Born on the Fourth of July

One of the things I've really liked about participating in challenges is that I make things that I wouldn't have made otherwise.  I doubt I would have ever made a Fourth of July card, but this was really fun!  I have this patriotic background paper from the All Seasons II pack, which was perfect.  The fireworks at the bottom and the box/firework at the top are from Wild Card.  I LOVE how Wild Card has all of these little images that you don't even think about if you don't check it regularly.  I used the box as a place to put a sentiment.  Since I don't have any patriotic themed sentiments, I used "celebrate" from Scripted Year.  It's a Pink by Design stamp.  I finished up with three little pearls on the bottom left side and it's all ready to go!

I plan to enter this in the following challenges:
More than Favors- Fourth of July
Scrappy Moms- Patriotic Pride
Simply Create Too- Country Where you Live
Bitten by the Bug 2- Patriotic
My Sheri Crafts- Patriotic

It's your birthday...

It's no secret that my birthday is coming up.  I start reminding people 6 months before hand. Being a summer baby, I was pretty spoiled when it came to my birthday.  I never had to go to school on my birthday, so growing up I pretty much learned that your birthday is the day that you do what you want.  For me, that usually means relax and laze around all day.  Even now, I  take the day off of work on my birthday.  I just can't understand doing something other than having 100% fun on your birthday!  This card is in that spirit.  I imagined it as a birthday card from my yorkie, Sophie, telling me to kick back and relax on my special day.  She might have a little bit of an ulterior motive, though- when I'm relaxing, she generally is too.

I used Paper Pups to make the "relax" dog and the word "Relax" on the inside with the shadow feature under the main image. The Sentiment is from Joy's Life- I used a mix of Holiday Occasions and Everyday Occasions.  I made the banner that the sentiment is on from cutting a straight piece of paper and using a corner punch on the edges.  Isn't the background paper cute?  It's from the 8x8 Basics pack from Hobby Lobby.  Sophie thought that I should make more purple cards and get out of my comfort zone a little.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

Tuesday Alchemy- Furry Friends

Celebrate the Occasion- Happy Birthday

In case you wondered, here's a picture of Sophie, relaxing in the craft room:

Summer colors, part 2

Ok, here is the second of my Life is a Beach summer cards for the day!  For this one, I used another piece of scraps for the background paper (if you notice, it's the same pattern as the first card, just more water-y colors).  I repeated the strip of tropical words paper from All Seasons II, but put it at the top this time.  I also repeated the theme of having a small bling in her hair flower.  For this mermaid, not only are her eyes and mouth done in gel pen, but so are the lines on her tail.

I plan to enter this card in the following challenges: 

Cooking with Cricut- It's Hot Outside (Water)

Cardz TV- Summer Fun

Summer colors

With summer in full swing, I've been spending more time with my summer themed cartridges that didn't get much use over the winter months.  I've really liked Life is a Beach lately for summer projects.  For this card, I picked the hula girl from Life is a Beach.  I used some old paper from my scraps that personified summer colors to me.  There's a small strip of the tropical words paper from All Seasons II and a little bling in her hair flower.  I used gel pens to fill in her eyes and mouth too.  Stay tuned later today for the other card for this set!

I plan to enter this challenge in the following challenge:
My Craft Spot- Hot Summer Colors

J is for Journey

I love how when I had a stressful day or I'm home alone, making even a quick card clears my head.  I pulled out my 9 months cartridge and wanted to make something non-baby related.  It's a lot harder with this cartridge than some of the others- but I don't mind a challenge!  I thought this suitcase would make a nice shaped card, and can be used for any sort of travel related situation.  I cut the suitcase at 4 1/2 inches.  It turns out that it's not a perfect shape for a shaped card, because the handle gets in the way of opening it a little, but it's still really cute!

I plan to enter this in the following challenge:

Alphabet Challenge Blog- J for Journey

Summer fun

It turns out I'm still in the mood for summery, bbq cards!  For this one, I used the same background paper as my last BBQ card.  I was thinking about picnics and the first thing that came to mind is ants stealing my food.  However, it turns out there aren't a lot of Cricut cartridges with ants on them, and of the ones that exist, I have none!  It was time to get a little creative.  For these little guys, I cut the caterpillars from Stretch Your Imagination at 1 inch and then trimmed off half of their bodies.  Don't they look like they're having fun stealing someone's watermelon?  That's how I picked the sentiment from Stampendous' "Everything Happy."  I added a little bling on the tag on either side of the sentiment.

