Sympathy Card

The new barn is almost completed!  DH is sorting and labeling 40+ years of 'stuff' and storing it in the cabinets we rescued from our kitchen remodel.  I was inspired to reorganize my craft supplies starting with my paper collection.  As my little sanctuary became messier and messier, I really doubted the wisdom of trying to reorganize and downsize.  However, now that it's done, I am SO happy with my room.  Yeah!

I was totally, totally, amazed at how much purple paper I have accumulated!  But I loved sorting it out and admiring all the shades and hues.  So, when I sat down to make a sympathy card for this week's BBTB2 challenge, I was very happy to dip into my purple stash.

 Most of the sympathy cards that I make, are mailed, so I try to keep them as flat as possible.  I like to add a mat, and embossing for texture and interest  I love these little flowers from the Sophie cart and the Explore cut them perfectly.  That's a quarter sitting besides the top layer of the flower.  Amazing!

The leaves are from Stretch Your Imagination, and the mat comes from Artbooking.  I chose the sentiment from the Phrases cart, but went back later into my DS file and replaced it with the "With Sympathy" sentiment from the Jasmine font cart when I saw it used on the cards by Maureen and Sharon.  So pretty.

For the inside, I used my new stamps from Robin, My PinkStamper.

I have to have a selection of Sympathy Cards in my stash since they are so hard for me to make.  If you are like me, I suggest you pop over to BBTB and scraplift a few of the DT cards.  It's on my ToDo list!   Thanks for visiting with me today.  : ) Christine

Valentine Lollipop Holder

Sometimes the Laws of Physics just get in the way!  I had the idea to take Mary's (SVG Cuts) little house candy cane holder and turn it into a lollipop holder for the DGDs for Valentine's Day.  Since they love puppies, I decided to use the dogs from Paper Pups to decorate the house.

It went together very easily, and I had such fun decorating it with lace, and puffy stickers, and punched out hearts.  The problem occurred when I tried to load up the lollipops.   I hadn't thought about them being top-heavy and, of course, the minute I stuck them through the holes in the roof they fell out!  Hmmm!

Three days later, I managed to get them to kinda, sorta stick in there.  LOL!   I also have accumulated lots of assorted lollipops as I tried to find the brand that was the least top heavy.  DH, being the person who understands Physics in this family, has an idea for the next one.  Right!


Master J. is not here today, but Cocoa was very interested in the photography process.  Thanks for visiting with me today,   : )  Christine

More snowflakes!

When I bought my first Cricut in 2009, I noticed how I 'Cricut-ised' so many of my paper crafts and projects.  I made banners, posters, signs, thematic wall decor, flash cards and game pieces for my Kindergarten classroom to name just a few of my Cricut-ised projects.

Nowadays, with the Explore able to cut such a variety of materials, it is automatic for me to use my Cricut for even more diverse projects.  

Master J. was visiting on Friday, and I thought we would make bird feeders with paper tubes smeared with peanut butter and rolled in bird seed and placed in the bushes around the house.  But then my Cricut-ising brain kicked in and I thought that it would be MUCH nicer to have bird seed snowflakes hanging in the branches.  I cut the snowflakes from heavy card stock and reinforced the holes punched in the ends with eyelets.  I used snowflakes from Accent Essentials, Winter Lace and Classroom, December and January.

Master J. had such a lovely, sticky time spreading peanut butter on his snowflake and smooshing down the bird seed!   He was very proud of his efforts and wanted to take one home to show his Mama.

Here they are in the garden brightening up the currant bush.

The current BBTB2 challenge is to use a Cricut snowflake in a project.  Run over and take a look at the wonderful variety of snowflakes that the DT and the participants have used!  Thanks for visiting with me today.  Stay warm!   : ) Christine

Snowflakes

So last week I cut out tons of snowflakes for a 'Frozen' party.  I imported the jpeg into Design Space and cleaned it up with the magic wand and voila!  Easy Peasy! 

I also had a jpeg of the birthday girl's name which I imported the same way.  Sooo easy.  Design Space does not yet allow you to draw an offset shadow around the image - but I hear that it is coming!  I opened up the Silhouette Studio and imported the jpeg, traced and offset to find all kinds of problems due to the internal spaces in the letters.  Score one for the Explore!  (But I'm not ready to donate the Cameo just yet!)  I cut the name twice, once in beautiful glitter paper and once in white shimmer paper to create a drop shadow.  Tres pretty! 

