Back to School

Can you believe that it is already August, that for millions of teachers and students school is just around the corner and soon we will be basking in the luxury of fall temperatures? I confess that after our high today fall temperatures would indeed be a luxury! In honor of the approaching school year my dear design team sister Lori selected this week’s challenge cut. Lori gave us a wide range of choices by selecting any of the school cuts on the Locker Talk cartridge. I do not own Locker Talk, but I found some cute crayons on My Community and this great Back to School phrase on Celebrate with Flourish.

Using Cricut Design Studio and the My Community cartridge, I created a custom card design.  I welded the shadow cut of the three crayons to a square, adding two long thin rectangles across the crayons to hold them together.  As you can see after the words were added the rectangular bars a nearly invisible.

I had fun with my crayon colors, choosing bold prints as my crayons and crayon labels.  I then chose lime green for the contrast color.  
  

The Back to School phrase was cut in four pieces - the shadow in yellow, the icon cut in a white grounded multi print, a blue stripe and a darker blue solid.  In the end, I thought that the white background multi print was too light, so I colored over most of the white letters with a lime green Copic marker. 

I used pop dots to affix the words to the front of the crayons.  The dimension added by the pop dots allow for the letter to have a bit of a visual pop from the card.

While you are out and about on the Internet today be sure to drop by Bitten by the Bug 2 and check out the design team's fabulous back to school projects! The BBTB2 site will be up at 11 am eastern time. I like to post a bit earlier so as to not miss my early readers.

I will be back with a couple of fun projects to share this week – including a unique birthday card for my future daughter-in-law.

Summer Ice Cream Cones Blog Hop

 

Happy Monday and welcome to the Bitten by the Bug 2 monthly blog hop! This week we are celebrating summer with fabulous ice cream cones. If you are following the BBTB2 blog hop you arrived here from the amazing Maria’s blog. If you have not been following the blog hop, please consider doing so when you leave my blog.

 

My amazing design team sister, Maria (mentioned above), chose this week’s BBTB2 challenge cut – the ice cream cone from the Sweet Treats cartridge. The cartridge is on sale this week at Custom Crops, who just happens to be sponsoring my blog for this week’s blog hop! I just spent some time browsing the new items at Custom Crops, and I confess I peeked at the Sizzix sale too!

 I ended up working a bit extra on this week’s challenge.  I began by making the large card above while I was at the lake last week.  At the time I was not truly happy with the card so I decided to try again with the smaller card.  However after I arrived home, I attacked the chocolate topping and the phrase “frosty fun” with glossy accents and I realized that I loved the look of the chocolate topping! 

I cut the ice cream and the cone from Bazzill embossed cardstock.  I love the patterns of this cardstock.  I used a brown micro tipped pen and doodled on the embossed patterns – adding a dot to the middle of the flowers on the pink ice cream, and tracing the edges of the pattern on the brown.  I loved this look.

My second card is a three leveled flip open card.  I used the same techniques on the chocolate topping and the ice cream cone.  However, I used different cardstock for the ice cream.  I chose Basic Grey’s strawberry print cardstock for the ice cream layer.  I stamped the phrase “for you” on the edge of the chocolate topping.

The chocolate layer flips up and to reveal the ice cream layer.  You could add another stamp, a charm or a hand written not here.  The ice cream also flips up to reveal a white inner layer, where I stamped the phrase “Happy Birthday.” 

As I mentioned above, Custom Crops is sponsoring my blog hop this week by offering my lucky winner a $20.00 gift voucher.  You can shop the Custom Crops site and apply the voucher code to receive $20 off of your total!  As I also mentioned above, Sweet Treats is currently on sale at Custom Crops - just click this link for a great price on this wonderful cartridge!  Just leave a comment under this post, be a blog follower and you will be entered to win the gift voucher.  I will draw a winner on Thursday.

Thank you for hopping by today.  Your next stop is at PenniAnnies blog, the home of our very sweet Penny!  Penny has the MOST ADOREABLE project to share with you.  Enjoy!

Welcome Penguin Cottage Box

Happy Monday and Welcome to Penguin Cottage!  Today I am sharing my Welcome project for my new neighbor, which just also happens to be this week’s Bitten by the Bug 2 project… Two birds (penguins!!); one stone!  This week’s challenge cut was the Penguin from Jolly Holidays, but I do not have that cartridge so I used the penguin from Joys of the Season. 

