Hello Kitty Valentine

Yesterday was my Card and Craft club meeting and the challenge theme was 'Love Letters."  Our supplies included some cute, cute paper from Doodlebug Designs, sheer ribbon, a bling heart and a pink paper clip.

I had several ideas but it wasn't until Master J. told me, mournfully, that his yellow balloon had popped, that the idea of Hello Kitty stuffing heart shaped balloons into a mailbox flashed into my mind.  (As for Master J. well, we drove right over to the grocery store and bought him a mylar balloon, and a car, and some milk to justify going!)

Here's my card.

Of course, the Hello Kitty carts do not have Hello Kitty standing by a mailbox with heart shaped balloons so this image is put together from three other cuts and some creative scissor work.


The sentiment inside comes from the 'Better Together' Imagine cart and I used the 'unflatten' button to separate the layers, then 'hid' the label layers so I could just print then cut the sentiment.  Love it!  (Now I just need to be able to change the colors on the image without obliterating the details.   It's on my wish list for future updates.)

The hardest design element was that pink paper clip and I ended up cutting out one of the envelopes from the background paper and clipping it to the inside.

I am linking my card with the Valentine's Day Challenge # 244 at the Fabulous Cricut Challenge Blog and the Craftin Desert Diva's Red, White and Pink Linky Party.  Pop over for some Valentine's Day inspiration.

And, of course, I had to leave my card in the store for display, so I recreated it last night for my Hello Kitty lovin' DGD, Miss G.  Shhhhh!   Thanks for visiting today!  : ) Christine

DIY Valentine Treat Boxes

Happy Groundhog Day!  It's raining quite steadily, so no-one is going to see a shadow today.  Yeah - an early Spring! 

Time to get the February treats done for the children at OHM and this month, I thought that I would make a heart shaped treat box.  This one comes from SVG Cuts and I sized it so that 4 would fit on a 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock.   To speed up the process of putting the boxes together, I used narrow double sided tape rather than glue. 

The hard part for me was my decision to include a variety of stickers with the boxes and let the kids decorate their hearts for themselves,  Aggghhh!  Bling withdrawl!  

You can see that I could NOT leave them entirely plain, and added a punched border, and a conversation heart saying written by the Explore on a banner.

Now I need to run to Michael's for more clear bags. ( I don't think for one moment that that's all I'll get, though.  LOL!)    Thanks for visiting with me today.  : ) Christine

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