Creating keeps me sane

I have found that if I am stressed out the best thing to help me relax is to jump into a project. And if I can't get home to my art room? I create in my head....I have assembled so many cards in my head that if I could have actually been making them I could open my own card store lol

I thought that I hadn't really had time to make anything over the last 2 weeks and yet when I downloaded my pictures I found out that I had been busy after all....yay me! And yay you if you like seeing what I have been making. :-)

Hubby wants to start decorating for Halloween so I knew I needed to get this little gem made before he started so I would be sure to have a place to display it.

This is haunted housed from the Elmhurst Hollow set at SVG Cuts.  It is 8 1/4" tall including the little points on top. It looks really complex and yet I put it together in just a couple hours (that is including picking the papers which is always the hardest part!)

It is assembled in 3 sections and has openings in the back so you can add battery operated tea lights.
You can see in the photo that I added embossing to the chimney and window boards.
I also rubbed distress inks over all the corners and edges to give it more of a dark look but that doesn't really seem to show up much in the pictures.

A couple weeks ago my friend Helen told me if I made one of the SVG Cuts haunted houses that she wanted to see the ghost of a woman peering out of one of the windows.

I stamped this Stamp Clinic image of a Victorian era cleaning woman, on the back of the vellum, using ink that was almost the exact same peachy color as my vellum. When the house is not lit it is very difficult to see her. She really shows up when the candles are glowing....just as any good ghost should. :-)

I think I am becoming addicted to SVG Cuts designs. They are just soooo cool!
This box card is from their latest set Autumn Box Cards. It can be an invitation, place card, greeting card or just a cute decoration. And the file comes with an envelope for mailing this gorgeous card!

I love all the little details like the trim on the plate and pitcher, the layers on the pumpkins, even the battenburg lace on the sides!

I embossed the top layer of the pumpkins slightly so they would have a bit of roundedness (is that even a word? lol) and look a little more 3D.

I had so much fun digging through my papers for this one as these are some of my favorite colors to craft with. :-D

I told you I actually made stuff these past two weeks! lol

I found a couple glass blocks at a yard sale this past summer. $1 each! I couldn't pass them up....but also couldn't decide on what I wanted to put on them. (one of them is still sitting in the garage waiting for inspiration)

I finally decided I wanted to create a fall scene on one so that I could leave it out from September through November.

I frosted the front and back panels using Amour Etch so that the lights wouldn't be glaring when I turned it on.

Here it is unlit so that you can see the details.
The tree is from the October 31st cartridge. I think that is probably the coolest tree image I have! I just love it!!!
The fence, which is actually 2 of the image welded together, is from Happy Hauntings.
The pumpkin comes from Close To My Heart Artbooking.
And the leaves are from Disney Mickey and Friends, Disney Dreams Come True and Close To My Heart Artiste.

I had originally planned to use colored vinyl so that it would look colorful when not lit but went for the silhouette effect instead as I think it is more striking.

And here it is lit with orange mini lights.

Notice the diffused light because of the frosting. It creates a soft glow in the corner of my living room.

I have other blocks I use at Christmas that we have to put in strange places because the glare is so annoying. Guess what I will be doing once I unpack all the Christmas stuff this year?! lol

And lastly, I finally got a chance to try out my new Close To My Heart Artfully Sent cartridge.

 It was just released a couple weeks ago. It is totally geared toward card making so if that is what you like to do, you should check it out.
It has the bases for 5 different card types, Scenes, Pop-ups, Sentiments (which is what the one above is), Sleeve and Pocket cards.

And they are so versatile! My card originally said "Dream" and it was cut out of the base piece. I removed that and had the Explore 'write' Happy Thanksgiving. BTW this card is made with only 2 pieces of paper. The red is red on the front and brown on the back. The little frame is cut from the red piece and how you fold it creates the brown frame. Then you have the cream inside panel with the writing. It is very cool and yet goes together in just a couple minutes.

If you are interested in this cartridge you can check out the link above or click here.
The kit includes the cartridge with over 700 images, 3 exclusive coordinating stamp sets and a full package of White Daisy cardstock!

