Showering Mom with Love

Wishing my mom the happiest birthday, I made her a 3D card.  Venturing away from the Inky Antics HoneyPop stamp sets, I am trying to figure out what other shapes I can make with the honeycomb paper on my own.

Front: 

Precut 5x7 cream card

Cardstocks: pink, blue, cream

Embelishments: cream grosgrain ribbon, blue ribbon

Versa Black ink

Happy Birthday stamp

Silver embossing powder

Inside:

Cardsocks: black, blue, light blue, pale yellow, pink

Cartridge: 3 Birds on Parade - Rain pg30

Pink HoneyComb paper

Heart paper punch

Cut and assemble the Rain bird on page 30 except for the umbrella.  Cut the umbrella off the black base at the very top of the handle and set aside.  While you will not need all layers of the umbrella, you will still cut Layer 2 in order to get the rain boots.

Cut the top piece off the black umbrella cutout that was set aside.  Take the umbrella and fold it in half.  Trace that half shape onto the honeycomb paper and cut it out using very sharp, sturdy scissors.  I bought the Tim Holtz Micro-serrated scissors for this purpose, my other much cheaper scissors were sliding around making sloppy cuts.

Using a tape runner, I glued the umbrella into my double scored card (you have to double score the center of the card to allow for the extra thickness).  Since I am using paper instead of a stamp, I had to place the little bird slightly askew so that the umbrella stem was not directly in the fold.   Glue the little piece at the top of the honeycomb umbrella at the same slight angle.  I placed the little rain drops on the card and added extra pink heart "rain".

I did not have a great stamp so I wrote the sentiment with an ink pen.  While that changes the "feel" of the design, the card is going to my mom, so I think she will like that handwritten touch.

HoneyPop Birthday Bird

A friend's birthday gave me the opportunity to try a new 3D card concept.  When I saw the HoneyPop product line on my very first trip to a store called Archiver's, I found it completely jaw dropping irrisistable.

Since this card was a new concept for me, I decided to take strong inspiration from the card design on the Inky Antics website that demonstrated the Cupcake Birdy stamp set from the HoneyPop Collection.

Front:
Precut cream colored 5x7 card
Cardstock: light pink, dark pink, light purple, yellow, light blue, white, black, DCWV Animal Crackers-blue polka dot paper strip
Inky Antics - Cupcake Birdy stamp set - Happy Birthday
Distress Ink - Faded Jeans

Cartridges:
Create a Critter - bird pg65
George and Basic Shapes - ovals cut at approximately 4.75" and 5"
Wall Decor and More - duck flourish leftovers from another card

Embellishments: white ribbon, blue ribbon, pop dots

I started off giving my card a double score in the spine to make sure the 3D effect of the honeycomb paper works properly, just like the instructions state.  Plus this would change the width of the card and I wanted to be aware of the minor adjustment when sizing the white and pink base frame cardstock.

Cut and assemble the little bird and all of her layers from the Create a Critter cartridge at 3" and placed the pop dots to the back for the added demension.  Plundering my scraps, I found a leftover flourish from another card where I cut the Wall Decor and More Duck.  By luck it was the same color as the larger oval so I added it to the card.  Covering the edges of the blue polka dot paper strip with the ribbons, I finished assembly, but did not attach to the card yet.  The Happy Birthday stamp barely fit, however it was a must.

Inside:
Distress Ink - Faded Jeans
Inky Antics - Cupcake Birdy stamp set - with a cherry on top, cherry, bird
Inky Antics Honey pop collection - Brown honeycomb paper
Inky Antics Honey pop collection - Pink honeycomb paper

I stamped and cut the cupcake parts from Brown and Pink honeycomb paper.  Note to self, but sure to use strong, sharp scissors, this paper requires a clean cut and dinky scissors will not do the job properly.

Stamped and colored the cherry on top, while this seems out of order, you need to do this part first on the inside so that you have room for your hands, the acrylic block, etc., going for clean contact with no slips.  Then using normal glue runner adhesive, I attached the cupcake parts to the center of the card.  Wow.  It was as spectacular as I remember from the store!

Added the rest of the inside stamps, and affixed the card front to the card face.

I am absolutely thrilled with the result.

Oops Baby Card

A new friend from church had her 6th baby!  I didn't know her for the other 5, so I wanted to make a card to congratulate the family on their new addition.

