Birthday Turtle Card

Happy St Patrick's Day people!

Today, I have a cute birthday card for you. This was made using the birthday turtle cutting file available from here at Paper Crafting World.

 I cut all the pieces of the file using Design Space and my Cricut Explore. I stamped a tiny dots stamp from Kaisercraft on the pink balloon and the hat and embossed the other balloons using the Cuttlebug.  I edged the green parts of the turtle using peeled paint distress ink to add some depth to the shapes.

The stamp is from a CTMH set called Birthday Wish (C1624) which I stamped in black then cut out and attached it with foam dots.

Do check out the current challenge for this month and join in for a chance to win some fabulous files from PCW. The optional twist this month is to use green and/or gold.

Happy Crafting!

Black and White Challenge

The challenge this week at Cooking with Cricut and Paper Crafting World is to use black and white and peridot (which is the birthstone for the month of August). Also needed to use a book page somewhere as part of the design.

I cut the oval frame using one of Melin's lovely cutting files available here. I then backed it with an oval of a book page then cut a silhouette to go in the middle using a die.

The background was embossed with the Cuttlebug then the frame attached to it with a peridot coloured ribbon across the bottom, topped off with a double bow.

Please hop on over to the challenge at Cooking with Cricut and see what the other lovelies have done for this week.

A colour challenge at PCW

Over at the Paper Crafting World challenge this week, we are having a colour challenge using some or all of the colours cream, yellow, orange teal and dark teal.

I found this neat Birthday Fun freebie that Melin was giving away on the blog hop at Cooking with Cricut.last weekend and used that to create the wording for this birthday card. I reduced the size of it to fit the card and cut it using my Cricut and SCAL 2. I cut the letters in orange and laid them onto a yellow backing layer. I coloured the present with a teal shade Copic marker and topped it with a cream ribbon. The balloons were partial stamped on the background layer the I paper pieced the balloons in different colours. Added a bit of sparkle to them as well!

I used spellbinders dies to create the shapes at the left side of the card, cutting them from a light teal colourded card then edging them with a distress marker to make it look stitched. The border across the top was cut from cream card using a fiskars punch then edged with the same distress marker.

Do check out the challenge for this week over at Paper Crafting World!

A New Challenge

The theme for the challenge over at Paper Crafting World this week is vacations. What better way of spending one's vacation than at the beach?

I used Melin's Playing in the Sand cutting files to create this scrapbook layout. If you have been following my blog for the past couple of years, you will know that I don't do scrapbooking, but I decided to give it a go for this week's challenge!

The sand coloured pieces were all cut from Bazzill Bling and were edged with pumice stone distress ink before layering them up together.


The little girl bear was cut from Bazzill Basic (Pinecone) and edged with vintage photo before putting together.
All the elements were cut with the Cricut Expression using SCAL2.

Please go over to the challenge which is here, and have a look at the other DT examples and have a go at the challenge as well!

Paper Crafting World Blogaversary Blog Hop

Welcome to Paper Crafting World (http://www.papercraftingworld.com) and Cooking With Cricut’s (http://www.cookingwithcricut.com) Blogaversary Blog Hop!  Our Design Teams are so excited to bring you a two-day hop that focuses on projects honoring a second anniversary…..cloth, crystal and or glass.

We think you will be blown away by some of the super creative inspiration and interpretation of our designers. So be sure to come back both days as each day will be a different set of designers and projects!

PLUS, this hop is the kick off of our week long celebration! Each day for a whole week we will be brining your fabulous projects made by our designers and each day we will be giving away free vintage graphics, digital printables and or electronic cutting files! So you will want to make CWC-PCW (http://www.cookingwithcricut.com) a daily stop for the next week!

You should have arrived here from visiting Jessica at The Creative Stamper Spot.  If you’ve joined us in mid-Hop and would like to check out all the other fantastic projects head on over to CWC-PCW  (http://www.cookingwithcricut.com) and start at the beginning.

 My project for the bloghop is a little screen. I cut the gothic arches using my Cricut Expression and SCAL2. The Birdcage is a cutting file from Paper Crafting World and I sized it to fit inside the centre screen. I cut two arches with the centres removed for the centre panel and added two layers of acetate with the cage sandwiched between them. I then fixed the two arches together on top of and behind the acetate sandwich to make a clear window! Glossy Accents makes a wonderful glue for acetate! 

For the other two panels, I cut smaller arches and two frames for each piece. I glued the frames together to make the edges a bit deeper. For all of the frames, I gave the edges a vintage look by inking them with vintage photo distress ink DTP then distress embossing ink and clear embossing powder. The frames have a textured look to them which is slightly rusty looking. 