The watermelon and the tag are also from Stretch Your Imagination.

I plan to enter this card in the following challenges:
Fantabulous Cricut- BBQ Time
Die Cuttin Divas- Summer Fruits and Veggies

Rock On!

This has been quite a few months for my little sister.  She graduated from college, had a birthday, moved to a new city, and is about to start graduate school.  I couldn't be more proud!  I wanted to send her a card to let her know that I think she is awesome.  I had been eyeing the fox from Birthday Bash ever since I got it- it is so cute- and I thought the matching sentiment went well with this particular occasion.

I already had this blue card that is slightly smaller than A2.  It was given to me from a friend's purge so I don't know what brand it is.  I cut the fox, star, and sentiment to fit on the front of the card, and I popped up the star using Elmer's popup glue dots.  They're really big compared to my foam pop dots, so they work well for bigger surfaces. 

I really like on Birthday Bash how some of the animals have arms that can be holding many different things.  Instead of the guitar, I could have put anything into the fox's hand, and his right arm (the one strumming the strings) has an extra cut that goes over the top of the item he's holding. 

I also have a quick birthday card from Birthday Bash, that I made for my sister's boyfriend.  I used scraps of patterned paper and the Phrase function.  Didn't it come out cute?

A simple card

Like many people in the scrapbooking world, I am totally enamored with yellow and gray right now.  As soon as I opened the Bright and Basics Pad from Recollections and saw this print, I knew it was going to be my favorite.  It seemed like a perfect time to use it for this challenge.  I also used a scrap of yellow for the bottom and embossed it with the Quickutz Polka Dots embossing folder.  The ribbon, which is a dark gray, is actually the backside of a polka dotted ribbon, but I wanted it plain.  The button in the bottom is from who knows where, and has some plain twine tied in it.  I cut the scallop from Sugar and Spice.  Sorry, I can't remember the size after all this time, I should have written it down.  Who knew my computer was going to spaz out for like a week after I made this, you know?  I stamped the word Hello from Pink by Design's Scripted Year.  Really simple, not a lot of show, but I really like it.

I plan to enter this card in the following challenges:

DL Art -Use two colors, embossing, and ribbon

Paper Playtime- Say it with Sentiment, anything goes

Pause, Dream, Enjoy- Yellow

BBQ time

Who doesn't love a nice summer BBQ?  This card, a 6x5 creation, was inspired by Summer's #1 activity.  I used a red gingham print from Paper Studio's Back to the Basics pack as a background, because I thought it looked like a table cloth.  I cut the lemonade and hamburger each from Simply Charmed at 3 inches.  It was a tough decision for me whether I wanted to include their faces or not.  I went back and forth for awhile.  I finally decided to go ahead and include them, because I was keeping the rest of the card pretty simple.  As always when I use Simply Charmed, I put Stickles on their cheeks.

The tag is cut from Sweethearts.  I had cut it for an earlier card, but it was too big, so I threw it in my "Cricut cuts that I didn't end up using" bin.  (If you look back at my rose card, you'll see I have it in the smaller size that I actually needed for that card.)  I stamped the word BBQ from Pink by Design's Party Time stamp set.

I plan to enter this card in Cooking with Cricut's First Day of Summer challenge.

A scraplift challenge

Lezlye over at Ink and Paper Creations challenged readers to look at projects that she had done and then use them as inspiration and re-create it in their own style.  I LOVED this challenge.  It was so fun!  I picked this project by Lezlye to recreate.

I'm not really much of a stamper, my cards almost always have Cricut cuts on them, so I knew that would be the first way that I would put my own spin on the card.  I broke it down and decided that I needed the main elements: black/green/pink, a girl in green, and a pink heart.  Here is what I came up with:

This is a regular A2 card.  The patterned paper is old school Dollar Tree paper from when I first started scrapping.  I cut the ovals from Baby Steps (I bet you didn't realize that there were cuts on there other than just babies, did you?) and I cut the girl from Baby Steps as well.  It took more cuts than it was supposed to, because I wanted her dress to be green instead of pink and because I wanted her cheeks to be pink instead of tan.  I popped her up on popdots and "voila!" a card that is totally my style, inspired by Lezlye.

I can hear the bells

One challenge I've given myself this summer is to not ALWAYS make cutesy cards.  There are still a few that sneak through, because I like them so much, but I want to stretch myself.  Luckily, Fantabulous Cricut had a bells challenge this week, and I only have two cartridges that have bells, and neither one is cutesy!

