Congrats on your baby! cards.

Just thought that I would share the baby cards I made today:

Using SVG Cuts Nora's Romper SVG

Using SVG Cuts baby bib SVG

From New Arrival Cricut Cartridge

Wedding card.

I made a wedding card using the cake from SVG Cuts My Big Day Collection.

It was accented with stickles pink and silver, the border with Martha Stewart punch, and with a few pop-dots - a very easy, yet makes an elegant, cute card. 

Please help me spread my work :)

I made some buttons for my blog, so I would really appreciate it if you can spread my creations by putting this up on the sidebar of your blog :)


Copy this code to your website to display this banner!
<a href="http://modpaperie.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/JaOWC.jpg" alt="Create your own banner at mybannermaker.com!" border="0" /></a><br />

Thank you once again!

Thienly

Homemade Jams in a Jar.

It's been about 3 weeks since I found out about my exciting news, and I have my first SVG Cuts project to share with you all.

My mom makes the best tasting jam. That's the reason I get up every morning - to have the jam with toast. My fave breakfast. This year, she made strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and blueberry jams. Yummy :) Looking at the jar every morning is where I got the inspiration to make them look more pretty, and another reason for me to get crafting.

Mary over at SVG Cuts also just created a collection that fits perfectly with my project in mind, Strawberry Lane Collection. I wanted to make a jar topper and a tag that would make the jar look beautiful - something that can be given as a gift.

All of my cuts were from SVG Cuts, including the collection I mentioned above, Moonlight Garden Party Collection, Vintage Paper Rosettes Collection and Robins Return Collection.

Here's the pic of my completed project:

The dimensions of each of the cut-outs is posted at SVGCuts, click here.

My project got posted up on SVG Cuts Facebook page today, to see it, click here.

Christmas in July Series - Part 5

Here's the final set of Christmas cards that I'm sharing with you all.  It is from last year and it was my first set that I made using Cricut. 

I have always been curious about the "snow globe" files, and thought that there would be a lot of potential to do something neat.  So, I decided to used the one from Joys of the Season cartridge, and contemplated for a while if I should weld the image and make a card, or the bottom part would open up and we would have a letter that fold out...  my final decision was to take the card idea that I made (Part 1) which would allow me to be versatile and can add various layers, and attach them together with an eyelet.  

Inside the snow globe, I wanted to put a picture of the family in the winterscape, hoping to make it look like we're inside the globe.  We all went for a family photo shoot, and once that special picture was determined, I printed them and ran each picture through the Cricut, cutting them into the shape of the dome.  I also cut the same size and shape in transparency, placing that in front of the picture acting as the glass dome.

The third layer was the whole snow globe, and it was important to pick fun Christmas patterned papers as this would still be the outer layer, and I cut Season's Greetings from Winter Woodland cartridge in foil cardstock to attach onto the bottom portion.

The fourth layer was the Christmas letter, and this was attached on the inside to the fifth layer, the backing layer.  I picked a solid cardstock to match with the front patterned cardstock and I embossed that through the Cuttlebug snowflakes folder.  I also scored the top of the back layer so it would be easy for the recipient to open the card and the letter, as well as make it easy for the card to stand on its own.  

I then added extra embellishments, the snowflakes (from various cartridges) with rhinestones in the middle snow globe, and I tied a ribbon around the globe.

Here is the completed picture of the card:

So, I now have shared all my Christmas cards and this now leads to this year's card. 

Anyone with good ideas???

Christmas in July Series - Part 4

I'll share a Christmas card from 2 years ago that we made, again, having the "present" concept. This time we wanted the card to actually look like a present, so the recipient can untie the ribbon and fold open the box.

I didn't know if it was possible to have a box that would fold open, but with long time searching the web, and numerous trial and errors, we finally came up with something that we were thinking of!

I used a double-sided cardstock and folded 110 of them. I wanted to keep the inside of the box one pattern and the outside, another pattern. Unfortunately, when you fold this, the outside sides come out inside pattern, so I had to attach an outside layer to the box to make it look clean. Confusing, isn't it?

Inside the gift, of course, we put in presents. We put in a picture of the family (our faces juxtaposed in JibJab frame), a copy of the Christmas drawing my son drew, and our Christmas letter, which was inside another envelope and had a warning: Do not open! This idea was taken from the beginnings of Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events books.