Front:
Precut A2 white card

Cardstock: white, pale lavender, pale pink, pale blue
Cricut Cartridge: Wall Decor and More - pg75 Duck cut at 3.5"
Cuttlebug: Swiss Dots
Embellishments: white ribbon, deep purple ribbon
pop dots

I cut the duck at 3.5 and must have  accidentally bumped the dial and cut the duck layer at 3.75.  oops.

Finding more cardstock, I cut the pink duck layer again at 3.5.

I cut some pale lavender and white pieces to make a frame and used my Cuttlebug to swiss dot the pale lavender paper.

After I had glued down the frames and the ribbons to the card and went to place the duck, I then noticed my pale blue duck layer mistake.  The lighting in my dining room is pretty awful in the late night hours and I didn't realize the pale lavender layer was really a pale blue.  oops.

I debated cutting the whole duck again, but decided to just move forward.

Inside:
Congratulations stamp
Colorbox pigment: Eggplant

It was a simple (aka tired/lazy) Congratulations stamped in Eggplant ink directly on the inside of the white card, but I messed up and smeared it before it dried.  oops.

To cover that mistake, I stamped again on the same pale lavender cardstock (double checking this time) and glued it on top. Viola, my error is magically a color coordinated enhancement.

This card seemed to be filled with little human errors but I think it is pretty cute and those "mistakes" can be thought as contributions to the personalization and effort in the card making experience.

Cake Pops

I was grocery shopping with my little boy and stumbled across a book about Cake Pops.  I was mesmerized.  What a marvelous creation.  They can range from super simple to extremely intricate.  I did a little googling and found out a woman named Angie Dudley, aka www.Bakerella.com, created them and I really suggest you visit her website to witness tons of fun little Cake Pop ideas.

I was hooked and decided to try my hand at making something new.

There are lots of official recipes available, but here is the gist.

First bake a normal cake and crumble it to bits.  I have to say, that part was actually kinda fun.
Then blend most of a container of pre-made frosting to a playdoh consistency.




Roll mixture into balls and poke in a lollipop handle.
Stick in the freezer for a bit to make the cake firm.



Melt chocolate of desired color and coat the entire cake pop.
Decorate as desire.  I used a food pen to draw on my pops, but lots of the designs I saw had candy and other food bits stuck to the chocolate before it completely dried.

They were so much fun and easy to make.  For my first attempt I decided to go uber easy, but the sky is the limit on all the possibilities.

Fun time flocking

I learned about the wonders of flocking last weekend at a Scrapbooking Expo!  Where in the world have they been keeping this wondrous little secret?  I thought this was a whole new product that was bursting onto the market, then I discover it has been around for years!  Where was I?  It is much like an embossing powder but it actually makes things fuzzy. 

I have no particular reason to make a card, I just really wanted to make a fuzzy little critter.
  

Front:
Precut cream colored 5x7 card
Cardstock: green pattern paper (sort of a grassy appearance), cream
Cricut Cartridge: Create a Critter
-pg 69 Fawn cut at 3.5"
Embellishments: brown ribbon, generic flower gemstones
Stamp: My Pink Stamper - More Punny-licious: you're a deer
Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Tea Dye
Funky Flock: Milk Chocolate, Bow-Wow Brown

Here is an extreme closeup of the the fuzzy flocked little deer.  Isn't he just sweet and amazing...

When using attaching multiple flocked layers, be sure to use a strong liquid glue or you may get an undesired layer separation.

Teacher Appreciate Week Card II

Here is the second card designed for my little boy's PreK Teachers.  It is Teacher Appreciation Week at the school and I wanted to make something extra special.

Flowerbox Card
Precut cream colored A2 Card (4x5.5)

Front:
Cricut Cartridge: Everyday Pop-Up Cards
-pg23 Phrase and Phrase Layers: Showering Thanks cut at 1 1/4"
ProvoCraft Slab III: diamond patterned paper
cardstocks: black, light blue, light green, second shade of light green

Inside:
Cricut Cartridge: Everyday Pop-Up Cards
-pg48 Pop-Up: Flowerbox cut at 5" (I watched carefully and stopped Cricut from cutting the flower stems from the pop-up.  I did not want to deal with flower stems moving around in the middle of the pop-up box.  I wanted them to stand up straight and be more predictable and stable.)
Flowerbox, shift Flowerbox and all flower layers (not shadow) cut at 2 3/4"
Cardstocks: brown, DCWV glitter brown, green, pink, yellow, blue
Stickles: Crystal

I also used the "bomb cloud" cutouts from my Bad Day card that were meant to be discarded.  I thought these pieces looked like wonderfully airy and delicate clouds so kept them.  This was a perfect use.  So technically the Indie Art cartridge was used to make this card as well, but clouds are easy to find or make.

When putting this card together, I could not get all the folds of the pop-up flowerbox to behave as instructed.  So I glued the two bottom folds to the floor of the card and it worked.  Perhaps there is a folding typo.  Assemble the flowerbox and all its layers then attach them directly to the front.


Finally, I dotted very small stickle rain drops to complete the light showering rain look.  Viola!  What a masterpiece.

Teacher Appreciate Week Card I

My little boy has 2 PreK Teachers, so I made each their own card design for Teacher Appreciation Week.  Here is the first design.

Umbrella Card
Precut cream colored A2 Card (4x5.5)

Front:
Cricut Cartridge: Everyday Pop-Up Cards
-pg23 Phrase and Phrase Layers: Showering Thanks cut at 1 1/4"
ProvoCraft Slab III: diamond patterned paper
Cardstocks: black, light blue, light green, blue



Inside:
Cricut Cartridge: Everyday Pop-Up Cards
-pg36 Pop-Up: Umbrella cut at 5"
Heavy black cardstock for Umbrella base
Shift Umbrella and Layer 1 cut at 3 1/4
ProvoCraft Slab III patterned paper: water splash pattern, light purple speckles, and darker purple
Presentation Cover clear-gloss poly to make the umbrella shiny and plastic umbrella-like

Assemble the umbrella parts as usual.
I used Zip Dry glue adhesive just around the outside edge to attach the clear layer to the front of the umbrella.  I knew it would be seen, but thought it may add to a "wet, rained on appearance".  That particular glue dries very fast, so I didn't squish it fast enough to create a more spread water effect, but still believe the card is nice.  The glue seen does not take away from the shiny umbrella look I was after.

While the layers do not line up exactly to the pop-up umbrella, they are very close and the slight difference in sizes do not deter from the construction or look.


Here is the side view of the tabs attached to the card back.
Although I used a thick cardstock for the umbrella base, the handle is thin and closing the card causes a slight bend near the curved part.  Just be slow and careful when opening and closing this particular design.

As my first cricut popup card I definately searched for a How-To video online.  I just wanted to make known that this card is not my design, here is the link to the directions and design inspiration I followed, but without the Gypsy.

Thank you to Crafting with Katie for your assistance and making my first pop-up card a beautiful success.
http://www.craftingwithkatie.com/2011/04/umbrella-everyday-pop-up-card-with.html

Baby Rattle Shaker Card

Wow.  This card turned out better than I ever dreamed.  A friend and coworker just had a darling baby boy so I decided to try my hand at a shaker style card.

Front:

Precut cream colored 5x7 card

Cricut Cartridge: Wild Card rattle (Shift Icon from the Carriage Card) cut at 5.5

Cuttlebug: Swiss Dots

Cardstock: light blue, white, blue, clear-gloss poly (purchased a pack of those presentation binding covers at Office Depot)

Small square pop dots, cut in half

White and blue seed beads

Blue marker

Ribbons: cream and dark blue

To create this card, I actually cut the rattle icon 3 times with light blue, blue and the clear cardstock.  If I had the Gypsy I would have removed the 3 front cuts on the face of the rattle, but luckily the Cricut did not cut completely through the clear sheet.  This concern was just so the beads would not have an escape route.

On the light blue rattle, take your halved pop dots and make a very tight ring around the outside edge of the top circle.  Here is a picture of the circle partially complete.  I should probably have used some version of a pop dot strip instead of hand trimming each little square, but I wanted to use what I had on hand.

Pour the seed beads into the enclosed circle.
Cut the handle off the clear rattle cut and place that on the pop dot ring.
Cut off the handle from the blue rattle then cut out an even circle from the middle of the blue, so that you are left with just a blue ring.  The ring width should just be wide enough to cover the pop dot ring showing through the clear circle.
The rattle portion is now built.  I used just a light blue marker to color the white edges of the pop dots and took some glue to the edge just to ensure the seed beads would not find a tiny hole between pop dots.

