Cricut New home canvas and Papertrey Ink card

Hello everyone,

Its a strange sort of day today. I'm really enjoying the autumn sunshine after the dreadful summer we have had and we are going to have our first barbecue of the year tonight! Before then we are off to the Lowry Theatre with members of our choir to sing Christmas Carols for the publicity launch of their Christmas production of Scrooge. Hmmm Carols and funny hats in the current temperature seems so odd! I suppose that if I were in Australia, this would be a common experience.

Anyway, I think I mentioned that my daughter moved to a new flat last weekend and I just want to share the card I sent her and a little gift I made for her kitchen wall. Laura received some pretty housewarming kitchen gifts with a pretty design.

Whilst I was helping her unpack, I appropriated the packaging the items came in to see if I could make a coordinating canvas for the wall. Papertrey Ink have a challenge this week to make chipboard shapes out of thinner pieces of  piled up card and this gave me the idea of what to do.

I took an 8 x 8 inch canvas and used Papertrey Fresh snow Ink and and some pink ink to create a soft kind of marbled background. The gifts have a folk art type heart image on them so I used my Cricut to cut the large hearts and the message from pink card, and I then cut multiple smaller shape hearts out of scrap card and stacked them with the top piece being cut from the packaging.

click to enlarge

I made the little flower in the same way, but offset the base pink hearts to give some definition, and arranged them in a flower shape

I was quite pleased with how this turned out.

I had already sent a new home card which I made with PTI Love Lives Here stamps and dies.

I'm off  to have lunch in the garden whilst it is still so lovely, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut Back to school card/ Old Stash challenge

Hello everyone,

I hope you have all had a good weekend and are easing into the new week. We have had a lovely, if busy weekend seeing friends and family and I don't seem to have had a lot of down time recently. However, I did find time to play with my Cricut again and I managed to weld some words using Design Studio so I'm quite chuffed with myself. I know people who are adept at DS or have a Gypsy will be singularly unimpressed with this feat, but for some reason I struggle with DS and could really do with some training in how to use it. The Cricut-360-challenge , the 2 sisters challenge  , the bitten by the bug 2 and die cuttin divas challenge this week is to do a Back to School project so I made a card and bookmark for my daughter who teaches and will be going back to school next week.

For the card, I started with a cream card base and punched out lots of dots to stick on to make a polka dot edge to the card. I then cut a clipboard from Fabulous Finds  and cut it again in silver card to make the metal look bulldog clip. Next came the word welding from Plantin Schoolbook and a little ric rac decoration emphasised the words. The pencil stamp was from Papertrey Ink and the gingham ribbon finished it off.

The bookmark was an elongated tag from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More, decorated with some more of the ric rac from Plantin Schoolbook. I cut the book from Paper Doll Dress Up but it had the word 'spells' cut into it, so I cut another front for it by hand and added an apple on the front as it is for a teacher..

 The bookplate was cut from Fabulous Finds and the Let me save your spot stamp is also from Papertrey Ink.

As all the materials used were old items from my stash, this duo also qualifies for my August Use Old Stash Challenge.

Thanks for looking and I hope you have a great week.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut New Home card

Hello everyone,

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I had a cooking mood yesterday when I made our Christmas cake in an attempt to get organised early for Christmas. It may seem very early but I like to feed it regularly with some brandy so it is really moist when the time comes to decorate it. I also made a few pots of plum jam when a kind friend gave us a bag of plums from his tree. I used a recipe from Sensational Preserves by Hilaire Walden that Ann recommended on her blog a while back and it is a really good book that has lots of information for beginners like me and plenty of inspiration for old hands. It also has lots of recipes that use the preserves but I haven't got that far yet.

