Zebra Card

A few weeks ago, I was asked to make a card for a little girl at our church.  The card was from her teacher, saying goodbye as she transitioned into another class at church.  Here's what I came up with.

I used the zebra and wording from Create A Critter.  This sentiment normally comes with a balloon behind the "4", but I cut that off and put a flower in it's place.

I added stitching for accent and put the zebra on with foam dots to make it stand out.  The ric rac (isn't that what it's called??) is felt and I got it after Halloween on clearance last year.  I don't have any of the cut sizes on this one because my Gypsy froze and didn't save my work as I was cutting.

That's all for today folks!  This isn't my normal style of card, but I was trying to make it appealing to a 9 year old girl.  Hopefully she liked it.

Blessings,

Cheryl

Interested??

I'm sure some you already know, but I just found out that Saturday is World Card Making Day! I’m behind the times here! Anyway, I wanted to do some fun things on the blog to celebrate and for one of them, I’d like your help. I would love to share cards from some of my followers during our celebration. If you’d like to have your card featured here on Saturday, please email your name, website/blog (if you have one) and a picture of the card you’d like featured to blondiee975@gmail.com. I will randomly choose several of you and share your creations. I love drawing inspiration from other crafters and can’t wait to see what you share!


Blessings,

Simply Charmed - Week 4

So today is my last day to explore Simply Charmed, and I must say, I'm relieved.  I had a really hard time with these projects.  As I mentioned before, I've just been hitting a wall when I sit down to work on a project and this was no exception.  Then, of course, I couldn't get a good picture of this card no matter how many I took or how I changed the lighting.  So irritating!!!  Anyway, here's what I have to share with you today.

In person, this paper has soft greens and coral-ish pinks (I know, that's not a real word!).  But in the pics, it just looks harsh.  Oh well!  I used Simply Charmed for the flower and cut it at 3.5".  The paper came from a stack by KI Memories. 

The stamp is from the dollar bin at Walmart - I love this stamp!  I added a flower button with some white twine tied through it.  I purposely frayed the twine, but it's hard to see with the reflection.

Here's what I did for the inside of the card.  I think a card is so much better if the inside matches the outside.  I must admit, I don't always take time to jazz up the inside, but I like them much better when I do.  Do you jazz up the inside of your cards?  If so, how?

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  It was great to share with you all!  I feel like my "crafty mojo" is coming back slowly, so I hope to have alot more to share with you soon.

Blessings,
Cheryl

Winner!!

Woo hoo!  I'm here to announce the winner of the birthday drawing. I had issues with Blogger last night so I couldn't post it until today.  The winner, by random draw is....

Chris (C.A.R.) said...

I'm very thankful that God's plan for me is so much better than what I had "planned" for myself. (I had my first child at 36, second at 38 and just had my third at 41. - Age is just a number.) So happy to hear you're excited about your birthday. Enjoy it to the fullest. Happy birthday Cheryl!

Congrats Chris!  You won a Cricut cartridge!  =)  Since it's a birthday surprise, I won't tell you which one.  Please respond to my email with your contact info and I'll get it shipped this week.

Blessings,

Cheryl



Aloha!

Aloha!  Happy Monday to you all!  I have a different project to share with you today.  My sister-in-law threw a Hawaiian themed wedding shower over the weekend.  They asked everyone to bring gift cards in lieu of gifts and she asked me to make a card box to sit on the table.  I wasn't sure what to make it look like, so I just guessed!  Here's what I came up with....

I had forgotten to take a picture until I was on my way out the door with this, so please ignore the dirty cutting mat and messy desk behind it!  I used Life's A Beach for all the cuts.  I covered the box with blue paper for the sky, then added the sand and the water.  I used the font from this cart for the words.  Since there's no shadow feature, I just layered the different colors on the letters.

I added the trees, birds and a cute little crab.  It's hard to tell in the pic, but I covered the crab with glossy accents to make his shell shiny.

On the other side, I added some flip flops.  I was really debating on whether I should add more to the front??  I didn't want overkill, but it also seemed a little plain to me.

This is one side of the box.  I thought this hula girl was super cute, but too big to put on the front with the wording.

Here's the other side of the box.  I added some cute little animals to this side.  I was going to go back and add more details, but I just ran out of time because some things came up while I was working on it.  Hopefully this worked for her.  I was unable to attend the shower because of a previous commitment, so I wasn't able to see if it went well with the other decor.  I had no idea how to make a "card box" or what it should look like, so I was totally flying blind on this one.

Blessings,

Cheryl

Simple Cards

As I mentioned previously, I finally broke down and bought Elegant Edges over the weekend.  I only had a few minutes to use it the night I bought it, but wanted to try out some of the cuts, so I made the following cards.

As I said this is SUPER simple.  I cut the scallop shape from my newest love, Elegant Edges.  I cut the base and shadow in white and just layered them. 

I stamped the sentiment (Hero Arts, I think...) and put on with foam tape for dimension.  I actually went back later and added some blink and inking, but don't have a picture of that.

