Sunny Days with Celebrate with Flourish and BBTB2

Happy Monday and happy (HOT) summer!  This is my week to host the challenge cut at Bitten by the Bug 2.  In honor of the Summer Solstice, I selected a fun, summery cut - the phrase "Sunny Days" from the Celebrate with Floursh Lite cartridge! 

I designed this layout a month ago when I first selected my challenge cut.  The timing was perfect as my husband and I had just booked out first cruise!  Our 30th anniversary is in November so we decided to take a 6 night cruise to the Bahamas and Key West to celebrate.  We thought this cruise sounded like a perfect opportunity to introduce us to cruising - to get our feet wet, so to speak!

So, with "cruising on the brain" I combined cuts from Celebrate with Flourish and Life's a Beach cartridges to create this fun layout.  I used Celebrate with Flourish (CWF) to cut the Sunny Days phrase and the sun with clouds layered cut.  I love the layered look of the word phrases on CWF.  I confess that I have been utilizing a similar layering technique long before CWF was released. But using CWF makes the layering of letters MUCH easier.   I also really like the swirl cutouts - or flourishes - that are part of every CWF cut.  Such a fun cartridge.

I uses Life's a Beach (LIB) to cut the elements on the lower half of the page.  I cut the ship in multiple layers and had cut an additional bottom piece to make the ship taller.  I trimmed the ship out with ribbon, dashes and a cute little anchor. 

The double layer waves and the dolphines were also cut from LIB.  I had never cut the dolphines so I was a bit nervous about the tiny outline pieces.  But as you can see it all went very well.   The waves were cut in two layers - after welding two of each of the wave cuts together.  I thought the dolphins looked cut jumping out of the water between the waves.

I used this great beach photo on the layout, though truthfully I will probably make a matching page and save the layout for our fall cruice.  The photo mats will hold up to a 5 x7.  Sadly I was out of 5 x7 photo paper and had to print this photo at 4 x 6. 

If you have not already done so, please go by Bitten by the Bug 2 and check out the design team projects. I had a sneak peek and was WOWed by some of the great projects.  Also, please consider playing along with us on the weekly challenge.  Complete a new project this week using the "Sunny Days" phrase cut and post your project in the link area at BBTB2.  We provide a blog blinkie to the best project of the week, selected from those who chose to join us in the challenge.

Sweet Strawberry - Celebrate with Flourish & Lacey Labels

Happy Bitten by the Bug 2 Monday!  This week's challenge cut was selected by our sweet Design Team sister, Jeri.   Jeri chose the strawberry cut from the Simply Charmed cartridge.  I do not have Simply Charmed so I chose a different strawberry; I selected the strawberry from Celebrate with Flourish.  If you decide to play along and participate in the weekly challenge, you too can use any strawberry cut.  Just be sure to link your strawberry project to the BBTB2 blog!

And before we get into today's card, I have one more thing to share.  I liked Jeri's idea of a strawberry cut so much that I have decided to go with a berry theme for the week.  This card is the first of six berry themed projects that I plan to share this week.

I used all four layers of the Celebrate with Flourish strawberry and actually created a fifth layer for the leaves and stem.  I cut the icon image - the main strawberry - a second time in green cardstock.   I used micro-tipped scissors and trimmed the top of the strawberry adding the bottom layer of leaves.

I finished the strawberry with a ribbon, a flower charm, and assorted pink buttons.  I also added a few black doodles to the berry.

My main card pieces were cut using the Lacy Labels cartridge.  I welded the base card pieces together in Design Studio, then cut the same shape a second time a bit smaller.  I then cut two ovals on which to mat my berry and words.

Do you ever hate using quick dry glue?  I did when I used it on the word "Sweet", which was cut using Kate's ABC's. My word was not placed onto the matting correctly and then I could not move the word without ripping the paper.  Grrrr. 

As I stated above, this is the first of six berry themed projects I will be sharing this week.   Come back tomorrow for another berry flavored project!  In the meantime, you can head over to BBTB2 and check out the design teams strawberries!

Happy 5th Birthday Cricut Day 2

Happy Birthday, Cricut!  It's day two of the Cricut's birthday celebration and I have another birthday layout to share.  This was the second of the three layouts that I submitted to the Cricut Birthday Celebration.  I love the large background doily from the Basic Cake cartridge, especially in Cricut Green!

**** UP DATE **** This layout won!!! At 6:37 am this morning Cricut announced that this layout won for best Cricut theme!!!!  Woo-hoo!!  I am so excited that I am having trouble typing!!!

Using my lastest Cricut Circle cartridge, Cricut Everyday, I cut the large logo cricut circle, then used scissor to cut away part of the top circle to create the letter "C" in the work Cricut.  I used bright colors - Cricut green, pink (for the Pink Cricuts) and blue because I have a blue expression. 

