Its a Spring Thing

Welcome to another Challenge for Exploring Cricut!  This week's challenge is to create a card, layout, or other papercraft using 1 button, 2 Cricut cuts, and 3 different colors cardstock or pattern paper and keep it to a spring theme.  Easy peasy!

I don't know about you all out there, but Spring has got to be my favorite season.  I just love all the newness of everything, plants starting to green up after their winter nap, temps warming up ( can't say enough about that last one), and the overall fresh smell in the air.  I could really do with a little less wind and rain, but necessary for the beautiful flowers and fresh smell!

I struggled with what to do for this challenge just because there are so many directions you could go with spring.  I decided to do a simple frame and use some spring type elements.

The base pattern paper is from Stampin' Up (honestly can't remember which line), then I used cardstock in Goldrush, cotton candy, taffy, and pear from CTMH.

The first cut made was from April Showers cartridge.  I cut the banner out twice one using the solid banner (cotton candy) and the next using taffy which just cut out the pennant part of the banner to spell out spring (taffy).  Both cuts were cut at 2.48" The finishing touches on the banner were pink ribbon with a flower pink button on each end of the banner.

The next cuts were of the gazebo which came from the cartridge Freshly picked.  I used the shape, layers, and layers 2 as well as the shift of all functions except layers 2.  All of these cuts were cut at 4"  I love this little gazebo with the flowers climbing up the sides, but after looking at how it post I would probably add some jewels or opaques for the center of the flowers.

I hope you've enjoyed my project for this week.  Remember to post your project on the Exploring Cricut site with the linky tool at the bottom.  We can't wait to see what you come up with!

I'm late I'm late

Welcome to my blog this wonderful Thursday!  I have the daily project for Exploring Cricut for today and I'm happy to share this project with you.  One of my best friend's little boy just celebrated his 6th birthday.  I remembered his birthday, but not the card.  My project today is a belated birthday card for this cute little guy!

Alice in Wonderland has always been one of my favorite Disney movies.  I thought the white rabbit was perfect for a belated birthday card especially since his favorite phrase is I'm late!  For this card I used the backside of pattern paper from the Magnificient line from CTMH.  I then used cardstock in honey, cocoa, white daisy, sky, spring iris, smoothie, new england ivy, and cotton candy.  Also used were pearl opaques for the eyes and green sparkles for the appostraphes.

Cuts:
Disney Classics:   and also Layer 1, Layer 2, and Layer 3.  All cuts were cut at 3.24.  This image is found on page 28 of the images book.
Sans Serif:  letters were cut at .65 and the letters in the words late were welded together using the gypsy.

Thanks for viewing my project this week!

Happy Easter, Challenge project

Happy Monday and welcome to another challenge at Exploring Cricut.  This week's challenge is to create a card, layout, or other paper craft that celebrates Easter.  This week I decided to create a layout of our TNT Easter Egg Hunt from last year.

Cuts:
Sports Mania:   using the shift key for the grass at 1.5"
Create a Critter: carrots at 3.07"
Art Philosophy:  eggs at 1"
Easter 2010: bunny at 2"
Pooh Font at 2", the letters are welded together using the gypsy

I hope you get a chance to play along with us this week.  Remember to link your project to the Exploring Cricut site!

Happy crafting!

Congratulations

Happy Friday Eve!  If you're looking for the daily project for Exploring Cricut, then you're in the right place. Today for my project I've created a card for a baby shower.  I've decided to start challenging myself with the daily projects as well as the challenge projects.  My goal is to use at least 2 cartridges for each project.

My project for today uses the cartridges Something to Remember and Elegant Edges.
Cuts:
Elegant Edges:  oblong feature at 4.25x5.24
Something to Remember:   at 2.53 I used the main key, shift as well as the layer and shift.
I added some clear sparkles to the "buttons" on the onesie and pink sparkles to the flower centers.

Thanks for viewing my project this week.  Happy crafting!

Luck of the Irish Challenge

Hi everybody and welcome to another challenge at Exploring Cricut.  The challenge for this week is to create  a card, layout, or other papercraft that celebrates St. Patrick's Day.  I decided to bring out a cartridge I've had for the longest time and never used, Spring Holiday Cards.  St. Paddy's Day is a holiday I usually overlook and don't really send out cards.  This cartridge makes creating cards for many of the spring holidays a breeze.

For my project I chose two different colors of green. I used the lighter green to cut a background at 5.24".  This was glued onto a white base.  The darker shade I used to cut "Luck of the Irish" at 5.24".  This second cut I ended up trimming a little to fit the base then adhered it to the background.  I used green glitter glue from studioG, added rhinestones to the corners and a ribbon.