I used three cartridges to create the completed box - Joys of the Season for the Penguin, Sweet Tooth Boxes for the box, and Cindy Loo for the word "Welcome".  I cut the house box so that it filled the 12 x 12 mat.  The house was much easier to assemble than many of the previous Cricut building that I have assembled.  Also, the house actually has many details that I omitted (flowers and flower boxes).   And like always, assembly instructions are available in the back of your manual!

I made it so that my penguin is actually a card which opens while still attached to the side of the house – a built in To:/From: card.   I welded two of the penguin shadow cut together to serve as the base card.  I used a light blue damask cardstock to cut the base layer of the penguin and I used a Swiss dot textured cardstock to cut the “coat”.  I covered the black cardstock with black Stickles.

I cut the word “Welcome” from Cindy Loo.  The word was cut to fit across the roof top.  The roof was cut in the same textured Swiss Dot cardstock as the penguin coat and was hand doodled in silver gel pen (my favorite white gel pen died just when I really needed it)!

I finished my Sweet Tooth box by attaching the penguin to the side and tying a fun green polka dot ribbon around the box. All I have left to do is fill the box with brownies and deliver it to my new neighbors!!

I will be at the lake this week with my scrappy girlfriends which means I will be “borrowing” Internet signal from the neighbors at the lake house. I will have several new projects to share, including an unusual bridal shower card. Hopefully everything will post.

Greetings from the Seashore

Happy July 4th - American Independence Day!  And, a bit late, happy Canada day to our neighbors to the north!  I am back with another Bitten by the Bug 2 weekly challenge.  Our design team leader, Heather, chose the cut of the week, the STARFISH from the Life's a Beach cartridge. 

Before I discuss today's BBTB2 layout I want to share my "vacation" week with you.  As I previously shared, Doug, Ian and I were planning a few days in Chattanooga to visit with Doug's family.  His sister  and brother-in-law were in from NM and we were excited to see them.  Well, the day before we planned to leave I woke up early in the morning ill.  I had a yucky tummy, headache, fever, body aches, etc.  At first I thought that I had one of those 24 hour viral deals that we have all had.  But no.... My virus turned out to be a three day ordeal...  In the meantime I had sent Doug and Ian on their way, promising to go the doctor is I did not feel better by the third day.  Thankfully the afternoon of the third day I realized that I was on the road to wellness!

I missed seeing everyone, and as heavenly as being home alone can be, this was not one of those times.  I was bored and was missing my family!  So I had a bit of pity party and then I got over it!!  Oh, and I did read three books last week so that was good!

As I stated above, today's BBTB2  challenge cut is the starfish from Life's a Beach.  I decided to create a girlie beach layout because I have TONS of photos from Bethany's years at the College of Charleston - I think she spent a lot of time on the beach!!!  I normally use blues and sand colors for the beach, but this time I went with topical pinks, salmon, etc.

I used five cartridges to create this layout - Life's a Beach for the sea life, Kate's ABC's for the title cut - Seashore, Billionaire for the cursive phrase, George for the rectangles and French Manor for the stamp shaped cuts.

I used Cricut Design Studio to design my layered title and multi-layered bottom edge border. 

Please stop by Bitten by the Bug 2 and check out all of the great Starfish projects.  Also, please consider playing along with us this week - you could be our weekly winner!!!

I have a three day project to share with you Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - a Patriotic picnic enhanced with Cricut!!!

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.

Gnome Birthday Fun with BBTB2

Happy Monday!  Welcome to another Bitten by the Bug 2 weekly challenge!  This week's challenge cut was selected by my design team sister, the lovely Theresa Kelly, and  is any Gnome from the Freshly Picked cartridge.  I decided to have a bit of birthday fun with the Gnomes - creating this Gnome Pyramid birthday card.  The design for this card was inspired (and by inspired I mean ripped-off) from my friend Donna Mundinger's FABULOUS Penguin Card, which can be found here at her blog and  here at Custom Crops with design studio cut file and complete instructions.  Donna is one of THE MOST AMAZING paper crafters E-V-E-R... and I am thrilled to be able to say I know her! 

This card features six Gnomes each dressed in his favorite summer party outfit!  And just as we women match our shoes and purses (in an ideal world!), the Gnomes have matching hats, belts and shoes.  The well dressed Gnome likes for his outfit to coordinate!  The Gnome faces were stamped in light brown ink with Peachy Keen stamps.  A cherry Copic marker was used to highlight their lips. Their beards were cut in white cardstock, then heat embossed with white with touches of grey embossing powder.  Their ensembles were finished with tiny pom-poms at the top of their hats.

