Daily Project: Sympathy

This summer has been a rough one for my family and several families I'm close to, and once again I proved my own saying "You never have a sympathy or birthday card made when you need one."

My daily project for this week over at Exploring Cricut is a sympathy card that I created for my friend and boss who lost her step-mother a week after I lost my dad. Both her step-mother and my dad had cancer and through her family I saw how blessed we truly were that Dad passed quickly.

I'm writing this post one month after my Dad passed, and this weekend has been extremely difficult eventhough I thought I was doing great. I do want to send a special S/O to the other design team members that sent cards, that was so unbelievably sweet and unexpected.

I try not to get preachy on my blog, so I'll make this real short so we can get to the card.

I've always believed that God always answers prayers, after all he's God and He's capable of all things and if he wanted to He could have spared my dad from dying. If we are to believe that God answers all prayers we have to be willing to accept that sometimes the answer is going to be "No", after all, as children we didn't get everything we asked our parents for, if we had we'd all be riding ponies! Through this though I learned that God can also answer prayers with a "but". It wasn't in His plan to save my dad from passing, but he saved him from suffering through a long and drawn out disease, He saved him from having to withstand chemotherapy, and He saved his family from having to watch a loved one suffer. This is truly a loving a merciful God. It is through this knowledge that I've been able to hold it together this month and help my mom move forward and find a "new normal". If I didn't have the belief that my dad was in a better place (we like to think he has a daily tee time with God) then this would be unbearable.

Now that my sermon is over; back to crafting. My card for today was created using the cartridge Indie Art. This is a cartridge I've had for years, but just never use. When I pulled it out I found it had some really cool designs on it. I especially loved the butterfly since to me butterflies are very peaceful.


I cut all pieces at 2.18 using my Gypsy. I used the butterfly - shadow, butterfly, and butterfly - shift. Once all pieces were cut I adhered them and then used diamond stickles on the wings and Close to My Heart sparkles on the antenea. I used a saying from the "4 my friend" stamp set also from Close to My Heart.

Pattern paper and cardstock are from my stash.

Recipe:

Indie Art: butterfly

diamond stickles

sparkles: CTMH

4 My Friend stamp set: CTMH

February Card Class

This month began a new catalog season with Close To My Heart, and like always I was so excited to start creating with the new papers and images. I started off with the Stella paper and Fashonista stamp set. I threw in some of the Just For You stamp set as well.
Card #1 Recipe
Base: 5.5x4.25, White Daisy
Pattern Paper: 5.25x4, Stella
Lagoon 4.25x2.5, cornerns rounded
Sunset 3.75x2.25, corners rounded
I stamped the lady onto a piece of colonial white using cocoa ink and cut around, then on another piece of colonial white I stamped her again in sunset. I cut out her outfit and handbag and adhered them to the cocoa image then adhered to the card. Finish it off with a new pewter badge button.
Card #2 Recipe


Base:5.5x5.5, White Daisy
cardstock: 5.25x5.25, cocoa
5x2.5, sunset
4.75x2.25, colonial white
Pattern paper: 5.25x.5, Stella (Lagoon flower)
white embossing powder
bitty sparkles
I used the store stamp from the Fashionista set and embossed it using the white embossing powder. I also embossed the saying. Then adhere the .5 strip and the sunset cardstock.



I stamped one lady using cocoa ink then stamped her again in Lagoon. I cut the handbag out of the stamped Lagoon image and adhered it to the cocoa image. This was then adhered to the sunset cardstock. To add some interest I added 3 tiny sparkles to her handbag and one to the center of her belt.






Card #3 Recipe

Base: 5.5x4.25, white daisy
cardstock: 5.25x4, large cocoa
4x2.25, small cocoa
pattern paper: 5x3.75, Stella (tulip)
3.75x2, Stella (Lagoon flower)
scallop circle: 2.75, olive
circle: 2.25, colonial white
chocolate and colonial white striped grosgrain ribbon
I stamped the staying from the Fashionista set in olive on the colonial white circle.


Card #4 Recipe

Base: 5.5x4.25, White Daisy
Pattern paper: 3x4, Stella (dress pattern)
.5x4, Stella (Lagoon flower)
1.75x4, Stella (multi)
Image: Just for you stamp set
outline stamped in cocoa, 3 petals stamped in sunset with a touch of tulip on the top, 3 petals in lagoon with a touch of olive on the top. Two leaves stamped in olive.
Wooded button in the center of the flower and twine tied on the fold.


