SVG Cuts "About Me" June Challenge

I have been busy working on the new challenge by SVG Cuts, and excited that I'm finally done and now get to share with you all :)

For this challenge, we were given a scrapbook page template, and using at least one of any of the free or purchased files, we were to create a page "About Me." We were to give a title, and we were limited to using the two areas for the pictures, one area for journaling, and to use that specific border. Otherwise, we were free to do anything we want with the page - emboss, stamp, buttons, embellish, ink...

I wanted to create my page about what I'm passionate about. What I live for. What I can't imagine my life without...

First, I hardly get any pictures taken as I'm always the one behind the camera. So, I got my mom to do a photo shoot of me to capture that feeling of the page.

For my second image, I wanted to create a collage of photos that represent me. My family, my computer and camera, my Cricut, my espresso machine...

I decided to use pink, white and brown - my favorite color combination. I came across a perfect combination from the American Crafts metropolitan paper pack.

For the border, I decided to use two different ones, but in the same style. The first was the Annie's Edge (freebie from SVG Cuts). It occurred to me that if I weld these strips together, I can create the border that would qualify for the challenge. The second border was the Stitched Frame (another freebie from SVG Cuts), and cut this out a little smaller. I inked both of these frames with brown, and decided to use ribbon to actually stitch through the holes. For one border, I used pink ribbon, and just did a simple over and under stitch. The other border with a brown ribbon, I looped around the border. I made both stitching end at the bottom of the page, and tied into a ribbon and topped it with a pearl.

The title was stamped onto a vellum and also inked the edges. The journaling was done on a journaling stamp image, inked the edges, adhered onto a background cardstock with one edge having the Martha Stewart punched out border. I used eyelets for the holes, and embellished it a ribbon, prima flower and pearls.
I used daffodil frame (one more freebie) for my picture and added another border punch cutout on the bottom. I then made a windflower from SVG Flowers II Kit and adhered it where daffodil should go. I also inked the edges here, and added pearls and ribbons.

For my collage, I used the same Martha Stewart punch, but cut two, inked it and layered it and also used same embellishments.

I used pop-dots between the two borders to create more texture to the page, and the title and the journaling (added in white paper to the back of the vellum) was also adhered with pop-dots. I added in Making Memories tag "smile" embellished with a bow and pearls to complete the page.

Here's the completed page:

I think that this style of the layout, with these colors and embellishments, and the journaling, all define me.

Wish me luck :)

A cloud of words.

I just came across this neatest site today. The site is called Wordle . It takes your text (whatever you type in) or your choice of website, and makes up a cloud of words that looks like art! If it's a website or text with so many words, it takes the common words found. You can change the colors (can even customize!), fonts, number of words, and print them out! You can hit the randomize button to keep on clicking to see various "clouds" until you like it.

It's so neat! Try it out! Here's what came out of my blog:
If you click here, you can see it better.

Meet my 3 little monkeys.

I have three children, eight, three and one. They keep me extremely busy, that I only get to craft at night. The big trouble maker is my one year old daughter - she loves throwing anything and everything into toilets (the other day she threw her toothbrush and brother's sippy cup in there!), she loves to hide (inside the cabinets, in the dark room, and loves to displace items from room to room. My middle one is toilet training, so I always have to be on my toes. He loves to pick a fight with the younger or the older sibling. My oldest, now on summer vacation, wants to spend every free moment with me - and loves to educate me on the most "interesting" topics, such as Pokemon and Power Rangers. However, I love them all, and they make my everyday special. And, I wanted to create a page to illustrate that.

Here, I used Cricut to cut out curly ribbons from Wild Card cartridge, monkeys from Paisley cartridge and I used various embossing Cuttlebug folders (houndstooth, candycane stripe, swiss dots and spots&dots) to emboss various sized circles. The word MONKEY is wooden scrabble chips from L'il Davis, Monkeyin' Around label is from Cosmo Cricket, the rub-ons are from Basic Grey cupcake series.
I also used heat gun to create loops with a fibre string, and of course I adhered all these with pop-dots to create dimension to the page.