I used three cartridges to cut this card, Freshly Picked, George and Basic Shapes, and Christmas Cheer.  The banner above was cut from Christmas Cheer, then stamped with a rubber stamp from Michaels. 
The photo below is a screen shot of the card top in Cricut Design Studio.  I welded the six Gnome shadows together in a pyramid shape, adding birthday gifts from Christmas cheer.  I cut this layer in red, affixed it to the base card, and built the card front on top of this layer.

Below is the inside of the card.  You can see the red base cut (above) is the upside down red layer in the photo below.  I attached the red layer to the open cut triangle top.

The base card was created using George and Basic Shapes.  I sized and welded to triangles together, then inserted a NON-welded triangle into the middle of the top layer.  This created the cut out so that the blue swirl print shows through the holes in the front of the card.

I used metallic cardstocks to cut the packages and the belt buckles.  I finished the card by using pop dots to attach Happy Birthday banner!
 

Thanks for stopping by today.  Be sure to head over to Bitten by the Bug 2 and check out all of the designer's awesome projects!  And, if you have time, please consider playing along with us this week!!

Birthday Cake Card for BBTB2

Happy Monday and happy Memorial Day to those in the USA.  You may have arrived here from fabulous Theresa's blog if you are following the monthly Bitten by the Bug 2 blog hop.  If you are just dropping by, continue on the blog hop when you leave my blog - after you enter the BLOG CANDY giveaway.  This week's challenge cut at Bitten by the Bug 2 is  the birthday cake from the Celebrations cartridge.  I love this birthday cake - it is one of my favorite cake cuts.  And even though there are newer birthday cartridges, I still love this "go to" original Cricut birthday cartridge!

I designed my card in Cricut Design Studio, welding two of the cake shadow cuts to create the base card and cut the card in aqua Bazzill cardstock.  I used the Hide Select Contour feature and removed the cut space inside the tray legs on the the shadow, creating a solid, one piece shadow cut.  Using Imaginisce B-day Bash line I cut a base layer in chocolate birthday candle cardstock.  I build the rest of the cake on the chocoate birthday candle layer.

The top layers of the cake was created in three layers: back layer in lime green Core'dination cardstock, main cake layer in Imaginisce B-day Bash cardstock, and gold tray layer cut in metallic cardstock.  After affixing the three laters together I tied a length of red Imaginisce ribbon around the cake and added the Happy Birthday phase (cut from the Batman cartridge) to the front of the cake.  I then used pop dots and attached the cake to the base card.

I cut the background cake layer in smooth white cardstock and affixed it inside the card and added another Happy Birthday cut.  This is the perfect surface the shape on which to write a personal birthday message.
To finish the front of the card I added two of the three candles from the cake cut.  I also added an Imaginisce cardstock embellishment birthday cake to the top of the cricut cake - turning my cake into a four tiered cake!!  The cake was then blinged out with various sizes of gems.

Did I mention BLOG CANDY and blog hop???  Thanks to the AMAZING CUSTOM CROPS I have wonderful blog candy to offer you!  How about a $20 gift voucher for shopping at Custom Crops???  I would love that so I bet you would too!  All you have to do to be entered into the random drawing for the blog candy is

1. Be a follower of this blog, and

2. Leave a comment under this post.  

I will be posting the winner on Thursday.

When you finish the blog hop you may want to hop by Custom Crops and check out all of their new in stock items.  You may also be interested in their DVD, Cricut for Beginners, a wonderful DVD which teaches you to use all of the features on your Cricut.

Now that you have enjoyed (??) my blog post, you have become a blog follower, left your comment below and taken note of the Custom Crops it is time to continue on to the next stop on the blog hop.  You are off to see the lovely Penny of PenniAnnie's. Enjoy the rest of the blog hop and if you have not already done so, please drop by Bitten by the Bug 2 look at all of the design team projects.

Soaring with Florals Embellished & BBTB2

Happy Monday!  I hope this Monday morning finds all of our Midwestern Cricut friends safe and sound.... The weather channel and news channels covered some horrid storms and tornadoes though the middle of the US last night.  That is especially horrid in those areas already suffering though flooding.  I hope that everyone is well.

My friend and design team sister, the incomparable Donna Mundinger, selected the challenge cut this week at Bitten by the Bug 2.  Donna selected this lovely bird from the new-ish Florals Embellished cartridge.  I must say, Hello Kitty and the Disney cartridges have nothing on this bird!  There were A LOT of cuts to assemble for this bird!