I had a play with my Cricut this morning and came up with a card for the Cricut 360 challenge which has a theme of the Old West this week. I'm so pleased to have found a Cricut challenge blog because I don't make enough use of my Cricut and having a go at this challenge will help me get to know the machine and explore the content of my cartridges. I came up with this card

click to enlarge

and I had a lot of fun putting it together. I used Paper Doll Dress up for the Indian girl, grass and tepee, Beyond Birthdays for the sentiment and Zooballo for the clouds. The birds are from a stamp in my stash that I think is an Inkylicious design.

We are still waiting for our Papertrey Ink order that is taking ages this time but hopefully it will arrive this week. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and thanks for looking in.

Hugs
Carol x

Cricut Birthday Card

Hello everyone,

Its the start of a new weekend already and I don't know where the last week went to! I've just popped on to post a card I made with my trusty Cricut.

click to enlarge

I used the Just Because Cards cartridge for the panels and the cake and Christmas Noel for the candle. I also used a couple of Papertrey Ink dies and stamps (Tiny Tags and Birthday Basics) and glittered up the top of the cake to resemble frosting. I double cut the ribbon tail and tiny tag in pink a brown to add a little interest and I'm sure those little tags are making their way onto my cards when I'm not looking - I love them so much I can't seem to leave them alone.

I've never entered a Cricut challenge before but I've just discovered  Cricut 360 Challenge Blog and I'm going to try entering this card. The theme is 'something refreshing' and I'm always refreshed by cake so I hope it qualifies!

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Hugs
Carol x

Cricut Birthday card for Make it Monday challenge

Hello everyone,

Yay its Friday and the start of another weekend. I've got a busy one lined up with my choir singing in a concert tonight and friends for dinner tomorrow night so I don't think I'll have much time for crafting. As I said in my last post, I'm having problems with my craft mojo at present so I thought I'd try to do a card for Papertrey Ink Make it Monday challenge. The challenge this week is to stamp using re inkers rather than stamp pads and as I only own 2 re inkers (fresh snow and simply chartreuse),  my choices were rather limited. As I was going to stamp onto white card, the white ink wouldn't show up so I decided to try marbling the ink on some fun foam to get a two tone effect which is easier to see if you click on the photo to enlarge it.

I used my Cricut to cut a couple of mats with the Just Because Cards cartridge

and used a focal mat for the sentiment from Think Big Favourites 2 and the 3 little dots stamp from Out of This World. The star tag was cut from the Tiny Tags die in black and white and the sentiment was from Enjoy the Ride.

The butterfly was again cut in black and white from a Nestabilities die and as I had a lot of ink left on the fun foam, I stencilled through the die to pick up the butterfly details. I also used the fun foam to colour some white ribbon

to thread through the buttons and this was such an easy way to do it that I will try it again. When I have used stamp pads for this, the foam has often come out of the box and I've had to mess around with glue to stick it back in.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to use more colours but when PTI launch the new inks, I'll invest in some more.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut birthday card and May Old Stash Challenge

Hello everyone,

Yay its Friday and the start of another weekend! I'm going to a guitar recital tonight and we have friends coming for dinner tomorrow so I thought I'd get a card up here before it all gets too busy. Regular visitors will know that one of my New Year Resolutions was to use up more of my old stash and I challenged myself to do a card a month only using old stuff and this is the May offering:-)

I used a white card base and some PM Venetian Skies design paper with Coredinations card layered to the side after being sanded on the edges. I then cut the cupcake from Cricut Wildcard cartridge ( love this and have used it a lot). This time I cut the cake wrapper in some coordinating card and, although it is hard to see it in the photograph, I tried to shape it to give some dimension,

before adding glitter for the frosting. I coloured the candle flame with Copics. The top sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse Frame it and the bottom one is from Papertrey Ink Signature Greetings - I really like mixing sentiments up in this way.

If you too are trying to use up old stash, do please send me a link so can hop over to see it.

