Grandkids Picture Project

I pin from Pinterest...I know, not an unusual thing to do these days, but I decided I needed to actually do some of the projects I had been pinning!  A friend's birthday is coming up and I wanted something special for this lady cuz she's pretty special herself.  I found this pin here.  She has a 5 children and 7 grandchildren all of which are her pride and joy.  I thought it would be great to recreate this project for her.  My disclaimer as I start this post is that I have not used my Cricut to cut anything other than paper..so for my first foray into other mediums I decided to do vinyl.  Why not do it up right the first time!  I made a trip to JoAnn's Fabrics with my android phone app and the sales flyer's...and lucked on a sale on the Cricut items along with an additional amount off of the total purchase!  Yay for me!

 So I picked up a roll of black vinyl as well as clear lifting vinyl!  It is a must if you are doing words or sayings! It lifts your cut letters in the position you cut them so your alignment on your project should be perfect!  I also had not yet downloaded Cricut Craft Room to my laptop!!! Why oh why did I wait so long!  It was so easy to use and much easier I must admit than my other Cricut software.  Once I found a font that I liked and for which I had the cartridge I set about designing the words and the layout.


I'm not a person that likes to "fly by the seat of my pants" if you will when it comes to designing stuff!  I like to have the dimensions, and know what the sizes are of the things I am cutting...but since I was working with a different kind of project I did some practice runs with the font size and spacing using papers that I didn't like...you know the ones that come in those paper packs and you're really not sure why they chose that pattern!  Once I liked the size of the letters I cut the first word...Grandchildren.  I was on pins and needles when I got ready to lift the letters...the vinyl requires some working with it to get the letters to lift correctly from the mat...the handy dandy little Cricut tool set was a lifesaver.  There are also very detailed instructions in the vinyl package you purchase.  Once I got the word lifted smoothly I laid it out on the board.  I had previously painted the board using Martha Stewart pearl paint as my base (2-3 coats) and then putting on a brown paint and wiping off most of it...I wanted the distressed look for the wood.  I the laid down the word Grandchildren using the clear lifting vinyl/paper and then rubbed the letters down.  It is very similar to transferring any type of letters like rub-ons...you gently work the vinyl with the stick to smooth it out and get it to adhere to the wood, then you slowly peel back the lifting vinyl/paper and presto, it's all nice and neat.  I decided I wanted a different color vinyl for the second row of words so back to JoAnn's.  This time I got the variety pack!  Yes there is a variety pack of vinyl...it comes with about 7-9 different colors in smaller sheets. I used brown for the second set of letters and following the same process set them down on the board.

I had picked up eyelet screws and screwed two of them into the board along the bottom edge.  I wanted them in the board before I put layers of Mod Podge on the board to secure the vinyl. I then put on Mod Podge, about 3 layers.  I wanted to make sure the vinyl was not going anywhere and I wanted to protect the project as well.  Once the Mod Podge dried I put two hangers on the back of the board through which I tied the pretty brown floral print ribbon and tied in a bow at the top.  I then tied a piece of jute cord I had in my stash to the eyelet screws and started adding the other embellishments...the bling at the top next to the word Grandchildren on both ends, the flowers, the butterfly.  I had picked up small clothespins to put on the cord to hold the photos, that was my intent in following the original pin; but when in Michael's I found in the dollar bins these really cute little rectangular and heart shaped chalkboards attached to clothespins.  I used these instead and I think they add a nice touch to the project and make it more personalized.  Sometimes those chance finds at the craft store are the best finds!

I wrote each of my friends grandkid's names on the chalkboards, rectangles for the boys and hearts for the girls.  I used a gold fine tipped pen...I couldn't find a white one. For illustration purposes I just added pieces of scrapbook paper to represent where the kids pictures would hang.

We had dinner last night and I gave her the gift.  It was a big hit, and I am wonderfully pleased with the end result!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Valentines Cards

So I've started to work on some Valentine's cards, just playing around and have come up with a few.  These first two used printed card stock by Recollections (Michael's) mounted on red on the left and pink on the right.  For the card on the left I used my Cuttlebug hearts embossing folder on the patterned paper before mounting it on the red paper and ultimately on white card stock as my background.  I cut a small heart, also embossed it with the hearts folder used above, and stamped it You & Me and added some pink pearls to give it some bling.  For the one on the right I used my Tim Holtz rosette die and cut the rosette out of a pretty pink glittered paper scrap from the My Minds Eye paper stack.  I added a couple of jeweled hearts one of which had an arrow through it and some other bling.  I also added the matching jeweled arrow heart in the inside next to the stamped sentiment.

This next card I was trying a different color from the standard pink/red theme usually associated with Valentine's Day.  I layered on top the same patterned paper used above, added a text block on the front with some white pearls and a glittery pink ribbon along the edge.

For this last card I used my Sizzix Texturz plates, the Retro Hearts one and embossed a piece of white card stock.  After cutting it down to the size I wanted I mounted it on pink card stock, I used the Colorbox Cranberry ink pad which looks somewhere between red and pink when sponged onto the raised hearts.  I then used some pink ribbon from my stash that's printed with the words I Love You and hearts.  On the tag (Cuttlebug tags die) I stamped You Complete Me from the My Creative Time, "Turn That Frown Upside Down" set of stamps.  I love her stamps, they are small and petite and you can fit them in small spaces on your projects.  A touch of bling on the bottom of the sentiment tag and we are good to go!

That's it for now!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

More Romance

I posted some romantic cards earlier and promised a view of some more of what I sent off.  For the background of this card I used a solid red glitter card stock I had picked up to go with the craft paper from this Recollections Love Letters pad.  It is another 6 x 9 card.  For the card mounted on the front I used the corner of one of the 12 x 12 sheets from the pad with a beautifully glitter embossed flower and some swirls overlaid on music stanzas.  To make the sentiment block on the front of the card I inked up my Cuttlebug frames die and cut the block. This was my first try at inking up the die/embossing folder and I really like how it turned out.  I used Tim Holtz' Fired Brick ink.  I added the sentiment on the front along with some matching red bling on the schwoopie's.  Some of the cards I left blank inside so the sender could write their own note inside.

The next 12 x 12 sheet had this beautifully embossed word Love in the lower corner.  I used that section of the card stock and cut another 6 x 9 card.  Since the card had the word taking up the majority of the front of it I felt like it didn't require much added embellishment.  I added one large crystal bling to the end of the L schwoop and then used my SU! butterfly embosslets die to add a couple of embossed butterflies.

For this card I used the rest of the red glitter card stock for the back and the other section of the music notes paper from above.  I wrapped a gold satin ribbon threaded with a bejeweled red heart around the top of the craft card and affixed it on the back side.  I used the thank you stamp and stamped it in the small block on the faux sewn line.  It fit perfectly in the space provided!  I love it when that happens.  I then mounted the craft card on the glitter card stock.

I am really enjoying this paper stack and thoroughly loved making these cards.  I hope the recipients enjoy receiving them as much as I've enjoyed making them. 

Once again, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Anniversary Cards

Needed some anniversary cards this month.  I had some papers from Valentine's Day so set about making a card for my BFF.  Becky and Ed celebrate their 35th anniversary this year.  I had picked up a Martha Stewart butterfly border punch and had not yet tried it out.  I started playing with it and decided that the border turned out so well that I wanted to use it on the anniversary card.  I used some pearly white card stock by Gemstones and cut it to a 6 x 9 size, scored at 4.5 inches and folded in half.  I cut the patterned paper from Little Yellow Bicycle called Love Story to fit on the 6 x 4.5 front of the card stock.  The paper had come out around Valentine's Day.  I punched the beautiful butterfly border using a pearly pink from the Gemstones paper.  I cut the tag from the Spellbinder's Nestabilities die and used my little stamp about true love stories...I added pink pearls at the top and bottom of the sentiment.  I mounted the sentiment using pop dots then cut more pop dots to mount on the butterfly border to make it stand up over the edge of the sentiment block.  To finish it off I stamped Happy Anniversary in the inside of the card and added a pretty matching pink bow with some satin edged organza ribbon from the dollar bin at Michael's.

Next up I worked on an anniversary card for my sweetie.  I used embossed craft paper from my Recollections Love Letters pad previously mentioned in my blog. I cut another 6 x 9 inch size card scored at 4.5 inches and folded in half.  I then cut one of the embossed papers from the collection to fit inside the 6 x 4.5 front of the card.  I used the Spellbinder's Nestabilities die mentioned above and stamped in horizontally with another one of my love stamps.  Since I was working with red embossing on the craft paper, I stamped the sentiment in red and then inked around the edges of the sentiment tag; at the top of the sentiment I added light grey pearls.  I used a pearly grey Gemstones paper and cut a butterfly border for the bottom of the sentiment.  I used pop dots to lift it over the bottom edge of the sentiment.  To finish it off, I added a sparkly red ribbon bow to the front and stamped Happy Anniversary inside the card.  Happy 30th Anniversary dear!

I think they both turned out very nicely.  Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Romantic Kraft Cards

A few weekends ago I was browsing Michael's aisles and found this wonderful kraft card paper pad from Michael's Recollections line of supplies.  It is called Love Letters.  It has some beautifully embossed papers that are wonderful for making Valentine's cards or love notes for your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, well you get the idea.  I decided to make this as a gift for someone so will only share a couple of them here.  I'll share the rest once I've sent them off...so stay tuned.  This paper for the first card was patterned with writing and flowers, music, etc.  Additionally it had these two pretty birds perched on the front and they were overlaid with a burnished copper embossing.  I found the beautiful matching ribbon in the Thanksgiving decorations at Michaels on sale and knew it was a perfect match.  The other nice thing about the paper pad is it had two page of tags/embellishments in it.  The tag across the bottom is one of them.  It is kind of hard to see, but it is raised with foam stickies, it says For My Love in the same burnished copper and I stamped a love sentiment next to it in copper.

For the second card, I chose to highlight the perfect block on the left side of the page and use it as my sentiment location.  In the lower left corner there are two flowers that are embossed with a glittery red as is the word Love and the No. 206.  I used my Martha Stewart embossed heart punch and punched a small red glitter embossed heart for the upper right corner of the box and used the Butterflies Sizzlet from SU! to add a butterfly in the lower right corner.  Then to finish it off, I stamped the love sentiment you see in the box in red and added a glittery red ribbon from my Christmas ribbon stash.

I can't say enough about this paper pack.  It is really wonderful and has some beautiful patterns and embossing on it.  Check it out the next time you're in Michael's!  Great for making Love Notes for your sweetie!

See you next time.  Imagine, Create, Enjoy.