Cricut Cardz Challenge #44

We're at mid-week and it's Cricut Cardz Challenge day.  This week Mary asked us to design a Halloween card using the Z-Fold.  I found these adorable Halloween mini bingo cards (6 in a pkg.) from Jenni Bowlin.  I thought the one that said Carve was just the perfect touch to go with my pumpkin cut from Celebrate With A Flourish (Cricut Lite cartridge from Walmart).  My background/pumpkin paper has been in my stash forever and it came from Current.  I used black cardstock for my base (A2) card and to shadow the pumpkin.  I used dotted Bazzill Basics paper for the pumpkin leaf and added a little sparkle with green Stickles.  I placed four tiny black brads in the corners of the bingo card and the ribbon is from Hobby Lobby. To attach it to the front flap of the card I simply cut a small slit on the fold to slip it through so I could tie it around that section of the card. My doodles are added with Sakura 3-D gel pens in black and white.

BBTB2 Heritage Sewing Machine

Happy Monday everyone!  Wow, I can't believe it's the last challenge of the month of September at BBTB2.  This week's challenge is to use the sewing machine from the Heritage cartridge.  It is blog hop week, but I'm unable to participate this time because I am traveling. But, I hope you'll visit the rest of the DT that are hopping and enjoy yourselves. This is the first time I've used this cartridge for a card.  I bought the DCWV Crafty paper stack a long time ago and I haven't used it at all, but I knew the perfect paper to go along with a sewing machine would be in that stack.  My sewing machine is cut at 1.5", the dress form is from the Forever Young cartridge (cut @ 4"), the spool of thread (cut @ 1.25") and scissors (cut @ 1.75") are from Disney's Happily Ever After cartridge.  The spool of thread made me think of some little bobbins I store my embroidery floss on. So I thought I would take some of my floss and wind it onto the spool to make it look more authentic.  It's my favorite part of this card. The piece of paper that looks like a ruler is Cosmo Cricket. Thanks for visiting today and have a great week.

I Made the DT at The Cutting Cafe

I have had exciting news two weeks in a row.  Last week I found out grandbaby #9 was on the way and this week I found out I made the Design Team at The Cutting Cafe. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about making the DT.  The talent on this design team is incredible. It's also a little scary because I'm afraid my designs won't be good enough.  But Regina put her faith in me and I'll do my best. The two cards you see here are my first "official" designs I made. These two adorable Halloween cards are for my granddaughters Payton and Paige. They were made from Regina's fabulous Halloween All Around set.  This set comes with 8 word circles with images in them. You also get each of the images separated.  The word circles are a little smaller than 3.5".

I started with white cardstock circle cards made from The Cutting Cafe's Circle Shaped Card. You can find it here. On top of that I added a scalloped circle I cut with my Cricut Mini Monograms cartridge from black glitter paper. The circles on top of of that are scraps from my bin.  The orange is from DCWV Amber Autumn and I'm not sure about the black and white polka dot. I cut my circle words from kraft cardstock. For the ghost I used Bazzill Basics dotted white cardstock and the pumpkin is DCWV.

*Here's a great tip for when you make a circle card that you want to stand up and display. Just snip off a little of the back flap so the card will sit flat (photo below). 

I have two other recent posts using The Cutting Cafe sets.  You can see my Breast Cancer Awareness card here and a really fantastic Halloween Bingo set here.  Regina really outdid herself on this darling Bingo set. It is really one of my favorites and if you're looking for a cute little Halloween gift for a child you know, this is it.

My Pink Stamper Bird and Envelope Challenge

My Pink Stamper has two open challenges going to celebrate her 5 million hits.  One challenge asks to use a bird and the other challenge issued by Robyn's best friend Karlee asks for a project using an envelope.  I used a slider envelope so I could put a tag inside then mounted it onto a gift bag. My bird is cut from Create A Critter.  The witch hat along with the word circle are cut from The Cutting Cafe Halloween All Around set.

 You can see how the tag fits inside the envelope. I embellished the tag with twine, narrow black ribbon and an orange button.

Here's a close up of the bird.  I just used papers from my scrap bin to create this whole project.

Paper Cutz Challenge #60

Hooray, it's Friday and the end of another great week.  It's challenge day at Paper Cutz and the design team was asked to make a card with a hand stamped, digi stamped, or Cricut image of a critter using any color or theme.  I made this card for my husband for our anniversary which was on Wednesday, Sept. 22.  We are celebrating our 37th year of marriage.  Depending on the day I could either say 37 years of wedded bliss or 37 long, hard grueling years.  LOL  Honestly, I couldn't have a better spouse.  He's super supportive of my papercrafting hobby.  My card base is kraft cardstock and the card is cut from the Just Because Cards cartridge.  The card is 6 1/2 x 5".  My patterned papers are all from the DCWV Amber Autumn stack.  Both the squirrel and the sentiment are from Just Because Cards. Since this is a masculine card I used rick rack and twine to embellish along with an acorn button.

