Hoot Hoot for the Graduates!

This Memorial Day weekend we are celebrating a couple of graduates that we know! This week I decided to make a couple of cards.  One card is for a male graduate and the other is for a female graduate.  I have been able to use more of my scraps lately, because they are all nicely organized by color. Eventually, I may have to post a few pictures of my new craft room, but that will be another post.  For today we will talk about my Hoot Hoot Graduation Cards. To make them I used two different cartridges: Just Because Cards and Everyday Paper Dolls. I cut out the owl from Just Because Cards and the graduation cap and tassle from Everyday Paper Dolls. I used some designer series paper on each card to add a little oomph, some ribbon or twine for texture, and Stickles to make the graduation caps extra special.  I also glossed up the owl's beak and used my Tim Holtz distress pads to give my owls some character.  I think the cards turned out to be a ....hoot! Okay, I couldn't resist that one.  These cards are also being used for the CAS-ual Friday challenge for a masculine card using designer series paper and the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge asking for a "You Did It!" card.  Be sure to click on their links and check out their awesome challenges!

It's Raining, It's Pouring

Okay, so it's actually not raining out! We did have rain this week, but a couple different things prompted me to play with a new stamp set.  One of those things was the CAS-ual Fridays challenge that requested a person use a die cut or punch.  The second was that I have a brand new stamp set that has a learning curve to it.  I have the Just Rite stamp system.  When I bought it at the store, I was told you could use some Nesties to cut an oval, then stamp right in your oval.  Well, that is a tight fit! So, it takes some practice.  I bought the My Rainbow Set because it makes me think of my mom. She likes rainbows so much, that the colors of the rainbow were her wedding colors back in the 70's.  I have attempted to use this set once before, but the finished product wasn't pretty, so set it aside. Today, I cut out 12 ovals and have two beautiful stamped ovals to show you! Next time, I may cut my ovals just a tad larger so I have more grace room.  Once I got the stamped images cut, I was able to back them up with more ovals and sticky foam, some ribbon, and a bigger die.  I ran the bigger die through my Big Shot to emboss it.  On the dance in the rain one I used glossy accents to make my rain drops look wet. This all turned out so nice, I can't wait to show my mom!

Hula Time

The weather is warm here in Colorado and all I want to do is go find a spot of sand to wiggle my toes in! Good thing I have a comfortable new craft room, a challenge, and a beach themed cartridge to play with. Fantabulous Cricut's challenge this week was around the theme of dance.  I looked at my cartridges and right away thought of Life's A Beach! I was so excited to see a cute little Hula girl.  I cut her out, added Stickles, Glossy Accents, some pink chalk for cheeks, and popped her up on a pink oval that I distressed with some pink ink.  I thought the lime green floral print made a nice background, so mounted that on a peach cardstock.  Finally, whenever we have visited Hawaii, there are flowers abundant. So, I added a couple bright pink ones to remind me of the tropics!

Under Construction

A new craft room will be unveiled soon! Can't wait to share it with everyone AND a few new cards! Stay tuned!

Itty Bitty Love

This is a quick 3x3 card, all made on the Cricut for the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge this week. Used Just Because Cards for the base and Create a Critter for the cute heart and sentiment.  Popped each layer up with pop dots and added some Stickles. Used my hearts Cuddle bug folder to add some embossing to the background.  Short and sweet and full of love!

Odds and Ends with Bags, Tags, and Boxes

This week at work a co-worker pointed out a cute box in a magazine.  We got to talking and I remembered that I had the Bags, Tags, and Boxes Cricut Cartridge. I wanted to see how big of a box I could make sometime during my vacation.  Fast forward a couple days and I needed to wrap a gift card.  I decided to make my own box using the cartridge.  After looking at various boxes, I decided on the crayon box.  I had some heavy green metallic card stock, some green trees I had stamped using Tim Holtz distress inks on water color paper with a few flicks of water, and a piece of ribbon from Bath and Body Works when they gift wrapped something for me last year.  I dug through my scrap drawer and found some red and white scraps of paper.  I cut out my box at 8 3/4 inch.  I used some adhesive to put it together, wrapped the ribbon around the box and framed my stamped image of an evergreen tree.  I popped my tree up with some foam adhesive. I was happy this turned out to be fairly masculine, because the gift card is for a male.

I also knew that at Fantabulous Cricut they issued a challenge to trim with a tag in this week's project.  I used some of the same green cardstock to cut out a tag on my Cricut.  I trimmed the bottom of the tag and rounded the edges with a corner rounder from Stampin' Up! Next, I used some scrap paper and some seasonal Tim Holtz ink to stamp my message on my tag.  I added a little green gem to the corner of the stamped image.  I finished the tag off with my coordinating ribbon. Voila, a gift box and tag!

Scraptastic Holiday Cards!

I have been feeling the need to bust out my Cricut and make something fantastic.  I have been prepping for card classes and a scrapbook class coming up at Artsy, but haven't spent a ton of time in my own craft room.  I even took a two part 12 Tags of Christmas class - which was so much fun!  Anyway, I decided I needed to break out my own tools and get to work crafting.  I didn't have time to run to the store or even grab some coordinating papers, so focused on using scraps.  Fortunately, I had a couple pieces of paper I had purchased at a crop a few months ago that kind of coordinated.

I started by cutting out a tree using the Create A Critter cartridge, my tree was kind of plain, so I used Perfect Pearls Mists in perfect pewter to add some sparkle.  I continued to cut out strings of lights to piece together, then cut apart to dress up my tree.  I used dark brown distress ink to color the trunk and added a touch of fluffy white snow.

I topped the tree off with an over-sized Jolee's gem.  I didn't have a paper to back my tree with that matched...so I had to make my own.  I created a mosaic with little extra pieces of paper that I had used to cut out the lights for the tree.  I also cut out the word, "joy".  I had to spray this with glimmery mist too! I backed the cards in pink and added my ribbon.

Voila', a fun and bright holiday card!