Rose Easter Banner

(Click on the photo to see larger)

Hello everyone.   Today is day three of Rose Week.  Today I am going to share my new Easter banner with you.  I do love banners and I like the way they look in my home.  I started to place this one on an antique cabinet, hanging from the shelves, and Doug walked in and asked, "You're not going to put over the fireplace?"  I thought he might be tired of my banners hanging from the mantle, but I guess not!

I used three Cricut cartridges to create this banner:  Pretty Pennants, Art Philosophy, and the font from Martha Stewart Birthday Cakes.  My idea was to use the wrought iron pennant cut in a pretty variegated pink cardstock,  a solid background, a pretty but readable font, and roses on the corners.  And while that is what I started out with, my plan took a left turn along the way.

I cut the pretty variegated pink cardstock detailed pennant pieces and in removing them from the mat I glanced at the back of the cuts... and FELL IN LOVE with the printed side!!  And though this is not the soft, elegant banner I had planned, I really like the elements. 

I found a solid pink cardstock that matched my printed cardstock and cut the letters with MS Birthday Cake cartridges. 

I chose to used a cardstock a shade darker to cut the roses. The roses were cut at 2.8 inches and rolled using the quilling tool. I used strong liquid glue to attach the roses to the corners of the pennant pieces.

I used my sewing machine to sew the pennant sections to the striped ribbon.  I gathered the ribbon behind the pennant section corners and then sewed the corners to the ribbon.   I finished the ends by tying a bow and leaving a bit of ribbon hanging.

And here is one more peek at my Easter banner.  Thanks for stopping by today for day three of Rose Week.  I hope to be back again tomorrow for Rose Week day four!

Puttin' on the Ritz! Rose Week Post #2

Hello everyone.  Since this is my week to host the Bitten by the Bug 2 challenge and I chose the 3D Rose cut (see yesterday's post below or visit BBTB2) from the Art Philosophy Cartridge, I thought I would do a week of Rose projects!!  Today's project is a card that would be great for an anniversary or for your friends who dance!!!

Last spring my husband and I took dance lessons with our friends Nick and Peggy.  Doug and I had such a wonderful time that we signed up for a second ten weeks and learned a few additional dances.  I knew when I first spotted this stamp at Krafting Kimmie's Stamps that I had to have this fabulous couple!

I stamped the image on smooth white Close To My Heart cardstock and colored it with Copic markers. 

I used Couture Creations Timeless Embossing folder, from their Romantique Collection on black cardstock to create the base card.  I then embossed a sheet of CTMH Hollyhock cardstock using the same embossing folder and trimmed out the sections I wanted to use on the front of the card.

I used CTMH Champagne colored ink to highlight the embossed texture of the card.  I then matted my dance couple on the Hollyhock mat and affixed them to the front of the card.

I used the Art Philosophy cartridge and cut three roses, one in Hollyhock, one in Sorbet, and one in printed scrap from my stash.  After rolling and assembling the roses I attached them to the front of the card and added black pearls.  The pearls were also added to the card front.

Inside the card I added a white tag shape like those on the front to hold my future sentiment. 

Thanks for stopping by for day two of Roses here at Busy with the Cricky!!!

Flower Pot Bouquet With Gift Card

Hello everyone, happy Monday, which is, of course, Bitten by the Bug 2 day!  This calendar year has brought  a lot of changes to Bitten by the Bug 2, and today is no exception.  I have known for the last five weeks that today would be the final post of my dear Design Team sister, Carole.  Carole has so many crafty irons in the fire that she does not have time to tend them all.  She has decided to focus on sewing and charity work and less on papercrafting.  For more information on Carole's plans and to wish her well, visit Carole at her blog, Paper Arts.

Even with all of the changes at BBTB2, the weekly challenges must go on!  This week was my turn to select the challenge cut.  I selected the 3D rose from the Art Philosophy cartridge.  I love these 3D roses and just keep finding new ways to use them.  I had been dreaming about a project similar to my card this week and the roses were the perfect opportunity to experiment on my flower pot card idea.

I used two cartridges to create this card, Art Philosophy and Walk in My Garden.  The flower pot cut came from Walk in my Garden.  I welded three flower pots together to create the base card.  In the photo below you can see an upside down pot which is attached to the two base flower pots with two welded rectangles.  The top pot flips down to create a pocket on the back of the card.  The screenshot below is of my Cricut Craft Room cutting mat.  I think this is one of those times where a picture is worth a thousand words - the photo shows exactly how the the card was created.