I think that my completed page captures the craziness of my household.

Admit One, please.

We just celebrated my son's 8th party last weekend, and had party with his friends at the movie theatre. We went to see the Toy Story 3 in 3D on a opening weekend, and was quite exciting. The graphics were really amazing as always with Disney, and had some sentimental scenes which made it touching. We all enjoyed it.

For the party invite, I didn't use the Cricut nor any scrapbooking tools. I used digital scrapbook software - Scrapbook Factory (my favorite!) and got some idea online to make movie tickets as the invite itself. This is what I made:


I perforated the dotted lines and added in the UPC code. These gave it the professional look. The kids and the parents loved it. They all must've thought that it was the movie theatre that issued it, as all the kids showed up with the tickets in their hand for the party.

I got my first blog awards!

Kerry, over from MommaK Crafts, presented me with two blog awards - my first ones! Thank you, thank you! It's great to know that people visit my site, and appreciate my work. That means a lot to me. I also wanted to thank Kerry for asking me if I had a blog - that was what got me started here two months ago.

I wanted to pass on these awards to:

Kimmy (her reason to start a blog and her new found passion for Cricut has given me a new meaning to crafting)
http://scrappinwithkimmy.blogspot.com/

Kimmy, save these blog award images and put them up on your blog :)

Some odds and ends.

Life's been busy with my sister, who lives in Vancouver, came home to visit last weekend, and had two birthday celebrations for my son who turned 8. However, I'm posting up some cards that I've made recently:





I've also been busy working on my entry for the SVG Cuts June "All About Me" Challenge - I'll post up my entry very soon :)

I want a 3-D card!

We just celebrated my son's 8th birthday party tonight. Being such a procrastinator that I am, I still had not made a card last night.

SO - to make my life easier (I thought that it would make it easy... what was I thinking... was I ever wrong!), I asked my son what theme he would like for his card. I was hoping that he would say robots, cars, or anything that I could cut out with my Cricut (with my selection, I thought that I would have enough files to cut anything that he would say). Or, I was hoping for an embossed card, or with buttons, or with rub-ons, or glitter... But, he tells me "Mommy, I want a 3-D card, a pop-up card." Well, that was the start of my LOOONG night.

I guess that I could have just made some cut-outs, and put some sort of wire spring behind it to make it jump out when you open the card. My son is a big fan of Robert Sabuda, a pop-art artist, so I decided to visit his site. I was excited to see all sorts of pop-up cards that you can make - from dinosaurs, to snowman, to hearts and then I saw a birthday cake! I was truly impressed with the site as you could download the templates, print it and then cut it out.

This cake had 4 candles, but he was turning 8. I thought it would be easy to make two of these candle cut-outs and adhere onto the card one after another. However, when I did that, the candles folded up too big and I couldn't fold the card. Then I tried to glue the candles and the cake in the folded position, and then when I try to open the card, the candles got stuck inside the cake and I couldn't open the card.



After long trial and error, I realized that there was no way to make 8 candles pop-up. Then it occurred to me that I could glue the 4 back candles onto the card, and it shouldn't affect the card. That's what I did, and it worked!


I then embellished my card with stamps from American Crafts, put glitter on the flame, and it actually turned out quite decent. I was quite happy with my attempt on a 3-D card. That was quite the challenge, but I learned a lot and had lots of fun making it.

The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.

I am honored to be living in the city that annually hosts "the greatest outdoor show on Earth." It is the Calgary Stampede, and this year it goes from July 9-18. There's rodeos, chuckwagon races, pancake breakfasts, midway and all the yummy food to go with it, concerts, and the Grandstand show and fireworks every evening. It attracts people from all over the world and the city becomes lively during this time.

I put together a two page layout from Stampede a while ago, when I took many pictures. I think that it captures all the fun in these pages. None of these items were made with Cricut, but I added in a lot of Jolee's embellishments. I even made my own mini-donuts and added real sugar sprinkles!

