The Cutting Cafe - Back To School Inspiration!

Welcome to some Cutting Cafe Inspiration!  We've got some fun Back To School projects for you!  I've used the Bus Shaped Card and the adorable From Owl of Us stamp set to create a fun thank you for the person that delivers our treasures safely to school and then back home each day!  I don't have little ones in school any more, but I remember the worry once they left home.  Nothing was right until they got home again.  But it was a little easier when you knew the people who cared for them during the day were wonderful and cared about them too!

This file is fun and SO easy to cut and put together.  I pulled the SVG version into my Cricut Design space; chose colors; and the machine did the rest!  You remember Sassy Owl??  Still love her!  She looks like she doesn't put up with any nonsense!

I mean look what she's got to put up with every day ... and if I remember from my school days, this is pretty accurate.  AND she's gotta drive that huge bus!  Thank goodness for Sassy Owl!  I used some dies from my stash for the heart and sentiment.

Love this file!

Now!  Be sure to head on over to the Cutting Cafe blog to see what everyone has created for you today!  And comment there for your chance to win three files of your choice!  Maybe you'll pick this one!

Thanks for stopping!  Come again soon!

The Cutting Cafe-Thankful Inspiration!

Welcome to some Cutting Cafe Inspiration!  Today we're using a couple Printable Stamp Sets from the Cutting Cafe, the So Thankful Circle Word Set and the Thanksgiving Day Huge Word Circle Set.  I'm using the So Thankful set today!

I started with some more printable paper from Cute N Crafty Mommy shop on Etsy.  Love the texture that burlap print paper gives!  I combined it with some pretty patterned paper from Prima.  Love the contrast of the two papers together!  I printed one of the circle sentiment pages from the set and cut out my favorite sentiment with a scalloped circle die and then two more circles to fit in the center of the large circle.

Then I cut a bunch of leaves from the 3D Pumpkin File... love these leaves because they have stitching on them.  It takes a while for my Cricut to cut out a bunch, but I just set them to cut and went about my business until it was done.  After they were cut, I spritzed them with water and then added some watercolors using Prima Metallic Accents and set them aside to dry.  And don't think I made enough so I'd have extras to use on other projects!

And I've been participating in Kathy Racoosin's 30 Day Coloring Challenge!  I have colored every day, but missed sharing one day because I had what I was coloring on a card that I couldn't share yet before I remembered to take a photo...lol!  These cuties from the From Owl of Us clear stamp set from The Cutting Cafe Shop were colored with Copics the other day and today I added some shading and detail with my Prisma colored pencils... a page from Kathy's book and I've fallen in love with this technique!  She said it was addicting and it is!!  So I'm linking this one up over at Kathy's blog for today's coloring.

Look at the shimmer on those leaves... love it!

I'm also playing along with the Cupcake Inspirations Challenge 457!  It's a beautiful inspiration photo:

Just love this fun way to add a beautiful sentiment to a card!  You should definitely try out these printable sets and there are lots of other cool printables in the CC shop that have circle sentiments too!

Now be sure to check out what all of my teamies have made for you using these printable stamps!  Head on over to the Cutting Cafe Blog; comment there for a chance to win three sets of your choice; and then check out what everyone has created!

And don't forget about this:

Cutting Cafe Inspiration-A Happy Fall Scene

Happy Fall!  And Welcome today to some Cutting Cafe Inspiration!  Today we're playing with the Happy Fall Scene Card file and the Welcome to the Neighborhood Scene Card files and I've used the Happy Fall Scene Card for this one!  This file is actually very cool and the shaped card includes a truck that I will definitely be playing with soon but for today, I used some of the accessories to create my own little Fall Scene... you know how I feel about Sassy Owl and I haven't inked her up in a while so I thought it was about time!

Sassy Owl (My name for her) is from the From Owl Of Us stamp set available at the Cutting Cafe Shop which is a Owfully cute set of various owls and sentiments and the sentiment I used today is from a fall custom set I had made at the Cutting Cafe Shop.  The pumpkins, leaves, and tree are all from the Happy Fall Scene Card file.

