Its Halloween Season!

 I can’t believe it’s October already! This year is just going by super fast. Have you decided what you want to be for Halloween yet?

Next week is already time our yearly community fall festival. I will be a volunteer again this year. It’s mostly for the kids but it’s fun to see them in all their costumes and we will be showing them a great time. Lots of games and candy to be had.
My friend Cheryl and I made these cute mini witch’s hats to attach to headbands so we can wear them at the festival.


 My camera phone didn’t do these justice but you can still see how adorable they are.

I also took some time to complete a Halloween mini book I started last year and set aside. I tend to do this a lot so I made it my mission to complete old projects this year. I took Amy Tan’s class “Get Your Creative Juices Flowing” at Big Picture, where she taught how to make mini books like her Daybooks.
Here are a few pics of my Halloween mini book. 



This was a fun and easy book to create and I used up some Halloween paper and embellishments I had in my stash.  Most of the papers were Little Yellow Bicycle. The Fence, spider and Spooky were cut with the Cricut. I can’t remember who made the journaling cards and the embellishments where from Fancy Pants, K&Co, etc.  (Don’t remember who made all of the items.) 

Well, I hope you have a Safe and Happy Halloween and get lots of candy!
Cat

Merry Tags for Blocks

As promised, here’s a look at my Christmas blocks. 

I made these with the Cricut Alphabet font (love this font!) and Winter Frolic for the snowman and ornament shapes. These were so easy to make I was done in a few of hours. See my original altered blocks post for more information and a video tutorial on making the blocks.
I cut the letters in Real Dial Size to better control the size proportion to the ornament.  I also cut the shadows so that the letters would stand out.  Then I gave them some texture with an embossing folder. 
Here’s a look at a couple of close ups.











I kept it simple this time and only added glitter to the snowman.  
So simple and so cute.  These are the times I love my Cricut and love not having to hunt down images online.
Hopefully, my seasonal blocks inspired you this year.  I’m thinking of making a set for the new year and then cycling through the ones I already made this year come spring.
I have a couple more projects to share this season so stay tuned!

  Cat

Last Minute Christmas Cards

Hello! I’m back and I have some quick and easy Christmas card ideas you can make by this weekend! Yes you can do this!
One uses the Cricut, the second uses stamping and the third one uses stickers.
The first simple card idea involves the Cricut.

In order to make these cards fast it’s best to use premade blank cards. You can get them at Michaels with your 40% off coupon. 
First, find some holiday word art from any cartridge. Here I’m using Joys of the Season from the Wrap It Up cartridge.  Use fancy paper like foiled or glittered paper so it looks special.
Then find a background diecut and cut it so it fits your card.  (I used the Spring Holiday Cards cart for this background). Emboss it with an embossing folder.  Ink your embossed diecut and adhere it to your card.  You can pop dot it if you wish to create a 3D effect. 
Then add another background diecut for your word art and cut it to size.  I used  Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels One die for this one.
Add your word art and tie a little twine if you wish to add a cute embellishment. 
Now, you can leave it like this or mist it with some clear shimmer spray to give the entire card a little sparkle. And voila, you are done! 
The second card was created with one stamp and fancy foiled paper.

Cut your fancy patterned paper to fit card.  Trim with matching ric rac ribbon.  Stamp your image and you can either emboss or glitter it for a little shine.  Use a corner punch and that’s it!  Another quick and easy card.  Stamps are from $1 Micheals bin – ornaments and Close to My Heart –Joy. I’ve had these for a few years so I don’t know if they are still available.  The paper is from Hobby Lobby – I got these on clearance last year.  May still be around this year.
The final card is super simple also and uses stickers.

These cute stickers I picked up at Michael’s for 79 cents!   They are epoxy holographic stickers. How cute is this!  All I did here was cut a couple of pieces of paper and adhered them together and then wrapped the ribbon around it.  I created the knot on the ribbon before I adhered it to the card.
Then I used my 1 1/2 inch scalloped punch and my 1 inch round punch.  Layered the punches together and attached the stickers.  For the greeting I used two stamps.  A snowflake stamp with a light colored ink and then stamped the greeting over that.  No embossing or anything fancy.  These cards are done!
I hope these samples help you get those cards completed.  Remember to keep the cards simple and without too many 3D embellishments so they go through the mail intact.
Stay tuned as I’ll be posting my holiday tags in the next few days. Super simple and super cute also.
Cat
 

Boo! Frame

Today I wanted to share a cute Halloween frame I made. 

This little art piece was based on a project I learned about at the Little Blue House, the float art frames. 
My twist was that I used tiny beads(not micro) instead of buttons an I used a Cricut die cut for the tree and grass.  You can use the die cut just as a guideline for your buttons or beads but I wanted to keep the tree base so I attached the die cut to the glass. Then I adhered the beads on top with Glossy Accents.


Here’s a close- up of the beads:

 

Well, I loved making that one so much that I made another on but used bits of paper to fill in the larger frame.

Try these and come up with your own artwork.  Just think of the possibilities for Christmas. Gift giving ideas too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cat

Linking to:

Hello Fall! Word Blocks

Hello everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful summer and that you are already enjoying the cool fall days.  My summer was pretty uneventful.  It was just too freakin’ hot here to do anything.  I’m not a big fan of summer so I stay indoors a lot. 
And with that, I caught a horrible stomach flu that kept me mostly in bed for 2 weeks. So, I didn’t get a chance to add anything nor was I in the mood to complete my July minibook.  Oh well, I’ll save it for next year. 
Now, on to my little project.  I made the fall tags with my Cricut.  Keep in mind that I’m still using the same blocks I created for my Spring blocks.  I also created summer blocks but never got around to posting because of my illness. But here’s a quick picture of them:
Those were not done with the Cricut. I used chipboard letters and the new 3 in 1 Stampin Up flower punch and some stickers.  The pennant shape I cut out by hand. 

