Beware

I found this image in the Autumn Celebrations cartridge.  The image was not a card but I decided to make it into a card.   I opened the image in Cricut Design Space and first set the width to 4.23 inches and let the height set itself.  I then ungrouped all the layers and duplicated the shadow layer twice.  I mirrored these two layers vertically and lined up the tops overlapping them slightly and welded them.  I also added a score line in the middle of the card.  This created my card base. I am including a short video tutorial on how I made the card.

Next I took the main image and made it a print and cut image. I printed this and then cut it, then cut the card base.  I adhered the Beware image to my card base with some foam dots to add some dimension to the card.  To finish the card I added a small spider lapel pin to Mr Frankenstein and then traced over it with my Black Spica Atyou pen.  I also stamped some small spider webs in each corner and traced over some of the lines again with my Black Spica Atyou pen.

I plan to enter this card in the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge.  Thanks for stopping by.









     

Celebrate Spring

A friend of mine ordered several of the new Memory Box stencils by mistake thinking they were dies. When she got them she had no idea what to do with them. I told her how I would use one so she told me to take it home and make something with it and bring it to show her. So this is what I came up with.

The stencil set was called Garden Birch Trees. Cutters Creek can now order Memory Box items so ask if you would like to order this. I started with a white piece of card stock and used some Washi Tape to tape the stencil to my paper. I used my Foam blending tool and some Tumbled Glass and Broken China Distress Ink to create my sky. I then used Shabby Shutters and Mowed Lawn to create the grass on my card. When I removed the die I had these great white Birch Trees. The next step was to figure out what to add to the card. I used a stamp with a bird on a branch from Hero Arts and stamped it with Mowed Lawn Distress Ink. I then used a small bird stamp and stamped it up into the trees using Broken China. Finally I add a small butterfly that I stamped in Mustard Seed Distress ink. I used my Lemon Spica pen to add some glitter to the butterfly. My sentiment was stamped with Broken China Distress Ink as well.

Box Card

Today I have a unique card for you. I call it a Box Card. I first saw this card here. There is a link on the blog to a YouTube video tutorial. Isn't this just the cutest thing ever??? To make the card, I started with a piece of Kraft card stock cut to 8 1/4" X 9". On the 9" side score your card stock at 2 1/8", 4 1/4" 6 3/8" and 8 1/2". Then turn the card stock so are scoring on the 8 1/4" side and score your card stock at 2 3/4". With the 2 3/4" score line to your left you want to cut your card stock to 6". From the piece you just cut off, you want to cut a piece that is 3 1/8" wide, then cut that piece in half lengthwise. From there it gets a bit tricky. Still an easy card, but I would suggest you watch this tutorial video. This helps explain where to cut the card stock and how to assemble the box part of the card.

 Back panel (does not get folded) red base mat is  5 7/8" X 8" and the white mat is 5 3/4" X 1 7/8". I stamped the white mat with my sentiment using Love Letters Memento ink. The heart flowers were cut using my Silhouette. I used Glossy Accents on the two heart flowers and covered the smaller on in Picked Raspberry Distress Glitter and the larger on with Festive Berries Distress Glitter. The Distress Glitters are a special order item just ask. To cover the bottom panels cut your red mats at 2" X 3 1/8" and the patterned paper at 1 7/8" X 3". To cover the top panels cut your red mats at 2" X 2 5/8" and your patterned paper at 1 7/8" X 2 1/2".

Then decorate and embellish as you wish. I used some print and cut images cut with my Silhouette. I used the Spica Red Glitter pen to add some sparkle to my Bear Lady Bug's antenna's and to the word love on my word label. I used the Blossom Spica Pen to add sparkle to the words Never Ends. My lady bug bear is attached to the back panel with an Action Wobble. I used my Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive and ATG gun to put the card together. Now so you can see all sides of my card, I have a quick video for you.

With Sympathy

A good friend and co-worker lost her husband Friday after a long battle with ALS. I told my co-workers I would make a card for us to send her and this is what I came up with.

My card base is 5" x 6.5" white card stock card base. I embossed the top part of the card with the Anna Griffin Matelassé embossing folder. I then used the border embossing folder to emboss the bottom of the card. To balance out the two embossing areas, I used my score board and embossed along the bottom of the top embossed area to create a line so it matched with the boarder embossing.

My image is a Print and Cut image from the Silhouette store. After printing and cutting the image out I used a clear Spica Glitter marker to add some sparkle to the crown, along the vein lines in the leaves, and to the center of the flower. I inked around the edge of the image with some Stormy Skies distress ink. I attached the image to my card with some foam tape to add a little dimension to the card.

Finally I stamped with sentiment with the Stormy Skies distress ink.

I would love  if you let me know you think. These are always such difficult cards to make and I wanted to keep it fairly simple.

My Version of a Gate Fold Card

When I set out to design this project, I knew I wanted to do something a bit different then my typical A2 card. I did some blog hopping and decided I wanted to make a gate fold card. But I decided I wanted to create my own version of a gate fold card and that is what I did.

I started with a piece of white card stock cut to 5 1/2" X 12". I die cut one edge using a Tim Holtz on the edge butterfly die. (Check with Kim if you are interested in this die). My next thought was how to dress up the butterlies. Once again Tim Holtz to the rescue. I placed several different colors of distress stain (I used Peacock Feathers, Squeezed Lemonade and Shaded Lilac) I then spritzed the distress stains with water and and swished my butterflies in the stain. I then let them dry. I added some Buttercup and Lavendar Lace Liquid Pearls to the bodies of the butterflies. Once the butterflies were all dried I scored my card stock at 3 1/2" from each end. I heavily inked all the edges of my card with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink (this is one of my favorite colors).  I added a black mat and then my patterned paper mats. I also did the inside of the card.

My next dilemma was how to finish the card. It just needed a bit more. I took another piece of white card stock and again applied some distress stains to my mat. This time I used Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserves, Salty Ocean and the Burnish Pewter Metallic stain (again Kim can order these for you, just ask). I again squirted the stains with water on my mat and just swished the paper across my mat to color the entire page. I then spritz the paper with a bit of water to get the colors to flow. I allowed the paper to dry thoroughly. I cut two butterflies using my Silhouette cameo. I cut the base layer using the stained paper I created. The top layer was cut using the tracing paper I have it is a bit transparent.

To finish the front of the card, I cut a mat using Elegant Edges (again Kim can order this for you) at 3". I cut the shadow out of black and the base layer out of white. I inked the white mat with the Peacock Feathers distress stain and stamped my sentiment and the butterfly. I used my Turquoise Spica pen to enhance the lines of the butterfly and use the Clear Spica pen to add sparkle inside the wings.

I sure hope you enjoyed my version of a Gate Fold card. I would love to see you all create your own version as well and share it with me. I think this card would work well for a Mother's Day card, Birthday Card, or even a Graduation Day card. What do you think?

Quick and Easy Easter Basket

Welcome Tutorial Tuesday! Hope your week is off to a great start.  Today I have for you a quick and easy Easter basket. Perfect for a hostess gift, gift for co-workers, friends, just about anyone, or the center of your Easter table. I happened to come across this great tutorial at Scor-Pal on making a box. I knew I wanted to make a simple basket and wanted it 4" across the bottom and I wanted 3" sides. Based on the formula in this tutorial (4+3+3 which is the box size plus two times the height size) I knew I needed to cut a 10" square to make my box and then score each side at 3". I then cut the flaps as indicated in the tutorial.

This picture is from the tutorial

I adhered my box using scor-tape. My handle which was just the 2" X 12" strip of patterned card stock I cut off to make my 10" square. I attached my handle to my box behind the outside flap so the bottom of my handle was hidden. Now that the basket was together, it was time to decorate it. I cut my rabbit from the Easter 2010 Cricut cartridge at 2 1/2".  I ran the rabbit through my Xyron sticker maker upside down so the sticky was on the front of my bunny. Okay so now I have a confession to make. I thought that at some time in the past I had purchased the Earth colored Ultra Fine Flower Soft. However, if I did, I sure couldn't find it and was not where I store my flower soft. So now I had a dilemma. I wanted to make my rabbit furry, so what to do? I took some of white Ultra Fine Flower Soft and added several drops of  ginger alcohol Ink to it in a plastic sandwich bag and rubbed it around in the bag to get the color I ended up with. However, I also ended up with ginger colored hands and it had a bit of an odor to it from the alcohol ink. So while it worked in a moment of panic I plan to get some of the Earth colored Ultra Fine Flower Soft when Kim has it back in the store. Just much simpler to us.Once I had my bunny sticky and the flower soft the color I wanted I added it to the front of the bunny and pressed down on the flower soft (that's how I got the colored hands) to be sure it stuck to the adhesive. I then added a bow at his neck and a google eye to him and adhered him to my basket.

Next I cut the grass. The grass is also from the Easter 2010 cartridge and was cut at 1 1/4". Each strip is actually 2 of the images that I flipped and welded together on my Gypsy. You could do the same thing with the Cricut Craft Room if you don't have a Gypsy or Design Studio. I cut my grass out of some Core' denations paper and the light green is actually the back side of the card green. I adhere the grass to my box at the bottom and then fluffed up the grass to give it some dimension For my Easter eggs, I cut these from the Doodlecharms cartridge using real dial size and 3/4" and 1". Before cutting the eggs I grabbed some scraps of card stock in pink, yellow and lavender. I used my WOW! Funky Border Strips clear stamps and several colors of distress ink to create some patterned paper to cut my eggs from. If you haven't tried any of these clear stamps you should. WOW! makes them so they work really well with their embossing powders (just a suggestion all you WOW! club members). Kim carries several of their stamps sets. It is worth checking out.

On the lavender paper I used the Peacock Feathers Distress ink and the small dot border stamp. On the Yellow paper I used Shaded Lilac and the small squares border stamp. On my pink paper I used the Squeezed Lemonade and the Pickled Raspberry distress ink and the single row of dots border stamp. I first stamped the Raspberry and left about an 1" between the two rows, then went back and stamped the Lemonade between the Raspberry. Once I had the eggs cut out I used my Spica Pens to add a little glitter to the eggs and then adhered them to the front of my basket. I hope you enjoyed seeing my basket and will check out the awesome products used from Cutters Creek. And remember if something is ever out of stock just contact Kim through the Customer Service link and ask if she can order it for you. She is great about special ordering so never hesitate to ask. I hope you all of a great rest of your week. I would love to know what you think of my basket.