Guest Designer at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog

Hello!

I am so excited to be a guest designer for Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog this week!  Since today is Columbus Day, this week's challenge is to use a ship on your project.  Here's my take on the challenge:

This is an A2 sized card.  The card is actually on off-white cardstock, but you can't see it well in the picture. Then I cut a piece of red cardstock just slightly smaller than the A2 size, and a piece of patterned paper just slightly smaller than that.  The patterned paper is from the ProvoCraft Celebrations stack.

I cut my ship from Pack Your Bags at 3.5 inches, including the shadow.  I love to use the shadow features when they're available, because with that outline around the shape you have more flexibility in the patterns of paper that you can put behind it.  It gives it more definition.

The smoke coming out of the ship has silver Stickles on it.  No pollution coming off of my boats- just sparkles!  I used Glossy Accents all over the water.  Unfortunately, the picture didn't pick up the shine and it just looks kind of splotchy.  It's shiny in real life, I swear!

My finishing touch was to stamp the word "Enjoy" in blue ink in the top corner.  I used Pink by Design's "Big Thoughts" for the sentiment.  I really like this set, and based on how much I've used it since I got it just a few weeks ago, I'm thinking it's going to go into heavy rotation as one of my favorites.

So there you have it- my ship.  Now head over to Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog and see the rest of the inspiration from their awesome Design Team.  Then you can add your own creation!

Sunshine

Here's a little card to encompass a few challenges out there right now.  I started with the sun from Pack Your Bags, cut at 3 inches.  I used some Glossy Accents on it's cheeks.  Then I put some patterned paper from Paper Studio's The Basics pack onto a darker green A2 sized card.  The three orange buttons were from my stash.  

For the sentiment, I cut a tag from Plantin Schoolbook.  I made some orange twine to tie on the tag, and stamped the sentiment with Lawn Fawn's Jessie's ABCs.   My orange ink stained my stamps, so now I'm working on convincing myself that being stained just shows how well loved they are.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Fantabulous Cricut- Sunny Days

Pile it On- Kick back and relax (what's more relaxing than chilling out in the sun?)

Cooking with Cricut- Buttons and Brads

Tuesday Alchemy- Button, button, who's got a button?

Cardz TV- Tag, you're it

Paper Playtime- Say it with sentiments- Miss you

A little sunshine

It's been hot lately, hasn't it?  It makes me want to relax on the beach, in a nice cool breeze- the inspiration for this card.

It's just a regular A2 card.  The cloud was cut from Create a Critter and I stamped it with a sentiment from AmyR stamps.  I think it was from the All Women set.  I just got these on Friday, and and having a great time getting used to stamping with cling rubber stamps.  The setting sun is from Doodlecharms, and has a little Diamond Stickles to give it some sparkle.  The waves were hand cut so that they would be kind of asymmetrical, and the sand was ripped.

The woman on the lounge chair was cut from Pack Your Bags.  She's relaxing on the beach with her lemonade.  ;)  I used some polkadot paper for her bathing suit (but here's a secret- I added the orange dot on her shoulder and enhanced the pink one on her side with marker.)

See the seashells?  They add a bit of dimension because they're puffy stickers from, of all places, the Dollar Tree.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Simply Create Too- Summer Vacation

Pause, Dream, Enjoy- Sunset

Pile it On- It's a Shore Thing
Tuesday Alchemy- No work, just play

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

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