Anyway, we put everything in, tied it with a ribbon and put a gift tag on it. I took a picture of the completed cards before I sent them.

Christmas in July Series - Part 3

For this Christmas card, we decided to create a book. Yes, it's literally a book. It had 12 pages, and it had a cover, an inside title page and table of contents, it had chapters, it had page numbers, it had illustrations and pictures, and ended with comments from the author (my husband). We mass produced about 110 of these books and our house turned into a publishing house for that
duration.

It is so hard to make family letters interesting. It is better than getting "to so and so, and from so and so", but letters that go on and on is just as bad. We had so much to share, but we wanted to keep the readers interested.

Again, going to my Scrapbook Factory program, we produced a cover with the title "The Most Unusual Book." We used the picture of the gingerbread house that my son had made, and printed this on vellum.

Every chapter we tried to focus on each member of the family, and incorporated a couple of pictures for each person and some art work. Trying to print this like a book was the trickiest part, as we had to print double-sided. We had to make sure that where we cut, it needed to line up perfectly with the back page. It was really confusing! After numerous tries, we got it and was ready to print.

We printed these pages all day. I don't know how many ink cartridges we went through. But after putting them together (we stapled the pages with deep-reach stapler), it was so well worth it.

Christmas in July Series - Part 2

For this card (3 years ago), we decided to create a pop-up card. We wanted to send out something so that when friends open, they would be WOWed and feel like they opened a gift.

As I mentioned before, Robert Sabuda's website, has templates for making your own pop-up cards. We came across a Christmas tree one, and thought it would be cute to have that open in the middle with our Christmas letter surrounding it.

I imported the template into my Scrapbook Factory software program, and used that as a guideline to draw a similar tree, and I hand drew with my Wacom pen all the ornaments and Christmas lights border for across the top. I got my husband to write his letter once again (yes, he has a sarcastic and loving sense of humor as you can see when you enlarge the photo), and I made the text fit around the tree.

I printed this onto a photo paper, folded in half, cut along the cut-lines, made it pop-up, and attached that onto a patterned-cardstock, leaving enough on the side for us to paste in our family photos.

We got a lot of comments on this card, and how they would never throw this one away. This again created another stress for us - we knew that people looked forward to receiving our cards, and that for next year, we need to out-do this one.

If you don't have SCAL 2, it's time to get it now!

If you don't have SCAL 2, you are missing out. And, you will really feel like you are missing out once I start posting the projects that I'm working now for SVG Cuts. Pumpkin Cart Crafts is having the best deal ever on SCAL 2 - way cheaper than what I purchased it for - so get it now while the offer lasts!

Also, if you promote this offer on your blog, your Facebook page, or by any other means to spread the word, and leave on SVG Cuts blog that you did that, you have a chance to win a copy of SCAL 2 for yourself!

How awesome would that be!

Christmas in July Series - Part 1

Usually this is about the time people that handmake their cards start to think about Christmas cards. For me, I start to think and stress about the next year's one as soon as the current year's batch is done. I do the designing of the card and my husband is always the writer. Every year we try to do something different, and I thought that I would share our past 4 years worth of creations.

This card was way back, before I got this crazy into crafting. I think the only "real" scrapbooking tool that I had was the eyelet setter. I can't even imagine doing all these with the hammer and the setter - "bang, bang" 120 times. (yes, that is about how many we make each set of cards). Now, thanks to Crop-a-dile, my life has gotten quite a bit easier, and with 3 kids, it's more realistic to be able to use the eyelets late at night.


I made this card through the Scrapbook Factory software, and created a "frosted" effect by using different layers. First layer was the transparency (we printed snowflakes and outline of the snowman), the second was the vellum sheet, the third layer was the photo paper layer with the rest of the graphics printed on it. We wanted to have the "ornamental" theme to the holiday season, and we used digital embellishments and added "magic" "spirited" "believe" to the card.

Inside the card, we printed our letter on a vellum to give it the "frosted" look, and but also printed the turquoise color and the border to the vellum as well.

On the back layer, we stayed with the "ornamental" effect, but added our faces to each of the ornaments. All of these were sent out in the clear envelope, and we also made matching return address labels.