Once the flower pots were folded and adhesive was applied, they created not only the base card, see below, but also the pocket in the back of the card to hold a gift card!!  I love that the flowers pull out to reveal the gift card.

I used four flowers to create my bouquet, all from Art Philosophy.  The roses are cut with CTMH Smoothie color cardstock.  I also used a leaf cut from AP.

I used two sets of Close To My Heart stamp sets on this card - Card Chatter Birthday above, and Casual Expression on the tag layers below.  I used the same blue/purple (Gypsy color) cardstock on the bottom layer of the tags as I used to make the violets in the bouquet.

Here is one final look at my bouquet flower pot card.  I used several CTMH products on this project which are listed further below. 

At BBTB2 we love it when you join us in our weekly challenges.  This week use the 3D Rose on the Art Philosophy cartridge (or any 3D flower) and create your project.  Use the Linky tool under the original post at the Bitten by the Bug 2 blog to add your project.  One crafter will win the Project of the Week button for their blog.

Close To My Heart

Products used in this card (click the name to visit the product in my on-line store):

Art Philosophy Cartridge

Smoothie Cardstock

Gypsy Cardstock

Card Chatter Birthday Stamp set

Casual Expression Stamp set

Gypsy Ink

Remember this is the last week to purchase the February Stamp of the Month set, Home Sweet Home.

STRIKE!!

Hello everyone!  I have had a crazy week and am just now getting a sane moment to tell you about this fun bowling card.  This card was cut with the SVG file called Green Room from SVG.com.  I cut the card elements using my Silhouette Cameo.

What prompted me to make this card was my older son Aaron.  For some unknown reason Aaron developed an interest in bowling.  I have NO idea when this interest first developed, but I was quite amused when, last summer, he told me he had purchased an unlimited bowling pass!   It made me wonder if those bowling birthday parties from when he was younger had influenced him more than I thought.  Anyway, this fun bowling card is perfect for Aaron!

I recently learned something new when using my Silhouette software that makes using SVGs much easier.  Previously when I opened an SVG file I had to locate the file someplace on the screen - sometimes way far off of the mat.  I discovered that if I go to File, Preferences, Importing Options and click the "center" on the "When importing SVGs" I no longer have to search for my cut files.  This action must be repeated each time you re-open the software, but it centers all of the images onto the center of the mat so I no longer play hide and seek with my cuts.

I have been taking the Silhouette classes at Jessica Sprague .com and I must say they have been wonderfully educational.  Using the Silhouette software is very easy, but I knew there were many tools that I was missing out on.  The courses have been wonderful about unlocking the mysteries of the Silhouette software and I highly recommend the silhouette courses.

I know this is a quick post and I do appreciate you stopping by today.  Hopefully the rest of my week will calm down and I will be back with another new project.

 

Amethyst Cupcake Cardd

Hello everyone!  It's Monday and that means it is Bitten By The Bug 2 day.  We have had some changes at BBTB2 this month and the changes continue today.  I am so very pleased to announce that we have a new Design Team member, Melanie Brown from Courtney Lane Designs and Everyday Cricut.  We are thrilled to have Melanie on our design team and hope you will help us make her feel welcome.

Our BBTB2 challenge this week was selected by my sweet and talented design team sister, Stephanie.  Stephanie's family has a number of February birthdays and asked that we help her celebrate by using a Cricut Cupcake or Cake cut and the February birthstone color of Amethyst, which is a pretty purple stone.  I decided to create a purple cupcake.

I used the Close To My Heart Artiste cartridge to create my cupcake.  I welded two of the cupcake solid cuts together in the "frosting" area to create my bottom opening base card, and cut the card in lavender cardstock.  I then used solid purple cardstock to cut the frosting cut and a pretty print Close To My Heart cardstock to cut the cupcake wrapper.  I used my scoreboard and and scored the cupcake wrapper lines - I liked this look better than an embossing folder.  I then used CTMH ink pigment ink and inked the scored lines.

I used one of the Hollywood stamps from Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps, Lana.  I stamped Lana on CTMH smooth cardstock then used Cricut Artiste to cut out the stamped image shape and the shadow cut.  I colored the stamp with Copic and CTMH alcohol markers in shades of purple and a touch of glitter pen. 

I used CTMH Chatter - Birthday stamps to stamp the tag on the front of the card and to stamp the Happy Birthday sentiment inside the card.  I added swirl pearls and gems to the frosting and CTMH Colonial White Rosette Ribbon trim to the bottom of the frosting and the cupcake wrapper.  I used pop dots to attach the sentiment and Lana's image to the front of the card.