I decided to go with this bell from Stretch Your Imagination.  It would have been really easy to just use the main cut, but I was thinking about trying new things so I decided to go with the shadow and outline features. I really like how that worked.  I used some old leftover paper from a black and white pack I got years ago to do my wedding scrapbook as well as one of the borders.  Then I added a little blue bling at the top and decided that it was done.  I had originally stamped a tag from the same paper line to put up in that left corner, but it just wasn't working for me.  I realized that I have really no wedding sentiments, so I guess that means I'll have to buy a few more sets of stamps.  Oh, darn.

I'm entering this in
Fantabulous Cricut's Blue Bells challenge
Cardz TV's Anything Goes challenge

Present card

I had a lot of fun making this little shape card.  It's only about 4x4, I think- so maybe it's more like a gift tag than a card.  :)

I cut the present from Sweethearts at 4 inches.  I'm not sure if the picture makes it easy to tell, but the "ribbon" is cut from brown cardstock.  I put the brown pearl in the middle of the "ribbon" and used it to secure down the string for the tag.  On the tag, I stamped a heart from the Everyday Expression stamp set from Hobby Lobby.  It was such a quick and easy card, that I could really see myself mass producing them for tags.  It's really just three layers.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Bitten by the Bug 2- Birthday and pearls

Simon Says Stamp and Show- A bit of brown

Aloha

Get ready for a barrage of posts over the next few days!  Last week, my computer got a nasty virus and we had to reformat the hard drive in order to get rid of it, so I haven't been able to use my computer in awhile.  That means I've been sitting on SIX cards that I will be posting over the next couple of days to enter in challenges.

This first card has been bubbling in my head since January.  It was the perfect convergence of me getting "Pack Your Bags" and looking through my Paper Studio "All Seasons II" pack and noticing this awesome tropical print paper.

I'm a bit compulsive about sets of things.  It all began when I was a preschooler and McDonald's had Muppet Babies toys in their Happy Meals.  Whereas most kids might have been happy to just play with their skateboarding Kermit, I vividly remember feeling like I had to have the whole set, or else I would never be able to handle even looking at the other ones.  Compulsive, right?  Anyway, my point is I have a thing about sets, so when I realized that between Life is a Beach and Pack Your Bags I had a set of four tropical drinks, making this card became an inevitability.

This is a 6x6 card.  I used the kraft background and two different patterned papers from All Seasons II- the floral print and the tropical words.  I cut the green squares at 2 inches and inked the sides brown, then cut the off-white squares at 1.5 inches.  The cuts were all made at 2 inches.  I added a little embellishment in the top right corner that looked to me like a citrus slice.  It came from my miscellaneous embellishments drawer.

I plan to enter this card into the following challenges:

Exploring Cricut- Summer Fun (must include at least 3 Cricut cuts, 2 patterned papers, and 1 embellishment)

My Craft Spot- Cool Treats

Krafty Girls- Fun in the Sun

Celebrate the Occasion- Welcome Summer

Mother's and Father's day 2012

One of my favorite things about crafting is surfing the internet and seeing the things that others have created, and being inspired by what they have done.  Seriously, many an evening is spent at my house with my husband renting some action movie and me sitting on the floor with the laptop, browsing google images or pinterest for hours.  Both my mother's day and father's day cards for this year were inspired this way.  (Like their birthdays, my parents and in-laws each got the same cards for their respective holidays.)

For Mother's Day, I was inspired by this card.  I love her idea of using Christmas cartridges for non-Christmas events.  Otherwise, my Winter Frolic cartridge will have to be dusted off every year when I make my Christmas cards and then never used for another whole year. 

For my version, I wanted to focus more on the pink.  I used a pink cardstock as the card and a pink patterned paper from KI Memories Classic stack.  I used my Tonic Studios corner chomper on the patterned paper.  The yellow ribbon is, I think, from American Crafts.  All of my ribbon is pretty much in jars and separated by color, and it isn't on it's spools.  But I know I bought a lot of American Crafts ribbon at some point, so it's a good chance.  The cut, like I said, is from Winter Frolic.  I left off the santa hat that the mom bird is supposed to wear, and I drew their eyes on with a Fiskars gel pen instead of using the cut.

I stamped the inside of the card with stamps from Joy's Life.  The "happy" comes from Joy's Everyday Occasions and the "Mothers" and "Day" are from Joy's Holiday Occasions.  I love these stamps because with just two sets, you have sentiments to cover every major event in life.  I LOVE mix and match stamps!

