First Card Using A Digital Image

I have been seeing a lot of cards made using digital images. I found a group site that offered free images as long as you participate in the challenges using them. I decided to give it a go. Here is what I came up with:

I'm not sure I like these yet. I have to figure out how to properly use them I guess. I didn't like having it surrounded by the white cardstock I printed it on, but I had to use white in order to color it properly. I ended up just cutting it out. I didn't have any sentiments that went with dancing, so I had to use the computer and figure out how to place it properly so it would print where I wanted it to. That was actually the easier part. Stickles brightened up the dresses. I was pleased by the way it turned out. I am going to have to find some kind of tutorial somewhere on how to use these images. They have some really cute ones out there in internet land. So far I am using it for the following challenges:

http://priscillastyles.ning.com/groups/group/show?groupUrl=cdac-progressive-freebie-challenges&commentId=5856131%3AComment%3A815034&xg_source=msg_com_group

http://reasonableribbon.blogspot.com/search/label/challenges

http://www.thescrapbookingqueen-challenge.blogspot.com/

Have a great week. If any of you know how I can find out how to use these images properly let me know please.

Candy's 400 Follower Blog Candy Giveway

I found a great giveaway that I want to share with you. Candy from Candy's Craft Corner is celebrating having 400 followers. She is giving away some great blog candy. For more information and to enter her giveaway, click on the following link:

http://candyscraftcorner.blogspot.com/2012/02/400-follower-giveaway.html

I won't be making any cards this weekend. My dad is in the hospital. I am going to incorporate a visit to him with some serious grocery shopping at Aldis and Walmart. I also need to get in gear and start on my taxes-yuck! So enjoy your week and hopefully I will have something new to share by next weekend.

Layered birthday card

Hey all! God sent this idea to me in my sleep. It didn't turn out exactly the way I would have liked since I don't have any vintage-looking paper, but I made do. I made the flowers using Tim Holtz Grunge Paper and the Straight from the Nest Cricut cartridge. I colored the paper with copics, applied my heat gun to make them curl a little. glued the layers together, and added stickles and a pearl. The bird cage is also a cricut cartridge. I covered the grunge paper with Perfect Pearls for a gold finish. I cut out the bird (again using grunge paper) and colored and stickled to match the flowers.

I did something different with the card itself. I burned the edges slightly with a lighter. I wanted a kind of aged look. I added the background stamp and lightly covered the entire surface with Vintage Photo distress ink. Hope you like it! Anybody have any ideas on where I can get vintage paper?

I entered it into the following challenges:
http://useittuesday.blogspot.com/
http://www.paperplaytime.blogspot.com/
http://www.annabellestamps.blogspot.com/2012/02/say-it-withbackground-stamps.html
http://www.diecuttindivas.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-53-favorite-pet.html
http://divasbydesignchallenge.blogspot.com/
http://craftyourdaysaway.blogspot.com/2012/02/cyda-challenge-39-paper-piecing-dt-call.html
http://sparklesforumchallenges.blogspot.com/

Stationary Box

The past two weeks of card class at Cut It Out resulted in this pretty stationary box. I was extremely pleased to see that with a little modification it would fit in with some of this weeks challenges. The pink and brown fit in with RRR's challenge and the background stamping fit Annabell Stamps' challenge. I had to add ribbon for RRR's challenge, so I inked some sheer ribbon and attached it to some of the cards. I also put green ribbon under the flower on the lid of the box to emulate leaves (shown in a later picture). I added a cricut cutout from the fancy labels cartridge with a ribbon flower so that I could also enter it into the Fantabulous Cricut challenge. The cute play on words fit right in with their "Fun with Puns" challenge. Here are some more pics of what the box holds:

Here are the challenges that I entered:

http://reasonableribbon.blogspot.com/search/label/challenges

http://fantabulouscricut.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-me-monday-98.html

http://www.annabellestamps.blogspot.com/2012/02/say-it-withbackground-stamps.html

http://sparklesforumchallenges.blogspot.com/

http://divasbydesignchallenge.blogspot.com/

http://deepoceanchallengeblog.blogspot.com/

http://ribbongirls.blogspot.com/

http://www.gettingcricky.com/2012/04/simply-sunday-challenge-favorite.html

Hope you enjoy my creation for this week!

Say it with Red, Black, and White

This is the Day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it! I have to tell myself this as I go out into the freezing temperatures and the snow. When it is this cold, all I want to do is curl up in a blanket with a good movie on the TV and a good book in my hands. I haven't had much time this week do any of that though. I worked on my daughter's taxes and I have just been really tired. I did find time to do one card that I could incorporate into some of the blog challenges this week. I had a hard time with the creative side, but once I figured out what to do the card went together pretty quickly. Mojo Monday gave me the sketch. Annabelle Stamps gave me the color scheme. Cardz TV, Fantabulous Cricut, and My Pink Stamper also gave me some guidelines of what to include on the card. This is my finished project.

I dry embossed the red card using a Fiskar texture plate. I cut out the white and black inset papers using my MS All Around the Page punch. I made the heart tag with a tool I have from Making Memories. I stamped it with a Stampendous swirly stamp before I put it in the silver frame. I had to use a pink ribbon for the My Pink Stamper challenge, so I glued pink ric-rac ribbon to the back of the heart. The die cut sentiment is from the Lacy Labels Cricut cartridge. I made my first rosette and put it on the white paper.

These are the challenges I entered:

 http://www.mojomonday.blogspot.com/

http://www.annabellestamps.blogspot.com/2012/02/say-it-inred-black-white.html

http://cardztv.blogspot.com/2012/02/cricut-cardz-challenge-101.html

http://fantabulouscricut.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-me-monday-97.html

http://www.mypinkstamper.com/

http://littlescrappieces.blogspot.com/2012/02/winner-and-new-challenge-anything-your.html

http://paperplaytime.blogspot.com/2012/02/ch-67-cricut-creations-with-hearts-or.html

If you like to blog hop, check out My Pink Stamper and Cardz TV. They have some good ones this weekend.

On Valentines Day let someone know you love them. The best Valentines Day gift of all though is to remember that God Loves You and you are Very Special to him!!!

Have a great week and a great Valentine's Day!

Square scallop Card

Hi all! Mojo Monday gave to sketches to try-round and square. I did the round one-now here is my sqaure one. The card is 4 1/2 in square. I cut the card itself using the reddish-pink paper and the Cricut Winter Wonderland cartridge (the first square snowflake). I used the shadow function and cut two pieces. I scored a line on the back of the second piece to make the fold then used my tape gun to adhere them together. This time I marked the top of the paper and turned the paper over for the second piece so that they would match up better. I had a little trouble with the round card-it didn't want to match up. I tried cutting a smaller piece out of scrap paper to use as the pink layer, but the scallops wouldn't match up and it didn't lay right. Instead, I used my printer/copier to shrink the original card to a size that I liked. This worked better-I just had to copy it at different percentages to find the right size. Once I found the size I wanted, I used the Gemstone co-oredinations paper for the pink layer. I used my crop-a-dile big bite (set on the smallest hole punch) to punch holes in it and laced it with burgundy ribbon from Darice. The bow was just tied. I marked the spots with a pencil first. Then back to the copier to shrink some more. I folded this piece in half because I only needed half of it. I cut a piece out of the two differnt papers (one was just a pink cardstock). I stamped the pink cardstock with a script background stamp using Worn Lipstick distress ink. I layed a piece of the burgundy ribbon over the middle to cover up where the papers meet. I cut the label using the same cartridge and snowflake as the card. The hearts were punched using the Creative Memories small heart punch. The sentiment was inked with Fired Brick Distress Ink. The bow with multiple loops was made with my bowdabra.

I entered it in the following challenges:
http://www.diecuttindivas.blogspot.com/
http://cardztv.blogspot.com/2012/02/cardz-tv-dt-challenge-5-tickled-pink.html
http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/
http://reasonableribbon.blogspot.com/search/label/challenges
http://www.annabellestamps.blogspot.com/
http://www.theshabbytearoom.blogspot.com/
http://flourishes.org/category/challenges/timeless-tuesday/

My first 3x3 card

I think this has been the hardest most time consuming card yet. It seems to take me a long time to make the first card. Trial and error is a lot of my process. I try something, don't like it, try something else-until I'm satisfied. I am not sure I can say I'm really satisfied with the way the front of this card turned out, but the card is so small that I didn't have a lot of room to work with. I needed to use my cricut to decorate this card. I don't have a lot of cartridges, so I am limited when it comes to a theme like "Valentines Day. I choose to do the love you label from the Fancy Label cartridge. I made it 2.75 inches. The inticate swirls don't cut very well on smaller settings so I decided to use Tim Holtz Grunge paper (for the first time) because of its thickness and strength and because I wanted it to be like chipboard. I cut the back of the label, only to discover that I didn't have the pressure high enough. I had to finish cutting it by hand. I adjusted the pressure to high for the rest. It cut very well, so then I tried a thick paper to cover it with. I tried medium pressure, but had to switch back to high. I got all the label glued together then realized the hearts were supposed to be a different color. I embossed them white then used crystal lacquer for dimension. I covered it with clear glitter from PK Glitz because I love the sparkle that glitter gives. I loved how the hearts looked, so I did the same thing with the "love you". I wanted something different for the fold, so I chose to have my card open in the middle. I covered the front with pink gemstone coordinations paper. I then used decorative paper that I had on hand for the inside of the fronts and a textured piece of cardstock that matched. I used the Winter Wonderland cartridge to cut out the label on the inside. I cut and rounded a piece of white cardstock for the sentiment. I inked it with Fired Brick distress ink. The stamp was from a group of words from Stampendous and was also stamped with Fire Brick. The two small hearts were punched with the Creative Memories small heart punch using white cardstock (which I inked) and the textured cardstock. The front was too plain, so I took a swirly doodle stamp and stamped it using Worn Lipstick distress ink.

When all was finished I had about 4 1/2 hours of work put into it. I learned some things that will help me save time in the future (I hope). This challenge was really a challenge-but enjoyable all the same. I am entering it in the following challenge:

http://fantabulouscricut.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-me-monday-96.html

http://cardztv.blogspot.com/2012/02/cardz-tv-dt-challenge-5-tickled-pink.html

http://cardztv.blogspot.com/2012/02/cricut-cardz-challenge-101.html#comment-form

My First Round Card

I was really excited to see the challenges on this week's Really Reasonable Ribbons and Mojo Monday blogs. When I saw them, I knew I could create a card to fit both challenges. When looking at different blog sites, I found Die Cutting Divas and Cardz TV. This card layout also worked for their challenges also. Yeah! This is my first circular card. I had to use red, pink, and ribbons for RRR's challenge so I encorpored those things into Mojo Mondays' sketch challenge. I used my cricut to cut out the red base and pink overlay using the Lacy Labels cartridge. I made the card by cutting two bases. I scored the back of the second base at the top between the top 3 scallops. I then used a tape gun to mount the first base on top of it. The ribbon is laced through the holes in the overlay and tied into a bow at the top. I also layed ribbon across the paper in the center of the circle. I made a bow with my bowdabra and attached a 3D paper flower sticker to it. The circles are popped off the card with foam squares. The small sentiment circle is inked with Worn Lipstick Distress Ink.
Go to the following blogs to see the challenges that I entered this card in:
http://reasonableribbon.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-41-red-pink-with-ribbon-theme.html
http://cardztv.blogspot.com/2012/02/cardz-tv-dt-challenge-5-tickled-pink.html
http://www.mojomonday.blogspot.com/2012/01/mojo-monday-226.html                  
http://diecuttindivas.blogspot.com/2012/01/challenge-50-anything-goes.html