Baby Shower Cards

As I mentioned in a previous post, busy month for us with celebrations, including a baby shower and a couple of other babies being born to people we know.  I was surfing some blogs recently and saw this cute idea for a baby carriage card at MaggieMadeCards.  (I've tried the website, but it says it's currently not available, sorry.)  I'm trying to utilize my Cricut so I can learn all the wonderful things it is capable of doing.  When I saw this card I figured it would be a good project to hone my Cricut Design Studio skills. When all done, I had created my own little cut file!   

The first card I did was for my son's boss whose wife had delivered a baby boy.  I chose to make it with bright primary colors, blue and red since it was a boy.  I didn't get pictures of it before he gave it to the boss, but I had made a second one so he had a couple of options to pick from.  For this one I chose a burgundy colored paper for the carriage and a gold colored card stock to accent it.  I wanted something a little different than the traditional boy/girl blue/pink options.  I embossed the bottom piece of the carriage insert with a bubbles or circle embossing folder and used a texture plate with squares on it for the smaller piece on the top of the carriage.  I chose three small brown buttons and laced them with some brown and tan bakers twine I had and threaded it through the buttons.  I chose an ivory oval and stamped special delivery on it and used pop dots to give it some dimension.  For the inside I used another half circle of the gold card stock and stamped a lovely baby sentiment on it.

This next one is for a girl...now I've flipped back and forth on the color scheme idea and decided to go with a lavender baby carriage and pink accents.  I've embossed the lower half of the carriage front insert with a small flowers and the carriage cover with Swiss dots.  I added a matching lavender oval to the front with the word baby in blocks stamped on it.  I added white pearls to the inside of the carriage wheels and used my Stampin Up! butterfly sizzlet to punch out some little butterflies for accents.  I dropped two on the carriage cover and one on the carriage handle.  On the inside I stamped my sentiment in a pretty purple ink to stand out on the lavender card stock.

This idea can be done is so many different colors (think pro sports teams) and even some patterned paper for the inserts which would make a wonderful option! 

Go on...Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Retirement Cards

There are a number of my co-workers who are retiring in the next month or so...I needed to make some retirement cards.  I had a number of scraps of different travel papers I had used for a couple of different projects awhile ago so decided to use them up for the retirement cards.  These were inspired by cards shown here and here.  The first one I used a stamp that says Bon Voyage, but it is a little difficult to read.  After that I found a clearer stamp with the same words.  This first one I layered three different pieces of travel paper and added a shimmery ribbon at the top.  I then stamped the the Bon Voyage on an embossed tag from a Cuttlebug die.  I inked it up with some Tim Holtz distress ink and added three little bling on the top schwoopie!

On these next two shots I ended up using one of edge punches and gave them either a scalloped edge or a diamond edge on each of the three different patterned papers.  I still added some glittery ribbon below the sentiment and then inked and added the other Bon Voyage sentiment which was a little more readable.  I also added a little bling on the edges and on the bottom one I added pearl accents to the outsides of the sentiment tag.  The single picture shows the detail of the punched edges.  Ribbon is all from sales at Michael's and Jo Ann's Fabrics.

On these final shots I found a Good Luck stamp and utilized the smaller scraps and the idea referenced above from Pinterest.  I had seen this idea previously with bigger squares as a background or base for a larger sentiment but hadn't thought about using it for smaller scraps of paper.  I also added paper flowers I cut using my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die cut.  I love this die...it is so versatile!  I added some pearl bling and decorative brads.  I only added ribbon to one because the other ones I felt had enough embellishment with the flowers or the sentiment tag in the middle.  These sentiment tags are actually Sizzliet dies their Decorative Label Set #4.

Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Valentine Cards -- Part Two

I was showing the Valentine cards recently posted here to a co-worker.  She liked one of the sentiments on one of the cards and asked me to make her a card for her sweetie for Valentine's Day.  The sentiment is simple enough...You Complete Me...simple, straightforward, a little funny (think Austin Powers), but powerful in those three words.  My mind started whirling around how I could create this card using that sentiment and create something different and unique that would communicate the thought.  The co-worker's other request was that the card have their two favorite colors, blue and deep purple.  On this first one I used the dark blue as the background, mounted on white card stock.  I added a graphic of purple puzzle pieces, put together.  I printed the exact same puzzle pieces on the blue card stock but cut out one of the pieces to create a 3D effect on one of the purple base pieces.  I misted the larger blue piece with Perfect Pearls to give it some shimmer and pop dots under the 3D puzzle piece to make it pop.  I stamped the sentiment on one of the tag dies out of white and threaded with a purple ribbon threaded with silver and then offset it across the upper left corner of the card. 

The second card was simple, two hearts one in each color mounted on white card stock embossed with Swiss dots and brushed with purple ink.  That was mounted on a light lavender card stock.  Then I added another tag with sentiment in the middle of the hearts on the bottom with three little purple bling to give a little pop.

And third was an idea inspired by a stamped image I saw somewhere on the Internet in my surfing...a heart that had smaller hearts punched out of it cascading from the bottom.  I took that idea and did it in reverse...with a graphic image of a pitcher with small hearts cascading into the big heart.  I also punched a few small hearts out of the larger heart to give the idea of filling up those spaces.  The heart is done in purple the smaller hearts in blue.  All of it was mounted on a white Gemstones piece of card stock.  The sentiment tag mounted to the bottom right on the cardstock.  With this one I cut an opening in the fold of the card and threaded the ribbon through that.  It is affixed behind the sentiment so no knots or bows anywhere.

There is another idea or two circling around in the brain...we'll see what comes of them...in the meantime, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Gift Sets

Earlier this spring my co-worker Tamara asked me to make her a prayer journal gift set for the ladies retreat at her church.  She wanted to give it as a raffle gift at the retreat.  She wanted a really pretty prayer journal so we set off on a lunch hour for a Jo Ann's supply run.  She found this beautiful set of papers from KandCompany, their Susan Winget Botanical Speciality Paper Pad. I found the matching stickers and other dimensional embellishments so we were all set!  The first picture is the Prayer Journal.  I pulled two of the beautiful floral papers from this pad and trimmed them down to fit the journal.  On the top I added some of dimensional stickers including one of the word Faith.  I had some pretty pink satin ribbon in my stash and for the tag on the front I cut an oval shape on my Cricut.  I believe it was from Merry Tags cartridge.

I printed on an off-white piece of card stock the words Prayer Journal, cut it in a smaller oval shape using my Creative Memories oval shape cutter and mounted that on the pink tag and added some more of the dimensional stickers along with some pearl bling.  I then hooked a small heart clip through the tag opening and tied it on in a bow with the ribbon that was tied around the front cover of the prayer journal.
Since this was for a raffle gift I wanted to make a complete package so with the scraps I had left I made the small matching notebook that you see here.  I used the same matching satin ribbon and I punched a heart tag with my Creative Memories heart punch.  I punched a grommet hole and added a pink grommet, threaded it with white cotton cord, stamped the word notes and glittered it up.  I added a small butterfly sticker to mirror the one on the notebook and three pink pearls above the word notes.  I also added a little dimensional sticker to the bottom of the notebook.

And finally, with the remaining scraps from the two original 12 x 12 papers that I started with, I made some clothes pin magnets.  I originally saw this idea over at Scrappin Cat's blog here.  I loved the fact that it was such a great way to use up scraps from your paper projects.  In this instance it worked perfectly to complete this gift set. The embellishments I had for this project had some great small ones, butterflies and dragonflies that were the perfect size to fit on the magnets.  To showcase the magnets and keep them all together, I copied Cathy's idea of mounting them on card stock.  I used plain white for the background and embossed the paper with a pretty swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder.  I then used some of the remaining scraps from the project and made a topper and the band that the pins are anchored on.  I then enclosed the whole thing in a cellophane envelope.  Here they are.

And finally, the complete set ready for the raffle. 

Hope to see you again soon!  Until then, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!