Halloween BINGO set from The Cutting Cafe

This Halloween Bingo set has got to be the cutest creation that Regina from The Cutting Cafe has ever come up with.  I knew I had to have it as soon as I saw it.  This is actually two sets. The first set is a storage box with a top (with window), inside dividers, bottom and two frames to go around the window (a scallop and rectangle). The second set comes with the bingo cards, circles for each item on cards and words to use to decorate the outside of the box.  I used the scalloped frame for my box and used black embossing powder to give it some shine.  My DP for the box lid is Heidi Grace. I used orange cardstock for the box bottom and dividers.

With the lid off you can see how the box is set up with the dividers. For markers I just cut circles from black and orange cardstock using my Cricut and cut them at 3/4".  The circle words for the game are printed out then punched with a 1" circle punch.

This was so quick and easy to put together.  It would make a great Halloween gift for any child in your life.  I wish I had gotten this when I was still working.  My students would have loved it, so it would also make a great gift for a teacher's classroom.  Regina has two videos up over at The Cutting Cafe showing how to make this if you'd like to see them head on over to this link.

Cricut Cardz Challenge #43

Since I'm on Team #1 of designer's for CCC I didn't have to have a DT card ready.  But, I had to participate in the challenge for a baby card because I have some very good news to share.  My son Kyle (the U.S. Marine) and his wife Nicole are expecting their first baby.  My husband and I couldn't be happier to have grandchild number nine on the way.  I made this card for them so we could tell them how excited we are about the "Good News".  The challenge calls for a baby card using the colors green, yellow and orange. I used the card feature from the New Arrival cartridge to make this card. I cut it from Bazzill Basics dotted white cardstock and again from yellow to put on the back side of the front, showing through.  I colored the stork and baby using my Copics.  I also embossed the stork with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder and added some glitter for a little texture. I cut the sentiment using Gypsy Font and welded the letters together to form the words.  I can't believe I've never used this font before or this cartridge that came with my Gypsy. Shame on me, but I can tell you I'll be using it in the future because I really like it. Since this card is getting mailed to Hawaii I couldn't do a lot of embellishing, so it's just a simple grosgrain ribbon.

BBTB2 Candle from October 31st

I have no idea what I'm going to do with all the Halloween cards I've been making, but I sure enjoy creating them.  At BBTB2 this week our fabulous DT member Sandi chose the candle cut from the seasonal cartridge October 31st for us to use. I decided to incorporate it with five other Halloween looking images to come up with this design.  It came to mind when I found this fabulous paper from My Mind's Eye called Haunted "Spooky Words".  It has all these wonderful words and flocked images scattered around on it. (See the little cat on the left edge). My base card is 5 x 6 1/2" made from black cardstock.  I topped it with a piece of kraft cardstock cut at 4 3/4 x 6 1/4".  Then I cut the strips from the DP for the bottom and left edge.  I cut six scalloped circles from Mini Monograms at 1 3/4" from black cardstock and six circles at 1 1/2" from kraft cardstock with the real dial size feature turned on.  I used dimensional tape to pop them up).  The spider, bat, web and crow are cuts from the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge.  The candle and the black cat are from October 31st.  I added some twine and a black button for embellishment.

Paper Cutz Challenge #59

Wow! Do we have a challenge for you this week at Paper Cutz. We'd like to see a Halloween card, project or layout...wait for it...USING NO BLACK or ORANGE. I just happened to have this fantastic ghost paper in purple and green. Perfect!!! It came from a Cloud 9 Design mat stack. I recently found that I really enjoy purchasing the little mat stacks as opposed to 12 x 12 paper stacks. It seems like I have so much wasted paper sitting in my scrap bin because I make so many cards, but don't like to repeat my papers (unless I'm mass producing something). Do you have that problem too? The solution...buying mat stacks. They are less expensive and take up less storage space. I find that very appealing. They are the perfect size for making cards or in this case, a candy bar wrapper. What's Halloween without candy, right? These are quick and easy to make. My husband and I do not pass out Halloween candy from our home. We usually spend the evening with our grandkids, taking them trick or treating. So I like to give these to the grandkids and I make a few extra to have on hand, just in case. My little ghost is cut from Cricut's Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge at 2 1/2". There is no shadow feature on that cartridge so I made my own shadow with purple paper and my Magic Matter tool. Then I embellished with a little mini ball fringe, green and purple ribbon and a stamp from Studio G that I found in the $1 bin at Michael's. I added a little Stickles to the center of the heart for some sparkle. This took less than 10 minutes to whip up which is great if you want to mass produce it for your child's classroom at school. I'll even give you the cutting dimensions so you won't have to measure. The wrapper is 6 x 5 1/2". The topper (ghost paper) is 5 x 2". You need a piece of ribbon approx. 8" long.

