Back to creating again!

After all the trauma of the last week, I had to get back to making things again, so went to the craft room today to make some cards and have a play with my Cricut again.

A friend asked me to make her a birthday card for her partner, who is a speed boat fanatic. I found this little boat and waves on the Going Places cartridge and thought it might be OK.

I also noticed that a couple of challenges this week called for layers and Happy Birthday, so decided that this card could fit all three "criteria".

Papertake Weekly Challenge #47 was a sketch, which I used for the design of the card. I had a square card that I used for the base then layered with a Cuttlebugged layer in blue, then a printed paper. The red piece was put through a crimper and the top layer was cut with the Cricut. The boat was cut from a square with rounded corners. I also cut the same from red and white card to provide the different colours and these were layered on the cutout. All the pieces were edged with distress ink  with the top layer being edged with white. The Happy Birthday stamp was from a Tanda stamp set (Art Deco) designed by my friend Sue!


The Cuttlebug Challenge this week was for a birthday card with at least 2 layers because it is their second birthday!

And the earth moved...

Last Saturday morning, 4th September at 4.35 am, we were very rudely awakened by the most violent shaking and loud noise as a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck near Christchurch.

The damage for some has been enormous - not just to property, but to people emotionally as the aftershocks continue - 6 days later. many people have lost homes as well as businesses. Virtually new homes have been lost to subsidence of the ground underneath, as new fault lines are discovered.

We were very fortunate that we did not sustain any real damage to any of the property apart from a couple of glass vases and a large planter in the garden.

In the spare bedroom, the large filing cabinet that sits in the corner of the room was tossed forward, possibly due to the weight of the drawers that opened with the force of the shaking. Books on top of the cabinet were tossed onto the floor, but the TV set stayed put!

The door to the outside has a cat flap in it and the cat was still able to exit because the lowest drawer left a gap that she could fit through.

In the lounge, a bookcase was thrown forward and came to rest against the sofa. A glass vase was thrown from the top of the bookcase and came to rest on the arm of the sofa. Other ornaments were also tossed onto the floor and only one thing sustained any damage - a small chip in the top of a pottery bottle. The bottom of the bookcase crashed against the wall and has left a small hole that is fixable!  My old guitar didn't get any more scratches! The vase of flowers that was on the coffee table didn't move. Photos and a large, very heavy crystal vase were thrown off the piano - again, little damage there - only the stand of one photo frame - which is mendable.

Outside, one of two relatively new plant pots fell over and smashed onto the concrete paving. It is totally wrecked and we will have to try to replace it with another the same to match the one on the other side of the BBQ.

So, we were extremely lucky to have so little damage in such a severe quake. We are very thankful for this and our thoughts are with those who are not so well off at this time.

And the winner is...

ME!

Check out this website! I won the Whimsy Doodles Challenge this week with my grunge paper brooches!

I was so excited as I haven't ever won a challenge before... Check out the pictures here.

Good Luck Gayle!

Gayle is having an interview for a job today so I made this Good Luck Card for her.

I used SCAL and the cricut to cut the letters. It is hard to see but I cut a shadow for the letters as well. I layered the words onto card that had been punched along one edge, then attached it to the card.

The rosette is made by scalloping the edge of a 12" strip of paper, then scoring lines down from each of the scallops and folding to create a mini fan fold. Join the edges together to form a circle with the scalloped edge at one side and the straight edge at the other. You then need to push the straight side into the centre and down so that it goes flat. Have a circle or square ready glued or taped to stick the centre of the rosette on the wrong side. On the right side, you can add a scalloped circle and decorate it as desired.

I added some swirls to the underneath of the rosette then layered it on the card. Added a narrow black ribbon to finish it off.

Cricut Day

Yesterday I had a Cricut day. I spent most of the afternoon playing with the programs on the computer - Cricut Design Studio (DS), Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL) and Make the Cut (MTC) - then cutting some of the files with the Cricut Expression. How I love my Cricut!

 I used the Songbird cartridge to cut the bird cages out of kraft card. Really pleased with these as I will be able to colour them a bit more with distress inks then paint with distress crackle to give a rusty, grungy look.

The frogs I cut with a SCAL cutting file. It is two different bits that make up the frog - the face and legs are cut in lighter card and the base in a slightly darker. The hardest thing is piecing them together! They do look cute though!

I cut some tags out of a manila folder. Cheaper than buying them and you can get different sizes as well!

I have to make a couple of Spring cards soon, so used the Walk in my Garden Cartridge to do the daffodils. These are a bit fiddly because you need to cut the tops out and then stick them together. each flower has 3 different parts to stick! The word was from a SCAL file.

The hearts border was a file I had for MTC. I thought it looked really cool in white against the red background.

I used SCAL again to do the gears. I used what was left of the kraft card to cut these out. The beauty of using the computer to design the cuts is that you can place them exactly where you want them on the sheet then cut them.

Pop up Box Card

Well, after much promising, here is the next video! This time is is a pop up box card! I loved these when I first saw them and have been making a few. I did a demonstration for the Crafty Girls last month and decided it would be useful to have a video along with the written instructions that I gave them.



Hope you can follow this well enough to  make the card.
 You can also add a plain piece of card to the part that pops up if you want to add a special message, or you can write it on the box itself.

PS Yes Didi the cat made her first appearance on this one too! She was very vocal while I was making the video.

Goth Girls

The pictures on these cards are stamps that Sue Law provided for us to have a play with Copic Markers when a group of us met up at Wantage in May. I have had these finished and mounted on card for ages and have just gotten around to blogging them.

All are coloured with copics and finished off with distress inks. The backgrounds are stamped with distress inks and layered on card that has been coloured with the same distress inks as on the top layers.