We would love it if you would join us in this week's Amethyst Cupcake or Cake challenge.  You need to create a new project and add it your blog and the Mr. Linky on this week's post at BBTB2.  One entry will receive the BBTB2 Project of the Week button for their blog.  For more information read the BBTB2 rules on BBTB2's sidebar. 

I used several Close To My Heart products on this week's BBTB2 card.  For more information on CTMH products visit my on-line store or you can use the link in the upper right of my blog and have a catalog shipped to you. 

 This month's STAMP OF THE MONTH is called HOME SWEET HOME and is available only for the month of February.  With a $50 order you can add the stamp of the month to your cart for only $5.00!

I used the following products today - click the name to be taken to the product.

Colonial White Rosette Ribbon

Chatter - Birthday Stamps

Print Cardstock

White Cardstock

Black Ink

Cricut Artist Cartridge

Alcohol ink Markers

Pigment ink



Thanks for stopping by and viewing my amethyst cupcake.  I will be back again tomorrow with a new project to share.



One Final St. Valentine Card

Hello everyone.  I have one final 2013 St. Valentine card to share with you - my Valentine to my honey, Doug.  Above, Doug and I are about to head out for a quiet St. Valentine's Day dinner.  Bethany snapped a few photos of us before we hit the very busy roads.

Doug's Valentine card was made using the Silhouette Cameo using an SVG file from SVG.com.  I used darker colors than on the sample card at SVG.com.  I used music print cardstock as a background on the white card because Doug is a wonderful musician.  I inked the music cardstock and the gray layer on the heart in black ink.  I assembled the layers and added light pink hearts as a top layer.

I stamped the "you're SWEET" tag using Close To My Heart stamps and CTMH Ruby ink.  Inside the card I also used CTMH stamps.  I added a bit of black lace to the top of the tag shaped card.

Below, Doug's tube of kisses uses the same cardstock as I used on Bethany's tube.  However, Doug's tube was trimmed in black lace to match his Valentine Card.  I used a small bit of twine to add the "LOVE U LOTS" tag. 

Doug and I went out to dinner to celebrate Valentine's Day.  We shared an appetizer with cocktails.  We ordered our own entrees and we each took dessert to go.  Half of my dinner and all of my dessert is still in the refrigerator, though I may sneak in for quick taste of the dessert soon.

Bethany, our photographer of the night, snapped a couple of quick photos of her dad and I as she was getting ready to go on a date with a fellow teacher....  He was taking her out for an Italian dinner and I can't wait to hear about her evening!!  In the meantime, below is one more of her photos.



Happy Valentine's Day

Hello everyone, happy St. Valentine's Day!  Today I am going to share the Valentine and little treat I made for Bethany.  She was up at 5:00 this morning - and I was not - so I left this for her in the kitchen.  She starts her day with Yoga and a smoothie so I placed her Valentine Card and treat near the blender in the kitchen!

I used an SVG file from SVG.com to make Bethany's card.  I used cardstock from my stash to to cut the base card, the two layer of large hearts and the three small hearts.  Cupid was cut in CTMH Ruby cardstock and attached to the card with pop dots. 

I used CTMH Valentine stamps to stamp the "you're sweet" circle and the top tiny heart - it has an xoxoxo pattern.

The Valentine treat tube is also a CTMH product.  I stamped a tag and after covering the tube with cardstock to match the card, I used baker's twine to attach the tag to the tube.  I add a decorative ring of twine near the bottom of the tube also.

And her is one final look at Bethany's Valentine card and treat.  I was very happy with the way this set turned out and I hope that Bethany liked it too.  I will be back tomorrow to share Doug's Valentine and share details on our dinner.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy Valentine's From Your Teacher

Hello everyone!  I have spent a couple of afternoons helping my daughter get Valentine's ready for her students.  Bethany told me that her second graders are experts at losing their pencils so we knew pencils HAD to be part of her gift to the kids.  When I ran across this SVG cut file at SVG.com I knew this was a perfect Valentine for Bethany's kids.

There are four pieces to this cut file - the background double heart cut with the arrow tip, the larger left side heart and the smaller right side heart.  The cut file comes with full pages of each cut so I did not even have to set up a cut file!! 

I used Close To My Heart Ruby cardstock to cut the background double hearts and the arrow tip.  The conversation heart cardstock used to cut the larger hearts was from my Valentine stash.  The smaller hearts were cut with CTMH Smoothie (pink) cardstock.

