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For my son’s “bestie”  (best friend) birthday, I created him a Dinosaur birthday card using Paper Doll Dress Up.  I really like the dinosaurs on the cartridge, but never knew how to use them.  I figured the wording “dino-mite” called for the use of a dinosaur, so when I realized I could use that wording for the sentiment, I ran with it!

I cut the dinosaur out in green, but to give it some color, I chalked his outside ridges with a darker green.  I drew in the lines that the Cricut so graciously cut for me, so that he’d look like a real dinosaur, and not just a cut out.  I used glitter paper, and cut it, and used coordinating blue paper a little larger to mount it on, and then mounted it all on a white 5 x 7 card. He was turning five, which for these little ones is a big deal, so I cut out the number five using Plantin School Book, and the circle to surround it and then the scallop (again, I forget which cartridge that one comes from).  Added green ribbon and stapled it on there; I love using staples! It’s like a different type of embellishment that is CHEAP! LOL.

Some other views are below:

I placed the dinosaur and the five medallion on pop dots to add dimension. I think it was a big hit, I know his mom loved it!

I topped it off with a personalized envelope:

Thanks for looking!

Samantha

I just realized there are a lot of posts with pics of my craft desk in the background.  Just in case you are interested, I’ll post some pictures here. It’s basically a desk from IKEA, with a glass top, and I put pictures of my family under the glass.

Of course, this is when my desk was brand new and clean!  I like to see the pics of the family while I’m creating. Most are pictures of my kids, and a couple have my husband sprinkled throughout.

The desk didn’t come with any drawers or storage, but they had a separate rolling cart but I didn’t like the amount of space it had.  I decided to use one of those modular shelving units that uses the fabric drawers for storage. Of course, picture below is when I first made my space. A lot has changed since then.  I still have my baby bug, but I’ve since upgraded to the Cricut Expressions, and my modular shelving has been re-organized, and re-re-organized, and I added my Cuttlebug to the mix.

I’ll take an updated picture as soon as it’s clean so you can see the end result.  I’ve also added a rolling cart, that I “borrowed” from my mother-in-law that my Cricut sits on and holds paper underneath. I’m currently looking for another rolling cart, because eventually she’ll want her cart back, and I would like one that’s a bit sturdier and that has more drawers and shelves so I can organize my cartridges and paper.  As you can see, my color scheme in my room is red, black and white, so whenever I finally do curtains, decor, and a Cricut cover, they will all follow that color scheme as well.

If you have any suggestions on how to make my craft room more “efficient” please let me know!  Also, if you have a suggestion for a rolling cart, also let me know!  Thanks for looking!!

Samantha

My husband never asks me to make him cards.  I guess he’d been seeing stuff I was playing around with and decided to ask me today OR maybe he thought it was time he put my investment (or should I saw “his” investment) to good use! So he asks me to make his grandmother a card. 

Can I be honest? I loved that he asked me to make a card for him!  I feel like he takes my hobby/passion seriously!  And obviously, he thinks I have some talent in order to trust me to make his grandmother a card.  Now some background…he hasn’t given his grandmother a card OR a present for her birthday in years.  So I knew it needed to be a good one!

So thanks to my YouTube obsession, I had been practicing with layering different sizes of flowers cut with the George Cartridge and balling them up in my fist to make them “ruffle”. This was the base of my card.  I also used Everyday Paper Dolls to cut a gorgeous butterfly.  I cut four up, and folded them in half and glued each one together on its side until I had it glued around, and then was able to make it pop out.  Here is the end result below:

I used a stamp for the sentiment. It had balloons around the wording, but I used my stamping markers just to color the wording part, and stamped that on an oval, cut out from the George cartridge.  I used some ribbon to thread through to and mounted all on brown cardstock.  I used the letter “J” on the George once again for my stems and cut out leaves from Plantin Schoolbook. I added some glitter to the butterfly and again, had it popping out of the card to make it 3d-ish. I held down all my different flower cutouts with a gemstone brad. Some other views are below:

I don’t remember the dimensions for all the flowers, it was really a trial and error with the layers.  I suggest playing around by cutting one large flower several times, and decreasing the size by 1/4” each time.

I think it came out really nice, I almost didn’t want to send it to her!  Lately, that has been my problem, I’ll make cute cards, but decide not to send them out because they were too cute, lol.  My husband really liked the end result, and even remarked that he didn’t know it would come out “that nice”. 

Next time, maybe I’ll cuttlebug the brown cardstock to give it some texture.  I’m still learning how to incorporate it in the things I’ve been working on. Thanks for looking!

Samantha

I’ve decided to take on the endeavor of making my youngest, Alyssa’s, scrapbook and for some reason I am hoping to finish or at least catch up by the time of her first birthday, which is less than a month away.

I KNOW!!

So, here are some of my recent pages I’ve been working on. While finishing up by her birthday is a formidable challenge, I’m already aware of the fact that I won’t finish in time. I’m currently setting up a scrapbooking schedule for myself, where I devote a couple of hours at least two days a week to get some stuff done.  While I love the look of a scrapbook, and I have all the tools for it, I just can’t find the time!

