Graduation

Happy Memorial Day!  We are enjoying our 3 day weekend (especially as it's a rare weekend where I don't have to work) and doing lots of yard work.  Our BBTB2 challenge for this next two weeks is a graduation theme.  Since Son#2 just graduated from high school two weeks ago, I was excited to work on a layout for some of the many graduation pictures we took.  I used elements from several different cricut cartridges, but the highlight is the Senior title with graduation cap from an image collection on cricut access called Senior Class.  I also used some flourishes and a scalloped circle for accents.  The circle may be a journal box or may hold a picture-I haven't decided yet.

Our challenge runs for two weeks, giving you a chance to make something special for the grad in your life!  Our Design Team has some graduation projects you can see over at BBTB2.

Cricut:
Basic Shapes-circle
Elegant Edges-scalloped circle
Flourishes-both flourish accents
Senior Class-title with graduation cap
Paper-prints all from doodlebug, CTMH solids.

Mother's Day card

Happy Monday!  I'm hosting over at BBTB2 this week and we are having a Mother's Day themed challenge-here's your chance to make mom a special card or gift!  Or a chance to make a scrapbook layout for pictures of the day.  I've made my mom a card (STOP READING NOW, MOM), using the Lyrical Letters cartridge for the sentiment and Elegant Edges for the background shape.  I did a little embossing to add texture and of course some flowered background paper.  Mothers always deserve to have flowers!  The designers over at BBTB2 have shared cards and layouts, so pop over and take a peek!  We hope you will link up a project this week to share with us.

Cricut:
Lyrical Letters-title sentiment
Elegant Edges-background oval
Paper-Doodlebug prints, CTMH solids
embossing folder
stamp-Paper Smooches

Mittens winter card

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Much turkey was consumed at my house and despite smoking TWO turkeys, all the turkey was sadly gone by about 10:00 AM on Friday.  Maybe we need to up that to three turkeys next year.  Teen boy appetites are truly boundless!

Are you shopping Cyber Monday?  I am...you could not pay me enough money to venture forth on Black Friday to shop.  Shopping from home in comfy fleece and fuzzy socks is how I roll.  Amazon prime, baby!  I plan to do a little craft supply shopping among the Christmas gifts-do you think hubby will notice?  LOL!!!!!  So our BBTB2 challenge this week is acknowledging winter cold-use a coat, jacket, scarf, or mitten cricut cut on your project.  While it's been rather unseasonably warm here, I know the cold will get here eventually.  I used the Jolly Holiday cartridge for the mittens and Elegant Edges for the scalloped squares on my card.  Hope you will join us this week for some crafty fun and you can link your project up over at BBTB2.

Cricut:
Jolly Holidays-mittens
Elegant Edges-scalloped square
Paper-Bo Bunny prints, CTMH solids

birthday layouts

Happy Monday!  It's a birthday theme at BBTB2 this week and I have a whole bunch of birthday ideas to share!  You can see more birthday goodness over at BBTB2 from the designers.  So let's get started....

 Project #1

This was for pics of Son#1's birthday this fall.  I wanted the picture in the star frame to be the focus.

Cricut:
Sweet Treats-happy birthday
Artbooking-photo frame with star
Artistry-numbers
Elegant Edges-scallop circle
Plaintain Schoolbook-circle
Paper-Doodlebug print, CTMH solids

Project #2

I was having some fun with the CTMH watercolors and made the cupcake paper on the right myself! I stamped the cupcakes and then watercolored them!  I also watercolored the Happy Birthday banner that I cut from the Artiste cartridge...probably would have just kept watercoloring if there was anything else left, lol!  My inner kindergartner was out to play.  The balloons are stamped from a CTMH set that corresponds to the Art Philosophy cartridge, so I cut them out with my cricut, then stamped the ballon image.  We were celebrating the November birthdays in the family (Son#3 and Grandma).  

Cricut:
Artiste-banner, balloons
Sweet Treats-make a wish
Stamp set-CTMH Artiste cartridge birthday set


The next few layouts go together as a set.  The Party Animals birthday layout from a few weeks ago is one of them.  The rest do not have any cricut cuts, but I decided to put them together with the other birthday layouts for one big birthday bonanza of layout ideas.

Project #3

Project #4

Project #5

The arrow is a cricut cut from the Artiste cartridge that has a matching CTMH stamp.