 Sometimes instead of cutting each separate color, I like to cut all of my pieces in white and then color them in the colors I want them.  For this one, I used my watercolor pencils and waterbrush.  I love doing this because I can decide the colors I want as I put it all together.  I used Echo Park Fall Is In The Air 6x6 paper pad that is available in the shop as well!

So that's me for today!  Please be sure to hop on over to the Cutting Cafe Blog and comment there for a chance to win some free files!  And then check out what everyone has made for you today... you're gonna see some pretty awesome stuff!

Thanks for stopping and come back soon!

The Cutting Cafe Inspiration-Shaker Tags

Welcome to this week's inspiration from The Cutting Cafe!  It's an Anything Goes week and I've decided to create some shaker tag/ornaments!  I'm also playing along with Tracey McNeely's 25 Days of Christmas Tags.  I was inspired by the colors of Daniela Dobson's tag from Day 11 and the shaker and the gold, white and shaker element from Julie Warner's tag from Day 12.

So!  On to what I've created for you today:

I LOVE the shaker files from The Cutting Cafe!  You may remember I used them a while ago to make a snowflake canvas and card and also an acorn canvas.  For the tag/ornaments I made today I used the Christmas Shaker Card set.   I imported the SVG version of the files and changed the size according to the instructions that came with them.  Then I ungrouped them and kept only what I needed (the files come with pieces for both a card and an ornament).  Then I regrouped the images I kept and made them smaller as a group so that all of the pieces fit together properly and they were small enough to tie to a package or gift bag...

This, of course, is the snowglobe shaker.  I just love blue, white and gold together... and so does Sassy Owl... she thinks it makes her look fabulous....

I'd have to agree.... and I love the Clear Cardstock from The Cutting Cafe Shop... it's perfect for shakers and a lot of other stuff too!

I also love the movement in a shaker ... and the cute little shakey sound they make.

For the mitten, I knew I'd want to use my sweater embossing folder on it... and I filled it with all kinds of cute little buttons, some CDD Christmas sequins, and some little seed beads.. and those adorable little acrylic images I picked up at Hobby Lobby last year.

And it was fun to wrap the eyelash yarn around the wrist to create my fuzzy cuff on my mitten.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Hope you come back soon!  And be sure to check out the post at the Cutting Cafe Blog on the 21st to check out all of the Design Team makes!  I can't wait to see which files they all decided to use this time around!

I know I've been here a lot this week and next week will be a little slower because one of my boys is coming to visit so I won't have a lot of crafty time.... but hopefully I'll see you Monday for Atlantic Hearts!  And don't worry... Owl Be Back!

Cutting Cafe-You Color My World

So happy to see you again!  This week over at The Cutting Cafe we are all about the color!  Regina has this great printable stamp set file available with a few pdf's that include the background I colored below and another in a couple different sizes along with some great sentiments and shapes as well!  It's called You Color My World... and it's pretty cool!

I chose to color this 5x5 square with a rainbow of copics and each swirl is colored with an ombre effect fading from dark to light.  I didn't worry about blending them too much because I knew I'd be splattering some rubbing alcohol on it later to get that splattered almost watercolory effect.  Before I did the alcohol splatters, I colored in between with a dark and a light shade of gray.  Then I splattered on my rubbing alcohol with a paintbrush and I love the way it turned out.

After all of that coloring, I didn't want to cover the whole thing up but knew I'd need some kind of divider between that bold background and my images if I wanted them to stand out so I used a large rectangle of vellum cut with the medium CDD Crazy Stitched Circles die and then cut a smaller rectangle in white to really let Sassy owl and her gang pop without covering up too much of my background.  The star shape that came colored in the Color My World set was perfect to really make Sassy Owl stand out from the rest.  These owls are from the awesome From Owl Of Us Stamp set available at the sister site, The Cutting Cafe Shop.

A bit of crinkly seam binding, a flower that I had sitting in my little cup of extras (which you can hear more about if you come back for my Lessology project tomorrow), some sequins and one of the awesome sentiments from the Color My World printable set.

Thanks so much for coming back today and be sure to head on back tomorrow!