World Card Making Day - and My Craft Spot Design Team Call!

I read on the Cricut Blog that tomorrow (Saturday) is World Card Making Day.  They are hosting a challenge to celebrate the occasion and I just had to participate!  

My very talented blogging friend, Jayne, of Jayne Designs, recently created a fabulous candle birthday card using the Wrap It Up cartridge.  You can see her original HERE.  Norma at Pink Bling Crafter also liked the idea so much that she made a candle card, too.  You can see Norma's card HERE.  I was also completely smitten by the card and I decided to try my own take on the design as well.

I created the card by welding two images of candle shape from Wrap It Up on my Gypsy.  (I flipped one of the images.)  I then cut the image again from some patterned cardstock.  I also cut the flame from coloured cardstock.  The bottom layer of the frame was run through the Cuttlebug using my Textured Script folder.  I welded a "1" charm from George and Basic Shapes to "today" letters from Tear Drop.  I added some crinkle ribbon from My Craft Spot, some gold fibre threads and made a little flower by layering some punched flowers from EK Success and adding a tiny bead and Glossy Accents to the middle.  I learned this flower technique from Nadia at With Glittering Eyes.  You can see her tutorial HERE.

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I also have VERY exciting news for you!  Kimberly at My Craft Spot is having a Design Team Call!  There are four openings available!  (Don't worry - I'm delighted to still be part of the team and will continue to showcase the fabulous products from My Craft Spot.)  If you'd like to try out for the team, please link up your project by October 10.  Here are the requirements:

1. Your project must be new for this design team call. 
2. You can't be currently serving on a design team that sells products similar to those of My Craft Spot (stamp sets and crinkle ribbon).
3. You must have a blog that you update regularly. 
4. No design team experience necessary!  :) 
5. You must be able to commit to a 6 month term. 
6. With the project you are submitting, please post on your blog:
• more pictures of your project
• instructions telling how you made your project (recipe)
• a link back to My Craft Spot to let everyone know you are trying out for this design team!

To try out for the My Craft Spot Design Team, link up your project HERE. 

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Crazy Little Thing Called Love - a layout

I've spent a huge chunk of the day working with my daughter as she finished up a culminating task for one of her courses.  She had to prepare a scrapbook of information, so I've been helping her cut titles for the various pages.  Tomorrow, we'll add a few more cuts to embellish some of the pages.  It's been fun for both of us!

I also worked on this layout for the challenge at Serenity Scrappers where we were to create a layout with red and gold and also incorporate three brads.  I have had the basic layout designed for a few days - but without a title.  It changed too many times to count.  This morning, though, I woke up singing Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love and knew that was the title for my layout!

This layout really was a challenge for me.  I seldom do layouts and wasn't happy with the different ideas I had for using the brads.  Finally, the little Stampin' Up tag in the bottom corner, on which I wrote the date, seemed to work just right.

I used George and Basic Shapes for the large circle.  Most of the title was created with Tear Drop, using real size.  "Love" was cut with Create a Critter.  I also punched out a few more hearts and did some embossing with my Cuttlebug.

I've not been able to get to many blogs over the past couple of days but hope to find some time in the next day or two to do some visiting!!

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Animal ATCs and a Set of Thank You Cards

I love to participate in the ATC swaps on the Cricut Message Board.  It's such a wonderful way to learn new ideas and techniques.  I keep an album of my ATCs (and the ones I have received) as a reference tool.

I just finished a number of sets with an animal theme.  Here are my cards:

Group 1A: Butterflies
The butterfly is from Paper Pups and the scallop circle and circle frame are from Mini Monograms.  I used Cuttlebug folders on the circle frame and the background.

Group 2: Birds

The clouds are from Paper Pups (stickled) and the birds are digistamps from Tortagialla, coloured in Paint.  I used thick thread for the feathers.  I embossed the background with a Cuttlebug border folder.

Group 3:  Zoo Animals

I cut this giraffe from Create a Critter and embossed the background paper with a Cuttlebug folder.  I used stickles for the giraffe's eyes.

Group 4: Farm Animals

(E.B. White's Charlotte's Web was a favourite growing up.  I still own my tear-stained copy!!)  The image is computer generated and I cut the corner from Jasmine, which I then embossed with a portion of a 2x2 folder.

I also created this set of thank you notes for Serenity Scrapper's Quotes and Notes week.  The ladybird image is cut at 3" from Nursery Rhymes and the little frame was manipulated for size and then cut from Ashlyn's Alphabet.  I used my new gel pen set and holder (from Chomas Creations) to draw Thanks, using the font from Tear Drop.  Again, I had to manipulate the size in Design Studio.  I used smaller pop dots for the sentiment frame and larger ones for the ladybirds.

Amy Chomas has a video tutorial on using the gel pens and holder on her blog.  You can access the video here.

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Graduation Card

I made this card for a friend of mine who will graduate from a Biotechnology Forensics program next week (BTF for short). I'm so proud of her. She worked for years as an electrician, but injury disabled her with respect to her profession so she decided to go back to school.

The "Congrats" with hat is a word art image from Tear Drop.  I used Pooh Font for BTF, but stretched the letters in Design Studio.  The corners were done with Jasmine.  I used Cuttlebug folders to emboss the letters for BTF and the corners.  If I made this card again, I would have chosen embossing folders that complemented each other a bit better than the ones I chose here.  I'm not happy with that aspect of the card.  I also added a brad and some threads for the tassel, and some gems on the corners.

This week at Cricut Cardz Challenge we were asked to use brads or eyelets on our creations.  Dads and Grads is the theme at The Cuttlebug Spot.  I'll post this card at both of those challenges.

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