Wall art

Using the Wall Decor and More cartridge I got for Christmas (thanks, mom!) I made these pictures for our stairway.  DH had 4 8x10 frames from college and we had been meaning to put something in them. All cardstock is Bazzill. I cut the key, tree, owl, and compass. I wasn't able to get a good picture, sorry.

Christmas Countdown

It took me until after Christmas, but I finally finished my advent calendar! It will be all ready for next year.  I have so many Christmas cuts on various Cricut Cartridges, and it seemed like a fun project that could last through the holiday season (and boy, did it!)

The base of the calendar is a cookie sheet (a large size, I can't remember the dimensions exactly).  I used two sheets of paper from the Paper Studio All Seasons 2 pack for the background.  I wanted to make the background look kind of like a present, so I accented it with some burgundy paper, which was from my stash.  It was a slightly lighter color on the other side, which makes me think it may have come from the Provo Craft cardstock that was part of my Cricut Essentials pack, but I could be wrong.  My husband drilled two holes in the top and sanded them down to make them safe, and I strung two pieces of ribbon through to hang it up.  One ribbon is a sturdy, silver ribbon with sparkles.  I'm pretty sure it was left over from my wedding.  The other ribbon was some miscellaneous burgundy ribbon that I thought would add to the effect of it looking like a present.  True story: I originally bought that ribbon to make a bell to hang from our back door so that Sophie can ring it to let us know she needs to go outside.  I probably got it from Hobby Lobby.

Next came the Cricut-ing part.  As I said, I used many cartridges.  I broke the pictures down into two rows at a time so I can go through and tell you where I got them.  My cardstock is almost all from Paper Studio, with some of the Provo Craft thrown in here and there.  I varied the cut size between 2-3 inches, depending on the cartridge.  It took a little trial and error, and unfortunately I didn't think to write down the sizes.  

Days 24-22: Lights cut from Create a Critter

Day 21: Gingerbread house from Stretch Your Imagination, circle from Accent Essentials

Day 20: Sled from Stretch Your Imagination, circle from Accent Essentials

Day 19: Tree from Winter Frolic, circle from Accent Essentials

Day 18: Ornament from Winter Frolic

Day 17: Presents from Winter Frolic

Day 16: Holly from Stretch your Imagination

Day 15: Cup from Winter Frolic

Day 14: Mitten from Simply Charmed

Day 13: Reindeer from Create a Critter

Day 12: Bird (I think it's a partridge in a pear tree) from Winter Frolic, circle from Accent Essentials

Day 11: Snowman and Snowglobe from Doodlecharms

Day 10: Ornament from Winter Frolic

Day 9: Snowflake from Accent Essentials

Day 8: Hat from Simply Charmed

Day 7: Gingerbread man from Smiley Cards

Day 6: Penguin from Winter Frolic

Day 5: Stocking from Winter Frolic

Day 4: Candy cane from Simply Charmed

Day 3: Mouse from Winter Frolic

Day 2: Star from Winter Frolic

Day 1: Jesus from Winter Frolic

Then I wrote the day on them with gel pen, two-sided taped a magnet on the back, and it was done!

Can I take a second to talk about Day 7's Gingerbread Man?  I don't own a gypsy, and I only joined the world of Cricut about half a year ago, so I was sad to find out that I had orignally missed the boat on Smiley Cards.  I love the little images on there and the silly faces, and this Gingerbread Man was one of my favorites.  When Cricut Craft Room was released to the public and the ability to download digital cartridges was announced, I was so excited that I could finally have access to Smiley Cards!  Yeah, $50 (plus tax, FYI) is kind of expensive for a cartridge that you don't physically possess, and I won't be purchasing the digital cartridges willy-nilly, but I'm glad I went ahead and got this one. It's really easy to use- you just design the mat in Craft Room, click "Cut." hold the mat in place, and it loads and cuts in one fluid motion.  You can choose to cut only portions of your mat or the whole thing at once, depending on how you've loaded in your paper.  It was great and I highly recommend it for cartridges like this one, that are only available that way, or for ones that are retired or hard to find in stores. 

