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...