Card #5 Recipe

Base: 5.5x4.25, White Daisy
Pattern Paper: 4x2, Stella (red)
4x.5, Stella (multi)
Image: Just for you stamp set
I stamped the dotted outline in cocoa, the petals are stamped in sunset, and the leaves are stamped in 2nd generation olive. I stamped the saying in sunset and added an orange button.

Daily Project: Thanks

Welcome to the Exploring Cricut daily project for today. For today's project I decided to make a card (I know you're surprised). You can never have too many thank you cards so I decided to make one for my stash! This one is pretty straight forward although there is some cutting. I started with a card base that was 5.5 x 4.25, for this card the base is bamboo. I then cut a piece of honey patterned paper that was 5.25 x 4 and wrapped it with a scrap piece of ribbon from my stash. Once I had adhered this to the card base I was ready for the Cricut. I cut the butterfly using Create a Critter. I made the following cuts
Butterfly W= 5.02, H= 3.47 (I actually made this cut twice using 2 different pattern papers)
outline 5.02x3.47 (smoothie cardstock)
body 5.02x3.47 (olive cardstock)

The two pattern papers that the butterfly was cut from, I cut the wings off and using the outline as my guide I trimmed enough for the wings.

Once everything was put together I stamped "thanks" in chocolate ink using the Thank You set, put pink sparkles on the antenna, and two opaques for the eyes.

Recipe:
cardstock: bamboo, smoothie, olive (CTMH)
pattern paper: all from Mayberry (CTMH)
ribbon: from stash
sparkles, opaques (CTMH)
Thank you stamp set (CTMH)
ink: Chocolate (CTMH)

That's it for my super simple card. Hope you enjoy this project, thanks for stopping by, and have a stupendous Saturday!

Birthday Challenge

Hi All! Wow, seems January is really flying by. Before you know it we'll be smack dab into February and we'll probably finally have some snow, but it will probably be up to our kneees. Winter in Kentucky is interesting to say the least. We always tell visitors if they don't like the weather, wait a minute and it'll change. Considering we are also known as Sinus Valley, I'll take the snow and cold, at least my allergies get a little break.


For this weeks challenge we were asked to create a card, page, or paper project with a birthday theme, easy enough! To add a little twist you can only use the colors blue, green, yellow, white, and red. That made it a little more challenging for me. My resolution for this year is to really get into some of my cartridges that I havne't used in awhile, and so far I'm doing pretty good. This project is split, one cartridge I've never used and one that I use often.

I decided to create a birthday card for this challenge. I'm always needing a birthday card and by the time I realize I need one, it's too late to make one. It's kind of embarassing when the "card lady" has to send a store bought card. I started with a white base that was 5.5x4.25. I added a multi-colored stripe that was 5.25x4. The striped paper may look like I cheated a little but the darker stripes really are navy. I tried to use different colors of the blue and green. The present was cut using the Hello Kitty Greeting cartridge and the Height was cut at 4.18" as measured using the Gypsy. I believe I've been putting my dimensions down incorrectly in past projects. If I've put that I've measured using the Gypsy, then it's the height not the width that I've given. So sorry if this has caused any confusion. I used Crystal Blue, Sweet Leaf, and Sunny Yellow cardstock on the cut of the present. For the "Happy Birthday" I used the cartridge Calligraphy Collection and it was cut at 2.29" for the height. The saying was cut out using Sweet Leaf cardstock then layers onto a Sunny Yellow and White Daisy.

Recipe:
Pattern paper: stripe from Fanfare (CTMH)
Cardstock: White Daisy, Crystal Blue, Sweet Leaf, Sunny Yellow (CTMH)
Cartridges: Hello Kitty Greeting, Calligraphy Collection

Thank you for playing along with the challenge, and thanks for taking the time to look at my project!

Happy Scrapbookin'

Card Class Schedule

Hi all! Just wanted to post my card class schedule so everyone could plan ahead. I'm including the paper and stamp set so you can look in the new catalog to see what's what. If I were to change something I will let everyone know!