Cricut Cardz Challenge #42

Happy Wednesday everyone!  This week at Cricut Cardz Challenge Mary asked the DT to make a Halloween card using the card feature from any cartridge.  I just love the card feature on the old standby cartridge Stretch Your Imagination.  This is an older cartridge but I still use it often. I think the stretched images are so cute and I love to make tall and skinny cards, so it's perfect.  When you use this card feature the cards go together so quickly.  As you can see I used the spider (pretty cute as spiders go).  I'm sorry I can't tell you where the purple paper came from since it's been in my stash for a long time.  The green check that I used for the inside of the card is Cosmo Cricket.  I simply added a Studio G stamp (from the dollar bin at Michael's) mounted onto a black cardstock scalloped circle I cut from Mini Monograms. The doodling was done with a white Sakura 3-D gel pen.   I added three green buttons with purple floss and a green checked ribbon for embellishments.

BBTB2 Crayon Box from TBBM

I really enjoyed coming up with my design for this week's BBTB2 challenge. The wonderful and infinitely talented, Regina, chose the crayon box from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More. I decided to make mine into a coupon holder for my granddaughter, Payton. She will be starting preschool this year and we told her we would take her to the store shopping for a new school outfit. Actually, I don't think my husband will really want to have anything to do with that endeavor, but I will enjoy taking her to shop and out for lunch. It will bring back memories of school shopping with my five kids when they were little. I cut my crayon box at 5" from golden yellow cardstock. Then to decorate the front of the box I used the crayons from the My Community cartridge.

I used my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder for the base of the crayons to add a little texture. I used two shades of each color cardstock one for the base of the crayon and one for the crayon wrapper and then used black cardstock for the top layer. I think they turned out looking pretty much like real crayons. I cut the tag from TBBM and backed it with a scalloped circle from Mini Monograms. My sentiment is a computer generated font and I colored it using my Copics. Then I tied it onto the crayon box using hemp cord. I also made the coupon for inside the crayon box with the same computer font.

Paper Cutz Challenge #58

The best thing about Friday is it's time for another Paper Cutz challenge. Unless of course you're not retired (like me). Then it means the weekend is almost here. When you're retired it seems like everyday is a weekend and it's really hard to keep track of the days. I'm not complaining mind you. I wholeheartedly enjoy being retired and highly recommend it. This week Mary asked the DT to make a card, project or LO using a tag or tags in any color using any theme. I made a birthday card, because you can never have too many of those handy. I used papers from DCWV Sweet stack for a bright and cheerful card. My sentiment is from k*i memories. The pink polka dot paper is from my scrap bin. I made a little pocket on the front of my card to put the tag in. My finished card measures 4 1/2" x 3 1/4". The pocket is 2 3/4" x 2 3/4". My tag is cut using my Cricut and the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cartridge at 3 1/4". I used the round top tag and the Mirror/Windows feature.
To embellish the tag I used my Sakura 3-D gel pen for a little doodling. Then I added a purple ribbon through the slot I punched using a ribbon slot punch from EK Success. When you cut the tag using the Mirror/Window feature the little slot does not get cut. I found this pretty pink button in my button container. The stamp is from Penny Black.
I used a little scrap of the pink polka dot paper and a Fiskars scallop edge punch to jazz up the inside of the card. The stamp is another Penny Black.