Well I better get a move on so I hope you have a great weekend and thanks for looking in.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut birthday card

Hello everyone,

I hope you are having a good week and have enjoyed all the good weather we have been having. I've thoroughly enjoyed all the recent Bank Holidays and seeing friends and family, but I have to admit that I'm glad to get back to normal and get some crafting time in. I spent some time playing with my Cricut yesterday and wanted to try making a shaped card using Design Studio. I've had CDS for ages but I've had a lot of trouble getting the hang of it, so I decided to bite the bullet and just learn to flip, rotate and weld to make this card:-

I used the Just Because Cards cartridge and cut the dog card out at 5 inches. When I scored and folded it, she stood very well although she is only joined at the head. Of course a Scottie dog has to have some plaid on her person - that must be mandatory, right? But I didn't have any plaid background paper in my stash so I used a Waltzing Mouse stamp from the Off Beat Backgrounds set to make a little bit of my own for his coat and collar:-

I used some Papertrey Ink dies to cut out a heart shape to be his little coat and added a sentiment. I recently saw someone somewhere (sorry I can't remember or I would credit it) add a puppy to a dog card and it gave me the idea to cut a smaller dog and attach him to his Mummy

I did this by folding some acetate which I adhered to the pup and then cut a slit in the Mummy and fed the acetate through. This means that the card can be pushed together to fit in an envelope. I cut the collar and name tag, added googly eyes and some glossy accents to give them both a healthy damp nose

and they turned out better that I anticipated.

I'm going to enter this in the Make it Monday linky party where anything goes, Ann's Creative Nook anything goes with animals and

the Fab n Funky challenge which is not to use bought backing papers.

Thanks for looking.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut gift bag and Waltzing Mouse Easter card

Hello everyone,



Its the 17th of April so its time for the Waltzing Mouse Blog Waltz although hop might be a better term this month because everyone is thinking Easter and that makes you think of bunnies right? Anyway do take time to hop round all the players in this months waltz and you're sure to find lots of inspiration.

My contributions for this month are:-

As its Easter I chose a yellow card base and stamped the rectangle frame from Frame It and placed the Happy Easter in the gap. I then stamped the pedestal basket from Spring Baskets in Versamark and embossed it in white before colouring it with a brown Copic marker. Next the daffodils were stamped, coloured and cut out to place in the basket. I used a score board to emboss a frame around the stamped frame to give a little more texture, tied some ribbon and mounted the panel onto the card base. Another sentiment and a corner embellishment finished it off.

I decided to make some gift baskets to hold some little chocolates for the Easter table and I used my Cricut to cut out the bags, panels and tags and used WM Spring Baskets for the focal points.

The bag and tags were cut with Bags, Tags, Boxes and More and the panels and chicks were from Just Because cards.

and here is one with the Easter card I posted some days ago. The colours do not match but they are not meant to go together. I've just discovered that these offerings will fit in the Get Creative April 1st challenge and the ABC DT challenge

All this thinking of bags for choccies is giving me the munchies so roll on Easter Sunday!

Thanks for stopping by.
Hugs
Carol x

Cricut Easter card

Hello everyone,

I hope you are enjoying the weekend and finding some time to get inky. We are having gorgeous springtime weather in Manchester and people are really friendly when they pass you in the street. Have you noticed how sunshine cheers people up? It certainly makes me feel happy.

I've been making some Easter cards and I'd like to share one that I made with my Cricut machine.

I cut the card base in cream card from the Wildcard cartridge. I love the cut of this pretty card with the unusual folds and delicate edging. I then matted some layers in Hawaiian shores and aqua mist and used a punch to nip out the corners. Next came a basket stamped on cream card from Waltzing Mouse stamps

which I coloured with Copic markers and mounted onto the panel. The cute little chicks came from Just because cards and I cut them at 2 1/4 inches. I flipped one so they could cuddle up to each other, added some eyes with pen and chalked some rosy cheeks on them. The sentiment also came from Waltzing Mouse and I finished the card off with a little white ribbon that I coloured with a Copic marker so it would match the basket.

