Finally a Card

I've been away from my Cricut and paper supplies for 2 months.  I never thought it would be this difficult to get back in the groove.  But I made it!  Here's a card for the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge #103 Celebrate Spring (include at least 3 flowers).

The little flowers in the post are from Stretch Your Imagination.  I made this as a Thank You card for my granddaughter who graciously hosted us last weekend.  She loves Gerbera daisies and I thought these looked a little like them.  I picked up the black in the plaid with the under layer and inked all the pieces, then popped them up with dimensionals.  Ahh, now if I can just keep the inspiration flowing.

It's a Tree-t

I've been away for a few days doing some slipolstery.  That's a combination of slipcovering and upholstery, a word I made up for just such a project.  My daughter-in-law bought a wonderful chair at a garage sale but the color wasn't right.  Plus her artistic side wanted something more colorful.  My son accused her of bringing me in for slave labor but it was a labor of love.  I also loved spending time with them but I missed doing my card challenges.

Today's card is just in time for the Birthday Sundaes challenge - include a tree.  There are so many trees to choose from even on my limited number of cartridges but I decided on one from Stretch Your Imagination.

This is a card cut and something different than I've done before.  I used a Kraftcore cardstock from Core'dinations for the base and a paper from Cloud 9 for the frame.  The tree layer is a scrap of brown cardstock run through the Cuttlebug with a woodgrain embosssing folder.  The leaves are from a scrap of reddish brown that I inked a little to add some dimension.    I also put a piece of the same color under the cut-out leaves on the frame.  The outside sentiment was printed on the computer before I cut the frame and the inside one was printed on a paper from my stash and attached to the back of the card.

This view shows you the cut-out and the blue background.  The sentiment inside says "Tree-t Yourself!"  Now that I've tried it, I think I may do a few more of these cut-out cards.  I want to try one where you cut out the front and put the picture on the inside, too.  I've seen a few on blogs and they are really impressive.

A Tall Order

Celebrate the Occasion asked for a "tall" card with a present on it.  I aim to please. 

I finally got my Design Studio working so I could make a shaped card.  This little present is on the shift layer of Stretch Your Imagination.  The 7" cut was a little too narrow so I widened it a bit to about 3.05".  I welded the blackout layer, cut it from white cardstock and then cut a top from the printed paper which is "assorted splats" from DCWV.  Sometimes I don't list my paper name because my only local supply is at a JoAnn's 20 miles away and some of their paper isn't labeled.  The bow is a periwinkle color.  I went to a couple of different stashes to finish it off.  In my "printed sentiments" stash I found a Happy Birthday in the same purply color and in my knitting stash I found the fringy ribbon yarn.  I tied the tag on with the yarn and let it hang.  This card fits in my monarch envelopes that are 3 7/8" by 7 1/2"

I guess the next thing I have to learn is how to get better lighting for my pictures.  They look great in the camera but rather dark when posted on my blog.  I've tried various things but most of them leave shadows that I don't care for.  I don't have a lot of room for a really good, and permanent set up but I'll keep working on it.

This one is finished

In yesterday's picture of my unfinished projects, there was a blue bird cut from Stretch Your Imagination and a polka dot card from DCWV.  The sentiment had already been printed in the card and so had a tag saying "A little bird told me...".  I cut out a layer in brown for the bird to match one of the card colors and backed the sentiment with a scrap the color of his beak.  I used my gel pen to make lines in the shadow and added black pearls for the eyes.  Everything was pop dotted and here is the result.

Oh, and I cuttlebugged him to add texture and hopefully make it look like feathers.  It's not the best card I've ever made but  I can see that my skills are improving from when I started this almost a year ago. 

Tomorrow another card from the unfinished pile.