I love you because...

I saw these here and there on Pinterest (I love you because), and thought it was a great idea.  In no way did I come up with the concept.  I just bought a cheap frame from Michaels and a piece of Bazzill cardstock and pulled out the trusty Cricut.  I cut the letters with Jasmine, and the heart from Paper Pups.  The line was just cut with my paper trimmer (I have two- a Provo Craft one and a Fiskars one).

It's not too inventive, since I scraplifted it, but I am afraid that my blog will become too card-heavy, because I am loving making cards so much, so I thought I would round it out a little by adding this. 

PS- The link that I posted up top was a link to search results of "I love you because" on Pinterest to give you a little bit of a taste of what was inspiring me.  I hope the link works.  :)

PPS- We ended up hanging it next to the door we come in from our garage.  It didn't stay on the baseboard heater.  That's just where I put it to take the picture.  :)

Various cards

I made this card for my husband's birthday. The cake is cut from Simply Charmed on Paper Studio cardstock. The patterned paper is from the Paper Studio All Seasons 2.  The ribbon is from American Crafts- I bought it from Hobby Lobby in a whole pack.  It's cut to the regular A2 size dimensions.  Sorry for the junky picture, it's from my phone.

Next, I have this year's Christmas cards.  Again, they were cut to the regular A2 size.  The snowman is from Winter Frolic.  All paper and cardstock is Paper Studio.  I made two versions, varying the green and red.  The inside (picture 2) was covered with regular white printer paper and stamped with black ink.  The stamp was purchased at Hobby Lobby.  I believe it was Stampabilities, but I could be wrong. 

Third up is a Thanksgiving card I made to give to my mom.  The turkey was cut from Create a Critter.  Cardstock was mostly from my stash- probably a lot of Paper Studio and I think some Provo Craft as well.  The background paper was from the KI Memories Classic Prints Paper Pad- I picked it up at Michaels for 40% off and I am so glad I did!  It has so many cute color combinations. As far as I know it doesn't come in 6x6 or 8x8, but if I ever see it you better believe I'll pick it up, because it would be great to have the patterns in a smaller scale, too.

Up last, and possibly my favorite, is a card and bag combo that I made for our nephew's first birthday.  I had been really inspired by reading various blogs that showed these kind of combos, so I thought I would give it a try myself.   We already had the multicolored bag around, and so I pulled out my cardstock (you know, Paper Studio) and my new Cricut Expression (yay Black Friday!!) and went to town.  I love that the little dalmation from Create a Critter had the number 1 on his fireman's hat, so I thought he was perfect for a first birthday present.  My husband seemed very impressed, so I anticipate that this may become a staple craft for me as we go.  That's ok- it was fun!

Happy Halloween (part 2)

Although we don't generally decorate for Halloween, I decided I wanted to make a Halloween banner to hang on our mantle.  I found an idea on Pinterest (from Obsessively Crafting) and made some tweaks to make it work for us.  Here's mine:

I made them out of paper without any backing.  I cut many of the shapes from the George & Basic Shapes Cricut Cartridge.  Their faces, for example, are cut from George at 4.5 inches.  All of their eyes, the pumpkin's eyes and nose, and the ghost's mouth are also cut from George.  The other paper pieces I cut myself.  I hung it with black ribbon and there it is!  Below are individual pictures of each Halloween character.

Happy Halloween (part 1)

I'm really enjoying making cards.  I decided one day to pull out my cricut and make a Halloween card to send to my mom and younger sister. 

 I cut the card to be 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 by cutting an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of Paper Studio cardstock in half.  The bat paper is cut slightly smaller, and is also from Paper Studio (the All Seasons 2 pack).  The bat and tree were cut using the Simply Charmed Cricut Cartridge.

The Happy Halloween sentiment on the inside was cut from the Lyrical Letters cartridge.