The BBTB2 challenge this week is to incorporate a snowflake from a Cricut cart, and I had cut 2 beautiful snowflakes from the Frozen cart for the name banner and forgot to take pictures!  I had resized a little bag from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More for the OHM children's January treat and had the notion to add a couple of Shrinky Dink charms, a snowflake and Olaf, to a twine bow that they could remove and use as bracelets.   I bought some Graffix Printable Shrink Paper and was so pleased with the way Olaf and the snowflake printed.  I welded a circle on top of each piece to make it a charm. 

However, when it came to cutting, the Explore could not read the print marks because the paper is so reflective.  I worked around this using a paper mask, but the process was so onerous and I needed so many, that it was just easier to fussy cut them by hand.  Here's the charms:-

And here's the finished bag.

One of the other features that the crafters in my Facebook group keep asking for is the ability to write block letters rather than just outline.  You can see that I filled in the sentiment with Stickles rather inexpertly!


I have another idea for a snowflake craft with Master J.  Watch this space!   Thanks for visiting with me today.  : ) Christine

Snowman Thanks Card

Last one, I promise!   This is a q&e make using the Winter Woodland snowman.  I used to make this one for my students after Christmas and had to redesign it in Design Space this year.

  The background paper was printed using my Imagine.  (Looove this snowflake design and use it all the time!)

Now to get to work on the OHM children's January treats.   : )   Thanks for visiting with me today.  : )  Christine

'Frozen' Snowflake Box Card

It was my Craft and Card Club meeting yesterday and the challenge theme was "Baby It's Cold Outside!"  What could be colder than "Frozen?"  Right?   I had this SVG Cuts box card cut out before Christmas, but didn't get around to assembling it, so I was able to incorporate the challenge pieces - paper, clothes pin (again!!!!) and blue doily.

Mary's design included a church in the snow globe, so I trimmed it away and attached Elsa's castle from the Cricut Frozen cart.  I outlined the details with Stickles to make them pop a little.  I used Print Then Cut to make the three Olaf images on the sides and back.

The sentiment "Warm Hugs" comes from the cart, too.   "Brrr" comes from Winter Frolic and I disassembled that darn clothes pin and used it for the exclamation mark.

I had SO much fun blinging it up!  Here's a picture taken on the window sill so that you can see the vellum insertion.  

I hated leaving my card at the store for display with all the other wonderful cards!   Do you feel like that sometimes?

While I was making my card, I was thinking of the "Winter Fun" challenge at FCCB and the Blue and White Linky Party at Craftin' Desert Diva's.  Pop over and see their inspiring projects.  Thanks for visiting with me today.  :)  Christine

Snow Globe Thank You Card

Happy New Year!   I am, however, still working on those 'Thank You' cards!  Here's the back story...

 Master J. is a huge 'Cars' fan and as instructed, (ask me about THAT some time!)  we bought him a set of the Cars characters from the Disney Store.   He was thrilled to unwrap them on Christmas morning and then waited impatiently for Grandpa to undo each of the little twist ties so that he could play with his new toys.  Grandma, meanwhile, had her eyes on the sturdy acetate in the discarded box.

 And here's what I did with part of it - made a snow globe shaker card!  It is based on a card created by Sharon Langford with her gypsy girl.   She included a screen shot so it was quite easy to make a similar card in Design Space.

 The problem came when I tried to open the saved design and found that the 'weld' bug had struck and parts of the card were missing.  I was able to fix and cut the card but it would seem that now the file is badly corrupted and cannot be cut again.   : (    I think that this is a known issue and may be fixed in the next update.   Fingers crossed!

 I used the snow globe from the Doodlecharms cart and the snowman from Snow Folks.   He is carrying a sled but I trimmed that down and added a present from Something to Celebrate.  As you can see, I had a little trouble lining up the mirrored cuts!  The globe was cut 8 times and glued together with the acetate in between the first and second cuts and the seventh and eighth.  I added coarse glitter and sequins.  I prefer to make the shaker mechanism like this because I always lose the glitter in the foam tape when I used the more conventional method!

The sentiment stamps came from my Simon Says Stamp kit and MCT and the embossing folder comes from Darice.   I'm returning the acetate to Master J. in the form of this card, tomorrow.  Hope he likes it!   Thanks for visiting with me today.   : ) Christine