Thanks for looking in and for all the lovely comments you have been leaving. I really do appreciate them - in fact they make my day.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut scottie doggy dotty birthday card

Hello everyone,

Wow its been a hectic week for me with my daughter's birthday celebrations and other commitments, so I haven't been able to sit and craft until today. As I hadn't used my Cricut in a while, I pulled out Just Because Cards because I hadn't used it yet, and whipped up a quick birthday card with the lovely Scottie Dog image.

I cut 2 panels of paper and embossed the red one with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and stamped the black one with Papertrey Ink Polka Dots Basic stamps in white ink. The sentiment was made up using PTI Birthday Bash and Signature Greetings, stamped on a Nestabilities Labels 4 panel. The collar and doggy tag was made with some flower trim and gold metallic card. I stuck on a wobbly eye and used Glossy Accents to give him a healthy wet nose, and tied the label on with dotty ribbon.

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

Hello everyone,

                                                                        

                                            

I've had a great time away with my daughter, but before I went, I made a card for this months PTI Blog Hop. The challenge this time was to use scallops in a design and I wanted to try a card with contrasting texture. This is what I came up with:-

I used my Cricut to cut a heart shape out of Enchanted Evening card stock and cut scallops from a Stampin Up punch, a Martha Steward punch and from Plantin Schoolbook, which I then passed through the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder for some texture. I layered these up with some bobbly white trim from my stash, and then used a sentiment from Signature Greetings, embossed in white on the left corner of the heart. I used another piece of card for the Anniversary tag and scalloped and inked the edges, before sticking it to the right side of the heart. I then rounded the edges of the base card and inked the edges to soften things a little, and put some ruffled white ribbon across the centre. The heart was then raised on pop dots and adhered to the card with a little white button to finish it off. This is the first time I have used three different trims on  one card but I think it works!

There were so many entries in the last blog hop that I didn't manage to see them all, so I better get hopping to see all the wonderful inspiration everyone gives. Happy hopping! I'm also going to enter this card into CCEE Stampers challenge to use blues to make a monochromatic card.

Hugs

Carol x

Valentine cards

Hello everyone and Happy Valentine's Day. I have been spoiled rotten all weekend by my lovely husband and he cooked a wonderful romantic meal for us on Saturday night. I would like to share some of the Valentine cards I have made this year, some to send and some for daughters' school to sell.

First up is a non traditional Valentine card with what I hope is a masculine feel in spite of the flowers:-

I used my Cricut Wild Card cartridge for this one which has a funky wonky card shape. I used some stamps from my stash and stamped and embossed them in black, and finished it off with a splash of red for the sentiment and little red heart gems.

The next one also used the Cricut for cutting out the heart shapes:-

This is a variation of a card I showed you in a previous post using up Christmas paper, but this time I put the heart shape onto a traditional card shape and used a lovely vintage collage stamp on the little hearts. The pattern was stamped with the PTI set Background basics Hearts.

The next one is a simple card

I used up some of my background paper and used the lovely collage stamp in Versamark ink on the little hearts and then tied one up in ribbon.

The last card used a Cuttlebug folder

I like this quick and simple design and have used it several times for different occasions. This time I used a PTI mat stack die and a stamp from the Round and Round set along with one of the free tag stamps from the anniversary celebrations. I used a sentiment from a Hero Arts Happy Everything set and attached it with a brad.

Wow that ended up being a longer post than I anticipated so thanks for stopping by. Wishing you cards, or flowers, or chocolate, or wine, or a romantic dinner, or all of them if you have THE ULTIMATE perfect partner!