Project #6

I showed this layout a few weeks ago, but wanted to include it with the birthday theme as well.

Graduation

Happy Monday!  I hope you are having a relaxing Memorial Day holiday!  It's that graduation season and our BBTB2 challenge this week is to make either a graduation or thank you card.  While I don't have any graduates this year, next year Son#1 will be a senior and I expect to need lots of cards as we will know many graduating seniors.  So this card is going in the stash!  I used Locker Talk for the graduation cap and Elegant Edges for the background mat.  The font is from Artistry.  My Swiss Dots embossing folder on the mat did not show up well in the photo, but gives some texture to the white mat in real life!  Hope you will check out all the fabulous cards at BBTB2 and use the linky for a project to share of your own.

Cricut:
Locker Talk-graduation cap
Artistry-font
Elegant Edges-shaped mat behind cap
Swiss Dots embossing folder
Paper-CTMH solids

I love summer layout

Today is my day for the daily project at Exploring Cricut!  This tasty summer layout was inspired by the yummy watermelon background paper by Imaginescence, although I think it would look cute on a solid green or red background too.  Doesn't it look delicious?  (Just makes me crave some melon!)  I used the Simply Charmed cartridge for the title and watermelons and Elegant Edges to make the journal box.  This is for my stash of family picnic photos that need a home.

Cricut:
Elegant Edges-journal box
Simply Charmed-all other cuts
Paper-Imaginescence

Check out the projects on Exploring Cricut every day for something new to inspire you!

Wedding bells card (for Exploring Cricut)

Our challenge at Exploring Cricut is to do a wedding project using black and white with a touch of another color.  I made a wedding card to have in the stash, as we don't have any upcoming weddings this summer.  I'm not good under deadlines at coming up with card ideas, so I'm glad to have one in ready to go (I have to have plenty of time to let my ideas sort of gel….)!  I used the CM Divine Wedding cartridge for my wedding bells, but any bells would substitute if you don't have that cartridge.  My card has lots of layers-I put the wedding bells on the oblong shapes from Elegant Edges and used two different embossing folders to add visual interest to the white mats.  I think I could customize this design using one of a couple's wedding colors in place of the pink.  Of course, gold or silver would look pretty awesome too.  I may be making more than one of these, lol!

Cricut:
CM Divine Wedding-bells cut at 3 1/2 inches
Elegant Edges-oblong-shift and shadow (on p. 63) cut at 4 1/4 inches
Paper-CTMH pink, white and black card stock from Hobby Lobby
embossing folders
Stamp-Ink-a doo

Happy Easter layout (for Exploring Cricut)

I've made a layout for the Exploring Cricut challenge this week, featuring three cartridges!  Yes, that's a bunch….but I needed them all. Our challenge is to make an Easter project, including a frame and a button, brad, or jewel.   I used the Phrases cartridge for the happy Easter title.  The bunny frame is from Elegant Edges.  The chick and eggs are from Create A Critter 2.  I added some pearls to my cute little Easter egg (for the jewels).  The cute print paper is from Hobby Lobby.

Cricut:
Phrases-title, cut at 3 inches
Elegant Edges-bunny frame and shadow, cut at 4 1/2 inches
Create A Critter 2-chick and eggs, cut at 3 inches
Paper-The Paper Studio
brown chalk ink

You can use any cricut cut or SVG for this challenge, so link up at Exploring Cricut, and check out the design team's cute projects!

I Heart You Valentine card (for BBTB2)

Valentine's Day is coming!  This is one of my favorite holidays because you get things like chocolate and flowers and you can give kisses (chocolate or otherwise) to those you care about!  Plus you get to give cute little cards!  Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to make a Valentine project, including a heart, with your cricut.   The BBTB2 team has some great Valentines for you to see!

So for MY valentine, I used the Create A Critter 2 cartridge to cut my little bear with the heart and Elegant Edges to cut the scalloped ovals in the background.  I love the stamp "I Heart You", which went perfectly with my bear!  The cute heart bg paper is from Doodlebug.

Cricut:
Create A Critter 2-bear
Elegant Edges-scalloped ovals
Paper-Doodlebug prints, CTMH solids
Stamps-
ribbon-
Swiss dots and hearts embossing folders

We hope you'll join in on our challenge this week while you make some valentines for the special people in your life!