My Father's Day card was inspired by this one.  I have the Wild Card cartridge, and I should be using it all the time.  But I don't.  So I was searching around for ideas of how to use it practically.  Like the inspiration card, I used the Happy Father's Day sentiment from later in the handbook.  I like the cream background with the various colors of blue.

The sentiment on the inside, "Celebrate," is from Pink by Design's Scripted Year.  Perfect!

A rose by any other name

 Imagine my surprise when I entered "rose" into MyCutSearch and found out that only two of the cartridges that I own- Sweethearts and Wild Card- have roses on them!  I just recently used the rose from Wild Card on a scrapbook layout (for when we saw Beauty and the Beast on stage), so I decided to use Sweethearts for this time around.

I cut the rose from the front and backsides of a piece of ProvoCraft cardstock- the kind that is different colors on each side.  That way, I knew they'd coordinate.  The green, however, is just two different shades from my stash.  :)  I recently, on a trip to Michaels, discovered a 6x6 paper pad by Recollections called "The Bright and Basics Pad" for $4.  I suspect that it might be from 12x12 pieces cut into quarters, but I don't care because the patterns are awesome and the price was right.  That is what I used here for the background.  I thought the blue went well with the kraft, and also made the rose pop out.  I pulled some blue ribbon from my stash that is, if memory serves, from the dollar spot at Target.

I cut the off-white tag from Sweethearts and stamped the sentiment from Pink by Design's "Scripted Year" in a wine color.  It is really clear in person, but for some reason I couldn't get a picture that reflected that.  If I was only allowed to own one stamp set, this one would be it.

I plan to enter this card in the following challenges:






Bitten by the Bug 2- Rose
Simon Says Stamp and Show- Anything Goes

A giveaway to know about

It's Candy's first blogaversary over at Candy's Craft Corner.  Here's a picture of the blog candy she's giving out to one lucky follower:

Head on over and check it out!

All the best

Wow, so Father's Day is my first holiday since beginning challenges, and it got a little overwhelming this week!  There are so many challenges about making a card for Father's Day!  To see the list of blogs I'm linking to for Father's Day challenges, look at the end of the post.  I think I did ok on this card, because my husband went way beyond his usual "oh, that's nice" comments when I showed him this one.  He asked questions about it and said a few times "I really like it." I might have even gotten a "wow."  ;) Cards for guys are hard, so it was feedback much appreciated.

I used Wall Decor and More for this card, because I wanted something that was masculine yet had enough flair that I wouldn't feel the need to bling it up too much.  I actually cut the layers three times instead of two- first I cut the main image with blue, then layered the shifted image (green) ON TOP of the main image instead of underneath it, then cut the main image again in white and only used the sails and flag to layer on top of the green.  The flag is colored in with a sharpie to give it a base of red underneath the burgandy stickles.  I tried about 100 different patterned papers with this card, and none looked as good as sticking it straight on the kraft color, so I added this green tag that I've had forever (I want to say it came with an old Paper Pizazz pack, maybe?) so there wasn't a big empty spot in the corner. 

I stamped the sentiment on the front with Joy's Life Everyday Occasions stamps.  I like these because you can be creative with the sentiment, and have it say whatever you want.  I can stamp "Happy Father's Day" on the inside with the matching Holiday Occasions set.  My husband really likes when there are sentiments on the outside and inside of cards, and clearly I like his approval on my masculine cards.   I even got to use my new brown ink (it's just the Hobby Lobby brand, but it's the small things that make life exciting).

Ok, here goes:
I'm going to enter this card in the following challenges:
Fantabulous Cricut- Father's day/Outdoors
Die Cuttin Divas- Father's day
Cardz TV- "So glad you're my dad" challenge
My Craft Spot- King of the grill/Father's day challenge
Celebrate the Occasion- Father's day
DL Art- A card for a man challenge

Cheers!

I decided it was time to break out the Cricut Craft Room again and make this card from Smiley Cards.  I cut the beer mug and all of its layers at 5 inches.  To make the shape card, I made two layers of the blue shadow cut, scored the top of the back one, and adhered them together.  I hid the layers of the face that are on there- yet another thing I love about the Cricut Craft Room!  He does have a cute face, but I wanted to put the sentiment on the front and just make it a kind of simple, masculine card.

