Box It Up

Now that I have discovered the world of 3D I can't seem to stop!

I struggled with my pumpkin/Jack o Lantern last week so I figured I would try something easier.

 
This sweet piece of cake comes from the Sweet Tooth boxes cartridge. I ran the icing through my Cuttlebug to give it more of that swirled frosting look. I then embellished it with some flowers cut from the Flower Shoppe cart and some lace and ribbon scraps.

It went together really easy (thank goodness since I had already had enough issues with the pumpkin lol)

But of course, I can't stick to the simple, straight-forward for long lol

I found a box on the CTMH Artiste cartridge. I would say it resembles a mailbox you would find attached to a house....does that make sense? The kind that are rectangle and the top lifts up like a flap.

Ok, I gave up and went and took a picture of it from the assembly manual lol

Anyway, I saw it and thought.....house....selling pumpkins. Yeah, kind of scary how my mind works lol

I had a blast designing this project and had to keep reining myself in otherwise I would have had this thing covered with all kinds of goodies inside and out lol

My plan is to put a little battery operated tea light inside (if I can find someplace in town that sells them!)

So, the basic shape is the above box from Artiste. I then added a door, windows and sign from Sweet Tooth boxes. I welded the window panes to the box base to that the Explore would cut them out. The roof scallops are from Elegant Edges. The tree comes from Pooh and Friends and I pounced on some orange, red and yellow paints to give dimension. The pumpkins are from Happily Ever After. They are plain with no detail at all other than the stems so I drew on lines, shaded with colored pencils and then burnished them from the back to give them a rounded puffiness. The written panel is a rectangle from CTMH Art Philosophy because I wanted the rounded corners. I let the Explore do the writing using the Simple Celebrations font.

There are windows on all four sides and some pumpkins on the back.  :-)

Lastly I ran some jute through the holes in the top and tied it closed. 

I love out it turned out! I can't wait to start decorating for fall and this will definitely go up on my mantel :-)

Hello Jack!

I have been a Cricut user since 2007 (and no I do not need a support group lol)

I have used it to make cards (tons of cards), embellishments and elements for journal pages and ATCS. I have cut vinyl to attach to anything that doesn't move and made some cute cutouts to hang above my work desk to keep me calm and happy at my job.

But for some reason I have never ventured into the world of 3D....until now.

I see so many fabulous projects being shared on the Let's Learn Cricut Explore facebook group and I want to be able to try some of them too. But having never tried 3D paper (except for an off the wall art project in college that didn't quite go as planned) I was very intimidated.

I decided to start with images I own (I will venture into the SVG-cuts.com incredible houses and such one I feel comfortable lol)

So, here is my first project. Be nice lol

 

I struggled with gluing it together when I first started out but got the hang of it by day 2.

To create the pumpkin I used the 'Ornament' from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More 2. The ornament hanger top is actually under his hat. :-)
The hat and faces pieces were all shapes cut from George and Basic Shapes. (I had to hand cut out his teeth though)

I crumpled and scrunched his hat and then swiped distress ink all over it. It looks much darker and more aged in person.

 

As you can see, the ribbon I used was over an inch wide so I folded it in half and then twisted it to create the band. I made a small bow and glued it on. The flowers were cut from the Flower Shoppe cart. The red and rusty looking ones were left as is. The bright orangy one was bright yellow but I didn't like that so I swiped some Barn Door distress ink over it before rolling it into the flower shape.
The vines came from the Thanksgiving cart. They were attached to a central leaf which I had planned on using with the flowers but decided it was too large so I cut off the vines, wrapped them around a pencil to give them more shape and dimension, and tucked them under the flowers and bow.

I am pretty happy with how this first try turned out and have more ideas stirring around my head.

I have never shared any of my project files before but had a couple people on facebook ask me for this so, if you have an Explore, here is the Design Space file for my pumpkin project. :-)

https://us.cricut.com/design/#/canvas/project/19745158



But of course I cannot abandon my card making. :-)

I think I am almost done making Halloween cards.

 

This house if from Autumn Celebrations. The moon comes from October 31st. A pretty basic card but I added the swirled embossing to add some interest.

 

This little owl always makes me smile. She comes from the Create a Critter 2 cartridge. Her perch is from Monster Bash and the text is from CTMH Artbooking.  I embossed the tree with a wood grain embossing folder and then rubbed ink over it.

And my last card for the week is NOT a Halloween card! lol  I needed a birthday card for someone that loves monkeys. I have to say, the faces are not that yellow. They are actually tan. But no matter how much I played around in Photoshop I could not get them to not look yellow (unless I changed all the other colors too)

 

Both of these party animals hail from Create a Critter 2. The vines are from Create a Critter (1) and the Happy Birthday text is from CTMH Artbooking.

