Christmas Decorations

As the holidays rapidly approach I am finding I have less and less time to craft. I had some what vinyl I wanted to do something with so decided to cut out a bunch of snowflakes and put them on my bathroom mirror and window to help spread the Christmas spirit throughout the house. Using my Gypsy I placed a variety of snowflakes from several Cricut cartridges that I have with snowflakes on them. I also created a range of sizes from 1 3/4" to 3 1/2". I filled my 12 X 24" mat on my Gypsy with snowflakes. Using a 12" X 24" cricut cutting mat, I carefully laid out my vinyl being sure to remove air bubbles as I went. I cut the snowflakes out using a blade depth of 3 and pressure of 3 which resulted in a perfect kiss cut. I removed the excess vinyl and weeded my snowflakes of the little inner cuts I didn't want. To apply them I used a piece of reposition able clear contact paper and my triangular shaped scrapper from my tool kit. I used the scrapper to burnish the snowflakes as I applied them. They went on great and I didn't have any issues with air bubbles. Thanks for visiting.

Christmas Home Decor Project

I picked up this frame on clearance at Joann's when I was there yesterday. I have seen some really cute projects done with frames so wanted to give it a try. Here is what I came up with. The frame size is 7" X 7".  I covered the mat on the inside of the frame with some patterned paper from DCWV Christmas stack that I got a few weeks ago also at Joann's.  Mat is 5 1/2" X 5 1/2. I just used my ATG gun to adhere the patterned paper to the mat. The tree was cut at 4" from the Lyrical Letters cartridge. I used some really dark green card stock from Core'denations. This paper has a gold glittery look to it. Because it was pretty thick card stock I did set my blade on 6 and pressure on high. I then used my Gypsy and the George and Basic Shapes cartridge to resize a triangle to fit the shape of the tree since it didn't have a shadow or any layers to it. I cut that out of some lighter olive green card stock.  The word Joy was cut out at 1 1/2" from the Winter Woodland cartridge. I ran the top red layer through my Xyron sticker maker and added some red Martha Stewart fine glitter to each letter. The shadow was cut from the olive green paper I used for the tree layer. To spruce up the tree and help it stand out more, I added some of the heat set rhinestones in a variety of colors. I think it looks like lights on a Christmas tree. The final touch was to add some ribbon along the bottom of the mat. The ribbon is also some I picked up at Joann's yesterday.

I apologize the photo isn't better. I had a hard time taking a picture of it without getting a reflection of some kind. I had to go with the best one I was able to get. I am still debating about adding something to the frame, either trying to stamp snowflakes on the frame, or emboss something with gold embossing powder or even adding some of that gold rub on stuff to jazz it up. Let me know what you think. Thanks for visiting.

Cricut Cardz Challenge

Here is a card I made for the Cricut Cardz Challenge #44. The challenge was to make an S-Fold or Z-Fold Halloween card. My finish card size is 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". My patterned papers are from the Cloud 9 Seasonal Paper stack that I picked up from Joann's a few weeks ago.

The bats were cut at 2" using the real dial size button on my Gyspy from the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge. I used my Gypsy to hide the faces so they wouldn't cut. Once cut, I ran them through my Xyron sticker maker upside down and applied black Martha Stewart flocking to them. I then added some orange heat set rhinestones with my Bedazzler heat tool. While it doesn't show up real well in the picture in person the eyes of the bats look as if they are glowing.

The pumpkin is from the Pumpkin Carvings cricut seasonal mini cartridge. I added one of the faces to the pumpkin and hid the outside square on my Gypsy. I added some yellow glitter to the eyes and green glitter to the stem.

The frog is from the Mini-Monsters Cricut cartridge and he was cut at 1 1/2". I inked around his edges with some moss green ink. Again, I added some black rhinestones for his eyes. The tag was cut at 2" X 3" and I rounded the corners. I inked the edges of the tag with the same moss green ink. the sentiment was stamped with embossing ink and embossed with some amethyst colored embossing powder. The sentiment and little witch are both from a Hero Arts Clear Halloween stamp set. Thanks for visiting. 

Wedding Card

Here is the card I made for a wedding coming up in a couple of weeks. The card base is 4 1/2" X 6". The patterned paper was leftover from the sign I made and is the reverse side of that paper. I believe it was Bo Bunny paper. The ribbon was also left over from the sign and some I picked up at  Joann's. The cake is cut at 3 1/2" from the Sweethearts cartridge. I liked the cake with the rounded edges but the flowers from the squarer cake so I used them. I used my gypsy to hide everything but the leaves so I could cut them in green and then hid the leaves and showed the flowers and cut them in a peach color. I added some small rhinestones to the centers of each flower and used some Stardust stickles on the flowers to give them some sparkle. I finished the inside with a narrow strip of the patterned paper punched with the same EK Success border punch that I used on the blue mat.

Halloween Card

I picked up the October 31 seasonal mini cricut cartridge this weekend. Here is a quick card I made using the cartridge. This cartridge does not have any blackout or shadow features so I created my own. I cut the house at 4" and then used my gypsy and the hide contour feature to hide all the windows and cuts that show in the yellow. I wanted the windows of the haunted house to look like they had light in them. The card base is 4 1/2" X 6". I cut the moon at 1" also from the October 31 cartridge. The Boo button I found at Joanns. They were in a pack with black buttons that say Spooky as well as several sizes of black and orange buttons of various sizes. The ribbon is some I had on hand. Thanks for looking.

Another Christmas in July Card

Mary at CardzTv is having her last Christmas in July challenge this week. You can use any colors you want but you must have a Christmas tree on the card. I am also entering this card for the Fantabulous Cricut Monday Challenge which was also a Christmas in July challenge.

I decided to use the tree from Create-a-Critter. I cut the tree at 2 1/4". using the real dial size button on my Gypsy. I also used the hide contour feature to hide the face on the top layer of the tree. I also cut the string of Christmas lights at 1/2" and the star at 1" which is also from Create-a-Critter. Again, with the star I used the hide contour feature on my Gypsy to hide the larger of the two stars as I only wanted one. The white card base is 4 1/4" X 5 1/2". The red mat is 4 1/8" X 5 3/8". The patterned paper is from a My Minds Eye Christmas paper pack I bought last year and is cut at 4" X 5 1/4". The other red mat was cut from Just Because Cards cartridge and I used my Gypsy to resize it to 3 1/4" X 5". I ran this through my Cuttlebug and embossed it with the Swiss Dots folder. The word Joy was cut at 1 1/4" from the Storybook cartridge. I shadowed it in white so it would show up on the red mat. I added some gold stickles to the star and matching stickles to each of the light bulbs to give them some shine and sparkle. Thanks for looking.

Christmas In July Challenge #3

Here is a card I made for the Christmas in July Challenge at Cardztv. The challenge was to create a Christmas card and to use ribbon, buttons, or lace. I have been wanting to cut the little penguin from the Create-a-Critter cartridges and thought this would work great for this challenge. My card is 4 1/2" X 6" and is blue Bazzill card stock. I then added a white mat cut 1/4" smaller then the card base and a patterned paper mat again cute 1/4" smaller than the white mat. The patterned paper is from a DCWV Christmas stack I had on hand. I cut the penguin and his layers at 3 1/2". The hat is from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge. I used my gypsy to and the real dial size button to re size the hat to fit the penguin. I applied some liquid applique to the areas on the hat where the fur trim and the pompom are. I heated the liquid applique with my embossing gun to give it the puffy textured look. I added a little pink chalk to give the penguin some rosy cheeks. The stamp is a $1 Clear G Studio stamp I picked up from Michael's last holiday season. I added a sheer white ribbon to the side of the card. I had fun making this card. Thanks for looking.

Independence Day

Here is a card I made for in honor of the 4th of July. The card is 4 1/2" X 6" white card base. Each layer was cut 1/4" smaller then the previous layer. The patterned paper is from the DCWV Summer Dreams paper stack and reminded me of fireworks. The stars are from the Home Decor cartridge. The single stars are from the same cut I used my Gypsy and the hide contour feature to hide the larger stars and just cut the single smaller one. The word Celebrate is from the Wild Card cartridge. Again I used my Gypsy to create a small shadow for the phrase. I spritzed everything with Pearl glimmer mist. I did learn a lesson here and that is the glimmer mist spray settles into the crevices of the texture paper. The texture on this paper seems a little more pronounced and the glimmer mist really settled. I got the shimmer I wanted but not as happy with the frosted look it ended up with. Overall I am pleased with the card.  I do hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th celebration tomorrow! Thanks for looking.

Wedding Card

Here is a wedding card I made for the Cricut Cardz Challenge. I used the Wedding Solutions cartridge for the cuts. The card is an 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" card. I started with a white card base, added a black mat and another white mat. I ran this last white mat through my Cuttlebug and embossed it with the Victoria embossing folder. I then sprayed this white embossed mat with some Pearl Glimmer Mist to give it a little shine. I also cut used one of my Martha Stewart edge punches to punch the lower edge of each mat. I cut the bride and groom out of white card stock using the black out feature. Then I added the base cut of the bride a groom to my Gypsy mat and copied and pasted it. I placed on image over as far as possible to the left so almost all of the groom was off the mat and cut the bride again using the patterned glitter paper. I did the same thing to on the other side of the mat and cut just the groom using some black card stock. I used some sharp scissors to cut off the pieces I didn't need leaving me with just the dress and the suit and added those to the white cut out of the bride a groom. I added some ribbon and stamped Always and forever to the front of the card. Thanks for looking.

Ruff Day?

Here is a shaped card I made today using the Create-A-Critter cartridge. I used my Gypsy to weld the shadow of this little dog. I placed one image on my screen mat at 5" then copied and pasted the image again to my mat. I used the flip button to flip the shadow image and moved it until it just overlapped the first image and then grouped and welded them together. I then cut each layer of the little dog again at 5" so I had all three layers and placed them glued them to the shaped card. I added a ribbon color and a dog tag. The tag is cut from the Sentimental cartridge from the desk key. I printed the sentiment on my computer and used the center point function on my Cricut Expression to cut out the scalloped image around the words at 1 1/2". I cut the tag again using the shift key again 1 1/2" from a darker brown. The finished size of the card is approximately 5" X 5". Thanks for looking.

Fun in the Sun

Wow, our high yesterday was 85, the first time we have been over 80 degrees since last September. So to celebrate the unofficial one day start of summer I created this card, Fun in the Sun. The card is 5 1/2" X 8 1/2". I ran the base through my Cuttlebug and embossed it with the swirls embossing folder. I thought it would make it look like wind and waves. I cut the sand from the Everyday Paper Dolls cricut cartridge. I used my Gypsy and the real dial size feature to resize the cut. I cut it once at 2" and again at 3" with a width of 5 1/2". I layered these cuts to make a wider "beach" for my card.

The rest of the cuts for this card are from the Life is a Beach cricut cartridge. The umbrella and its layer were cut at 4". The sun and flip flops base cut and the layer cut at 2". I used my Gypsy to weld the phrase, Fun in the Sun using the font available on the cartridge. This too was cut at 2". I also used my Gypsy to create a shadow for the phrase. To add some bling I outlined the yellow part of the suns outer rays with some yellow stickles. It doesn't show up very well in the photo. The sea shells are from some Jolee Boutique Beach Stickers.

Update: Okay, Okay, my daughter just pointed out that the words are not quite correct. I originally welded them to be a block but once I laid out my card I changed my mind. I never, ever, ever noticed that the words now said Fun the and In Sun. I apologize for the goof.

Create-A-Critter Thanks!

I really wanted to make a card with the little skunk from the Create-A-Critter cricut cartridge. I cut the card base using the Just Because Cricut cartridge. The base was cut a 4 1/2" X 6" from cream card stock. from page 22 of the handbook. I used my Gypsy to resize the base to the size I wanted. I then cut the scalloped layer from the same page and again used my Gypsy to resize it to fit my card base. I then cut the smaller mat from page 38 of the handbook and resized it using my gypsy. I also used the hide contour feature to hide the core marks from the card base.  All of these layers were made using paper from the Flower Shower DCWV paper stack and card stock paper pad. I cut all the layers for the skunk on Create-A-Critter at 3". I gave him a white shadow, paper is from some a large pack of scraps that I bought at Craft Warehouse. I then cut the flower using the accessory creative feature key at 1 1/2". I added some doodle dots to the frame with my Martha Stewart opaque pen in white. I added some cotton candy stickles to the flowers to give it some added bling. The stamp is a clear stamp that I have and the ink is ColorBox pigment ink in Moss.

Aged to Perfection

I made this card for the Jitterbuggin Challenge this week. The recipe was to use a Cricut food cut, use plaid and use some black and to follow the sketch. I had a little harder time with this because of the plaid. My card is a 5 1/2 X 5 1/2" card. I started with a white card from a pack I picked up quite awhile ago at Joann's. I cut a light purple mat to cover the white card front. I then cut a light green mat 5" X 5" and then one with my plaid paper 4 1/2" X 4 1/2". I cut the bottle and glass from the new Summer in Paris mini cartridge at 3 1/2" and the grapes are from the Preserves cartridge cut at 3". My black element is of course the bottle base. I cut all the layers for the grapes out of scraps I had here. The sketch had a flower in each corner but flowers didn't seem to go with this so I opted to cut some corners from the Straight From the Nest cartridge. I used the new hide contour feature added to my gypsy with this latest update, to hide the inner cut on these corners so I got a solid cut and not just a frame. I cut these from the same dark purple I cat the base layer of the grapes. The corners were cut at 1". The sketch also had a tag for the sentiment, so I cut a tag using the Sentimental Cartridge. I used my Gypsy to set the width and height I needed to fit my stamp and cut that in white and again used the hide contour feature to hide the small hole in one end of the tag. I then used my Gypsy again to create a shadow of the tag and cut that from dark purple again, the same color as the corners. I used some ink by Memento in Purple Hydrangea to stamp my sentiment and to ink the edges of the white tag. To adhere the tag, I just used some my tape runner. the bottle and glass are adhered with one layer of foam tape and the grapes have two layers of foam tape to make them pop a little higher. I am please how it turned out. Thanks for looking.

Baby Girl Card

Here is a quick card I whipped up last night for a former co-worker who had a baby girl over the weekend. The card is an A2 card made from white card stock. The patterned paper is from the K & Company Best of Brenda Walton paper pack. Ribbon is from a Martha Stewart pack that I picked up at Big Lots. The onesie was cut from the Straight From the Nest cartridge and was cut a 3 1/2" using the real dial size button on my cricut. This cut is on page 46 of the handbook. The cut is actually of three shirts/onesies hanging from a clothes line. To get the cut I wanted I set the cut up on Gypsy. Since we don't have Hide/Contour feature yet, I simply placed all the items I didn't want to cut off the side of the mat. The sentiment was cut at 1 1/2" cut from the Nursery Rhymes cartridge. The cut is from page 65 of handbook using the Font feature button. The shadow was cut using the Font Shadow feature button.  I embossed the onesie with my Sizzix three dots folder using my Cuttlebug. I adhered the cuts with foam tape to provide some dimension to the card. Once I had the card done I spritzed it with some Pear Glimmer Mist to give it some sparkle and added a small Prima flower in light pink and a darker pink pearl to the center of the flower.

Birthday Card

Here is a birthday card I made for my mom for her birthday this week. I used an oval shape from the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge welded it to make the card. I then used the same shape, re-sized it twice to create the two layers. The cupcake is from the Sweet Treats. The main card is cut at 5 1/2" the layers were cut at 5 and 4 1/2". I added some lace around the outside edge of the first layer. The cupcake and its layers are cut at 3". The patterned paper is from the Best of K & Company paper pack. I embossed the top of the cupcake with the swirls Cuttlebug folder. I added some liquid applique and heated it to give the look of frosting and added a little cotton candy stickles and a purple glitter brad instead of the cherry on the cupcake. It was a lot of fun to make. Thanks for looking.

Rock-a-bye Baby

The challenge this week on the Gypsy MB was the Gypsy jumped over the moon. We were to use the stretch and flatten features on the Gypsy to create something in honor or the Nursery Rhymes cartridge being released. I decided to make this Pedestal card and used the little boy on the rocking horse from ACY for my main image.

When my son was little he had one of those Wonder Pony's and he would sit on that thing with his cowboy hat on and ride it forever. I used that for my inspiration. I used the cowboy hat from PPDU and resized it using the stretch and flatten techniques to get it the right size for the rocking horse image which was sized at 3". I welded the hat to both the shadow and the base cut of the image after rotating it to sit on the boy's head where I wanted it.

I used Lyrical Letters for the phrase and created a shadow for it again using the stretch and flatten technique.  To use this technique with your Gypsy you need to deselect the little yellow link under the height and width boxes. With this link grayed out if you change the height (stretch) the width won't change if  you change the width (flatten) the height won't change. If the link is selected and yellow in color as you change the height the width also changes.

Votive Candle Lantern

 I was at Joann's last week and picked up a project sheet that I liked that I wanted to try to create something similar with  my Cricut. I got the chance today. I created all of this on my Gypsy. I started with a square from Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and re-sized it so it was 12" X 3.5". I then took the scalloped border from Plantin school book sized it at 1" X 6" and then copied and pasted it again on my rectangle next to the first one and grouped all the images together and welded them together. I then took the circle again from Plantin Schoolbook and put 1/4" circles in each scallop. For the cutouts on the actual lantern I used some leaves from Storybook at 1 1/4" a flower from Accent Essentials cut at 3/4" and a tear drop from Sweet Treats which I think is actually the flame to a candle cut at 1/4". I used a small square glass candle holder I got from the dollar store and wrapped the cutout around it. I used some Scor-tape to secure the edges together. I didn't have one of those flameless candles so used a small tea light to take my picture but for safety sakes would use those flameless candles. I created the project for the 3 +1= Success Challenge on the Gypsy Chat thread on the Cricut MB.

Circle Card

There was a challenge in the Gypsy Forum on the Cricut Message board for a project created using circles. The Cricut Cardz Challenge had a challenge to make a Spring project using, flowers, butterflies, or birds. So, I thought I would do both challenges with one card. Here is what I came up with.

The card base is from the Sentimental cartridge and cut at 5 1/2", the pink circle is from the George and Basic Shapes cartridge and cut at 5". I ran the pink circle through my Cuttlebug using the Sizzix trio dots folder. The flowers were cut from the Forever Young cartridge and cut at 1 1/2". I cut the shadow and both layers. The word Enjoy I welded with my Gypsy and is the font from A Child's Year. I used buttons for the flower centers and used Stickles to give the flowers some glitz. I cut a butterfly from Gypsy Wanderings at 1 1/4" and used the Cotton Candy Stickles to give the butterfly some sparkle. I then covered everything with Glossy Accents to further jazz it up.

Baby Shower Card

We are having a baby shower for a Co-worker next week and I was asked to make a card. Her layette set is Tall Tales by Carter so I used that for inspiration. Tall Tales is dark brown with circles of aqua, orange, and blue with a giraffe on it.  I used the giraffe from the Paisley cartridge. I cut two of the giraffes, one at 3" and a smaller one at 2". I used some pumpkin colored card stock for the 1st layer. The dotted paper is from Michael's. The chocolate brown is by Die Cuts With A View that I bought at Joann's and the cream colored card stock is just from my stash. The card is 8 1/2" X 5 1/2". I used cream colored card stock for the card,  and cream for the layers. I embossed the cream colored card stock with the Cuttlebug Bloom Dot A2 embossing folder. The word baby is cut from Gypsy Wanderings at 1 1/4". I used pop dots for the giraffe's and the word paper to give the card some added dimension. Thanks for looking.

Birthday Cupcake

Here is a cupcake birthday card I made for a co-worker who is having a birthday next week. The cupcake and cherry are from the Home Decor cartridge and are cut at 3". I also cut the shadow at 3" using a brown card stock. The cupcake is cut from some Stampin Up patterned poka-dot paper and the cherry is cut on a scrap piece of hot pink paper. I used Crystal and Icicle Stickles to bling up the cupcake poka-dots and the cherry. The Birthday Wishes stamp is a clear stamp I had. I stamped in in Staz-on black in and put three little Skittles above the stamped image, I felt it needed something. The card is a standard A2 card made out of some white card stock, again that I had on had. The patterned background paper is from Die Cuts With a View paper pack and is also a scrap. I adhered the cupcake and cherry with some foam tape to pop it up from the card. I love the bright cheery colors and am pleased how it turned out.

This is the second card I made where I using my Gypsy, which I love. I am trying to get as much creative time in before I go back to work on Monday. I am about to enter my busy time of year at work so want to take advantage of this slower time now. Hope everyone had a great New Years. Thanks for looking.