Inside:
EK Success Edger: Starry Night
Congratulations stamp
Tim Holtz Distress Ink: Faded Jeans


I thought the whole project looked terrific for a first attempt even if it did take me twice as long to work out all the details.  Luckily, I am confident I can make it much quicker next time.

Bad Day Card

A friend was having a really rough time, so I decided to send a Bad Day card with a little pep talk message.  Super simple and really quick to put together.  I really like the quirky images on the Indie Art Cartridge and cannot wait to explore the other cuts.

Front
Precut textured green A2 card
Cardstock: black, dark blue, blue, light blue
Cricut Cartridge: Indie Art to cut the Bomb mushroom
Cuttlebug: Divine Swirls
Green ribbon - I am using a christmas ribbon, you can even sorta see the upside down reindeer, but if you don't know it is there you don't notice on the actual card.  It will be our little secret.

Inside
A brown grenade was cut to play with a Gypsy but in that playtime, the Gypsy was turned off and I have no idea what size was cut, so none of the layers were cut.  I thought that little embellishment went well with this card.

This card made me giggle a little and I hope it brightens my friends day too.

Have a good day all.

More Birthday Cards

Wow.  I had no idea that April birthdays were so popular.  I have 2 more friends that need cards and I thought the Hello Kitty Greetings was just the right cartridge for both.  That little kitten is just oozing cute and she makes me smile everytime I see her.

Outside:
Precut card was cream
Cardstock: Black, white, green, yellow, 2 shades of pink
Cartridge: Hello Kitty Greetings - HK2 cut at 3.5"
Cuttlebug: Swiss Dot
Pop Dots to raise the kitty off the page
Ribbons: cream and bright pink

Inside:
Since an extra flower is created with the same cut as the yellow kitty nose, I just used the flower on the inside of the card and layered other circle extras for the flower center.  No wasting the paper foliage.
HppyBDay in black
Cut the main Clothes layer in light blue.
I tried the shift Clothes layer that gives each letter for Happy Birthday in dark blue, but struggled to get each of the letters to fit right.  I will have to work on that puzzle sometime later.
In the end I just pieced the itty bitty letter middles from the light blue layer to complete the text directly on the black base.

Rinse and repeat to make the second card.

I do believe both of my friends will be pleased to get this in the mail.

Giraffe Card

I have a friend and co-worker that just adores giraffes so I made this fun birthday card featuring her favorite theme.

Outside:
pre-cut set of cream cardstock with envelopes
DCWV Adhesive Backed Border Punch Strip - Neutral
EK Success Edger: Starry Night
Cricut Cartridge: Wall Decor and More to cut the Giraffe at 3.5"
Popdots (i cut popdots very small to fit under each hoof)
giraffe patterned ribbon

Inside:
Happy Birthday stamp
Tim Holtz Distress Ink: Tea Dye
the stars from the stary night punch

In the end I think the card was unusual, not my normal style, but rather neat.  I enjoyed creating the card will likely make others similar to this design.

She only recently purchased a personal cricut, so I was thrilled to get her a brand new cartridge as a gift.  She does more scrapbooking than card making so I thought the Designer's Calendar was a perfect fit.  Plenty of occasion words, seasonal images, days, months, a font, etc.  I think she will enjoy the versitility with her scrapbooking projects.

Quick Birthday Card

My best friend's favorite flower is the daffodil, so I made this super fast card for her birthday.

Using my random scraps, I pulled together this card and actually mailed the card before her birthday.  With her birthday so close to Easter, it seems to be a real challenge to get her card mailed in time for arrival.  Using the Walk in my Garden Cricut cartridge, scrap papers, a little ribbon and my new favorite bling, Stickles!  Oh, I also caught these cute dragonfly eyelets on sale and had not gotten a chance to use them yet.  I thought she would really appreciate the added detail.

Hello world

As a random crafter, you want to share/show off your work, but walking around saying "hey, look what i made" is sometimes quite weird.  I am very proud of my creations and want to share them with others.  So here we go, another blog is born.  I have several blog idols that i follow and in their footsteps i will learn.  This is just a creative home for me to post my creative projects, thoughts and ideas.  Hopefully i will become proficient in posting pictures and even videos!  That is the goal.  Lets see how it goes.