And one more thing...

I won the Fantabulous Cricut challenge for last week!  :-D
Here is my winning card. Thank you to the challenge blog. I really appreciate it!!!

I would add the special blinky button showing that I won but my blogger won't let me change anything any more including my header, my background, my guest counter...nothing. Thanks blogger...NOT!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

As I promised :-)

I said yesterday that I would be back with some of the projects I have made over the past couple months....so here I am!  :-)

But first, I completed another entry for the Fantabulous Cricut challenge. I normally do not like the sketch challenges, they seem to hamper my creativity. But for some reason, the one this week has jump started my Halloween card making. You should go check it out here.
 

This is my third and final entry for the week. But I have a feeling that this won't be the last card I make with this sketch.
My frog (or in this case - Toad) is from the Mini Monsters cartridge. The bubbles are from Disney Dreams Come True. The Banner is from Banners (not sure if that is a cartridge or just some digital images) and the text shape is from Close To My Heart Artiste. The stamped quote is also from Close To My Heart. It is C1509 Magic Potions (all of the stamps in this set coordinate with the Artiste cartridge).  I embossed the card with Darice's Dot Background since it is sort of a random, large dot pattern and I thought it would fill in for warts quite nicely. ;-)

I don't think this is exactly what the Picked Toad label meant but I think my Toad is definitely pickled lol

Now for the goodies I have been making over the past few months.

I love the images in the Suburbia and Forever Young carts. Silhouettes that highlight the clothes or items being held. But I am not always thrilled with just a black body with colored clothes. I thought I would play around and make them look more like real people. :-)

Here are the Forever Young cards. I used a newsprint type cardstock for the bodies. I am still on the fence about that but overall am happy with the results.

The honeycomb background is from Close To My Heart Artbooking. All the other images are from Forever Young.

The background on this one is from one of the Paper Lace carts I do believe.

Here I tried out flesh colored card stock (it isn't so orangy colored in person). I had to manually cut out her arms in the dress image so that she was actually holding the cup but I am thrilled with how she turned out. The chair is from Love You a Latte, the woman is from Suburbia.

I have a few more things lying around but thought this was enough for today. :-)
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Hey! Long time no see!

Yeah Yeah, I went missing again! I'm sorry! It is just so hard to find time to blog when I am either working or out of the house. But have no fear, fall is almost here which means more indoor time :-)

That is not to say that I haven't made anything lately. I have made a few things. I just never have time to even take the photos off my camera. I did download them today so hopefully soon I will have a picture heavy post for you but until then...

I just got my Explore back (long story short: it developed a very odd issue and they decided they needed to replace it.). I had a 2 week withdrawal period but am now back in business and wanted to play in this weeks Fantabulous Cricut Challenge.

I have been wanting to start making some Halloween cards and this was the perfect excuse!

I made 3 cards and have not decided which one(s) I want to enter.  :-)
 

For this card I chose the cat from Pumpkin Carvings. The Beware sign is from Autumn Celebrations and the fence comes from Paper doll Dress-up. I duplicated the cat, used the contour feature and removed all the lines so I would have a solid yellow circle for a background.

Here I used the witch from Celebrate with Flourish. The diamond borders are from CTMH Art Philosophy and the Beware with crow (raven?) is from Teresa Collins Chic & Scary.

And finally, the cat face from Autumn Celebrations (I have been dying to use that cat since I got this cartridge last spring!). The Spooky text is from 3 Birds on Parade and the border comes from Paper Lace 2.

Like I said, I am not sure which to enter....you can enter up to 3 and I have an idea with a frog ... lol

Until next time (when I finally get all my summer project posted) Happy Crafting!!!

Tim's Tags and More

Wow! Summer has officially arrived! And I am fighting to find time to spend in my art room. What with gardening and playing outside (and work of course).  But I have managed to grab some time here and there over the past few weeks and have a few things to share today.

Let's start with Tim Holtz' tags of the month. June is a watercolor technique that was sooooo much fun!!!  You can see his instructions and photos on his blog.

I used the Schoolhouse stencil and tried it with a couple different color combinations.

I love the soft, blended look and the green one just screamed summer beach to me. I will probably use the red one for a fall, back-to-school project.

Here is my finished tag.

The girl is from Oxford Impressions, the stamped shell is Inkadinkado, the fish (yes, there is a fish swimming by above her head) is from Tim Holtz. The 'label' was cut and written on the Cricut.

Here is a close up.