Here's something you might not know about Smiley Cards.  The text comes out GIGANTIC!  When I put it on the mat at 5 inches, it wouldn't even fit on the entire mat (I was using a baby bug).  I had to size it waaaaay down in order for it to fit on the mug.  It was weird.  I guess it's a good thing you can only do it through CCR (or a gypsy, which I would love to have but do not have funds for).

I think I'm going to hide this card away and give it to my husband next time he's having a stressful week.  I love to leave cards around to encourage him.  :)  Good thing he doesn't bother to read my blog because he always assumes he's going to get to see the cards in person anyway.

I'm entering this card into the following challenge:

Cardz TV- My Guy challenge

In my garden

I was originally planning to use my birthday invitation post (with the grasshopper) for the Bitten by the Bug 2 garden challenge.  When I was little, I used to love to catch grasshoppers around our garden, so I thought it was fitting.  But when I really went to do it, I decided it wasn't "gardeny" enough for me.  Plus, I had a lot of free time today- bonus!- and had been wanting to do some creating anyway.  So I sat down to create a new card.  I decided to go with this card because the reality of my life now is that the only constant in my backyard seems to be squirrels.  In fact, there's about an 87% chance that as you read this, Sophie is barking her high-pitched bark and scratching the bejeebers out of my windowpanes in a futile attempt to get outside and chase one of the squirrels that like to frolic around out there.

When I think of "cricut" and "squirrel," my mind automatically jumps to everyone's favorite cuties- Create a Critter.  I cut this little guy out at 3 1/2 inches.  I used some patterned paper from my stash and a slice of orange cardstock.  The stamp says "Enjoy today" and is from the Stampendous "Everything Happy" set.  I originally had some textured cardstock there, but it made the ink run a little so I switched to smooth.  I used Cinnamon Stickles on his tail to bling him up a little.

So, this card can be used as a nice little greeting card, but I will know that the stamp really means that the squirrels in my yard should enjoy it while they can, because any minute I could be letting Sophie out and she'll be chasing them up a tree.

I'm entering this card in the following challenge:

Bitten by the Bug 2- Garden Challenge

It's almost the big day

It's almost here.  The day women dread from the time they turn 25....my 30th birthday is in August!  Aaaaaahhhh!

I've been throwing around whether or not I want to have a birthday party, and since there were a couple of challenges that I wanted to try I thought I'd make a first attempt at an invitation. 

The 30 is cut from Doodletype, and I wanted it to fill up almost the entire page.  It's a big deal, after all!  Then I wanted to add the little grasshopper from Stretch Your Imagination because...well...I think he's cute and I've always wanted to use him for something.  But I wanted to make him festive, so I added the party hat from Doodlecharms, cut with the blackout feature.  He's cut at 1.5 inches, the hat is at .75.  I even used some old Doodlebug paper for the hat- it's a doodle fest in here!

I embossed some white paper with my Cuttlebug Seeing Spots folder, and it looked SO HARSH against the blue.  So I used some blue and purple ink and one of my makeup sponges, and just inked all over the page.  It was still pretty harsh, so I pulled out my Ek Success corner rounder (the medium one) and chomped away.  That helped a lot.  Then I added the little hop marks with a black gel pen, and it was done!

Since it's an invitation, I had to include all of the information!  I used Pink by Design stamps Party Time for the entire page.  It has mix-and-match sentiments for all sorts of invitations.  It's great!  I stamped it in the same purple ink that I used for inking the front of the card. 



I'm not sure why the picture came out so yellow?  It's really a piece of white cardstock
and purple writing in real life.  I think it has to do with the flash being on.

 I plan to enter this card into the following challenges:

Fantabulous Cricut- Don't bug me
My Craft Spot- Birthday- what's your age?

From Sophie, with love

I'm back already with another challenge card!  A couple of different blogs are hosting Father's Day challenges right now.  I had already made the Father's Day cards for my dad and father-in-law (post coming after Father's Day, naturally) and didn't want to enter that card into any challenges because I pretty much scraplifted it from one I found online.  But, how to enter the challenge, then?  Then I realized that, although my husband will never in a million years admit to being Sophie's adopted dad, I view him that way and I'm sure there are lots of people out there that would like some acknowledgement on Mother's/Father's day for taking care of their animals.  I swear sometimes it's just as hard as having a kid.

