Clean & Simple Challenge #185

I ended up joining some challenge sites lately to get some extra inspiration. One of them was Clean & Simple, no prizes but fun layouts, all cards so that should get me back up to my old stock level of cards as our Happy Hobby craft show wiped me out. This is the sketch:

A simple sketch but with endless possibilities, if you want to see what others have made with this sketch you can go HERE!

This is my version I put my self under the wire to make this card so with a little help from my cricut and Graphically Speaking cartridge I think it came together. I also have limited ribbon here and had to choose colors that went with my ribbon.

And of course the inside of the card can not be naked so with the leftover papers I put the rest of the sentiment on the inside!

Floral Tapestry Class

Finally ready to get back in the swing of things, after the great Happy Hobby Craft Fair, many ladies here in Yuzhno have signed up for my email list promoting classes in one craft or another, first class is from my favorite, scrapbooking,

What a great way to display pictures of your vacation, wedding, baby or life in general. This layout is about one of the most monumental days a kid can have, first day of school. Seeing as how the Yuzhno scrap booking stores are less than impressive and more expensive than my first born, I am providing all basic materials for this class, yes I still have a bunch of paper from when I was a Close to my Heart Consultant so as long as a dedicated few ladies want to learn, I have the materials. I have chosen a discontinued paper pack called Floral Tapestry, mostly because I want spring to be here, it is mid-April and there is still lots of snow on the ground but the temperatures are rising, we had to dig out the bikes this last weekend. The Layout was chosen with great care to incorporate different size pictures and/or use pictures printed with all the same size, I steered to my Magic book by Jeanette Lynton, which has awesome scrapbook recipes in it. I decided to pre-cut all the paper for this layout with minimal variations between the kits. Each person will get a 'kit' with the paper, cardstock, and any other extra pieces that are needed for this project.

We will also use Close to my Heart's Bohemian Alphabet for our titles, and all ink, blocks and stamps are shared. The other fun thing with this particular paper pack is that it originally came with multiple sheets of 'My Stickease' that coordinate with the paper pack, you can see some sticker photo turns at the top, near the title and in the next close up are some fun circles.

Lately, after I complete a layout I have been making a card or two with the leftover scraps, none is made as of yet BUT soon I will have a great little card for a birthday or something. Also the current embellishments on this page aren't quite what I like to put on my page, but they are the perfect simple accents for begginners which is what most of the class will be, so I plan on pumping up the embellishments to my satifaction, I am thinking of posting a before and after shot to see the difference. What do you think?

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!!!!