SVGCuts.com freebies!

Does everyone know about SVGCuts.com freebies? They can be simply downloaded and imported into your Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) program and be cut with your Cricut. The designers Mary and Leo are amazing, and they make the most beautiful and cute files. These freebies come about two times a week and I look so forward to them! They have so many freebies now that getting the SCAL program for $74.95 with CD-Rom or 59.95 without is so worth it. That is about the price for two Cricut carts and you already get files more than two carts worth and you keep on getting more every few days...

I've been meaning to somehow keep these file pictures in my binder so I can easily refer to see what I have downloaded. I saved all the images and printed them in the contact sheet format (35 images on a page with the name of the file on the bottom). Look how many files there were! I'm so excited!


They also have so many file collections at their store that you can purchase and they are incredible as well. I urge all of the Cricutters to check it out if you haven't already!

Tiara message book for the little princess.

Have you ever wanted to keep all guest messages in one book rather than piles of cards all over the place? This may be a great idea for you!

In this project, I used the tiara from Cricut Sweet Treats cartridge. I cut enough for the number of guests coming to my daughter's birthday party, and 2 more - front and back cover. I had everyone write their special message on the tiara and I glued pictures from the party on the other side. I then made a book bind with a heavier cardstock cut into a strip with a length of tiara bottom. I scored two vertical lines in that binding with the middle portion corresponding to the thickness of the tiaras pages that I needed to put in, and glued the front and the back tiara on the sides of the binding strip. I laid glue using hot glue gun down the inside center of the spine, placed all the tiara pages inside. Now, you need Yourstory (Book binding and laminating machine) to do this - I put this all in the machine, and a minute later - you have a handmade message book! You can customize your book by cutting out blackout/shadow images that would fit your theme. Make sure that your image does have a straight edge on one side so it could be bound together.

I decorated the cover with stickles (I got carried away! It's so fun to use them!).


I've posted a page with a message from my oldest son to her: "When you were 0-1, I was 7. You hit me a lot. I like it when you hit me. I like you."

Kids are just so cute:)

Finally settled in our temporary home.

We had a crazy weekend, and finally got everything out of our home or to our basement at 1am last night. (We are doing reno on main and second floor to our house, so we are living with my parents for that duration.) I finally also managed to create a craft space at my mom's, and am quite excited about the layout of my tools.

So, being in a moving mode, I decided to make some house-warming cards. I used the house from Just Because cartridge, and welded the house together to make a card. This house is so cute, I think that it has potential to do other things with it. I used congratulations stamp and a brad for the doorknob.


Happy temporary house-warming to me :)

I feel so lost!

We've been crazy packing and moving things in the last few days to get ready for our reno. It just finally hit me yesterday that it is real, and it is coming up really fast! I packed away all my Cricut carts and all other precious supplies and I gave it to my mom to take it to her place. It's kind of pathetic, but I know that all the creative people out there knows exactly how I feel. I'm so lost with out it. I feel like a part of me is not here! Anyway, we've got to get out of here by next Monday, so no more crafting time for me :(

I'll still share a card that I recently made for my friend that just gave birth to a baby boy! This is the first time I made a card that opened up like this, and I quite love it. I scored the card at 2,4,8 and 10 inches. The cut-outs were made from the cart New Arrival and used brads and eyelets to add a little dimension to the card.

Forever in our hearts. In our loving memory.

Tonight, our beloved family dog, Kumi(lived at my parent's house), passed away peacefully after 16 years of life. He was such a photogenic handsome Sheltie, and was full of energy. However, in the last year of his life, he was getting extremely weak. So, we knew this was coming for a while. Nevertheless, he tried very hard to stay alive, by sipping on water, and getting all our love. It's so hard to say good-bye to a member that has been around for such a long time. He brought joy into all our lives, and I wanted to share my scrapbook page that I did quite a while ago to commemorate how special he was.


This page was done in my pre-Cricut era, using Jolee's embellishment stickers, rub-ons, cork letters, and fibers.