Congratulations! (Whovian-style...)

Hi All! Happy Friday!!

I thought I'd pop in and share a card I made for my very Whovian daughter's 8th grade Graduation. What's a Whovian you ask? It's a dedicated fan of all things Dr. Who. My girl is definitely a Whovian. She has her favorite Doctor, her favorite sidekick, her own Tardis lego set, and even an anthology of Dr. Who stories. So when it came time to make a card for her, what's a mom to do? Create a Tardis of course....

So I started with this card from the Close To My Heart Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge:

This card was created by the crazy-talented Brenda Rose of Rose Blossom Legacies.
You definitely want to follow her blog for all kinds of crafty inspiration!

I used the Cricut Design app on my iPad to cut, weld, and otherwise manipulate the image until I came up with something more like a police box than a phone booth. I had originally planned to cut the titles out of the card but my blade wasn't sharp enough to make the cuts, so I improvised using a silver pen. The sentiments are from Close To My Heart's Smarty Pants stamp set, and are stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. 

Here are some close-ups of the outside:

And here's a look at the inside:

The quote is by River Song, one of my daughter's favorite characters who has a rather complicated relationship with the Doctor. I thought about printing it on my laser printer and foiling it with my Minc, but I decided it had a little more meaning written in my own handwriting.

And there you have it! I'm hoping that with school out, my son (the Tech Geek) and I can work on filming some tutorials. This will most definitely be one. :)

Have a wonderfully creative weekend!

CTMH Cricut Artfully Sent Collection	CTMH Smarty Pants Stamp Set	Memento Tuxedo Black Ink	CTMH Sapphire Cardstock
CTMH White Daisy Cardstock	CTMH Black Cardstock

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A Christmas Mini (part 1)

Hi All! As promised yesterday, we're back to take a look at the inner pages of the Christmas Mini Album. Today we will be looking at the first 2 pages of the album. All of the pages were cut at 10 inches using the Cricut Artbooking cartridge by Close To My Heart. (By the way, you can find these pages on the "o" and "p" keys.) Let's take a look:

The first page is cut from Frosted Grey cardstock (available exclusively in Close To My Heart's Frosted  paper pack). This page is actually a full size page (roughly 10 x 8 inches) with "december" cut on the edge. However, I cut it down to allow the "december" cut to be protected by the covers (which are 2 full size pages). I inked around the page in Saddle Exclusive ink and added a strip of Frosted paper for photos and/or journaling. To make it more interesting (and to bling it up a bit), I popped up a snowflake from the Frosted Stickease assortment and added a light blue sparkle to the middle. A strip of Silver Shimmer Trim and part of a zip strip from Frosted finish the page off nicely.

For the back of the page, I added another zip strip from Frosted and layered two 3 x 4 inch photo folders on top. Each folder is cut at 3 x 8 inches and folded in half. I rounded the corners and inked the edges with Saddle Exclusive ink. And voilà, room for 6 pictures on one undercut page. :-)

The second page is full sized and cut from Kraft cardstock. It's the most basic page in the album. To dress it up, I cut an overlay from Frosted paper and adhered it to the base page. I added two 3 x 4 inch photo mats (also from Frosted), and cut this cute little reindeer from tan glitter paper. (Love the glitter paper!) I inked around the edges of the base page and photo mats with Saddle Exclusive ink. Here's a close-up of the reindeer:

Cute, huh?

I kept the back of the page very simple. I like to journal directly onto Kraft cardstock, so I just added a couple of photo mats. "merry & bright" is the title cut for this album, so I left my Cricut at 10 inches and it was perfectly sized. Here's a close-up:

The cute little bird on the "t" is from the Frosted Stickease assortment.

And so there you have the first two pages of the mini. Thanks so much for stopping by! Tune in tomorrow to see more of the album.

12 Days of Christmas: Day 5

Hi All! Happy Wednesday and DAY 5 of the Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share. Sorry for the late post, but I finished a project yesterday and decided I wanted to use it today instead of the post I already had. So, I'm changing it up a bit. 

Today's project was inspired by this little treat bag by the very talented Lisa Stenz. I thought the bag was a bit too small for cookies and fudge (the standard teachers' holiday gift at our house), so I created this box instead.