Before assembling I used CTMH Ruby ink and CTMH stamps and stamped a sentiment onto the smaller heart.  I then used liquid glue to assemble the hearts.  I finished the Valentine's by inserting a Valentine pencil (on sale at my local hobby store - SCORE!) and attaching the arrow tip and tying ribbon around the "feather" end of pencil.

In addition to the Pencil Valentine cards, Bethany is also giving each of her students a rose - a Jolly Rancher sucker filled rose!  The rose cut is also from SVG.com.  This was soooo easy to make and no glue is needed.  The rose wraps tie around the suckers with a strip of ribbon!

And now Bethany's Valentines are all ready for her second graders!  I confess that I purchased extra pencils for her stash as these kids are constantly misplacing theirs. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  I am off to work on another Valentine....

Love is in the Air with BBTB2

Hey-o everyone!  Happy Bitten by the Bug 2 Monday morning!  I have a new challenge to share and new info to share.  First the news.... The BBTB2 design team is thrilled to announce that we have two new team members, Sharon from Meemee's Creations and Caroline from Card Creations by Caroline!!  We are so excited to add Sharon and Caroline to the team and I know you are going to love their work!

Now on to this week's Cricut Challenge - My sweet and talented Design Team sister Brenda chose this week's challenge cut.  Knowing Valentine's Day is this week, Brenda was excited about love being in the air and chose appropriately.  In this week's challenge you must use either a Heart, a Cupid, or BOTH(!) in your project!!  Being a bit of a suck-up, I decided to use both cuts!

I used three Cricut cartridges to create this fun St. Valentine Banner:  Pretty Pennants, Victorian Romance, and Martha Stewart Elegant Cake Art.  I designed the banner in Cricut Craft Room and used four colors of cardstock and cut out my design. 

I just love this elegant lattice and swirl cut pennant top.  In fact I would go so far as to admit I probably purchased the cartridge just to get this pretty cut.  I used Close To My Heart Ruby cardstock to cut the lattice pennant top.  I used CTMH white cardstock to the base pennants.  After gluing the white and red layers together I used  a piercing tool and added dangling crystals to the bottom point of the pennant sections.

I used the Victorian Valentine cartridge and same two cardstocks mentioned above to cut the adorable little cupids,  I cut the cupids to use a spacers between the four pennant letters.  The middle cupid is matted on a pretty pink heart cut with CTMH Blush cardstock.  Again I used the piercing tool to add crystals to the cupids - but at the top instead of the bottom.

I am actually very pleased with my pennant.  I sometimes have a tendency to over-do a design. In this case I almost added roses to the top corners of the pennant pieces, but I decided that the lattice cuts were pretty enough to stand along.  My friends will have to pick up their jaws when they read that last sentence.  I never use the "less is best" design method! LOL.

We love it when you play along with us at BBTB2... And this week's challenge is especially easy as most of us will be crafting Valentine cards.  Use the Mr. Linky at BBTB2 and add your NEW heart or cupid project to the weekly challenge.

Challenge Entries:

Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges - Ch#3 MAINLY RED

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge - Challenge #148 - Be My Valentine
Exploring Cricut - Be My Valentine

Thanks for stopping by today.  I will be back tomorrow to share more Valentine joy!!

Sweet Spring Card with Cricut and Digi Stamp

Hello everyone!  I have had a case of the ickies this week and simply was not up to writing a new post yesterday.  Apparently I picked up a most unpleasant virus someplace over the last week (depending on the incubation period).   Thankfully I am feeling a bit better today - just well enough to be bored, ha!

During my trip to Spartanburg last weekend (and I do wonder if that was ground zero for the virus?) I had the opportunity to work on a couple of Dilly Beans digi stamps.  For this card I used  Dilly Beans #396-Amalia flower fairy digi stamp and Close To My Heart alcohol markers.  I love the wings on this fairy and the flowers in her hair.  She is such a little girlie-girl!

Using the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge I cut out three roses and the scalloped frame.  I placed the frame off the right edge of the card and trimmed away the over hang section.  The fairy image was attached over the top of the frame.  The roses were rolled and added to three of the card corners.  I cut the individual words from a printed sentiment and attached them to the front of the card using tiny pop dots.

I used a black base card so that the digi image and the other elements would POP off of the card. Inside I used a pink rectangle from the reverse side of the tiny floral print.  I used black ink to stamp the sentiment inside the card.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Hopefully I will be back to normal and back with a new post tomorrow!