Now back to the fall blocks.  These were done with the All About Fall cartridge to cut out the leaf and pumpkin shapes.  Also used the Gypsy font but I can’t remember which one was the “hello” font.  Then I used a few miscellaneous stickers and flowers from my stash and DCWV paper which has a foiling treatment on some of the leaves.  The texture on the pumpkin was created using my Fiskars texture plates with the Cuttlebug.  I like to use these plates when I don’t want a deep impression.  Then, I used lots of glitter for the red letters even though it doesn’t show much on the pictures.  No video this time.  I forgot to set it up until it was too late. 

Well, that’s all for now.  I will be posting a cute Halloween frame in the next week. Now, I need to catch with everyone’s blogs and projects. 
Cat

Linky Parties

Mother’s Day Card and Envelope Faux Pas

Happy Sunday!  Hope you are enjoying the remainder of your weekend.  This weekend I went to two crops. How productive of me, right? Well, so-so productive anyway. I really didn’t plan very well for my crops so I just took some page kits and slapped them together.  I didn’t even have pictures for some of them and they all need some final touchups. (sigh!)

 

I don’t know if I’ll buy page kits ever again.  Don’t get me wrong, they are great designs and make for fast pages, but for me it‘s really hard to conform my pictures to the page kits. So, I usually end up changing the original intended design which really doesn’t save me much time. Maybe I’ll post a couple of them once I get the final touches done. Do you use any page kits? I would love to know how you work with them.

Ok, so now to my original topic – Mother’s Day Cards!  This year I used my Cricut & Gypsy (you don’t need the gypsy to create these cards) to design my card and I have to say I am really pleased with the results. 

Here is the first color way. 

 

The card itself and the flower were from Sentimentals; the topper base and shadow were from Spring Holiday Cards; the label from Tags, Bags, Boxes. Other supplies used were My Minds Eye paper, Stickles glitter, 3Birds letter rubons, Coredinations cardstock which I embossed with the Damask style Cuttlebug folder, misc cardstock, ribbon and pearls. 

Now, here’s a rookie mistake I made and I about kicked myself for it.  If anything else please remember this from this post: When you make a card on the Cricut, always – always cut the envelope (using the fit to page feature) first!! This way you know what size card you need to make. 

I was too busy trying to fit two cards on 12 x 12 mat that I didn’t even consider the envelope. So, now I had a card but the envelope that goes with it won’t work. Ugh!  Well, I had no choice but to make an envelope using the Martha Steward Scoreboard and I loved, loved,loved the results!

My card was approx. 5.12” x 5.5” and I tried the measurements for the 6X6 card listed on the board, but that was just too large.  And after some adjustments I was able to make the perfect envelope. 

Measurements used to create a square envelope for a 5.5 X 5.5 card:

1. Cardstock 10 x 10.
2.   Using the envelope triangle that comes with the board, score at 4 1/4 on all four sides.
3.  Fold and Ta Da! Perfect envelope. Simple right?

I also added holes (see below) to tie a ribbon through the flap. 

Here is the other color way. Card and envelope. The paper used for this one was Colorbok and letter stamps from Memory Makers. Everything else is pretty much the same as above.

I hope these gave you some last minute card ideas for your Mother’s Day Cards and keeps you from making silly mistakes like mine. It’s all good though. For me, it seems every mistake becomes an unexpected new technique.

I will be linking to some Sunday and Monday parties (see my Linky Parties page for a list).



New Baby Card & Etching Pyrex

Hello everyone!  I hope your week has been going well. I was a little under the weather over the past week, but am lots better now.
So now I need to catch up on some blogs, some crafting and on getting back to replying to your wonderful comments. 
Today, I’m sharing a welcome baby card I made for my neighbors who had a new baby girl last week. I made this card with my Cricut using Wrap It Up. I just love that baby carriage image. 

Here’s a better shot of the glitter.

So, over the weekend I decided to do some etching on my Pyrex casserole dishes. I’ve seen it done so many times before all over the internet and it didn’t seem that difficult to do. Why not try it?
And here’s my results:

Pretty cool, huh?  I was totally pleased with the results.  I could’ve gone with a monogram or name but I wanted something more decorative.  This image is from the Cindy Loo cartridge and it also has a border image that I manipulated on my Gypsy to fit my dishes.
So here’s my process for etching these dishes.

1. Select image and cut to size on vinyl with your Cricut.
2. Use transfer tape to remove image from vinyl backing.
3. Transfer image to glass dish. (Oh, and clean your dish well with alcohol or something)
4. Weed the parts of the image you want to etch. 
5. Burnish the image well to remove any air bubbles from the edges.
6. Carefully, apply etching cream with a brush (I applied it pretty thickly) and let set for 20-30 minutes. (Oops! No Pics for the rest of instructions)
7. Wipe excess etching cream from image and then rinse well and quickly. You don’t want any etching cream to etch any other part of your dish.
8. Ta da! Now you have a beautiful etched dish! Make something yummy and enjoy!

Well that’s all the crafty bits I have for you today. 
Now, I need to work on those Mother’s day cards I haven’t had a chance to finish.  I’m also really excited for the new season of Doctor Who on BBC America this Saturday. Yay! Finally!

Photo courtesy of BBC.co.uk

Linking to these parties: