Dreaming of Spring...

...and it's very easy to do when you see the sun shining so bright and head outside and not be freezing in mid-February.  We are still having such a wonderful mild and snow-free winter and I could not be more happy about it.  I was up and out early to do some errands and just have feeling of Spring Fever.   I love the feeling and also am very much looking forward to Spring this year.

    As you can tell by my last few cards, I really do have Spring on my mind and today's first project, also falls right into that category.   My goal today was to create a paper-crafting project that was somethign new and different for me.   I was inspired by two new challenges, the first being an "Anything But a Card" Challenge over at Crafting by Designs and the second was today's new Paper a la Mode Challenge at "The Outlawz".  Typically, I find I am very much out of my comfort zone, when it comes to making much of anything other than a card.  I have recently been trying lots of new ideas, while working on my Smashbook and also trying more Mixed Media type projects.  Today, I decided to put my Silhouette Cameo to use and make one of my very first dimensional projects.

    You would think that having been an Expression owner for three years and having had my Cameo now for a few months, that this would be something very simple, but for me it's not.   I've most often used my electronic die cut machines to create card bases and/or shaped elements for my cards, but rarely have I tried something dimensional -- that is until today!   I started by hitting the Silhouette store and added a bunch of new things to my cart (I have a monthly subscription, which is awesome) and I love that they also offer a few shape each week.

     I picked out a very cute little Bunny Treat Bag as my project for the day.   This is a copy of what the finished project looks like -- (Shared from the Silhouette Store) --  

     As you can see, it's really a cute project, but when you go to create it, it's not a matter of simply printing out the shapes, you need to plan and think about the sizes and colors and that's what's always been the challenge for me.   I ended up "un-grouping" all of the shapes, and started over by increased the size.  After that I decided I would initially print everything on white and then color the pinks shapes by hand.  I still am not that great at figured out how to set-up my mats, as you can guess.  I cut everything on a piece of white Shimmer Cardstock.  Next, I then put all my pieces together and determined which needed to be colored.  To make the coloring easy, I simply used a Blender Tool and my Distress Inks and colored the ears, nose and paws.  I cut some whiskers from Baker's Twine and used instead of drawing on eyes.  I used to little googly eyes and also have a white ribbon below her ears!   I used a combination of Tacky Glue and Pop Dots and was so excited when I finish up this cute little Bunny! 

    Yippee!   It's so nice when you finally do try something new and find it works out to be easier than expected.  That's exactly how I feel and for me, this tiny little bag is a big accomplishment.  Now, I think, I'll start to use my Cameo in this way, so much more and that's awesome!

     As for even more excitement, today I'm going to be taking part in my very first "90 Minute Scramble" over at the Hero Arts Flickr Group and I'm really looking forward to it.  I joined this fun group, last Spring,  shortly after falling in LOVE with the whole Hero Arts product line.  I am a huge fan of the wonderful work that this group does and I've also found some wonderful inspiration.   Many of the members also participate in the online classes that I've taken with Jennifer McGuire.    Between, Jennifer's awesome classes and this group, my love for Hero Arts has grown dramatically!  It's by far, one of my favorite products lines and I love pretty much everything they've come out with in the past year.  I'm also now a member of the Hero Arts Blog Club and really having a great time getting to know these amazing crafters. This is the first Scramble that has worked out to be hosted at times, that work out really well for me and this one is being Barb, who also was my Swap recipient in the Valentine Swap.   It's also been a joy to be part of another wonderful group who love to create and love Hero Arts, as much as I know do.

    The Scramble goes live at 4 PM, (my time)!  Barb will post the challenge/theme and instructions and we'll have 90 minutes complete our project to meet her challenge requirements and get it photographed and posted onto the group site.   I think it'll be fun and I can't wait!   I'll be back later to share my project and let you know how it goes!   In the meantime, I'm going to clean up my craft room and get everything very organized on my desk, that way I'll be already to SCRAMBLE!   Wish me luck!!

     Update:   I'm back to share my Scramble Card!   It was really fun to play along and I know will look forward to doing this again.  I can tell you that these gals are amazing and even though I finished my card with extra time, there were quite a few who made more the one card, some even made three of four!  WOW!   If you would like to see them go to the Flickr Group and search the photos for "quickcard33" which is the tag we used.  The cards are all wonderful, I think you'll Love them!!  
   
      Barb's theme for our Challenge was SPRING!!   The requirements were to use at least one die-cut, one or more flowers and any Hero Arts Stamp.  I started out by picking out my stamp and I chose to use the Tall Flower Stamp.  My first thought was to stamp it in black and color it with my Copics, but I was afraid that would take too long, so I decided I would use Distress Inks to color and then decided to stamp and emboss in white.  I actually stamped and embossed twice, and figured if one was bad, I could use the other, but in the end, I decided to pop up some of the flowers and have the second image all set, made that easy.   Once I had the stamping and embossing done, the coloring went pretty fast--that's the reason I chose to color with Distress Inks!  At first I thought about using a nestie die to cut out my colored flower and that would be my die cut, but then there was too much white space, so I quickly hand cut it...and don't look too close, as I rushed. 

      Once I was at that point I had to decide what to do about my die cut and at first I was simply going to die cut a little butterfly, but then decided to cut backgrounds for my flower instead and when with with different sized Scalloped ovals in two contrasting colors that matched with the coloring.  I didn't' like the lavender color and thought it looked to plain, so I quickly ran it through my Cuttlebug in an embossing folder for extra texture.  I then inked the edges with my favorite Distress color (Seedless Preserves).  I still needed a card base and picked another piece of shimmer cardstock that I cute to A2 size.  I then added the scalloped ovals and tied a small white bow around my flowers before I adhered them on top.  I decided to add a little sentiment, as the end, but wish I hadn't, as it came out crooked?  Don't ya just hate when you ruin a card at the very end?  That's how I felt, but luckily I think adding some bling around it...covered up my mistake?

   And here is a close up that shows a bit more of the detail.   Other than my crooked Sentiment, I really liek the card and was happy in the end.

      I'm now beat and off to make something for dinner!    I had a really nice day of crafting and I can't wait to get up and start all over again tomorrow!