A little something to hold you over

Because I have to wait for birthdays to be finished before I can post the cards, there can sometimes be a gap in between posts.  This morning, I put together a quick card for my husband's grandmother's birthday, and since I know that she doesn't have a computer, I don't have to worry that she's going to see her card before her birthday party tomorrow, so I can go ahead and post it.  :)

I cut it at my normal A2 dimensions.  This zebra is from Create a Critter.  I like the flower in her hair, so I went with that as my theme.  I cut the yellow cardstock slightly shorter than the card and about an inch and a half less long.  Then I ran it through my Cuttlebug with the ProvoCraft "Happy Birthday" embossing folder.  It came out so nice!  I cut the flowered paper from my KI Memories Classics stack, to just fit where the yellow paper wouldn't.  Then I covered up the seam with some American Crafts (I think!) ribbon.

I was a little afraid that it came out too little-girly with all of the pink and flowers, but the great thing about grandmas is that they love whatever you make them, so I'm sure it will be fine. I really like having the two different background papers and the offset main image.

Monkey card

As soon as I saw that that the Cricut Lite cartridges "B is for Boy" and "Sugar and Spice" had matching little sock monkeys, I knew that I must have them, and I must make another card for my sister, because she made herself a real sock monkey (she's the sewer in the family.  I think she even has a sewing machine.)  Of course, when I bought them, these monkeys were the first cuts that I made from each cartridge.  The boy monkey with the red hat is from "B is for Boy" and the girl with the pink hat is from "Sugar and Spice."

I pulled a few scraps of orange striped paper (from the Paper Studio pack Back to the Basics) to accent the purple cardstock.  I had this orange bow from an old card making pack that I got from the Target dollar bin, which covered up the seam between the two pieces of paper.  The bow is flatter in person...this picture doesn't really do it justice.

I'm so happy with this card, and I'm excited to see what other creations I can come up with from this cartridge.  My husband teased me that these were "baby" cartridges, and since there are no babies up in here I have to prove to him that I can use them for real projects beyond just using the sock monkeys once.

Bookmarks

I have been hearing a lot about corner bookmarks and have been curious how to make them.  After finding a tutorial on this blog I had the perfect chance to try them when my husband and I were going to be reading the same book at the same time!  I had to work extra hard to make his masculine enough that he wouldn't be embarrassed of it.  I always find it so much easier to make cute, girly things!

Can you guess whose is whose? I cut the squares to be 7 inches, which came out a little big.  Next time I think I'll use a piece of 6x6.

Here's my Create-a-Critter squirrel.  He was cut at 2 inches.

Here's DH's Four Legged Friends fish, also at 2 inches.  I thought it had the potential to be a little more masculine than the one from Create a Critter, because it reminds me of a beta fish.  Those are supposed to be fighting fish, so they're tough, right?

Smiley Cards Handbook

As I have mentioned before, I purchased the digital cartridge Smiley Cards, which can only be used with a Gypsy or Cricut Craft Room (I use CCR).  When I purchased it, I downloaded a digital copy of the handbook to my computer, so I would know what images I had to work with.  However, I am apparently a more tactile person that I knew and I found that I was frequently forgetting about things that were on the cartridge because I didn't have a handbook to sit and browse through.  I LOVE browsing through my handbooks, by the way.  So, making myself a handbook for Smiley Cards became a craft in itself.  I went to Meijer and bought a cute 4x6 picture album.  After spending hours figuring out how to print a pdf so that each page was one 4x6 picture, I pulled out my old stash of picture paper that I had saved up every time I bought a new printer and they included some freebies.  Sometimes it pays to be a packrat.  I printed out each of the pages, glued the cover to the cover of my album, and just slid the rest of the pages into the album.



I didn't have any photo black ink in my printer, so all of the images that were supposed to be black actually came out teal.  That's ok, I like teal.  This has been great, because now I can sit and compare the images on this cartridge to the ones from the physical cartridges that I own.  And I assumed the P.C. wouldn't mind, since I did spend almost $60 on the cartridge and it was only for my own home use.