 Using Close To My Heart's Artiste Cricut Cartridge, I cut the box at 5 inches from Cranberry and Black cardstocks. I used the "Happy Holidays" sentiment from the Merry & Bright stamp set, and stamped it in black Stāz-On ink. I added a strip of White Daisy for button plaque, and cut out a heart to make the collar. (I have a punch for that, but you could use the Cricut. You'll want to cut it at about 1 1/4 inches.) After adhering the heart, I trimmed the edges to match the contour of the box. For the belt, I cut the buckle at 1 inch from Slate cardstock using the CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge and then threaded a 5/8-inch wide strip of Black cardstock through. I glued the belt into place and then added the black button brads, spaced evenly between the collar and the belt. I folded everything on the score lines and adhered it with extra strong adhesive. Using Cranberry and Black Exclusive inks, I inked around the edges to cover up any white core that might be showing at the folds and seams. After it was all put together, I added silver stickles (you could use Silver Glitz instead), and let it dry.

Here's a close-up:

What do you think? I thought they came out pretty nifty. I made one for each of my daughter's teachers. (My son has 8 teachers this year. We're still trying to figure out what to do for them.)

I decided to link this up to the challenge over at Cut It Up. (There's some fantastic inspiration over there!) Don't forget to leave a comment below to be entered in the give-away! Now hop on over and visit the fabulously talented Lynn Darda at From My Bungalow to see the wonderful project she has in store.

Kraft-y Hearts' October Blog Share (Day 3)

Celebrating the October Stamp Of The Month by Close To My Heart

Hi Friends! It's Day 3 of our Kraft-y Hearts' Blog Share. I hope you have been inspired to go out and create beautiful things!

Today's project is my favorite of the 3, I think. Again, it would make a nice gift for a hostess or a teacher, or just a friend who could use some extra Christmas tags. (And really, who couldn't? I'm forever running out of tags this time of year!)

This little tag wallet measures 4x3 inches when it's closed and 4x12 inches opened. The base is Colonial White cardstock topped with patterned paper from the Pear & Partridge paper pack. But my favorite thing about this little wallet is the belly band. The band itself is a 1x8-inch strip of Cocoa cardstock. I then added this cute little flower I created using the CTMH Art Philosophy Cartridge. (Don't worry, Artiste gets used in this project, too!) To make the flower, I cut "flower 7" (p. 39) 5 times  in graduating sizes at 1/4-inch increments (from 1 to 2 inches) using Cranberry cardstock. I inked the edges of each layer with Ruby pigment ink to hide the white core. I also used my bone folder to add score lines to the back of each layer and then inked the raised edges in Ruby pigment ink to give the flower more dimension. I curled the petals under  before stacking them together, rotating each layer so that it was slightly off-centered from the one beneath it. I then cut 3 leaves (2 at 1 3/4-inches and 1 at 1 1/4-inches) using the "petal 2" cut (p. 59). The leaves are cut from Olive cardstock and inked with Olive pigment ink. (The mini pigment pads are perfect for inking around the edges of small motifs!) I layered the leaves and attached them to the back of the flower. I then attached the whole thing to the belly band. (When you do this, make sure there is no adhesive on the flower that will attach it to the wallet. As you can see in the photo below, it will tear the paper!) I then used Opaques Pearl Adhesive Gems to add a center to the flower and attached a Colonial White cardstock tag that was cut at 1 3/4-inches using the Artiste cartridge (p. 37). I stamped A Very Merry Christmas on the tag using Cranberry Exclusive ink and edged it in Cocoa pigment ink. 

Here's what the wallet looks like when you open it up:

The library pockets are from the Artiste cartridge (p. 47), and are cut at 3 inches from Pear & Partridge paper. They are perfect for holding the little tags. The tags are cut from Colonial White cardstock using the measurements given on the Very Merry Christmas stamp set. To save time, I used the auto fill feature on my Cricut and had it cut as many of each tag as it could on one sheet of paper. This gives you a lot of tags to work with! The Christmas tree tag to the far right is stamped in Olive and Cranberry Exclusive inks. The other three shapes are stamped with those two and Chocolate Exclusive inks. (For some reason, I didn't like the Christmas tree stamped in Chocolate. You might though!) The two tags on the right are cut with holes in the top. For the two on the left, I added holes with my Crop-a-dile. I was planning to add gold thread, but am out of it. (ugh!) So that will have to wait. I'll be making another one of these using Kraft cardstock and bakers twine. Can't wait to see how it turns out! 

Here is a picture of the tags in their pockets:

I hope you enjoyed the blog share this month. Don't forget to stop by the Bungalow for beautiful inspiration from Lynn!