BBTB2 Mini Monograms

Wow, it's the first Monday of September. How could the summer have gone by so quickly? Monday means a new challenge at BBTB2. This week it's Reader's Choice and it's Mini Monograms using any feature. I chose to use the stitched circle cut for my design. Now, I'm sure that everyone at one time or another has started on a design only to get it partially done and think, GEEZ--this is way too much trouble. My concept was great, but I didn't think I'd ever get this card done. Way too many individual pieces to cut on that telephone dial. I'm not sure it's ever taken me so long to make one card. The telephone card itself is cut from the Wild Card Cartridge. Then I started designing the dial for the telephone. I started with the dial layer from the Wild Card cartridge and then started tweaking it to make it big enough to put each circular number on. For each number I cut a stitched circle at 1". Then I cut the numbers with the letter only feature and real dial size feature turned on. This whole process would have been a lot simpler if the cartridge featured each number in a circle. But only the even numbers are in circles and the odd numbers are in squares. So I had to do each one individually---took forever to get them all cut out and get them off the mat in one piece because they were so small. Each one is cut at 1/2".
My inside sentiment is cut from Wild Card. To decorate the front of the card I used beautiful silk ribbon, a Prima flower and a couple of pink flower stickpins. This card is going to my very special friend Yvonne. We met at the campground where we spend the summer. We have great fun with her and her husband all summer long. Unfortunately, we live and Michigan and they live in Ohio so we only spend the summers together. It is always so sad for us when the summer ends and we have to say goodbye. This card will let Yvonne know how much I miss her. We are going to try and take a trip down to visit with them for a weekend before winter sets in. Meanwhile, we'll keep in touch with email and I'll send some of my handmade cards.

Paper Cutz Challenge #57

I'm so excited to be here today with my first design for Paper Cutz Challenge. Thanks so much, Mary, for allowing me to be part of the fabulous design team. I'm excited to be working with such talented ladies and hope that everyone will enjoy my designs for the challenges Mary sets for us each week. The challenge this week is to make a card, project, or layout using the following ingredients:

1. One ribbon-mine is brown and white gingham
2. Two buttons-flower centers on front
3. Three colors-I chose yellow, brown and white

I made a mini album using one sheet of 12 x 12 paper for the actual album and a coordinating piece for decorating and embellishing. The album has 16 pages when assembled. If you would like to see how to make the album and make one for yourself please visit Mary's wonderful blog Cardz TV. If you haven't visited her video tutorial site you are in for a real treat. She is MEGA talented and full of wonderful ideas. I guarantee you'll come away with an abundance of inspiration.

This is a top view of the completed album showing how the pages are arranged. I've highlighted a few of the pages in this post. The first and second pages of the album are below. The stamp on the first page is a Studio G stamp. The scalloped squares were cut using Nestibilities. My doodling throughout the album is done with a white Sakura 3-D gel pen and a Martha Stewart marker in Sepia. These are my go to markers for most of my designs.
The sentiment below is part of a digital stamp set from The Cutting Cafe. It's from a set called Straight Words for Cards. If you've never been to Regina Easter's digi stamp sight I highly recommend her stamps. I use them on so many of my designs. She is a sweetheart and one incredibly talented lady. I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for Regina. She gave me my first opportunity to design and I'm forever grateful.
Below are the last two pages of the album. Here I've used a Penny Black stamp and framed it with a negative leftover from the scalloped square on the first page. It could have been a piece destined for the trash, but I try to use as much of a piece of cardstock as I can. Make sure you look at your scraps to see if you can use them in other ways before you just toss them. It gives you more for your money and keeps more trash from entering the environment. The friend sentiment stamp is another Studio G.
I hope you'll join this week's challenge. Don't forget to use the three required elements. I'll look forward to seeing what you design and visiting your blog. As a design team member, I make a huge effort to visit every single person's blog that enters a challenge for the blog's I design for. Yes, this is a huge commitment for me, but I know how much it means to me to know that people have visited my blog and left a comment. So I hope you'll visit me often, become a follower and leave a comment to help brighten my day.

Cricut Cardz Challenge #40

It's an exciting day at Cricut Cardz Challenge. Our new DT members are debuting so make sure you check out their designs on their blogs. Mary's challenge for us this week was to use scallops--circles, squares, rectangles or ovals. I used a scalloped circle from Mini Monograms and a scalloped square from Lacey Labels. This is a cute little holder for post-it notes that would make an excellent back to school gift for teachers. (Guaranteed to earn bonus points for your child. LOL) To make the cover you need a 3 1/4" x 6 1/2" piece of card stock scored at 3" and 3 1/2". You need to secure your post-it notes to the back flap of this using strong adhesive. I used Tacky Tape.
My scalloped squares for the front and back cover are cut at 3 1/4". The scalloped circle is cut at 3" with the real dial size feature on, as is the circle, cut at 2 3/4". The apple came from the Locker Talk cartridge. Before attaching the scalloped squares to front and back I added my ribbon which is 15" long. I used a ribbon slot punch to make a whole in the base to thread the ribbon through.
This was a fun and easy project to make and it only took me about 15 minutes. I have made these for stocking stuffers, Easter baskets, and housewarming gifts changing my papers to make them appropriate for the occasion.