Bundle of Joy

A friend of mine is excitedly awating the birth of her first baby.  Or, since this is posting about a month after I made the card, is maybe celebrating the birth of her son.  (I often post-date my posts so that they publish after the recipient has gotten what I made them).

Anyway, after seeing this awesome tutorial on shape cards (which I saw when it was posted on the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog), I thought a shape card would be a super cute way to go for her baby shower card.  Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the baby shower (it was the same day as my sister's graduation), but I wanted to let her know how excited I was/am for her to finally be entering this season of life.

I used the baby carriage from Simply Charmed for this card.  I cut the shadow on kraft cardstock.  It was cut at 4 1/2 inches.  The stroller itself is cut from a sheet of sample cardstock that I got when I made an order from Custom Crops, so I don't have any information about it other than that it is cute.  The rest of the paper is from scraps.  If you are very familiar with Simply Charmed, you'll notice that I used the baby girl's face on the baby boy's stroller.  I just liked the girl's face better, because her eyes are open and it cut cleaner that way. 

As in the tutorial, I cut the two shadows the same size and direction, then scored the top of the one that is the inside of the card.  I folded it back, covered it with adhesive (I used my glue glider pro) and stuck them together.

Inside, I stamped the "bundle of joy" stamp from Pink by Design's Scripted Year set.  It's a little crooked because I stamped it before I decided where to adhere the front of the card, so I stamped it straight at the time but crooked for the way the card opens.  Oh, well.  I used a blue stamp pad that I was given by a friend to compliment the blue on the front.

I am SO enamored with kraft right now.  I want to use it as my base for everything. 

Happy Seasons

I've had an idea rolling around in my head for awhile now, since I got my Stampendous "Everything Happy" set, which has the word "happy" and all four seasons on it.  I wanted to make a set of cards with those stamps and the four seasons trees from Simply Charmed. 

I cut these cards the same dimensions as my insect cards:

Black cards are 4 x 4 (4 x 8 folded in half)

White layer is 3.75 x 3.75

Colored layer is 3.5 x 3.5

I used all paper from my stash for the colors on the cards.  Amazingly, I pulled out four colors for the background layers, and realized that they perfectly matched the four solid colors of Target brand washi tape, so I decided to incorporate that.  I used it as the stripe. 

I cut the trees at 2 inches.  I decided that I didn't want the smiley faces that everything on Simply Charmed.   I cut the brown layers using Layer 1 (which is supposed to be the background for the smiley part) and skipped Layer 2 completely.

I don't know that I will give them to anyone, because I like them.  I am finding myself really drawn to making these little card sets.  I don't know if it's the miniature nature or the fact that they're sets, but something about them is really fun for me.

Scrapbook pages

You know how people have their first kid and they take a zillion pictures, and then the second kid feels left out because by the time they're born the parents are tired of taking pictures all of the time?  Sophie is my first kid.  I take pictures of her playing, pictures of her sleeping, and pictures of her sitting around.  I get so much inspiration from her for scrapbook pages! 

This first page is of Sophie reading the Yorkie issues of Dog Fancy.  The patterned paper for Sophie's scrapbook is from DCWV Dog Scrapbook kit in a stack.  I can't remember where the bones embellishment came from.  I had to take the foam backing off, because it made the page too puffy.  The title is from Sugar and Spice.  Yes, I buy baby themed cartridges and use them for layouts for my dog. 

This next layout is of Sophie laying on the stairs with her favorite toy, her unstuffed racoon.  I used some stickers from the scrapbook stack at the bottom, and the title is made with the fonts from Birthday Bash and Baby Steps.  I like having two different fonts, and mixing them is something I want to keep working on.

Finally, we have Wet nose, Warm heart.  I'm not really sure what Sophie was doing in this picture, I just liked it.  I used the title from Four Legged Friends, but only cut it in two colors instead of four.  Then I made the dog charm from Paper Pups.  I thought they went together, because the dog in the charm is holding a heart.

