Year of the Sheep Easel Calendar Cards

Our annual Cricut Club Swap is today. This year we each had to make 16 any occasion cards to swap with our fellow club members. For my card, I decided to make a New Years card, which opens up to be an easel desk calendar...might as well make something useful, right?

The original inspiration for my card comes from a very cool graduation easel card created by Vickie of BGlad Papercrafts blog which I had pinned onto my Pinterest board with the intent of making graduation cards, but realized only recently that it would also make neat New Years cards as well. The base card was pretty simple to create in Make The Cut (MTC) by welding numbers from Arial Black Font and rectangle shapes. Then, since the upcoming year 2015 will be the Year Of The Sheep according to the Chinese astrological calendar, I added the cute lamb cut from Cricut Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge.

And as suggested by Norice over at Creations Unlimited (fave papercrafting store), I embossed the lambie's wool with a Darice Swirl Background folder to add to her cuteness...

...And of course I couldn't resist mounting her on an Action Wobbler for a bit of whimsey!

Had oodles of fun putting these cards together and in fact I finished not 16, but 50 of these. Donated several to my mom's senior citizen group to be sold at the Senior's Fair this weekend, and saving the rest to send to friends and family during the holidays. Wow, it feels great to cross off three things on my "To Do" list with just one project!

Eye Chart Thank You

Here's a card I recently put together for one of the ophthalmologists and his staff in our building. Several weeks ago I woke up in the morning with a nasty eye infection and was so grateful that they squeezed me in even as a new patient for an emergency appointment during a busy day. Thanks to their kindness and care I recovered quickly and fully.

Isn't this custom made "thank you eye chart" kinda neat? The coolest thing is that it's so easy to make using a free online template like the one I used from this custom eye chart maker site. You simply type in the words or message you want and it creates an eye chart with it for you.

Then of course I had to add a bit of cuteness by including geeky Hello Kitty, right? She's a coloring book image rendered into a cut file using the Make the Cut (MTC) program. Love those glasses! Had fun putting this quick and easy card together...and am thinking it would be fun to do something similar in the future for optometry school graduates too.

Happy Birthday, Vegas Style

My mil is celebrating her birthday in Las Vegas this week...how lucky is she! So of course I had to send her off with a Vegas slot machine style birthday card, right? This fun card is a total CASE of a card originally created and shared at a recent Cricut Club meeting by my sweet and crafty friend, Kris. I thought it was the neatest card ever, and knew it would be the perfect birthday card for my mil.

The cutting file for the slot machine comes from Scrappy Dew's Viva Las Vegas file. Lol, how's that for a lot of rhinestone bling? I loved how Kris used strips of rhinestones to embellish her card...really brought to mind all the blinking lights on the machines in Vegas, so of course I had to do the same on mine!
But the best thing about Kris' card is that it's a FUN interactive card....

...pull down on the tab on the bottom of the card for a Happy Birthday message. (I used an Elizabeth Craft Designs die for this) But wait...did you notice...?

Pulling down on the tab also makes the display on the slot machine "roll" from triple 7's to triple cherries! Unfortuately, I'm sorry to say that I'm not at liberty to share the details of the rolling mechanism of this card at this time. But for now, what I can tell you is that the mechanics of this "rolling window" is the wonderful brainstorm of  the extremely talented "Stampin' Sandra".
However, if you'd like to try a card similar to this, but with a "sliding" window instead, you could easily substitute with the mechanism of a "Hidden Message Card" instead. The tutorial by Beate Johns can be found  over at Splitcoast Stampers.

To add dimension and also to allow the mechanism to slide smoothly, I added a 1/4" gusset along the edges of the slot machine and attached it to the front of a shaped card. On the inside, I added my sentiment and used a Memory Box Scalloped Corner Notches die to cut slits so I could slide in a little envelope to fill with some lucky $$$.
Happily, my mil seemed to enjoy her slot machine card....and right about now, she's probably having lots of fun celebrating her birthday and  playing on the the real thing. Lucky lady. You GO Mom! Bring home the money!!!

In The Doghouse For Being So Late...

Finally got a chance to put together my very first Cascade card recently. I've been wanting to try this type of card for the longest time, but never could figure out how I would decorate it. Finally had  a light-bulb moment when I had to come up with a belated birthday card for my dear friend, Pat...really felt like I should be in the "doghouse" for being so late with her birthday wishes!

Here's a view from the top with the card opened. The base of this card is surprising simple to construct. For mine, I used the video tutorial by the extremely talented and creative Chris of Calla Lily Studio blog to make a four-tiered Cascade card.

Here's a closeup of "Buddy" in front of his doghouse. Awww...isn't he a cutie? He's a cutfile from Treasure Box Designs' Dog Collection 1. His doghouse comes from Cricut Create A Critter cartridge and the little wooden sign from Cricut Paperdolls Dress Up cartridge.

