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!

Happy Thursday!

Welcome to my blog on this Friday Eve!  Yes, I'm living for the weekend this week!  My project for this week is a two page layout that I created for our TNT group last summer.  We went to a Legend's baseball game on Family and Faith night.  The kids were able to watch a great baseball game and afterwards there was a small concert of a contemporary Christian group.  The kids all had a great time, but by the time we made it to the concert they were all about beat.  This is an activity I would recommend for any church group in the surrounding area.

For my project I used a black base, red, white, a yellowish color, gray, and navy cardstock.  The patterned paper is from my stash and I'm not sure who the manufacturer is.
I used the Tear Drop and Sports Mania cartridges.
The title was cut using the Tear Drop cartridge at 2.06", welded together using my Gypsy.  The baseball, bat, and jersey were cut using the Sports Mania cartridge at 3".
Have a wonderful Thursday and a super weekend!  Don't forget to join us on Monday for a new challenge!

Happy Valentine's Day Challenge

Welcome to my little piece of blog world.  The new challenge over at Exploring Cricut is to create a card, layout, or other papercraft to celebrate Valentine's Day.  There are a ton of cartridges out there to choose from when working on a project for this holiday, from serious, to silly, to just plain fun!
Valentine's day is not my favorite holiday since I'm single.  I've always looked at it as a holiday created by businesses to increase their sales after Christmas.  I still feel this way, but after this summer, I realize how important it is to always tell those you love how you feel and not wait for a silly day to come around once a year.

My project for this challenge is a simple Valentine's day card.  I started with a white base that is 5.5 x 4.25 and I covered it with a cheveron pattern paper from the special Dotty for You collection from CTMH.  I then cut the heart on the right side using the Love Struck 2010 cartridge.

I cut this heart at 2.06" from Blush cardstock.  I love that the big heart is made from lots of little hearts.

I then cut the heart on the left side from the Sweetheart cartridge at 2.18" from colonial white cardstock.  This is one of my  favorite go to fancy hearts.  I then combined the two hearts with  bow using Valentine's ribbon.  The ribbon is from Wal-Mart.
Thank you for visiting my blog.  Remember to link your project on the Exploring Cricut blog so you can be entered for the prize drawing.  We look forward to seeing what you come up with!