For the backgrounds of the side arches, I inked the panels with worn lipstick, faded jeans and chipped sapphire distress inks then stamped the sentiments with archival ink. I cut acetate pieces to fit the side panels and stamped the bird images on the acetate with Stazon ink. 

The flowers were cut using spiral cutting files on the cricut and the leaf swirls are also from the birdcage cutting file. I spritzed the leaves and flowers with green and gold mist sprays to give them some sparkle! 

The sentiment on the centre panel was stamped on cardstock which had been coloured using the same inks as in the side panels and cut out with deckle edging scissors.

All of the stamps are from Stampers Anonymous - Tim Holtz sets.

There are several prizes to be won so be sure to head over and join the fun at CWC-PCW  (http://www.cookingwithcricut.com).

There is a  “cloth, crystal or glass” challenge you can enter to win as well as other super blog candy just for being a follower and commenting, so don’t miss out!

Thanks for stopping by!  Head on over and check out what Natt at Awesomeness of Crafting has cooked up!


Please do leave a comment - I enjoy reading them! Also, I would love to have you join my lovely group of followers.

Terrific Tuesday Die Cut and Stamp Challenge Reminder

Just a reminder that the Terrific Tuesday Die Cut and Stamp Challenge over at PCW ends next week.
The theme for the fortnight has been Dr Suess and Reading and Melin has created some wonderful digital stamps and cutting files that you can get here.

I made this cute pop-up box card using a Sam I Am digital stamp that had been pre-coloured (you can download them coloured). I cut the image out and attached it to the pop-up piece of the card.

I cut the card using a cutting file I designed using Funtime 2010 software and cut it out using the Black Cat. I also cut the layers on the cut with the Black Cat then embossed them using the Cuttlebug. Added some dimension with distress inks.

The top layer on the pop-up piece was stamped with a bubble wrap stamp from Kaisercraft that I bought on Saturday. Edged the piece with distress inks before attaching it to the back.

I printed the sentiment using word art then cut it with a circle die and cut a backing using a scalloped circle. Embossed the edges of both before adding a bit of distress ink.

The card folds down flat for posting, as shown in the picture to the left. To open it up, simply pull the stand up piece out from the centre of the box.

I have done a video on making the pop-up box card and you can see it here.

I really encourage you to pop over to Paper Crafting World to have a look at the lovely files (and a freebie as well) that Melin has created to celebrate Reading and Dr Suess' birthday. She has also done some great St Patrick's day files.

Terrific Tuesday Die Cut or Stamp Challenge

I have just heard that I have been selected for the Design Team for the Terrific Tuesday Die Cut or Stamp Challenge over at Paper Crafting World . Very exciting news as it is my first DT role, so I am looking forward to the next few months as I join the team and create for Melin and the other very talented designers.

The theme for the first challenge is Dr Seuss and Melin created a set of wonderful Dr Seuss cutting files and digi stamps to celebrate!

I chose to make a mobile using several of the characters from the cutting file set - Cat with Hat, which will be available from the website here.

Given that this project was going to be hanging, I needed to cut twice as many of each file so I could back-to-back them, and the backing parts needed to be flipped so they were a mirror image. Thank goodness for SCAL2 - I managed to cut everything in no time at all using my Cricut Expression!

The frame for this was also part of the set. I cut the book pieces out at 2.5 inches and the frame at 5". For all of the pieces in the mobile, I made one side first, then attached the pieces for the other side, sandwiching a long piece of thread that would be used to link all the pieces together.

The Cat in the Hat was the most challenging part to put together, but after two of them, the next 2 went together very quickly. I was very impressed at how well the little details like the whiskers cut out too.

I inked the edges of all the pieces with distress ink or Versamagic Chalk ink (cloud white)  before putting them together. This provides a little dimension for each one

I liked the Fish out of Water and used another of the frames in the set to border this with. Again, the edges were all inked with distress ink and I added little features like the mouth with a black pen.

The trees were fun to do. I welded the three trees together then cut a base to which I added the tree trunks and the tops. I embossed the red and orange tree tops using the swiss dots folder and the Cuttlebug, which added another dimension to the trees.

I linked the pieces together using the thread that I had added as I put the pieces together and tied them to some bamboo skewers. Taking a photo of this project was the most challenging thing to do as it keeps moving when you hang it up!


Green Eggs and Ham

 For this card, I used the digi stamp from PCW - Sam Bear and coloured it using Copic Markers (R14, R17, E25,G05,G07,  Y17). I then cut out the image as I wanted to layer it using some dimension.

To make the easel card, I used a piece of A5 blue cardstock, folded to create the easel. Added a die cut label which was distressed using Faded Jeans Distress ink and printed the excerpt from Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Suess. The sentiment was also printed using the same font and attached underneath the image.

The book shape used to stand the easel on, was cut from the Cat with Hat cutting file set and layered on the inner part of the card.