Hugs

Carol x

Waltzing Mouse and Cricut Easter card

Hello everyone,

Happy Friday to you at the start of another weekend. Over at Waltzing Mouse Stamps they are having a challenge to CASE a card that was made by one of their Design Team for their Spellbinder Grand Calibur event. I decided to case this card by Lynn Mercurio:-

As you know if you look in on my blog, I am resolved this year to use up more of my supplies before I buy any more and so I am trying to make much more use of my Cricut. I used to always think of using my Cricut cartridges for the focal point of my card, but lately I've become more interested in mixing things up a bit and using stamps alongside my Cricut cuts. I decided to try it out on this card, and I have to say I'm not very sure about it, but here goes:-

I turned the card on its side but otherwise kept to Lynn's design. I used a white base card and a mat of pearlised lilac card. Its a little hard to see in the photograph but I then added a layer of white card with patterned lilac leaves on it. Then out came my Cricut and I cut the flower borders from Paper Doll Dress up and used a hole punch to create the flower centres. The centre frame was cut with Accent Essentials and raised on foam pads. The stamps I used were all from WM and the frame came from Frame It, the basket, eggs and sentiment were from Spring Baskets and the little flourish was from Fancy Phrases. I stamped the eggs onto white card, coloured them with Copics and cut them out before placing them in the basket. Everything was stamped with Versamark and embossed with white embossing powder I finished it off with some shiny satin ribbon for the bow. Let me know what you think.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut New Home card

Hello everyone,

Welcome to my blog at the start of another weekend. I'm going out to eat with my husband and daughter tonight, and have the rest of the family coming round on Sunday, so I'm looking forward to a first catch up since Christmas. A friend of the family has just moved house so I created this card to send her using my Cricut:-



click to enlarge

I used Beyond Birthdays for the house and car, Plantin Schoolbook for the flowers and letters on the banner, and Wild Card for the 'for your new home', but I cut off the 'for your' part. I used  Papertrey Ink 'Its a Celebration' set for the banner and cut out a shadow by hand, and added some jewels give a little bling. I only attached the the flower border at the base, so it gives a feeling of the flowers moving and I  used an orange glaze pen for the centres of some of the flowers. I enjoy mixing up the cartridges and adding some stamping to cards for a mixed media effect.

I hope you have a great weekend, and I'd like to thank everyone who has left lovely messages on my blog recently. I really appreciate that you take the time to visit and leave comments - it makes my day!

Hugs
Carol x

Cricut children's card for the Old Stash Challenge!

Hello everyone,

Its a lovely sunny day here in Manchester and its a wonderful change from the gray, damp days we've been having recently. I find January and February depressing months and long to jump straight to spring, but days like this are good and remind me that spring is not too far away.

The resolution I mentioned in my last post is still strong and I have created the first card for my 'Use Up Old Stash Challenge'

For this card I used bits of card from my remnants drawer and dug out one of my old favourite Cricut cartridges, Walk in My garden. I also used Plantin Schoolbook for the birthday letters and the grass border. I used white gel pen to faux stitch on 'happy' and black and white gel pen to create the eyes and facial features on the snail and caterpillar.

I feel quite pleased with the results of my first challenge, and hope my resolution lasts, so please let me know if you play along so I can visit your blog.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x

Papertrey December Blog Hop Challenge

Hello everyone,

I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas so far, with more relaxation now that the big day has has been and gone. I managed to get a little crafting time this morning whilst everyone else was sleeping off some of the excesses of yesterday, and I decided to play along with the PTI December blog hop. The challenge is to use some of the Christmas leftovers on a card and as a lot of our wrapping paper and ribbon was red, I chose to make a Valentine card:-

I cut the card shape from my Cricut 'Wild Card' cartridge and stamped the lower half with all the stamps in the PTI Background Basics 'Hearts' set. I then die cut some hearts out of some used snowflake wrapping paper with Sizzix dies and matted them onto red card.

I threaded some leftover ribbon through one of the hearts and stuck it down with my ATG gun. I didn't glue down the top layer of paper heart, but just used the ribbon to hold down the centre to add more dimension.