Real shells and sea glass are glued at the bottom.
I am entering my tag in the monthly contest on Tim's blog. Wish me luck.  :-)  (and someone remind me to actually go enter....I tend to forget that part lol)

And of course I made a bunch of cards over the past month as well.

I was still in my mood to have the note card slip down into the shape (instead of just a folded card) so I made this typewriter for my mom. She had a typewriter just like this when I was growing up....she got it as a gift when she was in high school.

The typewriter is from Suburbia. The paper was cut in such a way that it cannot be removed from the typewriter. My mom loved it!

My nephew has a birthday coming up very soon. What on earth do you put on a card for a 17 year old boy? Well, I put a car. lol

The car is from Nate's ABCs, the words are from Close To My Heart Artbooking. The card itself is even brighter than the picture. I call it glow-in-the-dark green. This is one really bright card! lol

And since it is summer now and I am wishing that I had a vacation planned (but I don't) I sent myself to the beach via projects.

Here is a cute card I made to try out Cricut's drawing ability. I have written tons of things with it but never let it draw instead of cut an image.

The drawn sandcastle and the crab are from Miss Kate's Cuttables (how can you not love that crab? lol), the Bear with shovel and bucket is from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs. I was very pleased with how well it drew the intricate castle.

I was also in the mood to do a 3D project. I have several carts that make boxes and such but if I don't NEED one then I don't make one....who has room to store all these things??? But I really wanted to make something so I played with the Summer Soirees cartridge and created this.

It is small and cute (from top to bottom it is only 5 inches tall) and the perfect size for one of my bars of soap...so guess how everyone is getting their gift soaps this year?! lol

And then some days I just like to drive myself nuts I guess. Let me just say this. I love the Disney cartridges, I love Disney so being able to produce my favorite characters is wonderful. BUT they have sooooooooooo many pieces that they can be a real challenge.

The front of the card....easy peasy.

The inside..... cut at 2.5 inches, these stripes and such are a pain in the butt to assemble! lol  But isn't he cute?

And lastly, I created a couple hearts for the Heart for Healing project. You can read about it here.

All the parts were cut on the Cricut. The stamps are from Close To My Heart. The bird is from the Fabulous You set #C1533, Believe is from retired set Be Happy #B1298.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. Until next time, happy crafting!!!

Good Morning Summer!

Yes, I know that officially summer doesn't start until June 21 (or something like that) but we all know that in our hearts, summer started yesterday. :-) 

We had a nice, long weekend. Hubby did some work in the yard. I played in my art room. We cooked lots of yummy foods. Overall, a very nice time BUT we both have today off as well so the fun continues! lol

I have been in hyper card mode this past week. I didn't realized that I was until I pulling all the photos for today's post. My My I was a busy girl.  :-)

I needed a Father's Day card for hubby (from the cats). Hey, don't judge me! ;-)

I used Create a Friend for this little fellow. He normally holds a spatula (great for BBQ invitations) but I switched that out for the cat dish from the Meow cartridge. The background is embossed with one of the folders from Cuttlebug's Retro Kitchen set.  I had the Explore write on the apron because it just looked like it needed something.
It is hubby's job to feed the babies their canned food every morning....and they let him know if he is running late. Boy do they let him know! lol

Next I made this little diaper bag card. All the parts come from Doodlecharms (except the tag). I cannot take credit for this design, I found it on Pinterest. You can see it here http://liveloveandscrap.blogspot.com/2010/08/diaper-bag-shape-card.html She has a wonderful tutorial video and she has all the measurements on her blog.
I love that the bear and bottle are removable from the pocket. So cute!

Last Friday, Joann's was having a sale. Cricut cartridges were $19.99. Now I need more cartridges like I need a hole in my head. But c'mon! $19.99! So I picked up Cindly Loo and Birthday Bash. This adorable Snail is from Birthday Bash. The background layers are from Elegant Edges. The pink layer was embossed with Cuttlebug's Musical Flourish. 
I let the Explore write the Hello on the card. How can you not love a machine that 'hand writes' for you? Especially when your hand writing is as bad as mine?! lol

But we are not done yet folks! lol

Saturday we headed out to one of the local strawberry farms. There is nothing like fresh strawberries! These were so sweet and juicy. I could have eaten the entire box....but I didn't lol
Instead I made this card. How can you not smile when you come face to face with a happy bowl of strawberries? The berries come from Simply Charmed. The tablecloth from Elegant Edges. I embossed it with one of the folders from Cuttlebug's Paper Lace set.