Hippo Birdie!

It kinda makes me insane that my little sister is already turning 22.  That makes me....much older than that.  I HAD to go all-out for her birthday card, because she gets so many cards from me on a weekly (almost) basis that this one had to be special. 

Although you might not be able to tell, this is NOT an A2 card.  I used a full sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 cardstock and folded it in half, meaning this card is 5 1/2 by 8 1/2.  I used the Paper Studios kraft paper that I used for the mom's birthday cards- I'm kind of in love with Kraft.

The patterned paper is from my KI Memories Classics stack.  I love polka dots, and I think the pink goes really well with the kraft.  Plus, it's enough of a pattern to be interesting, but not enough to overwhelm the images.

All of the animals were cut at 2 inches from Create a Critter.  I have plenty of each type of animal, but I wanted them to look uniform.  The hippo has a tiny gem in the middle of it's flower that I picked up at Michaels (so it's probably Recollections brand).  They're popped up with popdots to make it a little more special.

For the sentiment, I used Cricut's Craft Room and welded together letters from Lyrical Letters.  This font must be really "me," because I seem to go back for it a lot.  I'm really glad that Craft Room came out right when I started to get into the Cricut.  It's been so great.  Even when I'm not planning to use it to cut, I can put shapes on there to see how big they are or see how letters would look before I cut- I might not be doing anything super fancy with it, but I sure use it a lot.

A birthday and a thank you

We just found out that a friend of ours is hosting a surprise party for his wife.  (The party was a few days before this posts, so no worries about ruining the surprise!)  I wanted to make her a card for her party.  I cut the cute monkey from Create a Critter, along with his branch.  I used some scraps of orange paper as a background. The flowery paper right behind the monkey is actually a scrap that I cut off of an old birthday card that someone gave me.  Have to be resourceful!  I stamped using Joy's Life stamps on the outside and wrote "GO WILD" on the inside with a gel pen.  I like the citrusy color scheme on this one.

Recently, my husband and I had to go out of town overnight so we had to leave Sophie with my sister in law.  We wanted to give her a thank you card for taking time out of her weekend to take care of Sophie.  I used a notecard that I already had for the card and all scraps for the paper.  I originally tried to cut the dog at 4.5 inches, but it was HUGE!  I cut it at 2.5 and it fit perfectly.  I cut the black and tan layers from the main image, and the green from the "solid" feature.  Then I layered the black on top of the green, and popped the brown into the correct spots.  I used my cuttlebug with the polka dot border from the "just my type" pack.  They got a little smushed when I put on my adhesive.  Oops.

Inside of the card, I stamped the dog tracks from the Pink by Design "Furry Friends" stamp set.  The sentiment is a wooden stamp that I was gifted by a friend.  I cut off the rest of the card because I already wrote in it.

Thanks again!

March and April birthdays!

It's that time again...birthday cards! First, a piece of housekeeping: I've decided not to continue to list my cardstock on every post. This is for a few reasons. First, I bought a pack of Recollections cardstock and it is mixed in with my Paper Studio because I sort by color. I now have no idea which is which, and I realized that's ok.  This leads to my second reason: I'm finding that cardstock is a personal choice.  Every person already knows what kind of cardstock they like, and what stores they will be going to in order to get it.  I like smooth cardstock in most cases, so I get brands that reflect that.  Others might like textured.  So nobody is likely to care which type I chose for which project, because they are going to use the kind they like best.  So, from here on out know this: unless otherwise stated, my cardstock is either from a value pack of Paper Studio or Recollections.  :)

Now, on to the fun!

Both my husband's and my father have birthdays in these two months, so I made them identical cards.  I figured it would be easier to make them the same cards each year, in order to make sure that I wasn't duplicating in future years.  For this card, I used the Birthday Bash cartridge for the candles.  Behind it is a scrap of patterned paper from my scraps.  I think it might have been Doodlebug?  Or else it is Miss Elizabeth's (the Dollar Tree brand).  I've had it for years.  Regardless, I thought this card was sufficiently masculine.  Since it was pretty busy on the front, I decided to put the sentiment inside.  I cut this from Zooballoo.  It's such a fun font!

