Summer has to be my least favorite season. Yes, we have flowers but they come with pollen! And we have vegetable gardens, which I love, but they are a lot of work and mine did not grow well at all this year. And the heat! Yuk!
I am an Autumn person. I love the weather, the colors and the PUMPKINS! I am anxiously awaiting fall!!! :-)
I didn't have a whole lot of crafting time this week but what I did have I made the most of...
Last Saturday evening, while hubby was grilling dinner, I wanted to see if I could whip up a little something.
I grabbed my Simply Charmed cartridge and some scrap paper and made this little guy. He is cut at 2 1/2 inches and shaded with chalks.
And since hubby wasn't quite ready to serve dinner, I headed back into my play art room and made him a tag to live on. This was cut from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More at 3 1/2 inches and 'aged' with distress inks. I typed up the text with Word and cut it with decorative scissors.
Isn't he cute? I am thinking I might send it to my mom to use as a bookmark as she randomly tells me she is craving a cupcake.....although looking at one all the time might not help that problem lol
Sunday morning as hubby was cooking breakfast (no he doesn't do all the cooking lol) I stamped this fellow from the Happy Fall Y'all Stampin' Up set, colored him with Prismacolor pencils and then inked up the 6" tag with distress inks.
I had to wait until later in the week before I had time to work on this again.
I ran the tag through my Cuttlebug using Tim Holtz Texture Fades folder called Sheet Music. I then rubbed distress ink on the embossing to make it show up more. And finally mounted the tag on some paper that looked like peeling paint.
A couple days later I headed back to my Cricut. :-) I was in the mood to make an ATC. I used Create a Critter for the adorable panda and stamped the bamboo with a stamp from VivaLasVegas Stamps.
And finally, this morning, I made my Thanksgiving cards! I told you I made the most of what little time I had lol
This dapper turkey also comes from the Create A Critter cartridge cut at 2 inches. He is shaded with chalks and mounted on a background that I embossed with Cuttlebug's Autumn Type folder. The 'gobble' was resized a bit in the Cricut Craft Room before cutting.
Just another little project that I threw together one evening.....Hubby saw me browsing through the Teddy Bear Parade leaflet and thought I needed to make a bear with a camera. There is a bear on that cartridge that has a camera but he is dressed for a Hawaiian vacation. I mixed and matched the clothes (a great feature about this cartridge), switching out his shirt for a plain one, adding a baseball cap and glasses. Now he looks just like my hubby....who collects and restores vintage cameras and is NEVER seen without a baseball cap lol
I hope you all have a wonderful week!
I am already thinking about Christmas cards!!!! And Pumpkins! lol
Boy what a week! The longest 5 (but felt like 15) days I have had in a long time!!! Yuk!
Needless to say, although I wanted to get in my art room and play, that just didn't happen.
And then today, hubby wakes me up at 5:30am!!! He had to go to work and I guess felt like if he had to be up so did I.
Once he left for work (at 6:45) I got busy.
I had been wanting to make a little card for a dear friend that I haven't talked to in several months. Just a little 'how ya doin' card.
Here is what I came up with.
The phone is on the From My Kitchen cartridge. I love all the retro items on that cart!
The background shape is from Pink Journey.
I used my art chalks to give a bit more depth to the phone and then mounted it at an angle for a couple reasons...
1. if stripes are even slightly off the phone at an angle will counter balance that and make those wonky stripes not so noticeable (but I think mine stripes are straight!!!)
2. placing the phone on a angle makes it more playful and fun ;-)
I got this done so early that I was able to get it out in the mailbox hours before the carrier came so it is already on it's way across the country. Yay!
I am still waiting on a couple new cartridges to arrive so I haven't decided exactly what I want to do for my Thanksgiving cards yet. Hopefully my new carts will arrive this week. Fingers crossed!
Ok, so I am a little early lol
Yesterday I was in the mood to create! Since this mood has been MIA for a while, I happily jumped at the inspiration.
I made my Halloween cards! Yes, it is early but usually I wait until the last minute and then don't have enough time so this is a welcome change. Let's just hope I don't misplace them before October (if you could see my art room you would know that this is a distinct possibility!!! lol)
As I stated in my last post, my Cricut has come out of retirement and is hard at work :-)
Normally when I make cards they are the traditional rectangles with images/photos. But the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge is perfect for making die-cut cards. It actually has a 'card' button (but I didn't use that feature because for this image it would have joined her on the left side and cut off her tail). I cut out the base image and all the layers and then cut out a 'blackout' image in the same size to use for the card back. Doesn't she make a cute Halloween cat? Her treat bag is from the Paper Dolls Dress-up cartridge.
I shaded her lollypop (or at least I think that is what it is supposed to be) and her treat bag with Distress Inks just to give them a bit of dimension.
In this view you can see more of the back of the card. Plus, she stands up for cute display! :-)
I want to thank Jill for her kind comments on my last post. You are so right about the catch-22. It is hard to create when you are stressed but makes you feel so much better if you do! Yesterday flew by as I played with images and cuts and just let myself have fun.
Now on to Thanksgiving!!! :-D
Between work being very stressful and home being very stressful, my creativity has gone right out the window.
To tell you how bad it really is, I spend most of my free time playing a game called Animal Crossing: New Leaf. That imaginary world is so much nicer than my real world right now that it has become a relaxing escape.
But, I think there is hope on the horizon! I am in the mood to make some holiday cards....Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas! I am just trying to gather ideas and supplies before I dive in.
As I have been doing that gathering, I drug out my Cricut. I think it is such a fun tool! I tend to neglect it for long bouts (much like this blog) but when I do return to it, I play with it for several weeks (keep your fingers crossed that I do that same with the blog lol)
Did you know that college football season starts next month?! Yep! And to honor my alma mater, yesterday I created some tags.....1 for me, 1 for my sister who is a HUGE fan! :-) Go Bucks!!!
I used the Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge and cut the dolls at 3.5 inches. They are mounted on 6.25" tall tags. For the background I used images of a Buckeye helmet with the buckeye leaf stickers and some buckeyes for the bottom. The text was added with Photoshop Elements using Yearbook font.
But I am not done with my Cricut yet.....
Today is Tucker's birthday. He would have been 21.
I wanted to play around with coloring my cuts with chalks and thought, what better subject than my sweet baby.
This cat image is from the Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge as well.....this is a really awesome cartridge jam packed with tons of cool stuff! He was cut at 3.25 inches using just a plain white index card. I then colored him with Rembrandt soft pastels. His nose and eyes are cut out. I lost the eyes (they were so teeny they just blew away) but managed to save the nose and painted it pink with acrylic paint.
I mounted him on a blue shape cut from the free Basics cartridge you receive when you download the Cricut Craft Room software. The text is cut from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. It is all mounted on a cream rustic deckle cut postcard I think I got from California Paper Goods years ago. (the black is just a background I used for the photo so it would show up better but I am thinking I may need to mount this on black cardstock)
Hopefully I won't be gone for so long next time. Especially since I really am trying to get all my cards started right now :-)
Until next time.....Happy Summer!