Anyway, here are some of my first pages:

This page is a couple of pictures from two pregnancy tests that I took when I found out I may be pregnant.  I was uncertain of whether it was a plus or minus, because the plus was so faint. I thought maybe my mind was playing tricks on me!

What better way to display black and white ultrasound pictures than making a mock film strip? At least that is what I thought when I conceptualized it in my head, lol.  So with this, I took black cardstock cut into strips, and used my Zutter bind it all to make the holes. I mounted each ultrasound picture on white cardstock to give it that pop out the page.  I used my New Arrival Cartridge to cut the It’s a Girl, and added a rhinestone in the center of the flower.  This is one of my favorite pages!

These two pages documented my growing belly. I don’t remember which cartridge I used for the scallop, but I did it fit to page, and added Mommy’s Belly with a pregnant lady silhouette from New Arrival also.  I used my Cuttlebug to die cut the months and place them in smaller scallops. I also cut rounded squares to add a shadow affect behind the pictures and embossed them with the Cuttlebug.

 

Lastly, another page, was her birth page.  I found these really cute clear stamps that I used for the circles and mounted them on that same scallop cut who’s origin I can’t recall (LOL). When I adhered the top picture, I did not put any glue in the middle to make it like a pocket, so I could insert all those hospital bracelets we had a keepsakes. I hate to throw those things away, but really, what could you do with them??

Anyway, thanks for looking!  I’ll try to update some more pages as I get them finished! Hopefully they inspire you and if you use anything as inspiration, please share!

Samantha

Hi all!  I know it’s been forever since I’ve updated my blog.  And I’ve been super busy in my craft room, just been so busy I hadn’t had a chance to update with all my great projects! 

In September, we went to visit my aunt and my mom in LA, California, and in middle of the trip, we went to Las Vegas, my first time visiting the city!  And with any first visit, comes a bunch of pictures… I think I took more than 300!  Anyway, my mom, was a visitor as well, so not only did my aunt had to bus me and my family around, she also had to accommodate her! I was so thankful for all the fun we had, and her opening up her home to me and my kids, so I decided to make her a thank you card.  But wait, how ‘bout a thank you card that can also hold a cd of all the wonderful pictures I took during our visit with her?

Below is pictures from my combo thank you card and cd holder.  Unfortunately, I didn’t keep dimensions, and being it was some time ago when I made it, I don’t even remember all the logistics behind it.  I can tell you I used my cricut, and I used Plantin School Book and George to make the embellishments and wording.

I made it so that the thanks could be removed and used as a sleeve to keep the card closed. The thanks was cut using end caps and placed on black cardstock which was adhered on both ends to make the sleeve.

I made the flowers with Plantin School book and surprisingly, I figured the “J” on the George cartridge looked a little like a stem when placed just perfectly under the flower.  The grass, if I remember correctly, came from Plantin also. 

I cut two smaller pieces of white cardstock to handwrite my thanks on them, and used ribbon to tie the cd to the card. I probably should’ve made a label for the cd, cause it would’ve enhanced the interior better. I used coordinating paper, the polka dots, which I also used to enhance the envelope.

All together, I think it came out really cute.

  

Thanks for checking it out! If you decide to make one on your own, please let me know, I’d love to see your version of the thank you “slash” cd holder!

Samantha

While browsing some of my favorite blogs, I came across alot of snowman cards that instantly inspired me to make my own snowman card. Unfortunately, after taking quick inventory of my cricut cartridges, I realized I only had one snowman, and it was on my Hello Kitty cartridge. While it's really cute, it was too cartoony for what I wanted. So, after pondering it all night, I figured I'd play around with some shapes and other elements and make my own snowman.

First I took my George cartridge, and cut two circles of different dimensions for the top and bottom of snowman. I slightly bent the top circle so I could overlap the two circles to make it look like one whole piece. I took some blue chalk, and chalked it to make give it an airbrushed "snowy" look. I realized he needed something, so I made a carrot for the nose, and took my whole puncher to make eyes and buttons, added a ribbon for his scarf and topped it with a rhinestone.


While I thought he was cute, I realized he was still missing something. I looked on some of my other cartridges, and realized I could probably add some elements from other cartridges to complete him. Sticks for his arms, a top hat for his head and maybe a flower added to his scarf for extra decoration.



I think he came out really cute! Unfortunately, it took multiple cartridges to make him!

1. George Cartridge for the circles
2. Paper Doll Dress Up for the top hat
3. Plantin Schoolbook for the flower
4. Wild Card for the stick arms

Lastly, it was time to figure out what to do with the snowman. I decided to use a simple sentiment "Merry Christmas" from my wild card cartridge, and then dangle silver ornaments using clear fishing string to make them move with the card.

Here is the end result:

I think it came out really cute! I decided to freehand some snow for the bottom, and place the snowman in between the layers of snow to make it look like he was popping out of the card.

If you are interested in purchasing this card, please visit my etsy store:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34956900

Thanks for checking out my snowy Christmas card!
Samantha

On my new laptop, there is a Windows Live Writer, which would make my blogging life easier, so I’m testing it out to see how it will do.

Samantha