Yesterday, in the Let's Learn Cricut Explore facebook group, someone posted a photo of an oven box they had created. It was so adorable! She tried to share the file (you can share your cutting files with the new Design Space---how cool is that???) but I couldn't get her file to cut. I kept getting errors. (she has since fixed her file and I can cut it - woohoo)  But after all that trying, I was really in the mood to make an oven lol  I decided to make an oven card and see if I could add a 'twist'. The oven door really opens! But it also opens in the back as a card as well so I can add sentiments or a message inside. :-)

The stove image is from Suburbia, the pot and pan come from From My Kitchen, the oven mitt and phrase are from Nifty Fifties, the tab that holds the door closed is from Artbooking but I know I have seen them on I think Tags, Bags Boxes and More or Fabulous Finds and the steam coming out of the pot is from a cup of coffee on the Winter Frolic cart. I also welded the steam and a small circle onto the phrase to create the question mark.

I had so much fun designing this card that now my mind is swirling with more ideas for other similar cards.

I sat down late last night (since I didn't have to work today - yay) and created the following card.

Yep, a toaster where the toast comes out. :-)

The toaster is from From My Kitchen, the bread is from Wild Card 2.
My thought was that you could write your message on the part of the toast that is inside the toaster or on the back. This morning I tweeked the design and turned the toast into an actual card you can open. That is what happens when you create way past your bedtime....better ideas come when you are fully awake lol
But, last night I did add a note to the back of my toast. :-)

That is all I have for you today (I am sure you are very thankful for that lol) But I have already designed a refrigerator that I hope to get cut sometime today ;-)

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

I love my playtime!

I still can't believe we are in the middle of May. I swear Christmas was just a couple weeks ago! But I am very thankful the winter weather is gone. :-)

 

 

I have squeezed in lots of play time over the past couple weeks. It is sometimes a struggle to balance life and play but so worth it in the end when I feel happy and have a stack of lovely things to share. :-)

 

 

I'm going to start with my Cricut projects

 

 

Last weekend we were supposed to go to a citywide yard sale. As I have mentioned many times, I love yard sales and flea markets. I love coming home with lots of treasures and art supplies for very little money! But last weekend it was raining so hard that if you were outside more than 10 seconds you were drenched (and freezing cold). So, after attempting a couple houses, I gave up, came home and put a batch of chili in the crockpot.....and created this...

 

Just a little something to remind myself that even rainy days aren't all bad. She comes from the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge.

As we were eating our chili (and homemade cornbread) for dinner, we watched Despicable Me. And I just had to make a Minion card. I found a Minion svg file and downloaded it into the Explore. It cut out great!

According to my Google searches on the Minion language, Bello means Hello.....who knows but it looked cute to me lol

Even though I have already mailed out my Father's day card to my dad, hubby still needed one for his dad. The fishing creel is from Everyday Paper Dolls, the pole and fish are from Outdoor Man.

Yes, I know, you can only catch one fish per line but the card just looked so much better with two. Artistic license lol

Hubby's aunt is turning 90 next month and loves all the cards I make for her (to the point that she carries them around to show all her friends - and yes, she is out and about golfing everyday, lunches, works out at the gym.....I hope I am half as active as she is in my later years!!!). I made this card using Freshly Picked for the potted geraniums and Elegant Edges for the 'tablecloth'. The tag is from Picturesque.

My mother-in-law's birthday is in July and since I was in card making mode I went ahead and made up one for her as well.  I used the brand new Anna Griffin Summer Soiree cartridge for the butterfly card base. The layered butterflies are from Paper Lace.

I managed to find a little bit of stamping time as well.  I love the CTMH Give a Lift balloon set .
I used ultra fine black embossing powder to make the lines really pop. I then tinted it with watercolor pencils. I used distress inks and water to tint the flowers.

The back is blank so I can use it as a gift tag on some future date.

And finally....yes, I am almost done lol  I loved Tim Holtz May 2014 tag. I like them every month but some months call out to me more than others. This is one of those months.

I wanted my tag to be a reflection of things I love. I have a seashell because I would rather be at the beach than any place else. The dragonfly I tangled onto a game tile years ago then tossed it into a drawer because I couldn't decide what to do with it. I love dragonflies, I love zentangles and I collect hundreds of various game tiles for art projects. The postage stamp is there because I snag stamps wherever I can to use in projects of all types. They are such cool little works of art.  I love and collect vintage buttons (I have at least 10 quart mason jars full lol). The moth is rubber stamped, how could I showcase things I love and collect without having something rubber stamped??? As for the brass flower...well, I liked how it curved around the hole in the tag and I have had that thing sitting in my ephemera drawer for at least 20 years and thought it finally needed a home. :-)