February 17: Stella paper with Fashionista stamp set
March 16: Pemberly paper with Card Word Puzzle stamp set
April 20: Lucy paper and the stamp set from the workshop on the go (it will still be the same price as always for the stamp set)
May 18: Footloose paper and Under the Sea stamp set
June 15: Florentine paper and Life is Tweet stamp set (June stamp of the month)
July 20: Victory paper and Happy Camper stamp set

Happy Scrappin'
Emily

December cards: Bundled Buddies

I promised I'd have these cards up on the blog by the end of the weekend and I'm trying to follow timelines. I am doing better and I'm actually working ahead on some projects. I have to admit, this has been my favorite paper line and stamp set for the fall/winter catalog. These cards basically put themselves together.

I started with a Grey Flannel base for this card used spring iris and heavenly blue cardstock accents. The chocolate and white twine is Martha Stewart. For all the cards I used a blending pen to add twilight, spring iris, heavenly blue, and crystal blue coloring to the little animals clothing. I also used a snow pen to add a little fuzzy to the cards. To get the other accent colors on the animals (fur, ears, paws, beak, etc.) I used watercolor pencils. the patterned paper is from the Wonderland line. Other accents used are opaques, chocolate and white ribbon, and various other ribbons from my stash.

Tree Challenge

Today's challenge at Exploring Cricut was to create a card, layout, or paper craft using a tree from any cartridge. I decided to create a Christmas layout (single page for a frame). My tree came from the Art Philosophy cartridge as well as the font.

For this project I used the Believe paper, and the Holiday Wishes stamp set.

The upper portion of the layout has 6 strips of paper alternating between the plaid and the stripe. These are cut at 1.5x3. I then cut out "Merry Christmas" using the font on Art Philosophy. The size was 2".

The bottom portion of this layout has a plaid piece that is cut at 5.5x11; the stripe piece is cut at 6x11.5. The photo is 5x7. After cutting the tree using the Art Philosophy cartridge I stamped it using the Holiday Wishes stamp set with topiary ink. I used Diamond stickles for the green leaves and Candy Cane stickles for the red birds.

This was a very simply stated layout and very easy to complete.

Challenge #2 Celebrations cartridge

This week's challenge was to use the candy from the Celebrations cartridge. Here's my project!

The card base is 5x7.

Topiary (CTMH) is 4.75x6.75

Stripe (CTMH) 4.5x6.5

Holiday red (CTMH) 4.25x4 and 4.25x2

Ribbon is from Michael's

Candy cut @ 2 in. using Sweet Leaf, Holiday Red, and White Daisy (CTMH)

Daily Project: Mischievious Elf

Hi everyone! I'm so excited about my project for today. I'm normally a card girl so in the spirit of creating out of the box I decided to try something new. This is not the project I started out to complete for today, but I'm so glad I switched gears. I'm a teacher so normally I threaten anyone who wakes me up before 10:00 on Saturday. Kinda hard to threaten yourself. I woke up at 8:00 with an idea running through my head and was so excited, I couldn't go back to sleep. Guess I work better under pressure, but I won't share that with my boss. So after working on this picture for 2 days and a great deal of tweaking, here is my creation for the week! Happy Scrappin'

This project is definately easy enough for anyone. I started with a piece of White Daisy cardstock (CTMH), cut to 8x10. I created my own "SmootchSpritz" using spray pen, White Daisy reinker, and pearl paint (CTMH). While this was drying I set off to start making all the cuts.

The sleigh was cut at 2 in from the Winter Woodland cartridge. I used Grey Flannel, White Daisy, Topiary cardstock (CTMH), C1, Y17, and Y15(copics) along with 3 red sparkles.

Inside the sleigh is the head of an elf cut from Jolly Holiday cartridge and 1.5 inches. I used White Daisy and Sweet Leaf cardstock (CTMH) and E00, E11, E13, R20(copics). I also used Fun Flock in Cotton Ball White (Stampendous) on the Elf's hat.

The Reindeer is from the stamp set I Believe (CTMH) and is stamped with Chocolate ink (CTMH) and I used 1 red sparkles for his nose. The gold thread that is connecting the sleigh and reindeer is from my stash, not sure of the company.

The house was cut at 2 inches from the Jolly Holiday cartridge. I used Holiday red, White Daisy, and Black cardstock(CTMH). I also used the Fun Flock in Cotton Ball White on the snow.

Yes, that's Santa on the roof. He was cut from the Jolly Holiday cartridge at .75 inch. I used the Holiday red, White Daisy, and Black cardstock (CTMH)

The frame is from Wal-Mart.