taking its toll.



The inspiration for my Halloween luminaria came from the October issue of Martha Stewart's Living Magazine. She had done up some pretty elaborate and intricate designs for her luminarias, and I decided to give it a try with Cricut and Design Studio. I welded shapes from the George cartridge to do the basic luminaria, a frame from the Jasmine cart for the oval cut out, then welded the scaredy cat and fence cuts from Paper Dolls Dress Up to the inside of the oval. Orange vellum was taped to the inside of the luminaria, and I added a little battery powered flame to light it up.

Photocraft's Cricut Club held their second meeting in October with quite a good turnout. Look at all the neat Halloween projects that were shared!


This cute spider bag was shared by Robin. She used a CD envelope to create a very cool window package for her Halloween treats. Robin inked up her embossing folder with a black stamp pad to create the spider web and used the Doodlecharms cart to cut her scary spider and cute pumpkin.


Kris shared a number of SCAL projects cut with her Cricut at the meeting. Everyone thought this pop up Halloween card was just awesome, with so much detail, and oh, so fun how the ghost pops out from the haunted house to say "Boo!"...another great example of the v-fold pivot at work.
Kris also shared this super neat spider and web box, cut with SCAL and Cricut. Love those googlie eyes! Kris purchased the svg files for this box and the pop up card from Paperthreads. (Very cool site with over a thousand different kinds of svg cuts you can purchase at really reasonable prices)


And this neat double slider treat box is yet another project shared by Kris. Isn't she just amazing? This looks really hard to do, but Kris claims it's really just a double slider card, only with a box on one side. Gonna have to spend some time later to figure out how to make this....

Jen from Pieces of Me showed up for the meeting too! Jen shared her very cute backpack goodie box, but I missed getting a photo of it. You can see it and even download the cutfile over on her Cricut sharing blogsite, Cricut Cuts By Jen. While you're there, be sure to take a look around because you'll find cutfiles for a lot of awesome projects created and generously shared by this multi-talented lady. If you decide to download any of her files, please don't forget to leave her comment to thank her!

The project I shared at the meeting was inspired by a cute Pumpkin Make and Take Card that Jean of Dandelion Designs had done earlier at the store to showcase her new line of sweet little Halloween stamps. Jean is always so creative, and always comes up with the neatest creations. I used her pop out of the pumpkin card idea and stuck it on to a goodie box. The cutfile for the box was done in Design Studio using George, and the jack-o-lantern and ghost cuts are from Paper Dolls Dress Up.

If you are interested in sharing projects done with the Cricut, you should definitely come to the next meeting! We'll be sharing Christmas and holiday projects at Photocraft Hawaii on Sunday, November 15th at 12:30. It's really fun to learn and share!

Here's another spider treat box created by my sweet friend and dh's talented co-worker, Heather. Spider cut is from the Doodlecharms cart, and I suspect she may have created the box in Design Studio. I really like the festive Halloween-y cardstock, and how the spider was cut large enough so his legs would extend past the edges of the box...neat, huh. I loved Kris' spider box so much that I made up a bunch to share with friends at work. As always, I was so last minute so I didn't get to add the fun googlie eyes to my spiders, but they turned out okay. Eeek! Lookit all those spiders on my floor!
I also decorated some gift bags with the Halloween-y cuts from the Hello Kitty cartridge for special friends and family. Being that I had procrastinated till the end, it was a good thing that these came together really quickly!

Last, but not least, here's the Halloween card our doggie sent out to her friends and family this year. The cards were created online by uploading my photos to Hallmark.com. The cards are really quick and easy to create, and the nice thing is that Hallmark will mail the cards directly to your recipients.I guess the most difficult part was getting little Latte into her costumes and trying to convince her smile. Needless to say, she did not enjoy this a single bit...
...and by the end of the photo session both doggy and photographer were totally exhausted!

Thanks "a Melon"!

Here's another quick thank you card, made for a sweet friend and co-worker. I was really last minute with this so it had to be quick! Pulling down on the ribbon at the bottom of the card reveals a "hidden message". This was my second go at Beate's hidden message card, and it's truly wonderful that it's so fast and easy to do. Beate generously shares the instructions to create this card here. (Scroll down to Beate's response to the thread and you'll find the link to the instructions in her message)

The Hello Kitty cut comes from the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge and the watermelon is from Doodlecharms. And cute corner cuts at the are from a 2x2 Cuttlebug die set called "Vintage". Just love these "quickie" cards...wish there were more cards like this that could be as simple to do.

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.