He shoots! He scores!

 

Hi friends and fellow crafters! This week Provo Craft is once again offering a sneak peek at their new Cartridge, Extreme Fonts, in the Cricut Craft Room. They are still running their contest, so I decided to enter another project. I have been saving photos in a folder that I wanted to scrapbook and when I saw the font, I immediately thought that it was a great font for a sports page. I pulled out these cute pictures of my son and hubby shooting baskets in the driveway from a few years ago and went to work. All the materials are from my stash!

I don't know about you, but for some reason, what I start out to create, hardly ever is the actual finished product.

Here was the start of the layout.

It was a just a little too busy and I felt my photos were getting lost. So I decided to keep it simple. I also changed the colors and size of the letters.

Here are the letter colors before. They were nice, but were going to get lost with the pictures.

So here are the new letters. I really do like this font!

I used the same card stock on the title letters and the basketballs to tie the page elements together. I used Ranger Glossy Accents on the inside of the letters and Vintage Photo Distress Ink on the top layer to add some depth to the letters.

I cut the basketball teen on page 55 of the Paper Dolls Teen Scene Cartridge at 6.5 inches. I decided against using the basketball jersey so that I could create the clothes to resemble what my son has on.  I used copics to color his skin and to add some dimension to his clothes and sneakers. I also used a gel pen to add a design to his sneakers. I inked his hair with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. He almost has the same hairstyle as my son! I love this cartridge!

 

I cut extra basketballs at different sizes to use as embellishments for the page. I used Tim Holtz Core'dinations Card stock for the basketballs and inked the edges with Vintage Photo. My 1st plan was to use was the basketballs as a corner embellishment.

I liked it, but the pictures have lots of movement and  I wanted to convey the movement with the basketball embellishments.  So I moved the balls around the page and the teen boy to the side. For the final touch, I added journaling. I haven't made many layouts recently, so this was fun. The font was perfect and my little Cricut mini cut the letters like butter.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

 

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

 

 

What I used:

Cricut Craft Room, Cricut Mini

Extreme Fonts, Paper Dolls Teen Scene

Papers: Pink Paislee Declaration Block Party, Tim Holtz Distress Core'dinations Card stock and Recollections Card stock in Black, White and Blue.

Other Materials: Copic Markers, Distress Ink-Vintage Photo, Ranger Glossy Accents.

 

CCR file



Secret Hollow Book

Hi friends and fellow crafters!  I have a project to share today that is truly unique and really fun to create. Back in November, I was visiting one of my favorite crafting blogs, With Glittering Eyes and saw this amazing project created by my crafting friend, Nadia. Nadia found the project idea here and there was a YouTube video here showing the book fully decorated. I knew I had to try one of these faux books out. This Christmas season was pure chaos. My Mother In Law's QVC gift card didn't arrive on time for our visit, so we improvised a gift and card for her, and then let her know that we were waiting for her "real" gift to arrive. Since my hubby hasn't been to see her in few weeks, it gave me the chance to try to create one of these unique vignettes for her.

I followed Nadia's measurements and also her scoring. So I also cut my card stock at  5-7/8" x 10-1/2".  As per Nadia's measurements, I scored the 10 1/2 side at 4-5/8", 4-7/8", 5-5/8", and 5-7/8".

If you would like to try this, I would recommend visiting Nadia's Blog or Tracy's Blog. Again, following Nadia's measurements, I cut card stock for the cover and back of the book at 4-1/2" x 5-7/8" and a piece for the spine at 11/16" x 5-7/8".  I used a Tim Holtz Alterations Embossing folder to emboss the pieces of card stock. I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink, Vintage Photo to add color to my book's cover and spine.

I added two pieces of ribbon between the cover and embossed layer. They started out an eggshell color, but after I added them, I didn't like the it, so I used some Tim Holtz Vintage Photo to the ribbons to change the color. I liked it much better. 

 

I followed Tracy's instructions to make the page frame. I cut 2 pieces of beige card stock at 5-3/8" x 9" and 2 pieces at 4-1/2" x 9".  I scored the pieces at 3/4" all the way across. I didn't think to take any pictures while I was scoring, but Nadia has some perfect shots of how it should look on her blog. Here is what my pages looked like when I put the frame together and inked the edges.

I used my Swiss Dots, Cuttlebug embossing folder to add some interest to my background for my vignette. 

The cuts are from the Christmas Cards, Seasonal Cricut Cartridge. I used some dimensional paint on the tree and Church. 

 I used a piece of blue card stock to make the frame, then embossed it with a Sizzix folder. It was a frame type of folder, so it worked out nicely on the card stock.

I tried to glue the frame to my spine, but I made the mistake of adhering the frame to the back of the book first, newbie mistake, LOL! I improvised and added some ribbon to the second scor for aesthetics,  LOL! I printed out a sentiment with our computer and let a space to adhere the gift card to it. I hope my Mother In Law enjoys the "book" as much as I enjoyed creating it!

If you haven't stopped by Nadia's blog yet, you have to go and see the little works of paper art that she has created. She also has more Secret Hollow Books on this post. I am planning on making another book for my Father In Law's Birthday. 

Thank you for stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Kitchen Wall Decor

Hi friends and fellow crafters! I have been very busy trying to organize my craft room these past couple of weeks. I have been participating in an organizational thread and week by week we are trying to get our stuff in order! Since my room was such a disaster, I jumped ahead a little from the thread and took one corner at a time to clean up. What a mess. No wonder I was having a hard time creating, I couldn't find one single thing in my mess! LOL!
 Here is a before and after picture just to give you an idea of how bad it was!

Here's my table, before and after. I was super happy to get rid of much of the stuff under the table!

Ok, enough of that! Here is my project that I wanted to share with you today. Cricut is having a contest over the next couple of weeks where they are giving us use of their upcoming cart, Extreme Fonts. If you are interested in joining in, you can find the information here or at the Facebook page. I made three wall hangings for my kitchen using the font. It is a very fine font, so it was a bit of a beast to make sure not to tear the letters coming off the mat. I hear the font does cut very nicely using vinyl.

These were a piece of cake to make. I used Close To My Heart Artiste to design the main shape. I used my E2 to cut the shape. I used the multi-cut function and set it at 2.

I printed the paper from my Imagine using the Kate's Kitchen cartridge. I cut all the letters from the Extreme Fonts cartridge preview in the CCR. I used Suburbia for the cook, coffee pot, tea kettle and cups. I curled the wire, punched a couple of holes and ran the wire through. I decorated  the wire with some ribbon and October Afternoon buttons. To make the steam from the cups, I used a rhinestone flourish from Recollections. I embellished the cook with some pearls from my stash. Here are some close ups.

I didn't use the layers from the Suburbia cuts because I wanted to keep the silhouette effect.
If you would like the CCR file for these it is here although this is just for the cuts. The mat came from my Gypsy.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Happy New Year!

Hi everyone! Welcome to 2013! May all your new year wishes come true! I am posting a quick link to some awesome blog candy! Check it out here!

Nicole's Stamp Addiction is a lovely blog with amazing projects. Stop on by and enter her contest! It ends soon, so don't delay!

Happy Crafting!