I have always loved this party horn cut from Celebrations.  I cut the top layer twice and used scissors to cut away the mouth piece on the pink cut and to keep only the mouth piece on the blue cut.  The shadow cut is in dark blue.

I put a fun party hat on the "C" cricut head - It is Cricut's birthday after all.  I added a flower behind the top of the hat and I added a gem to the middle of the hat top.

I have one other thing to share today.  I ordered a glass tile backsplash tile kit from DIY Network last week and it arrived this afternoon.  The box claimed that the entire project could be done in two hours, which I did not believe, but I decided to install my tile last night anyway.  Over all, including cleaning up, the tile took me about three hours to cover 15 square feet.  I hope you don't mind, but I am going to share photos of my first tile project.

I went with Almond colored tile, which has a touch of metallic copper and gold as well some tans and light browns.  I thought that the almond would work with our white cabinets and multi colored earth tone counter tops. 

The almond tile also blends well with the 4x4 ceramic tile over the sink and cook top.  I just need to do a few finishing touches, but the work is really finished. 

I will be back tomorrow to share my final Cricut birthday layout.

 

Happy 5th Birday, Cricut

Let the Celebrations begin!!!  It's a happy birthday party for Cricut and we are all invited! I cannot wait until tonight's release of the Cricut Expression II machine - the limited anniversary (birthday) edition!  Like so many of us, I will be tuned into HSN tonight at midnight to see Jinger start get the release going! 

I am taking a break from making Cricut birthday hats to complete this post.  I have invited MFK (my friend Kathy) and Kimberly over for the 9:00 pm Everyday Cricut livestream.  And then they are going to stay for the midnight show!!

This is the first of my three Cricut contest birthday layouts that I am sharing.  To be honest, it is my least favorite and I almost did not even send it.  I truly like my other two and I will share those over the next two days.  What I do like about this layout are the cardstock choices.  I think the papers are fun and bright without screaming "child-like".

So now that I have shared my so-so layout, you can look forward to two better layouts tomorrow and Wednesday.  I promise they will be more impressive.  Also, I will share photos of Kathy, Kimberly and I enjoying the Cricut festivities tonight!!!

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!

Chocolate Bar box for my favorite Gobblins

Happy Monday bloggers!  My first project of the week is the weekly BBTB2 project.  This week's challenge cut was selected by the lovely and amazing Regina Easter!  Regina chose the crayon box on Cricut's Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More cartridge.  For those who may  be interested, the last time I checked TBBM was available at the Cricut rewards site for 800 points.

Obviously I chose to go with a Halloween theme for this challenge.  I was thinking of my favorite little neighborhood gobblins and designed a spooky-fun box to hold full-size Hershey chocolate bars.  As an added bonus the will also hold two of my large cut out sugar cookies! 

I used several additional cartridges to decorate my tick or teat boxes including: Storybook for the the tag, Happy Hauntings for the fence with the creepy bird and the bat, George for the moon shape and background rectangle, and Celebrate with Flourish for the Happy Halloween title cut.  I used fun Halloween papers and I added a square of sticky Velcro to the flap for secure closure.

I embossed the tag and added white pen dots to enhance the edges.  I also added black dashes around the half moon on the flap.  I finished the box off with a bit of black rick-rack along the top edge. 

If you have not already been by the Bitten By the Bug 2 blog today, click on the name and you can view the design team's amazing projects.  I will be back tomorrow with a new Yudu project to share!!

Celebrate with Flourish Scarecrow

Here in SC our weather finally cooled down a bit - the temperature finally dropped below ninety degrees and the humidity has also decreased.  This is what is called early fall in the south.  At this time of year I miss Michigan.... I liked the change of colors, Indian Summer, apple cider being made at the orchard.... Big sigh....   My Michigan State Spartans were playing in 60 degree weather on Saturday... I had quite the longing for "real fall." To help me through my "real fall." longings, I decided to make a fall-esque card.   

I used the scare crow from Cricut's Celebrate with Flourish Lite cartridge.  I did enhance the layers a bit with Copic markers - he was designed to be more of a silhouette, but I wanted more detail.   I cut some beige fringe and used that as hay.  His face was created using a circle punch for the face and small Peachy Keen stamps for the features.  I cut a matting out using my nesties - I think this is label nine, but don't quote me on that.

I used a circle punch and a scalloped circle punch to create the pumpkin circle embellishment.  The pumpkin is from one of the background papers. 

I have two sets of small fall and Halloween stamps that I really like.  I stamped a large greeting inside the card and I used the smaller pumpkin patch phrase stamp to embellish the corners of the card.  In the end I had fun making the card, but the desire for fall is still there.  And before any of you remind me, I am honest enough to admit that come January I will perfectly happy to live in SC.  We get all of two or three weeks of winter.... So really the trade off is not bad.