Sunday, May 30, 2010

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Teacher End of Year Thank You


This is a card I made for my six year olds 1st grade teacher (click to enlarge the image of the card). I made this card for the Jitterbuggin' Challenge hosted by Sherri. I had a difficult time with the black ribbon - it was much wider than I prefer and because of this I had to make my card a 5 1/2" x 5 1/2. Today I learned to LAYOUT my pieces on the card before any glueing or attaching! Know exactly how you want it to look first! My sentiment was hidden initially behind the apple because I decided to stamp after everything was down...I had glued the main black piece behind the apple!!! Live and learn. Thanks for looking. Also check out the Jitterbuggin' Challenge! on Sherri's website!
I am one of the top three for the Jitterbuggin' Challenge - check it out!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Homes are built with Love - Side Step


Used the following link for the layout of the card. http://www.juliedavison.com/Tutorials/0909_SideStepCard.pdf

What I learned:
Though this seems small once you cut it out, there is a lot of room for play. I tried to make it bigger by adding 3inches to every side. It didn't work - 1) the second step is too small once you get the larger size. 2) there is one measurement that was wonky. Anyhow, though small, it's perfect for a nice little card. I will add more directions soon...

Twinkle Lights with Flare




What I learned: This was acutally a pretty straight foward project. The hardest part was getting the hole in the center of the flower accurate. I used cheap paper and just tried it till it worked and it would still be snug. A better idea would be to take the light off entirly and put the flowers around the green portion - for fire safety. These lights stay so cool though, that if monitored should not be a problem.

Materials:
Reqiured
1) vellum of some sort - I used the transluscents
2) cricut
3) glue
4) lights
5) a cart with a design you like (flower, popcorn bucket, whatever) I used Accent Essentials and George for the circle

Materials not necassary but I used
1) Gypsy
2) Mini Skeleton leave embellishments - could use more vellum and cut leaves

Directions are as follows - Very Easy by the way!!
I used a set of white Christmas lights - I think that any strand of lights that stay nice and cool would work - even LED (they don't get hot at all). I started on my G and used the BLACKOUT flower from Accent essentail (any design would work - I considered an - upside down popcorn bucket too from TBBM but I really wanted something romantic) I used vellum called metallic iridescent translucent (I've only seen this at a store here called the PaperZone - however, I'm sure you could get it elsewhere, it's very thin and shiny - gives a great effect) I cut the flowers from 2.24in x 2.14in up to 2.56 x 2.45. I think on just the E a size 2 to a size 2.5 would work. The most important thing is the size of the hole (circle from George) at the center of the flower - .22 x .21 If you don't have a G you could always use an Exacto or Fiskars small blade and make an X in center of the flower. Next lay your flower cut out face down (the shimmery pretty side down) Bend the flower petals up by hand (the angle is about 90 here) Once all flowers are cut and bent I used a small amount of glue and layered the flowers. Next I added mini skeleton leave embellishments with glue as well. Allowed them to dry and added them to my lights!!!
Good luck and have fun - make sure you get cool lights!!!!!

I entered this project for She's a Sassy Lady Summer Love Challenge. I came away with a runner-up prize! Thanks again Sheila!
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Garden Filled With Love - Feautured in The Chirp



Garden Filled with Love

What I learned - The card for this was supposed to just lay inside the outside portion that I turned into an envelope. The problem was that once I turned it into an envelope the insert didn't fit properly, so I had to trim down the insert...and cutting from just one side wouldn't work b/c it would end up lopsided. So I had to trim from both sides.

Just Because Cards
I used the envelope and card third row down, first one. On my gypsy I set the dimensions 8.75 Height the width followed, on the Cricut cut at 8 ¾. Once cut, I used an adhesive runner down the left side and bottom of envelope (make this as thin as possible) for the insert I made it at a height of 8.43, on the Cricut I would go with 8. The insert is too big when I cut on the gypsy. However, I just trimmed up the edges to fit! I also cut a few rectangles on the Circuit to place as background paper. The one on the card was 7.25 and imaged using the cut from JBC that I used for the card insert (again third down and first image – with a shift). The other background papers I just used my paper cutter and sized to liking.

Walk in My Garden
I used the hearts from the bleeding heart. The top layer was cut at 4.12 (4 on Circuit) and the bottom was set on shadow (however, I made them almost match the top layer, didn’t really want a shadow here). The garden sign was 4.12 (4 on Circuit). All stems were cut from 2.53 (2 1/2 on Circuit) to 3.68 (3 ½ on Circuit). The shadow function was used for the background of the sign – 4.11 (shadow of 3 ½ would work on the Circuit).

Create a Critter
The bird and all its parts were cut at 2.16 on the gypsy (2 or 2 ¼ would work for Circuit).