A very simple card for a simple holiday!  Hope you're able to play around with us this week, but don't forget to link your project back at Exploring Cricut.

Accentuate the Positive

Happy Thursday everyone!  I have to admit I love the snow and cold weather, but I am definitely ready for spring.

We recently started a new "project" at church called Accentuate the Positive.  It's just as it sounds; we've all agreed to try to eliminate all of the negative thoughts so we'll be more open to the positive.  I was asked to make a couple of banners for the sanctuary for the occasion so I thought I'd make a project out of the project.  I've done applique before with quilts, but I've never tried to cut fabric with my Cricut even though this is something I've been wanting to try for a while.

The first and one of the most important things to do before you start cutting fabric is to start with a new mat and a new cutting blade.  I have one mat and a cutting blade aside that's just for cutting fabric.  If you cut with a blade that you've used for cutting paper you run the risk of ruining your fabric with a cut that's not complete.  The same with the mat, if you've used the mat many times on other projects the sticky is liable to be disappearing.

Next iron the fabric you'll be using.  I do this after cutting the fabric down to the size I want to use.  I admit I'm a little lazy and hate to iron so if I don't have to iron the entire fabric I'm all for it.  Once the fabric has been pressed add the stabilizer onto the back side of the fabric.  I cut the stabilizer to the size of the fabric to avoid a huge mess on the ironing board.  Make sure the stabilizer is adhering well to all areas of the fabric, any loose stabilizer will again cause the fabric to not cut correctly.

Put the fabric onto your mat.  This is where I was worried because I had heard to do it both ways (stabilizer up or stabilizer side down on the mat).  I'll admit I only tried it with the stabilizer side down because I didn't want to have to bother with flipping all of my letters. (I will do anything to avoid making more work for myself).  You are now ready to cut.

Load the mat into your machine as you normally would.  I use a Gypsy so I load my mat through that.  Cut the letters/design as normal.

Once you've cut the letters out and removed them from the mat, remove the paper from the back of the  fabric/stabilizer, center the design on the main fabric and iron this down completely.  I used the heavy duty stabilizer in the red bag (heat n' bond).  I don't think the banners will be moved around a lot, but I didn't want the design coming off.  After I ironed the design on the fabric I sewed the words onto the fabric.

All the letters were cut from the Alphalicious cartridge at 5".  I welded all letters together using my Gypsy.  I did add the Disciples of Christ chalice, but it's a little different from the chalice on the Inspired Hearts cartridge so I had to use a design I found on the computer.

Once I had everything sewn onto the fabric I pressed it once again, the added a back as well as two sleeves (one on the top and one on the bottom) to slip curtain rods through.  This could possible be left off the bottom, but I thought that would add weight and help the banners to hang correctly.

The two finished banners!  Hope you find the inspiration to craft today, and remember to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.

Pet Challenge

Welcome to my blog!  The challenge for this week is to create a card, layout, or other papercraft to celebrate the pets in your life.  I was so excited about this challenge when Diane first sent the schedule, after all I have my Ella and I've spoiled her rotten and have tons of pictures.  Then my baby died on February 12th, and all of a sudden this challenge wasn't as exciting as it was at first.  I considered not participating in this challenge because it would be too hard, but decided to do a project in honor of my sweet girl.

Pets enrich our lives in so many ways, and some of us (namely me) go a little nuts with our pets.  Ella was completely spoiled, but she knew she was loved.

Now on to my project.  

I decided to do a picture collage of my sweet girl.

I started with a picture collage frame which called for 7 pictures that were 4x6.  I cut 5 pictures down to a size I wanted to work with so I could also add the planned images from several cartridges.  

For the first two pictures I choose images from the Four-legged Friends cartridge.  The pet bed and Paw Heart were both cut at 2.06 using garden green, sadle, and bamboo cardstock from CTMH.  The pictures and images are mounted on Florintine pattern paper also from CTMH.

The next two images were cut from the Paper pups cartridge.  The top image "asleep dog" was cut at 1.12 from sadle cardstock, and I added a black bling for the nose.  The bottom image "relax dog" was cut at 1.35 from sadle and bamboo cartridge with black bling for the eyes.

  This cut out is from the Pet Shop cartridge at 2.06 from sadle and bamboo cardstock and black bling for eyes.

Finally for the last two picture sections I stamped Ella's name, birthdate, and the date she died.  I used Glamour lowercase alphabet and Goldrush ink both from CTMH.  I added two butterfly blings in orange. and orange button brads in the date.

Thanks for visiting my blog.  Remember to link your project at Exploring Cricut.  I can't wait to see what you come up with this week!