For the next card, I cut the border from Elegant Edges.  I had no plan for either of these, but was itching to use this cart the night I brought it home, so I just played around for a few minutes before bed.

I used the border feature for this cut.  The paper and stamp are from the dollar bin at Walmart. 

I added a button with some twine tied through it because the red looked sorta plain.

Don't forget, I'm having a giveaway this week.  You can view the post here.  Since I will be super busy tomorrow, I have decided to extend the deadline to Sunday, so you have a few more days if you haven't entered yet.  I will draw a winner on Monday.

I am working on several cards using this fabulous new cartridge, so I'll share those soon, hopefully.  I have you all have a blessed and fabulous weekend!

Blessings,
Cheryl

Good Morning!  I wanted to start off today by saying thanks so much to all of you for your kind words and birthday wishes.  I feel so blessed to have gotten to know some of you through email and I love, love, love hearing from you! 

I have a project to share with you from this month's highlighted cartridge, Simply Charmed.  This should have been posted yesterday, but I was off celebrating my birthday with a horrible dinner at Applebee's.  No joke!  You know those dinners where everything is bad?  That was it.  My husband was really upset because he felt like my birthday dinner was ruined, but we had a nice time together, so it was fine.  I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat, and they have this Chicken Fajita Roll Up that I love there, so we went.  To summarize - Our waiter pulled a great disappearing act for the entire meal (no drink refills, napkins, etc), they left the sauce and onions off my hubbies sliders (only meat and bread!!), they left the dipping sauce off my meal (my favorite part) and then we couldn't find him for the check and sat forever just waiting on him to appear.  On top of all this, our food took forever to come out and was soggy like it had been sitting in the kitchen under a warming light for a long time.  The best part of my meal was my Dr. Pepper (which never got refilled).  Honest.  Ok, I'm done griping.  Onto the card... 

I have a disclaimer - I am not loving this card.  I know I'm always super critical of my work, but this one is just...lacking.  I decided to go ahead and share with you because, well, I spent a long time on it and why not?  =)  I know you all are so kind you'll love me anyway, right?  In spite of a rough looking card?  I don't hate it, but I don't love it either.  Anyway, here it is.

I think these little Russian doll cuts are super cute.  I don't find many situations where they apply, so I have to use them on generic cards when I cut them.  The doll is cut at 3.5".  The card is 4"x9" to fit into a #10 envelope.

The sentiment is stamp from the new dollar bins at Walmart.  They have some pretty cute stamps, if you can find them.  Our is always sold out, so I got lucky on this one.

I added the cute little doll with foam dots for dimension.

Thanks for checking out my project today.  I have to share my excitement with you - I finally got Elegant Edges!  Yippee Skippy!  I have looked for that cart forever at a reasonable price.  I am working on some projects now using that cart, so I'll start sharing soon.  I am falling in the love with it quickly - it has some great cuts!  Have a fabulous Wednesday!!

Useful Gypsy Information

Wow. This is my second post of the day. I'm just full of hot air, aren't I? Don't answer that! 

I wanted to share some information that some of you might find useful. If you frequent the Cricut website, you may have noticed that the Cricut Craft Room is live and ready to use now. I have been really excited about trying this out, so I was thrilled when I discovered this on Friday. I needed to do a project using Life's A Beach, so I borrowed it from my friend. Of course, I can't load it on my Gypsy, so I was going to have to cut the old fashioned way (which is unheard of in this house since Gypsy came along). Since the Craft Room was ready to use, I decided to use it with my friend's cartridge over the weekend. It's really nice because it offers the ability to do many things like Gypsy and/or Design Studio and it's all saved in your online account. I created all my cuts and hooked it up to my Cricut. It then prompted me to do a firmware update on my Cricut. BAD IDEA! Long story short, everything worked fine until I disconnected from Craft Room and went back to make some stuff with my Gypsy. I plugged in my Gypsy and got an error when I hit the cut button. It was telling me my Gypsy needed to be updated and may not cut properly. I had just updated my G and it was current.

So, I called PC today. They told me that they are just discovering (a little too late, in my humble opinion) that the firmware update for Craft Room isn't compatible with Gypsy. And I had to download a trial version of DS to get the firmware back to the correct version (on my Cricut) so it would cut properly with Gypsy. The customer service rep from PC was super nice and helpful and now Gypsy is back to normal.

I wanted to pass this along so none of you run into this. She told me you'll have to choose - Craft Room or Gypsy - but not both. I am a Cricut addict and love their products, but feel this was poor planning on their part. I have several friends that I have swapped cartridges with over the years, and the thought of being able to use them with Craft Room is really appealing to me since it offers welding, hide/contour, etc. Sadly, my experience with Craft Room was bittersweet. It was great to be able to use it in that way when I couldn't use Gypsy, but not worth the hassle with the firmware issues. Hopefully this will help some of you not make this same mistake!

Blessings,
Cheryl