First, I have a story to share with you about the Florals Embellished cartridge.  Back in March when I attended the Cricut Circle Crop in Atlanta I actually won this cartridge.  Madge, the fabulous crafter sitting to my right, won a screen for the Yudu Card Shop, but did not have a card shop machine.  Later in the crop I won a Yudu Card Shop.  Madge was a honey and gave me her screen.  I, of course, immediately gave her my Florals Embellished cartridge so that we both had prizes.  I did not tell Madge, until now(!) , that I really coveted that cartridge. 

A few weeks ago when I found out that Donna had selected to use the Florals Embellished cartridge, I immediately searched my usual cartridge sources for the best price on FE.  I found a good price and purchased the cartridge - and I am quite pleased that I did so.  I think this cartridge is going to be fun.

I used four cartridge to create this card: Just Because Cards (base card), Florals Embellished (bird and medallion), Plantin Schoolbook (a welded rectangle), and Martha Stewart Elegant Art (the border on the lower front of the card).  Using design studio I welded a rectangle to one end of my base card and a MS border to the other end.  I made sure that the rectangle and border were the same height/width, that way the center score line on the card remained the same.  I cut the base card in white cardstock, and then I cut the card front only in Basic Grey cardstock. 

I think I am going to love my MS Elegant Cake Art cartridge.  The cartridge has a lot of MS border cuts and different shaped edged mats.  Using your Gypsy, Cricut Craft Room, or DS you can resize and weld the border cuts to your cards or layouts.  Think of all of the MS border possibilities that this cartridge provides.  I feel like even though I may have paid $40 for the cartridge, I saved a mint in MS punch costs!

I layered the bird onto the medallion with pop dot, and I also layered the medallion onto the card with pop dots.  I used Stampin' Up ribbon without a bow.  I like the texture and the color of the ribbon, but a bow would have distracted from the bird.

I finished the card by adding doodle dots to the bird and medallion.  I also added the "post card" scrap and the thin strip of cardstock to the lower front of the card.

My goal for this week is to learn to use my new E2 Cricut machine with both regular and Imagine cartridges.  I will keep you posted on my progress!

Please do take a few minutes and pop over to BBTB2 and check out the teams' projects.   And remember, we would love it if you should decide to play along with us!!

FAB Sunglasses and Purse with Forever Young

Happy Monday! I am so excited to share today's Bitten by the Bug 2 project with you! Our team leader, Heather, selected this week's challenge cut - the sunglasses from Forever Young. I LOVE the sunglasses and other fun cuts on Forever Young!! I also love all of the 3D purse options on FY! So sunglasses and purses were the perfect companions for today's project.


I began with a large purse, 9 inches tall (about 16 inches wide). I cut the purse in double sided cardstock, polka dot side facing out. Using George and Basic Shapes, I welded a circle and oval to create the front panel of the purse and I cut the panel twice in this fun pink, green and aqua print.

I used lime green cat's eye chalk to "ink" the edges of the front panels as well as the tiny gingham trim pieces (also "build" in George to fit the base purse).

I cut the sunglasses in three layers, the icon cut in hot pink, the shadow cut in a green polka dot, and the dark lime glass lens.  I used A LOT of pink punch Stickles on the glasses frames - I wanted for the frames to appear to be made of sparkling pink plastic!  I finished the glasses with dark brown dots on the lens and a touch of red stickles in the flower cutouts on the corners.

I created hybrid flowers for the purse, again using cuts available on Forever Young.  Cut the flower as it appeared on the cartridge EXCEPT, I cut four of the largest layer of petals.  I then folded the four flowers into quarters and created flowers very similar to the 3D Mother's Day flowers from Cricut.  The only difference is that this flower already had leaves attached.   I used the same green cardstock for the shadow cut as I used for the glass lens.  I used polka dot for the icon cut, a double sided hot pink cardstock for the larger folded petals, bright pink and white for the middle size petal layer, and yellow for the tiny flower centers.  I finished the flowers with two tiny button centers - just like the original Cricut flowers.  These flowers are SOOO easy to make and look so cute.

I attached one of the flowers to the closure on the purse and used pop dots to "hang" the sunglasses on to the edge of the purse.  I also used pop dots to attach the second flower to the lower left corner of the purse.

To embellish the front of the purse I cut two strips of coordinating paper - the same tiny gingham that was used on the upper trim, and the reverse side - an Argyll print.  I glued the two strips to the lower front of the purse and then added the flower.  Finally, as I was putting away the Making Memories paper set that was used to make this project, I found this fun LAUGH cardstock sticker and I knew it would be the perfect finishing touch!! 

Thanks for popping by today.  Please do go over to BBTB2 and check out everyone's projects.  SOOO cute this week!!!