My mom and sister seemed to like them, and they were really fun to make!

More scrapbook pages

The scrapbook pages for our wedding and our general pages are 12x12.  When we got our Sophie, I knew that I had to scrap her life, but felt kind of foolish making 12x12 albums about a dog, so I thought I would try my hand at 8x8.  Most of the pages end up having wallet sized pictures on them and are about things like her first birthday, bathtime, etc.  When I was going through to pick out a few to upload, I realized that the ones I liked best were the ones that had one 4x6 picture instead of two or more wallets, and were the ones that were about our daily life together more than the special occasions.  I think I'll probably tend more toward that now.  Anyway, here's a sampling of Sophie's scrapbook:

 We got Sophie a raincoat to keep her dry when she plays outside.  This was a layout about her wearing it.

My husband was taking pictures of me and Sophie because I wanted to put one in a picture frame at work.  He happened to capture this one of Sophie giving me a little smooch, and I thought it went perfectly with the Puppy Love embellishments that I had bought at Hobby Lobby.

 We bought Sophie a car seat so she would be able to see out of of the car windows.  This was the first time that she was able to safely ride in the car and hang her head out the window like other dogs.  :)

Yes, Sophie and I have matching Bumble Bee pillow pets.  We were snuggling on them together and DH got a picture of us.  We really are best buds.

The base of my Sophie scrapbooks are made with the DCWV 8x8 Scrapbook kit in a flash- DOG kit.  I also have embellishments that I bought at Michaels and Hobby Lobby at various times, before I knew about keeping track of who makes them, unfortunately. 

A few cards

I've been working on and off on making some cards.  As I mentioned, part of the deal in getting a Cricut was to promise to make all of our birthday and Christmas cards from now until I die.  But I don't have a lot of the material that I feel I need to have to make really nice cards like I've been seeing in the tutorials on YouTube.  So they aren't quite as good as those.  Here's a sampling of what I've done so far.

This was my first card, for my husband's cousin, who also was the "ring girl" in our wedding.  It was her 11th birthday.  I used a premade blank card that I got from the dollar bin at Target and some ribbon that I believe came in a pack from Michaels.  The saying, dog, and present are from Paper Pups, which is one of my fav cartridges.  I thought it was a kind of lame card, compared to some I've seen, but it seemed to get the 11 year old stamp of approval.

This monster card is one I made for my sister.  She's starting her 4th year of college and applying for grad school, so I wanted to send her a little pick-me-up.  She likes monsters and ugly and weird things, so it was perfect.  I made it with my Wild Card cartridge.  I was disappointed to find out that my baby bug can't cut the envelopes for many of the cards, so I had to stick it in a plain old A2 sized envelope.  Most of the paper is from the Cricut cardstock that came in my Cricut Essentials kit, except for the pink paper which has been in my stash so long that I can only assume it's from my dollar tree days when I first started scrapbooking.

And last, but not least, this card was made for my sister-in-law, who just finished her first week of college.  Again, I used the Wild Card cartridge for this one.  I wish I could tell you where all of the paper is from.  I know the card itself is from the Cricut cardstock, but the rest was just pulled out of my scraps drawer.  Sorry!  I didn't try cutting an envelope, because I didn't want to waste paper after the moster envelope fiasco, so I cut the card to the size to fit in an A2 envelope and figured that will be the norm until I've used the baby bug enough to warrent getting an Expression.  :)

Nativity

I've been messing around with my Cricut a lot lately.  I plan to make all of our Christmas cards from now until eternity, so I was able to convince my husband that I should buy the Winter Frolic cartridge.  :)  On Saturday he was working on his car, which means I get a free pass to spend the day crafting without having other things to do.  It really took all day, but here is the final result:

It's a nativity!  I used a dark blue 12x12 paper for the background, and a green textured paper that I've had for a million years (and probably got at the dollar tree) for the grass.  I had to freehand the stable, which has a plain brown background and a wood-patterned paper that I got at Hobby Lobby (Paper Studio, I think?).  I looked at pictures of the stable from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge for inspiration. 

