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!