All our friends loved it! and this was the beginning of the "I can't wait for your next year's card", "You have to out-do your last year's one" - something that we never knew we'd be getting ourselves into, something that we'll stress over each holiday season, but something that we'd get so much joy and pride from doing them.

My mom's takes an interest in card making!

Because I have moved all my craft things to my parent's place, my mom can't help but to be surrounded by all my supplies everyday. Thus, she took interest in my tools and my paper, and my Cricut, and after browsing through many scrapbook magazine, she got inspired and decided to make some cards.

I think that she did an amazing job - check it out!
She would appreciate any feedback. Thanks for looking :)

Sweet Treats cartridge is sure a treat!

Sorry, I haven't posted a project in a while - with kids out of school, family visiting, me staying at my parent's, and so on - I find it very hard to find time to craft. I've also started to make something for SVG Cuts, but in the meantime - here's a card I made for my daughter's first birthday. The cake and the sentiment was from Sweet Treats cartridge. I love this cartridge. SO cute and I find myself using this one quite a bit. I welded the cake together to make a card, and I embossed the card with Divine Swirls Cuttlebug folder. I added Martha Stewart glitter to the sentiment. I love these glitters - great colors and quality! I also embellished it with rhinestones, and the candle pattern is from Heidi Swapp decorative tape.


Here is another pic from the birthday - here, I made cut-outs with Sweet Treats cartridge just to give that "birthday" feel to the room.

Do you know about SVG Cuts?

If you haven't heard about SVG Cuts, you don't know what you are missing! Check out their promo video and head on over to their store today!

SVG Cuts design team member!

About a week ago, I posted my "All about me" layout for SVG Cuts June Challenge. Today, they announced the winners and I received the first place! I was so excited, but that was not all! The owners of the site, Leo and Mary, contacted me and asked me to become the first member of their design team!

I'm so thrilled - so overwhelmed - I did not expect anything like this to come about considering I only seriously got into scrapbooking/crafting about 18 months ago. What a great opportunity! They are still working on the perks :), but I get free SVG file collections to work with, and all I have to do is to use their files to create something unique and beautiful. I'm all up for that :)

So, in order for you to qualify, you need to place 1st place in 3 challenges in a calendar year. Their contests usually run for about a month, and you can see it in their forum.

I know there's a lot of creative people out there, so I'm waiting for someone to become my design team member friend! Hope it's you!

Looking for THE perfect paper?

Do you ever wish that you had purchased that special pattern print paper that you saw in the scrapbook store to use for your layout you're working on now? Do you ever look at your stacks and stacks of paper, still not feeling like you've got the perfect one?

Well, for those that feel that way (I totally do!), you can have the option of using digital papers that you find online. There's whole bunch of places that I can name, but my favorite is The Lettering Delights. They've got clip arts, doodlebats and fonts (which you can use on your SCAL), graphics, templates, cards, and paper packs. I absolutely LOVE their paper packs! They are organized by themes, so you get about 5 different paper files in one purchase. Most, if not all, comes with matching alphabets and clip arts should you be interested in them, too! They are modern, funky, colorful, and great quality!

So, here, I printed Cupcake Icing Paper pack onto a vellum, and look what I got! I can't wait to use these along with my Sweet Treats cartridge and make a card! I don't know for sure, but it must be the same designers working for some of these clip arts and paper packs, because a lot of them match the Cricut cartridge images, which is perfect.

I've also tried printing out on photo paper, on transparency... oh, the possibilities! Now, your funky paper supply is all of a sudden endless!

Wordle - my new card making must-have tool.

A couple of days ago, I introduced to a cool website wordle and I've been playing around with it. Here, I've created a wedding card for a friend (I even created a color palette that would match their wedding colors). I've inserted in all the words that I associate with wedding and their names, and this is what came up. It took me awhile to get the print size right as it kept printing me 8.5 X 11 page. I somehow managed to get it right using the credit card print size. I printed this onto a pearly white cardstock and it turned out so pretty. I backed it with matching purple cardstock.

I also made a gift card envelope using the Tags, Bags, Boxes and more and Tie the Knot cartridge. The envelope color matches the card, and I cut out a wedding cake with vellum and that same pearly white cardstock. I love how it's so simple, yet so elegant!

Also, Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends!