BBTB2 Easter Egg Challenge

Happy Bitten by the Bug 2 Monday!  This week's challenge cut was selected by my design team sister, the lovely Krista.  Krista selected any Easter egg cut from the Easter 2010 cartridge - or if you do not have Easter 2010, as some design team members did not, any Easter egg from any cartridge will work.

I have the Easter 2010 cartridge - and I love it.  The eggs on this cartridge are so pretty and there are so many other fun Easter cuts.  I chose the floral cut out egg for my project.

I started by creating a basic egg shaped card, using Design Studio to weld two eggs together.  I then sized the scalloped egg background cut, the floral front cut and decorative inside eggs to fit the base card.

As I assembled the layers of the card, I added green inserts behind the leaves, lavender strips behind the small dots, and purple cardstock behind the large flower cut out.  I added white and brown doodles and pink flowers with pearl centers and green leaves.

Using the same floral egg cut, I created additional pages in the cut file to cut eggs for the Easter egg tree.  I made the eggs double sided since many can be seen from both sides.   I added the Easter 2010 eggs and sparkling eggs both to the tree and placed it in my entry way.

This is a look at the upper tier of the Easter egg tree.  And below is a final look at my BBTB2 Easter egg card.  Be sure to go by Bitten by the Bug 2 and check out the great projects the design team made this week.  Also please do play along on the challenge - you can post your project in the Mr. Linky at BBTB2.

I will be back tomorrow with another new project to share, and later in the week we will begin a new contest!!!

Easter Silhouette Card

Have I told you that I love the Martha Stewart Seasonal Art Cake Cartridge?  I really, really like this cartridge a lot, though I have not used it once for cake making!!  It has a lovely font and art work for every major holiday. 

Purple is not a color I work with often - and there is a reason.   Short story, I once had to do an entire scrapbook in a purple palette.  It wore me out on purple for quite a while.  :D

My daughter told me told me that the bunnies are creepy!  What?  Creep?  No way.  But yes, apparently the clothing on the bunnies that makes them creepy.  And of course my husband agreed with her, only he claims the creepy parts are the eyes.  Everyone's a critic!!  But okay, I probably should not have drawn in eyes....... Or the ears......?

My favorite part of the card is the background paper.  I like all of those Easter eggs.  In fact, I liked them so well that I cut out six of them to use the in the silhouette basket and the bunnies'  hands. 

The flower embellishement was created by layering two large white flowers with two lavender flowers and topping them with a crocheted flower and button. 

I stamped the inside of the card with a stamp I picked up at Hobby Lobby last year. 

This probably is not my best card every - I think it is curse of the purple.  After that purple scrapbook, purple and I just do not work well together!! 

Imagine Card with Easter 2010 and Audrey

I am so happy it is the weekend!  We had a dreary week with lots of rain and thunderstorms and cool weather.  It went from the mid 70s to the mid 40s and made me wonder WHERE spring was hiding.  But as of Friday, spring  (with sunshine and warmer weather) made a return to SC.  And today is even warmer!  So to get past the dreary rain and to reclaim spring, I decided to make a simple Easter card.

I had not used my Cricut Imagine for literally several months!  I have dusted it and stacked items on top of it, but I had not cut with it.  So last night I changed that!  First I tried to use the Cricut Craft Room to create my design and then cut... But alas I could not get it to cut for me.  I will have to call Joy, Melanie or Diane for a tutorial.  In the meantime, I made the elements for this card with the Imagine old school! 

I inserted Audrey into my Imagine and also Easter 2010.  I placed the scallop edged circle on the mat and colored it pink.  I then printed and cut the circle.  Next I placed the four cuts for the hatching chickie on Celebrate with Flourish onto the mat.  I colored each element with colors/patterns from Audrey and then cut and printed those.

Using mono adhesive and pop dots, I assembled the chick and placed it on the pink circle.  I placed the circle onto a white circle shaped welded card I cut with the cricut expression and design studio.    Next I outlined the chickie elements with a brown micro-tipped pen, as well as added dots to the edge of the card.

I ran a ribbon through two the holes in the card, circled around the top of the card, and tied a bow on the front.  I topped the bow with a clear pink button.  I took crochet flowers and using floss, I sewed pink buttons on the flowers.  The flowers were attached to  the card with glue dots. 

I finished the card with a Happy Easter arched stamp, in brown. 

I have decided that I must use my Imagine regularly AND learn to use the Cricut Craft Room.  The craft room works like Design Studio plus Gypsy - combining the best elements of each.  I thought it was VERY easy to use, except for that whole cutting thing!!  I recently purchased three new Imagine cartridges so hopefully I will be Imagining more in the near future!

Hey There Chickies

Happy BBTB2 Monday.   The challenge cut at Bitten by the Bug 2 this week is the Chick from the Easter 2010 cartridge.  I really love this cartridge!  The cuts are traditional Easter images - bunnies, chicks, eggs, bows. lambs, basket, etc.  If you do not own this cartridge, I highly suggest you try to find it.

Cut the challenge chickie in three different sizes and three colors/prints and created a welded shadow using Design Studio.  Using in pop dots I layered the chickies on the front of a circular card.   

The card itself was created using George and Basic Shapes and Easter 2010 cartridges.  The base card is two welded circles.  The circle is topped with the white textured cardstock doily cut from Easter 2010 and two Easter print circles from George. 

I cut the base card with pink orange peel textured cardstock.  For the time being the I left the inside of the card empty.

I finished the front of the card with flowers, orange Stickles, gemstones, and a script Happy Easter stamp.

Be sure to go to the BBTB2 site and check out all of the design team projects!

A Two-fer Project with Cut File

Yes you read that title correctly, I did write "two-fer"; as in "two for the price of one!"   That is the concept behind my tag project at Custom Crops.  I used the Very Merry Tags cartridge and created an Easter tag which would also be simply adorable as a baby gift tag, hence the "two-fer".  

So often we limit ourselves by what we see on a cartridge and we tend to forget that this entire hobby is about being creative.  My advice is to think outside the cartridge.  Think of what you would like to create then look at the cartridges and see how the shapes can be welded to create what you have in mind.  That was the case with the cut tag.  I used the mittens tag as a base on which to add by Lamb and Bunny faces. 

If you have not already purchased the Very Merry Tags cartridge, Custom Crops has a few copies left in stock and the last time I looked they were retailing for $12.00!!!  You should truly snap this cartridge up before they are all gone.  As you can see, you can do so much more than just Christmas Tags!!!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone!!!!!

Easter Cards - Two From One

Have you been by Custom Crops yet this week to check out this week's new articles and projects?  There is a whole lot of Easter going on at CC!  And of course I contributed to the Easter Fest.  Using Cricut Design Studio I designed one cut file that creates two great cards!  The first card is my sad, sad attempt at humor and the second offers the opportunity for Easter stamping.

The first card features two chocolate bunnies in conversation.  Sadly the bunny on the right cannot hear as well as he used to.... Someone bit off his ear!!   This silly card sports several techniques:  the front is framed in a welded border frame, the bunnies are elevated using pop dots, and the voice balloons use the mini gel pen adaptor in the Cricut to write the words, then finally the balloons were cut after replacing the Cricut's housing blade.

The inside of the card has a large balloon with the Happy Easter phrase and a background of printed paper also cut with the Cricut.

The second card had a scalloped background, two chocolate bunnies and is trimmed with a ribbon and bow.  The inside of the card is blank so that you can customize the card according to your preference.  I used this cute Easter stamp set and pink Stampin' Up ink.

You will find the cut file and complete instructions for these cards at Custom Crops.  Follow the blinkie on the upper left side of my blog to go directly to my page at Custom Crops.

If you have not already done so, please leave a comment under the previous post, BBTB2, so that you can be including in the drawing for a $20.00 certificate from SCRAP YOUR TRIP!!

Happy Easter Layout with Cut File and Instructions

Yesterday Custom Crops revealed the Monday New Projects, just as they do each Monday. My project this week is a fun two page Easter Layout. I really, really, REALLY like my layout; I just do not like my photos. The yellow in the photographs came out as harsh hotdog mustard yellow and not the sweet spring yellow that it is in real life. Apparently I was having a bad photography day.

All of the page elements, with the exception of the photo mats, were cut with the Easter 2010 cartridge.  I am completely addicted to this cartridge.  If you have not already purchased this cartridge, go straight to Custom Crops and order this cartridge NOW.  My friend Kathy is threatening to tell Hello Kitty that I have a new favorite cartridge!!! (Oh no...)

There are other great Easter projects at Custom Crops - Donna has a FABULOUS card (the only kind she makes!) and Margie has great little Easter Baskets.  Please do leave us a comment or two; we like to know if you appreciate our work.

3D Easter Basket Centerpiece

I have had a Busy with the Cricky sort of day. I completed next week's project for Custom Crops and I made this FABULOUS 3D Easter Basket Centerpiece for my entryway table. I am really pleased with how this basket came out.

I used CDS, Easter 2010, and George to design and cut the pieces of the baskets and fillers. The cut file will be available soon. The George pieces could be swapped with Plantin as only rectangles were used. I welded rectangles to the basket shadow cuts to create tabs and affixed the tabs together to create the 3D effect. To make the basket more stable I placed an empty tall, thin Prima Flower jar inside the basket.

I attached white floral wires to the back of the filler cuts. After placing shredded pink gift bag filler inside the basket I inserted the floral wires through the filler and into the empty jar. The wires can be bent and shaped to place the pieces into position.

View looking into the top of the basket on a blue background:

I can't wait to see how cute this basket is going to look in my front entryway!!!

Little Winter Woodlands Rabbit Happy Easter

Happy Bitten by the Bug 2 Monday blog hoppers. This week's challenge cut at BBTB2 is the Rabbit from Winter Woodlands. I had not used this rabbit cut before and I must say she is just adorable! I love the layered pieces and the potential for this cute little bunny. I used cat’s eye chalk to add depth to the edge of the top layer leg and head pieces.

I know that I have jumped the season a bit, but I combined the rabbit cut with the new Easter 2010. I used the Easter basket and eggs from the Easter cartridge, as well as the scalloped circle cut. I used my Copic markers to color the edge of the scalloped circle and to color the flowers and leaf cut out areas on the eggs and basket. I added pearl embellishments, including the black pearl for the Rabbit's eye. I used my usual black and white pens to add dotted embellies.

Do I even need to tell you that the Happy Easter cut came from the Easter cartridge???  Probably not.  I used the same chocolate brown paper for the word shadow as I used for the Rabbit, basket and bow shadows. And again I used a Copic marker on the top layer of cardstock to to match the color on the scallops.
 

 
I love the close up of the rabbit in the basket; she looks so sweet and so happy. 
 

The inside of the card is stamped with a curved Happy Easter stamp.  I have a confession:  I dropped the stamp as I was completing the stamp.  You will note the little smudge on the word Happy.  And finally, below is one last look at the card front.

Note:  The cut file has been added to the list of available cut files in the left column - WW & Easter Rabbit Card.

BBTB2 Love Stamp Cut

I am running a bit late today on getting my BBTB2 project loaded to both the BBTB2 site and to my blog.  The challenge this week was to use the Love Stamp cut from the Sweethearts cartridge.  I made this sweet valentine which includes cuts from five different cartridge:  Sweethearts, Calligraphy, Love Struck, Easter 2010 and Tie the Knot.

I used Bazzill pink bling cardstock, smooth white cardstock, one sheet of Basic Grey Sugared cardstock and two prints from SEI's Juliette line.  I love the shimmer in the SEI paper!!!

I finished off the front of the card with Prima flowers and American Crafts ribbon.  Inside I added the phrase "Be My Valentine" from the Calligraphy cartridge.  I also cut a an extra heart from Sweethearts and sweet border from Easter 2010. 

I love this couple on Love Struck.  Speaking of Love Struck, WHAT A GREAT CARTRIDGE!!!!  I am so enjoying the 2010 seasonal mini carts.  Be sure and get your before they are gone!!