B is for Boy baby card

I made a quick baby card for the stash while playing around with the B is for Boy cartridge.  The cute little train seemed perfect for a baby boy card!  The stamps are from one of the My Pink Stamper sets.   The shaped mats are from the Elegant Edges cart, which has proven it's versatility.  I find myself constantly going to it for mats for cards and journal boxes.   The banner is from Winter Frolic and I popped up both the train and the banner for some dimension.

Cricut:
B is for Boy-train
Elegant Edges-mats
Winter Frolic-banner
Stamp-My Pink Stamper set
Ink/Ribbon-Stampin Up Close to Cocoa ink, Stampin Up Bashful Blue ribbon
Paper-DCWV Nana's Kids stack

I'm going to link this to the Cardz TV challenge to make a baby themed card or project.

"Baby it's cold outside" layout

It's feeling kind of cold here today, although we did not get the predicted wintry mix of rain and snow.  I used my Teen Scene Paper Dolls and Graphically Speaking to make a cold weather layout though, as I'm sure we'll have some snow soon enough.  It was inspired by this fun word paper from the Bo Bunny Powder Mountain collection!  So my boy with the sled is from Teen Scene and the COLD word jumble and snowflakes are from Graphically Speaking.  The journal box is from Elegant Edges.

Cricut:
Teen Scene Paper Dolls-kid and sled
Graphically Speaking-cold word jumble and snowflakes
Elegant Edges-journal box
Paper-Bo Bunny Powder Mountain collection
Stamp/Ink-My Pink Stamper and Stampin Up Early Espresso ink

I'm going to link this to the Fantabulous Cricut snow challenge.  I'm also going to link this to the Pause Dream Enjoy blue and white challenge.  I've got more of a blue, white, and gray thing going on here, but I decided it was close enough, lol!  I'm also going to link this to the 2 Sisters snowflakes challenge.

Christmas in July card

Several challenges are doing Christmas in July right now, which is an incentive to get working on those Christmas cards!  I have not exactly been in a Christmas frame of mind, as the temperatures have been 100-105 here, but decided maybe it would make me FEEL cooler to do a winter project.  (Just for the record, it didn't...but I did get a card made!)  I used Phrases for the Merry Christmas and Elegant Edges for the shape underneath.

Cricut:
Phrases-title
Elegant Edges-shape
Paper-CM solid cardstock, Doodlebug printed paper
Stamps-SU
Swiss dots embossing folder
I'm going to link this to the Cardz TV and BBTB2 Christmas in July challenges.  

"Sweet" layout

I miss all the ice cream we ate on vacation (although my waistline is paying the price), so I did a layout of my pictures was of us eating ice cream!  I scrap lifted the base paper choices from a layout I saw that used the Miss Caroline Dilly Dally paper from My Mind's Eye, but then I had to change up the rest to suit my pictures and die cuts.  The title is cut from the Groovy Times cartridge (I used My Cut Search to find all the cartridges that had "sweet" on them-there are a LOT of choices) and the journaling spot is from Elegant Edges.  My yummilicious ice cream cone is the stretched version of of the cone on Stretch Your imagination, although none of the real cones we ate had quite that many scoops :)

Cricut:
Groovy Times-title
Elegant Edges-scalloped square
Stretch Your Imagination-ice cream cone
Paper-My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline Dilly Dally
twine/brown chalk ink
Stamp-Fiskars It's a Sweet Life set
Ink-Stampin Up island indigo

I'm going to link this to the Cricut Chirp Challege "too sweet to eat".

Scavenger Hunt layout

This layout of my kids and their cousins on a huge scavenger hunt features one of my absolute favorite cartridges-Doodlecharms!  It was one of the very first carts I bought and I still find myself going back to it often, as the images are simple and fun (and without too many layers-while I love the look of lots of layers, sometimes that is just tedious to cut and you want something fast and easy).  We had to collect all kinds of items (while tied together!!!), like flowers, branches, bugs, leaves, etc. on this hunt (along with many other assorted random items!)    It was good summer time fun!

Cricut:
Elegant Edges-journal box
CM This and That-title font
Doodlecharms-all other cuts
Paper-background paper Simple Stories 100 Days of Summer, cuts from Basic Grey Shine On collection paper
Stamps-K Andrews Splashtastic Summer set
I'm going to link this to the Paper Playtime Say it with a sentiment challenge.  I'm having fun playing with my new summer stamp set from K Andrews :)