Tasty and Functional

I have been very busy making lots of cards and layouts so I thought it was time for a change. I found this great craft on the Cricut Message boards and had to use it. These are clothes pin magnets topped with fruit from the Preserves Cartridge and matching recipe cards.

I actually have 3 sets of these, this is just the green fruit, there is also a red one and a variety fruit set. I like the green one because it is my favorite color and all the fruits look really great, such a variety on this cartridge.

Obviously one of the apples, there are five different apples on this cartridge, each with it's own distinct design, great for any fruit related project.

One Great Kiwi, which is alot of work with all those seeds, but looks really great.

And a great pear, this is one of four pears on this cartridge and they are all very cool. You might be able to see the dots all over the fruit, I am limited to what I brought to Russia and can't get anymore papers and so on, so I had a great Close to my Heart background stamp and watermark stamped each layer of the cuts. Yes, it was a lot of work but it looks so much better than plain cardstock don't you think?

Finished off with matching Recipe cards, each design on the card was masked using the negative cutout from the fruit, a kind of stencil in with green ink, then topped off with a great flourish stamp from Close to my Heart. They are really cute and useful, I am hoping that they will make a great gift!

Provincale Fair Flair

Just a quick little post about this card, I finally made a layout and a card using the Provincale Fair paper line from Tinkering Ink. I have been holding on to this paper for about 3 years and was not sure what I was going to do with it. It ended up making the most beautiful layout and I was amazed by this little card. I am totally in love with the line drawn flower and painstakingly cut as many as I could out of one of the sheets. Then another paper had this great huge swirl across it, which made me fall even harder. So with the last cut flower and a small piece of patterned paper I created, what I think, is a beautiful card. Just pretty enough for any deserving person.

Even though it didn't really need it, I added some bling to my card, I had some dark blue Gemstones from Close to my Heart and sprinkled this card with them.

Then I added a great stamped 'Happy Birthday' in Outdoor Denim courtesy of Close to my heart and added some subtle touches like die cut flourish from the Elegant Edges Cricut Cartridge. I am falling again for this card and am happy that Plan A is taking effect, to use up my current stock of scrapbook supplies before I go home to Canada...I am well on my way!

Birthday Bash of a Card

I had gotten the Birthday Bash Cricut Cartridge before we left for Russia, so I had had some time to play with the cartridge. I would cut some words here and there, as we have seen in a previous post, but it was time to really dive into the full potential of this cartridge. I am only showing you the card today, but, I had also made a layout using this Imaginisce paper called All Kinds of Happy. With the leftover paper I made this fun card, good for boy or girl, with the cute dog in the party hat.

After I pieces the dog together, I thought, 'How Plain.' and leaving my Cuttlebug back home in Canada I had to improvise, so out came the stickles! The paper already had little shots of glitter everywhere...I was just improving the overall look of it! Pop that dog on a handstand up with 3D foam tape and we had the start of an awesome card.

To finish it off, I wanted the card to stay gender neutral, so ribbon was out. The coordinating pink dots was the back of another paper in that line and top it all off with a trio of buttons.

Let's not forget the inside of the card, this cartridge features a phrase function and it is awesome for all the words that say Celebrate! I choose the party hat to go with my dog and the little 'to' just cut right along with the phrase. As my Daughter would say 'Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!'

A 'Bliss'ful Layout

Yesterday I caught up on my picture taking...I had sooo many layouts and cards that needed to be photographed that it took me most of the afternoon. But, now caught up, I have a load of pictures to post for you!!! I decided to start with a layout, lately while perusing the blogosphere, I realized that there seems to be a shortage of layouts posted. I still love to use Close to my Heart Scrapbook Layouts, they are clear and I DO always get a great layout, I am no longer a consultant but still love all things Close to my Heart. This layout is all CTMH except 6 little buttons and Tattered Angles Glimmer Mist.

A really sweet layout for either a B/W baby photos or Wedding pictures, it is dreamy and soft, perfect for those pictures. I did lots of different techniques on these pages,

I tried to layer lots, so I first took CTMH new Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge and cut a large Medallion, then I used that medallion as a mask for both pages, layering Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist, Coffee Shop/Creme de Chocolat/Pearl over the mask.

I used the same on a Tattered Angels Flourish Mask on a photo mat, punched my scalloped strips with a Martha Stewart punch, Inked all edges, added CTMH crochet ribbon and generic buttons, but it still needed something...

So I cut up the mask I used and used the pieces to embellish this great layout. I am not sure if I should classify this as Shabby Chic or Romantic, but I love this layout and will use my Cricut to make many more masks!!!!

Peachs' Art

March is here are we are ready for all our snow to melt...we have not been able to get out the back door of our house since last year. I know that was only three months ago but I am ready for a warmer change. I had a great coffee with some of the other expat wives here is Sakhalin and the day before I was looking at the spot between 2 light sconces where a previous Happy Birthday banner was hanging and decided that it is too open a space to have nothing in it, so the question is what do you do? Do you change it with the seasons? Do you find some art or make some? Do you leave it blank so it can stare at you day in and day out? While we were living in Denver I had a collage frame and wooden 'P' hanging on the wall, I really loved the 'P' but it did not make it in the shipment, I assume that it is in storage? Not quite Sure...So my solution was to whip up this peachy sign with my Cricut, something to fill the space and to bring more personality to our home, which till now has been kinda boring with out the Christmas stuff around.

I broke out my brand new Sophisticated by Teresa Collins cartridge out and cut out Font 2 with shadow to complete my wall art. I cut the shadows first as I have made the mistake before of cutting the regular font out as large as it will cut and then the shadow feature won't cut because the font is too big.

In this cartridge is also a welded 'The' which came in very handy that I didn't have to piece that together. I did have to use different patterned paper as I was running low on my other paper.

I added this key to the bottom, it is not completed yet but I will be putting an 'est. 2004' on the line of the key as soon as I get my new gypsy, so I can weld the words together. I used subdued metallic paper for the key from DCWV and 3D foam taped everything to get the dimension I was looking for.

This font is really awesome because it has this great scroll in the letters, one of that ladies at the coffee morning commented that it looked like wrought iron, which is a huge compliment as I decorated the house with wrought iron and it doesn't break when being moved 30, 000 miles away. The paper was all Close to my Heart, a discontinued paper pack called Silhouette, still one of the prettiest I think.

Do you see the great scroll in the 'P'! Even my husband was happy and impressed when he came home later that night, if he likes it then I hit a home run! Love to hear your thoughts,