And lastly, the debossed word....this is from Tim Holtz new ShadowPress embossing folders. They are so cool!!!
I embossed it on kraft paper as a test to see how it looked figuring I would use a different paper for the actual project then couldn't decide on what paper to use. I let it sit for the night and woke up with what I thought was a great idea...I would antique it! I love antiques!!! It fit perfectly with my theme! I swiped a few strokes of Ceramcoat Alpine over the paper. Once that was dry I applied a coat of Americana's Weathered Wood crackle medium. You have to wait at least 3 hours (so I hit the yard sales for a while) then I made random swipes with Ceramcoat's Ivory over the top making sure to let some of the green and the kraft paper show through. Lastly, once the paint was dry, I rubbed Distress Ink Walnut Stain all over and then buffed off some of it. I love how it turned out!

I hope you all have a very creative week! We have a 3 day weekend coming up. I am hoping to squeeze in a few hours of art time (between all the BBQs and fun) :-)



So many ideas, so little time

I feel like I have been spinning in circles this week. I have so many things I want to do and just can't find the time!

Plus, we are starting the 'busy season' in my family. My parents like all their holidays smacked up together so we have Mother's Day, then dad's birthday, next is Mom's birthday and then Father's Day. That is a lot of shopping and a lot of cards to cram into a 4 week period! lol  To add to that, since they don't live near me, I ship everything together to try to save a little.  Needless to say, I had to get busy finishing up my cards! (Mother's Day is only a week away ya know!)

In case you missed it, here is the birthday card in a box that I made for my mom a couple months ago. (see I really try to not wait until the last second lol)

I had made her a Mother's Day card around the same time but, although I like it, I decided to make another one...yeah I don't understand it either.

The flower pot with flowers is from Freshly Picked, the tag is from Picturesque, the blue thingy is from Elegant Edges. I let the Cricut Explore do the writing on the tag. I embossed the top of the background with the flowers from Cuttlebug's Plum Blossom set. And those are button brads in the centers of the flowers.

 



Making cards for my Mom is so much easier than making cards for my Dad (or for men in general). Why is that?

Over the past week I had to figure out what to make...

My Dad loves his truck....he has so many bells and whistles on that thing! lol
Here is a picture of it.

I tried to recreate it on a card. The 'background' trees and road as well as the truck are from Outdoor Man. The background shape is most likely from Elegant Edges. I used a shiny silver cardstock that was actually packing material from something. It worked great for all that chrome! lol

And then we have Father's Day. I embossed cattails onto the cardstock using Darice's Nature set. The geese are from Outdoor Man. And of course I let the Explore do the writing. Can I just say that I am so happy that the Explore writes! My handwriting is HORRIBLE so now I have nicely written cards! Yay!

And of course we have a graduation in June. My niece is graduating from high school. Poor thing, her school colors are blue and gold (ugh! I am a buckeye...we do NOT do blue and gold!!!) And her gown is going to be that obnoxious gold. Yuk! Hating yellow/gold as I do, I just couldn't put that horrible of a color on the card....sorry lol  I did my best and toned it down to a light yellow which is still sort of bright but not glaringly so. (it is a little brighter in the picture than in person) ;-)

The grad is from Paper Dolls Teen Scene, the numbers are from Art Deco. I swiped the glasses from one of the boys on the cartridge....he was wearing sunglasses in the shape I wanted. I took his sunglasses, welded the lenses to the frames which turned them into glasses. Now she looks just like my niece. You can't really tell in the photo but the shoes and glasses are purple....that girl loves her purple! lol

But I played this week too....sometimes you need to do stuff just for you!

I experimented with stamps and the Cricut. I love stamping but am not always a fan of cutting out my images lol  I stamped my image then filled it in and went a bit outside the lines. I then scanned this and imported it into Design Space. I let Cricut cut it out and then I stamped on the cut.

This is a stamped I carved of Tucker at least 15 years ago....he was going through his chubby period.

I then did the same thing with one of my favorite stamps, a yowling cat from Mars Tokyo.

I need to work on lining up the stamp on the cut but you get the idea.

And finally, I just got an order from Close To My Heart. I am in love with the Balloon Ride paper pack (X7180B) and the Give a Lift stamp set which has 2 gorgeous balloons as well as some sayings and other goodies (D1581)!  The swirls are from the Skylark Scrapbooking Workshop set (D1591). I also added some 'postage' from the retired set Vintage Post Card.

This week looks like it is going to be another busy one....plus I just found out I am going to be a grandmother (we need to find another, not so old sounding, name for that) so that means another card to make :-)

If you are interesting in the Close To My Heart papers and sets I used please check out my website www.CherylWrede.ctmh.com