Get "Whale" Soon card

Just one card for you today!  There are quite a few birthdays coming up in March and April, so there will be awhile before the next birthday card post.

I made this card for my sister, who hasn't been feeling too well lately.  I hope she likes getting cards, because I LOVE sending them to her.  She's my #1 card recipient.

This card was cut to fit in an A2 envelope.  The cardstock was from Paper Studio.  The patterned paper behind the whale is from the Cricut Celebrations paper pad.  I used the D'Vine Swirls embossing folder and my Cuttlebug to add to the waves, which were cut from the Zooballoo cartridge.  This was the first time I had used my "Cut to Length" feature on my Expression and it worked so well!  It fit the card just right.

I cut the whale from Create a Critter and used some Glossy Accents on the water coming out of his blow-hole to make it shine.  I wrote the pun "Get Whale Soon!" with black Fiskars gel pen.  I hope it brightened her day.

Dry erase board

Pinterest is an addictive thing.  I often find things that I think would be really cute, and then tweak them for my own.  So, when I saw this board from Craftaholics Anonymous, I pinned it and filed it away.

A few weekends ago, my husband and I were cleaning out the guest room closet (aka where everything gets shoved to get forgotten) and I found a big, black frame with an old joke diploma in it that I didn't need any more.  A little goo gone later (to get rid of the label that had been affixed to the front), I had a clean black frame.

To make the white background, I found our thickest wrapping paper and just taped it on backwards.  The words were cut with Lyrical Letters.  If I could do it again, I would probably make them smaller, but I didn't feel like wasting more black cardstock, because it's like gold in my craft room, so I left it.  Everything doesn't have to be perfect, right?

Then I made some roses out of coffee filters that I had dyed with food coloring.  I like things to be free as much as possible.  I hot-glued them onto the corner.  Granted, I don't think mine looks as good as the one at Craftaholics Anonymous, but that's why she's a professional crafter and I'm just tinkering in my craft room.  :)

I plan to use it to remind myself of various craft ideas that I've had and occasions that are coming up that I need to make cards for.  :)

7/12/12 update:

I am kind of a clutz and ripped a hole through the paper of my board by pushing too hard when I was writing on it.  So, off to the Dollar Tree I went and got some white posterboard.  In the time between when I first made the frame and when I ripped it, I got Baby Steps, and I absolutely love the font, so I used it on my replacement board.  Here it is:

PS- I keep the cute little worm from 9 months on it for decoration.  :)

Felt ornaments

How did I forget to post this photo until now?  Back in November, I had the idea to make some felt ornaments to attach to Christmas present wrapping for some people in our families.  I found two really cute patterns here: Hot Chocolate and also here: Gingerbread Man.  I bought some felt, some embroidery thread, and some batting and plopped myself down in front of the TV to work on them.

Many hours later, I decided that felt is not my medium and that these would not make good presents, as they did not look as cute as they did in the tutorials.  But it was fun, and they're still hanging in my craft room on the bulletin board to remind me of my short foray into the world of felt.

January and February Birthdays

I've decided to group birthdays by every couple of months, so there aren't just post after post of birthday cards. So here are January and February 2012.

 I made two of these cupcake cards for two different sister-in-laws that have January birthdays. You can see that I put a cupcake on the outside and also cut the words for the inside of the cards.  My cardstock here was Paper Studio.  The cupcakes paper that I put on the front was from The Paper Studio.  It was a 6x12 paper pad, but I can't remember the name.  Something about celebrating, I think.  I used my new Cuttlebug with the D'Vine Swirls envelope on the green cardstock.  The cupcake was cut from Simply Charmed and I used Icicle Stickles to decorate the frosting.  The "Happy Birthday" sentiment was cut from Calligraphy Collection.

Obviously, we also had a very special birthday this year- my youngest SIL turned 16!  I cut this card mostly using Cricut Craft Room.  The cardstock and patterned paper are both from Paper Studio.  For the car, I used Craft Room to hide the frowny face that appears on the Smiley Cards car. I also used the Craft Room to weld together the words "Sweet Sixteen."  I used the Doodletype cartridge for "Sweet" and Jasmine for "Sixteen."  I was really pleased with the colors on this and the way that it came out.  This may be one of my favorites so far.

Last, but not least, is a card made for my brother-in-law.  I don't really make cards for males very often, so this one was kind of a challenge. I mean, an adult male doesn't really want something cutesy.  I can use Simply Charmed or Create a Critter for my husband, because he loves me so he doesn't mind.  In the end, I went online for inspiration.  I finally found a card here: Happy Place for Jen and made a few tweaks based on what I owned.  I didn't use the cricut for this one, just plain old cardstock, paper that I got in my Provocraft 6x12 Celebrations pack, and an EK Success medium corner rounder.  The stamp is from Paper Studio, called Everyday Expressions.  It has many different words that can be put together to form the sentiment that you want.

Happy Valentine's Day

Sorry I had to wait until after Valentine's Day to post, but I couldn't risk that my husband would find the picture somewhere of his card.  :)

This first card is for my husband.  I spent a lot of time looking through my handbooks for something that was lovey but not too girly.  I finally settled on this one.  The cardstock is Paper Studio, and the patterned paper is from the Paper Studio All Seasons 2 stack.  I cut out the lock and key from Sweethearts, but they blended in too much to the patterned paper, so I decided to use the shadow feature and that helped a lot.  I put them on with some popdots, so they would stick out even more.  Simple, yet lovely (if I do say so myself).

I also made a valentine for my sister.  My sister is a cat person, so as soon as I saw the Smitten Kitten cuts on Sweethearts I was like "I HAVE TO USE THIS FOR HER."  I used the polka dot paper from Paper Studio's The Basics pad and the orange patterned paper that I cut the words from is ProvoCraft.  The kitten itself was cut from Bazzill.  The one problem I have with the Sweethearts cart is that sometimes it cuts little slits on things but you can't see them very well.  For example, the cat's whole face (except its nose) was only cut with slits.  So I used my Fiskars gel pens and traced the slits with colors that I thought looked right.

Welcome to your new home!

Quick post today.  I made this card for a friend and her husband who recently bought their first home.  It was a simple one, but I like the color combination.  The patterned paper is from the Celebrations stack by Provo Craft.  The green cardstock is Paper Studio.  The other colors were from my scraps, but I know there is at least a little Paper Studio in there, as well as Bazzill and ProvoCraft.

The house is cut from Sweethearts, which was a Christmas gift.  I popped it up with some Popdots and tada!

Feeling Buggy

Before I start this post, I have to give credit where credit is due.  I lifted this idea from Cricut My Way, because I saw her bee/ladybug post and was totally obsessed with how cute they are.  She, in turn, got her inspiration from Card Positioning Systems.  When I saw her idea, I thought it would make a really cute mini card set, but I didn't think two cards were enough.  So I simplified the design a little bit and added two more cute insects from the Create a Critter family.

The cards are cut at 4 inches.  From there, I cut the white squares at 3.75 inches, the black strips at 1 inch, the colored strips at .75 inches, the black squares at 2 inches, and the colored squares at 1.75 inches.  The black squares on the purple and pink cards are 1.5 inches and the black squares on the green and yellow cards are at 1.25 inches.  I cut the insects from the Create a Critter cartridge at 2 inches, along with a white shadow for each one to make them stand out a little.  As always, I used Paper Studio cardstock, although the pink paper was thinner (from my stash) and I suspect it may have been from my earlier, Dollar Tree scrapbooking supplies days.  :)

Now the problem is that I love them so much, I can't stand to give them away.