July Art Philosophy Blog Hop

Welcome to our July Art Philosophy Blog Hop! Each month we will showcase a feature of the amazing Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge which can be purchased exclusively through a Close to My Heart Independent Consultant.
We're so excited to be doing this hop and we have a fabulous lineup with some very talented ladies. There will be lots of fun projects AND some blog candy!!!

Lucy Kelleher, our hostess and fellow CTMH Consultant, will be giving away a stamp set! She is giving away a prior Stamp of the Month set that can no longer be purchased called "You Are ...". (This stamp set has a $17.95 retail value). You will find a picture of the stamp set on her blog. To enter to win, you will need to leave a comment on her blog and on every stop of the blog hop. If you also become a follower of Lucy's blog, she will give you another entry .

This month we will be showcasing the "Card" feature of the cartridge. Did you know there are 100 different card shapes you can make with this cartridge? You heard me correctly -- 100!!! Now we won't be able to show you ALL 100 card options, but we will show you as many as we can.

If you just happened to come to this blog, you should start at the beginning at Lucy's blog - http://www.love2createitall.com/.

My project today uses the card feature key on page 47 (without the shift key) which is the 3rd row down 7th key over (going left to right) of the white image keys on your keypad.

First.. a close up of the glittery goodness!! :)

Here's what the whole card looks like from the front:

Now.. just to show you that this really was the card shape which has a cutout window in the middle of the front panel and not just a plain card with this stuck on it (and because I thought the picture looked really neat)... here's a shot of my card open in front of a window so you can see that you can see through it. :)

Here's how I achieved this look.
First I made my file in Cricut Craft Room so all the pieces would line up and cut in the correct spot as well as I was able to play with the colours to decide which ones I wanted to use.

Next I loaded my silver paper (the paper I used was Reflections cardstock from Michaels) and cut the card shape @ 5.5" using CCR. Then I took a piece of acetate which I had applied a piece of Scortape to first and with the mat still loaded in the machine i carefully lifted the cut card shape up on the side with the cutout and ligned up my piece of acetate with the acetate side on the mat and the tape backing facing up so that it would cut the pieces in middle of my acetate 9yes I could have just cut a bigger piece and put t in approximately the right spot since CCR shows you where on the mat it will cut but this way I knew exactly how much edge I would have on the acetate around my shape). I cut all oth the layers for the ornament and the label shape like the opening in the card front with my setting on 4 speed, 4 pressure, 4 blade depth and a mulitcut of 2 since the kind I used was BCT tape which has a very thick backing on the tape.

Now I had my card shape cut from the silver card and a solid square of acetate with adhesive on it and all the pieces cut out of the tape backing.

I removed the tape backing on the outer edge leaving all of the part you can see through the window cut opening of the card covered. and lined it up with my card from behind and stuck it on. now i just removed one section of backing at a time and applied my glitter to the exposed adhesive rubbing it on really well with my fingers and then using a shaving brush to brush away all the excess glitter.

I used my Say it in Style stamps (which is no longer available as of August 1 so make sure you order ASAP if you want this amazing set of sentiments) to stamp the sentiment in versamark ink and heat emboss with red tinsel embossing powder.

The next stop on your blog hop fun is Gloria Shirr so hop on over and see what wonderful project she has to share with you today! :)


Here is the list of all the talented consultants who are participating in this months blog hop:

1. Lucy ~ Love2Create
2. Darla ~ Caution: Crafting is Contagious!
3. Gloria Shirr - Purpleglo Creations
4. Laura Wolff- Scrappinsweetie's Escape
5. Eva-For the Love of Creating
6. Danielle ~ Little Bit of Scrap
7. Connie ~ Connie's Crafty Closet
8. Wendy ~ My Scrapbooking Blog
9. Joanne - Josie's Joy
10. Laura Charko - Koala Designs
11. Carolyn Heniges - Nuts 4 Scrappin'
12. Kindred Hearts (Penny) - It Makes Total Cents
13. Stephanie Feist- The Quilted Scrapper
14. Julia Hammond You Can Create

Thanks so much for stopping by and hopping with us - we hope you LOVE all the projects we created!

Birthday card for Dejah

So I totally CASEd this card from Melanie Muenchinger (the designer of this stamp sold at Gina K. Designs). I did change a few things though (of course). I didn't use any ribbon, instead I used paper inked with some ancient page grey (same as the back layer). I also highlighted my leafy branches from my cuttlebug with some oyster twinkling H2O's as well as coating the rose with it. I LOVE sparkle!!! :)

I loved how this card turned out so much that I felt it worthy to give to my favourite craft shop owner (and friend) Dejah for a double celebration of her 40th birthday and the stores (Carousel Rubber Stamps in Dartmouth, NS) 15th birthday. She had a demo day for this celebration which was FANTASTIC btw!! :) I love her demo days!!

Arranged with love

I wanted to make a card for a good friend of mine that I used to work with who is battling breast cancer and has such an AMAZING outlook on life!! She has always managed to pick me up when I am down and make me laugh. She also used to make a b-day cake for everyone in our department on their birthday and if she knew your favourite kind of cake it would be that kind too!! She has two gorgeous daughters who made me the most adorable card for my baby shower last year... maybe I'll take a picture of it and post it later. Anyway.. now I'm rambling of course.....

I had gotten this set and hadn't inked it up yet... let me just say "I LOVE this stamp!!!!!!!" This is a stamp by Melanie Muenchinger called Arranged With Love that is sold at Gina K Designs. I embossed the image with black EP, coloured it with chalks, then cut a piece of card to layer with the sentiment (great sentiments in this set that fit perfect in the opening) embossed it with my gold EP and took my gold paint pen to the edges of the sentiment piece and attached with foam tape to pop it off a bit. This is layered on some super shiny gold paper I found at the dollar store and have had forever and then onto some white card.

Well.. that's it for this post. I have a bunch more things to post.. if not today maybe tomorrow.

1 colour card

I made this card for a 1 colour challenge on Stampin'out alzheimers.I really liked how it turned out and thought maybe this would be my Christmas cards this year... then I realized how hard it was to make it without getting fingerprints all over the shiny silver paper... hmm..... have to rethink this one... still like how it turned out though!

Twinkling H2O cards

Alright, so I started this blog to share some fun projects with everyone. I really enjoy making all of my projects and hope you do too.

A couple months ago I attended an H2O class at one of my favourite places to shop for craft supplies Carousel Rubber Stamps (sorry they don't have an online store just walk in customers but if you live in NS, Canada they are DEFINATELY worth a visit!!!) The staff at this store are phenomenal!! They are very helpful and constantly sharing their knowledge with their customers!! They have "demo day" once a month usually where each staff demonstrates a product/technique, these are fabulous. Often the companies of certain products will have someone from their staff attend and do a demo as well. The first demo day I attended is when I got hooked on peel-offs and gel pens... but that's a whole other post.. lol.

Anyways.... enough rambling... at the wonderful class I attended Deja (the owner) was the instructor and she showed us 3 different techniques for H2O's, and we created 3 different cards using these techniques.

Here are my 3 cards...

colouring

Direct to rubber technique


watercolour

I absolutely was thrilled with these and so I had to share them although as I said I can't take credit for them as the actual layout was from the class by Deja.

If anyone is wondering which stamps we used just ask... I don't have them right in front of me so I can't put them in the post but I own all but the rose leaf stamp (I have a different rose leaf stamp so I didn't get that one).