  I chalked the edges of the card to soften the whiteness a little, used some red heart gems to highlight the hearts and finished off with a sentiment  from PTI Signature Series 'Flower'. I am hoping that the snowflake design of the paper is geometric enough to look a little like flowers but what the heck, we may still be having snow in February, so it doesn't really matter.

Thanks for looking in and enjoy the rest of the holidays.

Hugs

Carol x

The Perfect Man

Hello everyone,

Only 2 more sleeps to the big day and our heating has broken down! We had friends round for dinner last night and were able to warm up one room so it was cosy, and I was so glad we have a fire in the living room. Whilst I am waiting for the gas man to come, I thought I'd share  final post before Christmas. This little gingerbread man package is something I included in my 'secret santa' gift last week. I saw the idea earlier this year and thought I would give it a try:-



click to enlarge so you can see the words



I typed the poem on the computer, cut a Kraft tag from the Cricut Tags, Bags and  Boxes cartridge and then passed it through the printer, before using PTI snowfall stamps on it.

I packed the gingerbread man in a glassine bag after it had been passed through a Cuttlebug folder.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
This is the other side of the tag.
 
 
 
All the presents but one have now arrived and I only have to ice the cake before the big day, so I'm off to sit by the fire and have a cuppa until the gasman cometh.
 
Thank you for visiting my blog, I really appreciate all the comments you make, and I enjoy visiting other blogs, so please leave details of your own blog whilst you are here. I wish you a very happy Christmas and a fun and crafty new year.
 
Hugs
Carol x

Cricut Christmas card

Hello everyone,

Yay! we've got our Christmas tree, lights and decorations up, so its beginning to look a lot like Christmas round here, and I love it. I'm trying to get the Christmas shopping done before the threatened cold snap comes back but I just popped on to share another Cricut Christmas card based on a card I made at a Crab Apple Crafts workshop:-

This is a 5 x 5 card and the snowflake and its silver shadow comes from Christmas Noel cut at 2 inches, and I glittered it with some glamour dust. The sentiment comes from Beyond Birthdays and I added some faux stitching to highlight it. The background paper is Sandylion 'snowflakes'.

I hope all your preparations are going well and thanks for looking in.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut Christmas Joy card

Hello everyone,

I hope you are having a good weekend and staying warm. I'm still beavering away at my Christmas cards but just popped online to share a Cricut card I made today based on Rosemary's workshop at the wonderful Crab Apple Crafts:-

click to enlarge

I decided to stay with a white and silver look although I was sorely tempted to add a pop of colour. I used a stocking from Christmas Cheer as the J, and Plantin Schoolbook for the o and y. The snowflake was from Christmas Noel and I glitzed it up with a sprinkling of glitter. I used some vellum as an overlay, stamped it in white with some snowflakes from the PTI Snowfall set, secured the vellum to the card with ribbon, and then tore the edge to give a softer look. This photo doesn't show the vellum very well so I took another with some black card behind so you can see the snowflakes. I love this stamp set!

This card was quite quick to make so I'm going to do a few of them to add to my pile. Have a lovely day and thanks for looking.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut Christmas card.

Hello everyone,

I hope you are having a good weekend. In Manchester we have bright, cold and crisp weather but we have avoided the snow that is affecting so many parts of the country. We wrapped up yesterday and went for a lovely walk in Styal woods and it was great to crunch through all the autumn leaves, but today we are staying home and keeping warm.

I am going to try and get down to some more Christmas card making over the next couple of weeks, and I started this morning with a card made on my Cricut machine after making it at a workshop at the wonderful Crab Apple Crafts.

I used Sandylion 'Snowy Night' background paper and placed it on an A5 card. The city skyline is from Plantin Schoolbook, the Santa sleigh and moon from Christmas Noel and the sentiment was from Wild Card. I put some yellow card behind the windows and was tempted to add ribbon and bling but I decided that it would be going over the top like Santa's sleigh, and I left it at that.

Thanks for looking in, and for all the kind comments about my wishing on a star tree.

Hugs

Carol