The angels and people were all cut at 3 inches.  The donkey was 2.5 inches, the sheep were 2 inches, and the star was about 4.5 or 5 inches.  The star is covered in diamond Stickles.  All of the paper for the people, animals, and star are from the single paper plain cardstock rack at Hobby Lobby.

This was a really exciting project for me for several reasons.  First, it was the first project I made since buying my stash of new adhesives, like a Glue Glider pro and a Zig pen.  I felt like a real scrapper!  Second, I had been planning it for a long time, so it was great to see it coming to fruition.  And third, after I get a frame for it, I'll put it up every Christmas to remember the beginning of my Cricut fun! 

Also, I watched a childhood classic, Thumbelina, on DVD on the laptop while I was making it (check it out sometime).  All in all, a perfect Saturday morning.

Wine, anyone?

This is one of my cheapest, easiest crafts to make, but also one of the most practical.  I love wine glass charms, but never really found any in stores that I thought were worth the money.  So, after a quick internet search I realized that I could make my own with some hoop earrings that they sell at Hobby Lobby for about a dollar.  But the ones that I saw online used beads that I wasn't really interested in, so I came up with my own solution.  I found a set of 25 large opening beads- like Pandora beads but not a name brand- for a very reasonable price online.  When they got here, I just picked out my favorite one of each color (with a little input from my husband on which ones men would not be embarrassed to have on their glasses) and put them on the earring hoops. 

Tada!  Cheap, one of a kind, wine glass charms.

Wreaths

When we moved into our first home, there was a nail in the front door at the perfect level to hang a wreath.  Inspired, I decided to give it a go. 

I love fall- it's my favorite season.  It seemed fitting that my first attempt at a wreath was a fall wreath.  Here I used a grapevine wreath and some fake flowers and leaves that I got at Michaels.  I just hot glued them in and presto!  Not too fancy, but a fun first wreath, and overal it's the one that has held up the best to the intense heat that comes through the glass of our storm door.

Next came our Christmas wreath.  I picked a big, burgandy bow that I found at Hobby Lobby for the bottom of the wreath and built the rest of the wreath around it.  The wreath itself is fake-pine.  I added some frosted pinecones, ball ornaments, flowers, & berries that I got at Michaels.  The ornaments are put on with wire; the rest was hot glued. 

Easter came next!  I got the styrofoam wreath and green bow at Michaels. Our door is green, so the bow matches well.  The eggs and Easter grass are from Meijer.  I hot glued the eggs on and then hot glued the grass in between the eggs to fill it in.  The only problem with this wreath was that the sun gets really hot on our front door and seemed to melt the hot-glue from some of the eggs.  As they fell off, I put a thumbtack through them, put hot glue on the thumbtack, and stuck it back into place.  That worked a lot better and kept them on!  Note: if you have a dog, be careful using this type of Easter grass.  It's really bad for them and Sophie appears to think it is delicious, which is a bad combination. Have a vacuum cleaner on hand, because it will get EVERYWHERE.

My last wreath is my summer wreath, which hangs on my door right now.  I bought a styrofoam wreath at Michaels and the umbrellas at Party City.  I just cut the stick partway off and stuck them in.  I believe I sat on the living room floor and watched a movie on TV while I did it- it was a nice way to pass the time.  Here's the problem- it was beautiful and bright when I made it.  After being in the sun for a few months, most of the umbrellas are now a light pastel.  I may need to re-make this wreath each summer.

I should note that the last two wreaths were made from ideas that I picked up from various places around the internet.  I didn't come up with them, I just recreated them for myself.

Welcome!

Hi blog-world!

Lately, I've been wanting a place to put all of my crafts in one place to remember them, so I thought I'd try a blog.  I love to spend time looking through others' blogs for inspiration, and thought maybe I would like to create my own.  Let's give this a try...