Surprisingly, both of our mothers also have March/April birthdays.  So again, they're each getting the same card.  I've just been introduced to the wonderful world of kraft paper as a background (late to the game, I know!) and was really excited for these cards because I had just bought a value pack. 

Anyway, I used my Birthday Bash cartridge again for this card.  I just got it, and was excited to use many of the cuts.  They're so cute!  The piece of ribbon is from American Crafts, and I used my brand new Pink by Design "Scripted Year" stamps for the sentiment.  I don't know if I've mentioned yet that I love Pink by Design stamps, but I do.  I never realized how clear stamping could be until I bought Pink by Design.  Love!

Last, but certainly not least, is the birthday card for one of my sister-in-laws.  (Yes, I have many.)  She turned 19 in April.  This card uses some patterned paper from Paper Studio's The Basics stack.  The cuts are from Four Legged Friends (hamster), Create a Critter (chick) and Life is a Beach (lizard).  A little backstory: this particular sister-in-law has a long history of having had many small pets as a child that she loved but eventually escaped from her (multiple hamsters and the lizard) or turned out to be roosters and had to be given to a farm (chick).  The point of this card is that her previous pets have returned to wish her a happy birthday.  Plus, I had just gotten Four Legged Friends and that hamster is ridiculously cute!

You may notice the baker's twine (aka leash- it's part of the lizard story).  I actually made it myself, based on an awesome tutorial that I found on pinterest.  If you're interested, you can watch the original video here.  Basically, you use plain cotton thread #10 (I found mine in the yarn section at HL on sale for $2.22), wrap it around a ruler that has been covered with masking tape, and then color it in straight lines with some form of permanent marker.  I have a ton of Sharpies that I got in a pack, so with those few supplies I now have a lifetime supply of whatever color of baker's twine I want.  Word to the wise: color the lines kind of thin.  This pink was my first attempt and some of the marker did bleed together and didn't leave as much white as I wanted.  My second attempt (light green) turned out much better.

Congrats grad!

As difficult as it is for me to believe, my baby sister is going to be a proud graduate of Michigan State University this May.  I'm very proud of her, which is hard for me to say as a University of Michigan alum myself.  ;)

I wanted to make her a congratulations card, so I decided to challenge myself and pull out my Wild Cards cartridge.  I think it would have been really easy for me to make a card with 3 Birds on Parade using my usual A2 size template, but I want to get use out of this Wild Card cartridge.  It's full of great things!

I started by cutting the envelope- sorry, no pictures- at Fit to Page on my Expression.  It came out at 7 1/2 inches.  I used my bone folder to put it together and it was done!  I decided to cut my card just slightly smaller, at 7 1/4, to make sure there was no problem fitting in the envelope.  I cut the card in green, as it's the color I imagine that her cap will be.  I cut the tassel in white, after some detective work on the internet to find out what color tassel her school uses.  It's hard to see on the picture, but I made a little circle out of green stickles where the tassel connects to the hat.  It's not perfect, and I may go around it with a gel pen or something before the day comes.  I wish I had some brads- never fear, they're on my wish list!  I used my home-made green bakers twine to dress up the tassel a little.

Here's the inside of the card.  I used the "Class of" phrase that's on the same button as the graduation cap.  Then I cut the "2012" from the alphabet.  Word to the wise: If you're cutting a phrase, keep the size at the same as the card (here, 7 1/4) to get it to fit.  However, if you switch to the alphabet, it WILL cut the numbers 7 1/4 inches tall.  I switched to 2 inches.  The numbers still didn't come out the same size because I forgot to turn on Real Dial Size button.  I kind of think it looks cute though.

CONGRATULATIONS, GRAD!