Happy Crafting!

I am soooo ready for it to be fall already!!!

I am loving these chilly nights. The temperatures dipping down into the low 50s. Windows open all night. Burrowing down into the blankets and feeling all warm and snuggly. Struggling to make yourself climb out of your warm cocoon every morning to go to work.

But what is up with it going clear up into triple digits in the day time?!!!

I love fall! It is my favorite season. But it needs to just get here already!!!  I do not like how Mother Nature toys with us. Teasing us with these lovely, cool nights just to harass us with these sweltering days.

But I guess I should stop and savor what we have because soon it will be winter and we will all be begging for this hot days again. lol

I really did pop on here today to share my latest project (not just to complain about the weather haha)

If you have been here before you know that I just recently began making 3D projects with my Cricut. I bought my first Cricut in 2007....what on earth took me soooooo long to get into 3D???  Well I will tell you.....the projects just look very intimidating!  But it turns out they really aren't!. Wish someone had told me that years ago! lol

And do you know which projects look the MOST intimidating? The ones from SVG Cuts! They have these amazing houses and boxes and teapots and typewriters and ...  You look at them and your brain says No Way! How on earth do you take simple cardstock and turn it into THAT???

Well they had a big sale for Labor Day and since I had just started 3D and found out that it wasn't as tough as I thought, I took the plunge and bought a few of their kits.

I took yesterday off from work (no not just to play although that is what I ended up doing all day lol) and decided it was time to start a project from one of the sets I had purchased. :-)

I wanted to make something fairly simple since I wasn't sure how easy their pieces might go together and didn't want to waste paper (cause with my lifetime stash heaven forbid I waste a sheet or two! lol)

I picked the Keeper's House from the Seaside set. You can view it here. Hubby and I love lighthouses so that was a natural choice for one of the sets I bought. But I also saw so much potential for the house for any season or holiday.

Today it is no longer a Keeper's House but an Autumn Cottage.

I dove into my stash and found some warm colored papers and cardstocks (that took about an hour! lol) I then loaded my mats and cut everything out and assembled the pieces. I did take about a 20 minute break at some point but from start (picking papers) to finish I think it only took me about 2 1/2 hours. I was not rushing, I had the video on to be sure I was doing things correctly. And it went together even easier than I expected.

Oh, did you know that SVG Cuts has videos showing you step by step how to assemble their projects? How cool is that?!

So here is my house.

Cute isn't it? No clue where the papers came from. I haven't bought printed cardstock in years and then usually from the clearance section after every season lol

But you know I couldn't stop at this point. Now comes the really fun part! Embellishing!!!!!

I added a climbing vines adorned with red, orange and yellow roses. The vines are from the free Creativebug files on Design Space. I had never even heard of it before! But it popped up on my search for vines so either it has always been there and I never noticed or is just free for the week. Either way it was exactly what I needed.  The roses are from Flower Shoppe.
And of course I added pumpkins. The left one is from Disney's Happily Ever After. The one on the right comes from Close To My Heart Artbooking.
Tucker always loved pumpkins so I thought he would like to be included. The cat image is from the Pet Shop cartridge and I colored it to look like Tucker using Prismacolor pencils.
The fence corners are from Picturesque. I think next time I will make them slightly bigger.
The door knob is a brad from BoBunny from the Bugs & Hisses ICandy brads set that I bought at least 5 years ago....probably more lol

This is the left side of the house. Kitty insisted that if I included Tucker that he wanted to be there too. :-)
He is also from the Pet Shop cartridge.
His set of 3 pumpkins is a single image from the Pooh and Friends cartridge.

Here is the right side....and of course Minnie said "Me too" lol
She comes from the Meow cartridge and her pumpkin is from the Thanksgiving cartridge (minus the vines that come on that image).

And finally the back. I think I need something more on the wall but haven't decided what yet. Maybe a window frame? Just to fill the blank space.
Again, more of the pumpkins used on the other sides.
And a tree from Create a Critter. I scored the trunk and folded it so that the tree could be glued to the corner of the house. I think I should have done some shading on the large leaf mass (I did shade the individual leaves but it doesn't show very well in the photo) but I like the effect of the tree on the corner.

Here is a close-up of a couple of my pumpkins. I shade them first with Prismacolor pencils. I then score the lines in the pumpkin from the front using a small stylus. I then flip them over and emboss them with a larger stylus to give them a rounded, 3D effect.

Here is a close-up of Tucker. I still miss that little guy. Smartest little cat I ever met and the best friend I ever had.

Here is Kitty. He really has 1 yellow and one gold eye and is a big fluff ball lol
He is almost 19 years old and still going strong. :-)

And my baby girl, Minnie. She poses like this when she wants to be petted....up on tip-toes, back arched. Cracks me up every time.  :-)
For some reason I forgot to paint her white chin and chest....oops. Sorry Minnie.

And finally, another cool feature. Because this is a box (the roof lifts off) you can put in a battery operated tea light! Isn't that awesome? I had it lit all evening and the lights flickered softly in the windows made me wish I lived there all warm and cozy and ready for fall. :-)

Thank you for stopping by and if you made it this far....I'm sorry. I sure was extremely wording this week wasn't I? LOL 

Have a wonderful, craft filled week! :-)

I am done with Halloween!

Ok, not really. But I am done with making Halloween cards. I have been making a card whenever an idea came to mind. The other night I pulled them all out and counted, I have 11 Halloween cards! My list of people that I wanted to send them to was only 6! lol 

Here are cards 9, 10 and 11  haha

All of the primary images came from the cartridge A Frightful Affair.

I love this cat under the street lamp. I just think it is so cool. The green background is from Elegant Edges. The text is from A Frightful Affair.

I love to cook so no way could I pass up this image lol
Again, the background image is from Elegant Edges and embossed with Anna Griffin's Fluted Damask Cuttlebug folder. The spider web border comes from the CTMH Artbooking cartridge.

I wanted it to look like her cauldron was bubbling over so I added blobs of Crystal Lacquer. It looks sort of milking in spots because it wasn't quite dry when I took the picture. It dries totally clear which makes it great for adding cool effects like dew drops on flower petals. (or bubbles in cauldrons)
If you notice, the 'bubbles' on the top have a yellow/orange tint. This is because the Crystal Lacquer is reflecting the orange base layer of the image cuts. Makes for a cool/icky looking brew lol

And finally, what party is complete without a diva? Here is Mrs. Frankenstein modeling her gorgeous gown and striking (heehee) new hairdo.  :-)
The orange background is from Elegant Edges and embossed with Anna Griffin's Crowned Medallion Cuttlebug folder. The spider web frame comes from CTMH Artbooking.

I love this card! I never thought of making an elegant Halloween card before but that is how it looks to me. I am seriously considering keeping this one for myself lol

And of course, I have more birthdays in the near future so I got busy getting some of those cards completed.

I wanted to try out the sunburst technique I am seeing everyone doing lately. Here is a great tutorial if you want to try it yourself.

My friend Crystal was born on Halloween. I usually make a Halloween themed card for her but not this year (although the stamp set I used it basically a Halloween set).
I created the sunburst following the instructions from the tutorial. But I needed a larger card base to fit in my stamped images. You can't tell but my sunburst stops over an inch above the bottom of the card lol

The oval was cut from the George and Basic Shapes cartridge.
The owl is from the CTMH stamp of the month set for August 2014 called What a Hoot S1408. He was colored with Prismacolor pencils, all his parts glued together and then added to the card with foam tape to give him some height.
I stamped the Happy Birthday on a hand cut strip of paper. It comes from the Joyful Birthday stamp set B1419.

I have no idea where I got the cardstock I used for the base. I think it was in one of those jumbo value packs you find around the holidays. It has a metallic sheen to it. (I have it in this teal, a burgundy and  gunmetal blue/black....the Explore does NOT like them lol)

And last, a birthday card for my father in law. He carves decoys so hubby wanted a decoy on the card. The duck is from the Outdoor Man cartridge. The Happy Birthday, heat embossed in gold, is from the Joyful Birthday stamp set.

Since I don't need any more Halloween cards I guess I better get busy on Thanksgiving! :-D

Have a wonderful week everyone. Thank you for dropping by!

I am so glad Autumn is almost here

For me, Autumn starts the day after Labor Day. Schools are back in session, trees are beginning to change colors and temperatures are beginning to drop (slightly).

I love this time of year!

I have been designing projects in the Cricut Design Space but haven't really had a whole lot of time to actually make them. At the rate I am going I will be lucky if I get caught up by Christmas. Speaking of which, I have Christmas card designs already swirling around my head!

I will share the few things I did get assembled this week.

I love yard sales! I am always looking for antiques or things I can use in my projects. Well this past weekend I found this awesome jar! I have found these before (and grab them if the price is right). I use them to hold wooden spools, buttons, balls of ribbon....whatever I need to stuff into a container lol  But this is the first time I have found one with a rubber gasket so that it is air tight! I have been wanting one to hold my flour (we are coming into prime baking season ya know!!!)

I used navy blue vinyl from Cricut.com. The text is from either Creative Memories Storks Delivery or from Close To My Heart Artbooking. (hubby and I were going back and forth on which one to use....he wanted one, I wanted the other and I can't remember which one we finally agreed on!)

I am still making Halloween cards but I have slowed down a bit. I only made one this week (but still have ideas for a couple more).

This little trick or treater comes from 3 Birds on Parade. I think that cartridge is just adorable!
The moon is from Pooh and Friends. I did some tweaking and removed some of the cutouts on it. His little treat bag was originally plain but I welded the face onto it. Sorry, I don't remember what cartridge it is from but any jack o lantern face will do.  I also removed the text "Boo" and had the Explore type the new text for me.

Like I said, only 1 Halloween card this week. But my sister in law has a birthday coming up (in mid November) so I created a card for her.

I wanted something simple yet elegant. The bird cage is from Straight From the Nest. The background shape with cutout swirls comes from Elegant Edges. The banner is from CTMH Artiste and was plain and only a single layer so I duplicated it and increased the blue one slightly to use it as a bottom layer. I then welded the swirls from CTMH Artbooking so that they were cut out of the white layer. I made the matching envelope using the We R Memory Keepers envelope punch board.

And lastly, I took today off....because a 3 day weekend just didn't seem long enough...and I made this.

I call it a hunting cabin. My plan was to make this little box, add a couple embellishments and use it as a gift box for my father in law's birthday. But.....I went crazy adding goodies and I don't think I will be able to part with it lol

The box itself is the same one I used last week from CTMH Artiste.
The door and window came off of a house on Kate's ABCs.
The duck and the kettle are from Outdoor Man.
I as for the 'Gone Fishin' sign. It was a sign with 2 boards on it. I did the hide contour feature and only kept one and then had the Explore write on it. It comes from Outdoor Man as well.
The roof was just strips of black cardstock that I embossed with Darice's Woodgrain folder and then rubbed with a white ink pad to show the embossing.
And I used chalks to give the illusion of a log cabin.

It looks like the resident didn't finish his chores before he took off fishing. Notice the woodpile and ax propped against the wall. :-)
The logs are from Create a Critter, the ax is from Outdoor Man (have you noticed A LOT of the items came from Outdoor Man? lol)
The grass behind the logs (and on the other sides of the box) comes from CTMH Artbooking.

This guy must be quite the outdoors man. Look at that deer head mounted on the wall as well as his snowshoes propped against the cabin.

The deer is from Outdoor Man, the snowshoes from Campin' Critters.

And look, he has a visitor! What can I say, I live in Bigfoot country lol

The fence comes from Mini Monsters, the coonskin cap hanging on the post is from Suburbia.
And bigfoot hails from Campin' Critters.

I had so much fun designing this one! And I have to say, even though it has a lot of elements, none of them contained a lot of pieces so it went together pretty quickly.

Yeah, I am 99% sure that the father in law is never gonna see this lol

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week!

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!!!