And here's the rest of the paper pieced doggie pack...."Oddie" (grey) from Treasure Box Designs' Dog Collection 1, and "Missy" (pink), "Queen" (rust) and "Sassy" (white)  from Treasure Box Designs' Dog Collection 2. Had a ton of fun putting these little furbabies together!

Here's a side view of the card and tiers. I used strips of white card stock about 3/4" in width and adhered them side by side to create the look of a fence, and a Die-namics die for the grassy border.

And finally, the back of the card where I added my sentiment. Really like the idea and style of this Cascade type card and am anxious to try a three-tiered one too. Still having a mental block on how to decorate the tiers though...hopefully I'll have another "light-bulb moment" soon!

Obon Festival Treats

As summer winds down to a close, so too does the Obon Festival season here in the islands. But before it ends, I want to share this FABULOUS little treat box my sweet and uber talented friend Lorna brought by for me the other day. How CUTE is this!!!!

Lorna designed her adorable box to resemble the "yagura" or tower where the musicians sit and play during bon dances. Notice the Poppystamps party lantern dies she colored to look like the familiar obon chochin? Filled with treats, she created these boxes to share with her friends in her Bon Dance club.
Lorna adorned each of the four sides of her box with a different Sister Stamps image...

Here's Sister Stamps' Yoshi and Kiyomi, dancing their hearts out!

Together with Yoichi on the taiko drum and Yoshimi with her fans....

Inside the box is filled with an assortment of Japanese snacks...YUM!

I think you'll agree that Lorna's treat box is totally AWESOME! Don't know how she comes up with these fabulous ideas, but this girl's creative genius is just out of this world! Thank you, Lorna!!!!

Panda Note Holders

Holy Kamoly! Just realized this is already the last week in August! Went shopping this past weekend and saw that Halloween stuff has already hit the floors at many of the stores and the clerks at our local craft store were filling their shelves with Christmas decorations! Wow, talk about a wake up call! LOL, and I thought I was starting early by working on these little panda noteholder magnets for my mom's senior citizen group holiday craft sale. Just so happens my turn to share for our Cricut Club is coming up too, so I decided to make a whole bunch of these to take care of both projects at  once.

The idea for these came from my dear crafting friend, Lorna, who made these post it note holders for us for Mothers Day. Lorna decorated hers with an adorable stamped and paper pieced kokeshi doll image from Dandelion Designs. Not only were these very cute, but so useful too, and I thought they would work well as a quick and easy craft fair project. I took the measurements from the one Lorna had given me and created a cutfile for it in MTC so I could have my Silhouette cut several at once. After gluing and assembling the boxes, I thought it would be a neat idea to add magnets to the backs so people could stick them on to their filing cabinets at work or refrigerators at home.

Isn't this panda a cutie? Found him online by doing a Google image search for "kawaii panda" and had MTC convert him into a cutfile. Wanted a bamboo branch for my panda but I wasn't too successful in finding a suitable image online so I ended up drawing my own and rendered it into a cutfile.
Wrapped a belly band of washi paper and shimmery gold text weight paper around the box and added panda to the front with some foam squares. All done.
Okay, two projects down...bring on the next!

Welcome Baby Building Blocks Card

Had another baby card to make, and as much as I enjoy making the Blocks type card (so quick and easy!) for baby cards, I figured it was time to try something a little different. Been seeing many Building Block cards on Pinterest, and decided to give it a try. You can find the tutorial for this by Laura Lipe over at Splitcoast Stampers. This is what it looks like when it's open:

I actually altered my card just a bit from the original by adding five blocks instead of four as in the tutorial. "Why?" Because I'm always making dumb mistakes. The entire time I was planning this card out, I thought the baby's name was "LUCAS".. I thought, "Oh no, I'm gonna have to figure out a way to add another block so baby's name will fit!" Spent a lot of time re-doing the dimensions and calculations for this card just to get that extra fifth block onto this card. Then just as I die cut baby's name (used Quickutz Blossom Mini dies) and was about to adhere them to the blocks, I suddenly remembered baby's name was really "LUKE" and not "LUCAS"... DUH!!!  And hence you see the heart and star shapes I added to the unneeded fifth block...sigh...

Okay, on to the embellishing...used a label cut from the Lacy Labels Cricut Cartridge for the sentiment on the front and added a few fun star shaped buttons from Dress It Up.

Elephant cut comes from Cricut Create A Critter Cartridge....

...and Giraffe on end panel also from Create A Critter Cartridge.

Managed to squeeze in the sentiment on the inside narrow panel next to the blocks...

And here's a view from the top. Here you'll see that I completely snipped off the thin strips of cardstock between the blocks which are supposed to fold toward the back of the card and replaced them with a blue cardstock panel which I adhered to the back of the base card. In the end, having avoided the disaster of putting the wrong name on the card, I was satisfied with how it turned out...LOL, may even try this type of card again, now that I know I can alter the number of blocks on this...