That being said, here is Sophie's Father's Day card.  She didn't really help besides being the model for the card and spending a lot of time sniffing the patterned paper stack, but that's ok.  The patterned paper here is from the DCWV Pet Stack- I just got it at a garage sale last week for $3!  The hearts are glittery, although you can't really tell from the picture.  Then I cut the dog from Four Legged Friends.  It's kind of a weird cut- the main layer is supposed to show two feet, the scarf, the nose and the eye.  But I wanted the feet tan and the nose black, so I cut the whole thing out in tan, and just used a Sharpie to color in the nose area.  I also used a red Sharpie for the smile.  Then I cut the body layer in gray and the head layer in the same tan.  The scarf is a patterned paper scrap- it's not it's own cut, so I traced it by hand and just cut it with scissors.  No use wasting that much paper to cut the entire dog again on the Cricut.  Then I added the googly eye and she was done!

For a final touch, I added the brown rick-rack (is that how it's spelled?) and the button from my stash.

I will be entering this card in the following challenges:

Exploring Cricut- Father's Day
Scrappy Moms Stamps- Father's Day

Sandcastles in the sand

Now that it's summer, my schedule on weekdays changes.  Some days, I'll be in and out of work all day, only taking breaks to run home and let Sophie outside to do her business.  Others, I'll be totally off work.  This poses a slight challenge in my quest to not be constantly stuffing my face with boredom snacks.  However, last week I tried my hand at a paper crafts challenge, and I found out I really liked it.  I like having some guidelines for creations, and I've been following more and more blogs that host challenges.  I've also found that I really like seeing which challenges I can combine to come up with a project.  So, I will probably be spending a lot of time this summer posting about challenges, because it's fun creatively and it keeps me busy upstairs, away from the fridge.  :)

Anyway, here is the first of three cards I made on my day off today for challenges.  It was the most challenging for me, for some reason, and I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with it, but that's ok.

I used the Pack Your Bags cartridge to cut out this sandcastle (3 inches).  When I was done, it looked too- clean, maybe?  Not nearly dirty enough for a sandcastle.  I don't have any distress tools or inks, so I improvised.  I rubbed zig pen all over it, and then rubbed my fingers on it, and then took my adhesive eraser to parts of it.  That is what gives it the kind of wet-ish look on the sand.

I have had this blue tissue papery 12x12 sheet of paper ever since I began buying scrapbook supplies at the Dollar Tree.  I always thought it looked like water, and I wanted my sandcastle to look like it was on the edge of the water.  The other patterened papers are from my stash.  I believe they're from Provo Craft.  The little crab is a leftover from a Jolee's pack that I bought for a themed scrapbook page before I had my Cricut.

I'm going to enter this in the following challenges:

Bitten by the Bug 2- Water Challenge

Paper Playtime- Vacation Challenge

Tuesday Alchemy- Sand, Surf & Sea



Moving card

A couple that is in our Sunday School class has been relocated to Texas.  I wanted to let them know that we enjoyed getting to know them and wish them luck on this new chapter of their lives.  I decided to make this card from Sugar and Spice.  I cut the dollhouse with blue and yellow accents, because I wanted to it to be gender neutral enough for both of them to enjoy.  I put in some patterned paper (Provocraft, perhaps?) as the sky behind the house and used some translucent, yellow ribbon with polka dots that I had been given by someone that didn't want it any more.

Inside, I decided to use the "Best Wishes" sentiment from Pink by Design's Scripted Year stamp set.  I think this stamp set might be the best crafty purchase I've made in terms of use for amount of money.  I can use them for all sorts of occasions! 

My first challenge!

I follow a few different challenge blogs, and I always have ideas for the challenges but just haven't ever gotten around to completing them.  Well, all that has changed- I finished my first challenge!

This particular challenge was a photo challenge at Cricut Creative Cutter Room. Here is the photo inspiration:

The challenge was to create something with the photo as your inspiration.  I decided to go with a card.  Here it is:

I made this A2 card with kraft background.  The flowers are cut from Lyrical Letters.  For the dark brown flowers, I used the set of flowers that is on page 72 of the handbook (Connected feature- shift) and the pink flowers are from page 66 of the handbook (Connected feature-shift).  I cut the brown flowers at 4.5 inches and I cut the pink flowers to match with the length of 4.25 inches, which came out to be about 5.5 inches.  The ribbon was clearance ribbon from Michaels. 

Now I have to decide if I want to link the project back to the challenge or if I just want to enjoy it on my own.  I'm a little nervous to link back, because everyone will see it then!  For now, I think I'll wait...there's plenty of time before the challenge closes.  Baby steps, right? ETA:  I entered it!