We've Got Chemistry Layout

Hi friends and fellow crafters! I have a scrapbook layout to share today.

Around Christmas, PC announced that they were going to be sending out a cartridge to Circle members that would never be sold to the public. It was in response to their releasing French Manor in a Cricut Expression 2 package and would be given to members who joined before July 2012. French Manor was the first Circle exclusive cartridge for anyone who might not be familiar with the title. While the physical cartridge has not arrived yet, it was a nice surprise to see it available in my Cricut Craft Room Account. The cartridge is called Animal Antics and it is a real delight. Here are a couple of previews, and this is the link to the digital handbook for the more curious.

At first, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this cartridge, but there was a challenge on the message board to make a project a month with one of the Circle carts and I decided to go ahead and join. My cartridge is Animal Antics. Each month I will be hosting a thread for anyone who wants to use the Animal Antics Cartridge. I will make a project and post it, then hopefully, others will join the thread and share something they have created with the cartridge too. Originally, I was going to make a card, then I decided to go with a layout instead. I think the phrases layer will work nicely for scrapbook pages or even Project Life pages. Of course it will also create sweet, sweet cards too!  

Here is my layout.

I used the font from the cartridge for the title and the E=MC 2 cut on page 18 for an embellishment. The letters are cut at 1 inch and the E=MC 2 is cut at 5.5 width by 2.5 height. I have never done one of those grouping layouts like so many talented layout artists create, so I decided to try my hand at one with this layout.  

I really like this particular cut and I have a few more idea for it on a card. I used copics to color the chemistry beaker and added some little crystals as bubbles. I for the top layer of the beaker, I added some Lemon Ice Stickles, 

I stamped Josephine from Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps and colored it with copics. I've owned this stamp for ages and this was the 1st time I used her. I believe she may retired now. LOL! 

I have never done one of those grouping layouts like so many talented layout artists create, so I decided to try my hand at one with this layout. I found some Cricut cuts on my table, the arrow, stars and hearts so I used them. I added some embellishments and twine to the heart and stars. The ticket is from Tim Holtz. The card with the alphabet is trimmed from a piece of Lori Whitlock paper from the Note To Self Collection, by Echo Park. I inked the edges on it. The glass butterfly is from Recollections and the 1+1 cards are trimmed from a piece of Graphic 45 paper from the ABC Primer collection. All the papers are from my stash. The cork paper is from Canvas Home Basics Corkstock Tiles from AC Moore. The background paper is from Echo Park, and the title paper is from October Afternoon. 

When I scanned my Polaroid picture, I didn't crop it. I wanted it to look like it was attached to a cork board, so I added a brad to the picture. 

You might have noticed that the word chemistry is just a tiny bit uneven. I used a magnetic ruler instead of just eyeballing the letters when I was gluing them down. Naturally, the ruler was crooked! Lesson learned.....
The photo is from 1987, so I kindly request that there is no laughing at my 80's big hair!   

I really enjoyed this challenge and creating this layout. I am looking forward to next month's project. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Hello Kitty!

Hi friends and fellow crafters! I have been seeing lots of interest these days in the Hello Kitty cartridges from Provo Craft. Holy Moly, the prices they are asking for these on eBay are insane! I paid 15.00 for them way back when I bought them. I don't think I have created anything with them in a few years, so I decided to use them on a card. I was sending a card to a friend of mine and I wanted to include a card for her daughter. That gave me the perfect reason to break out Hello Kitty.
I created a fun and easy card using my stash. Once my friend posted the card, a couple of crafter friends contacted me and asked about the card, so I am posting it today.

I started with a piece of cardstock that I cut at about 5 inches high and 11 inches long. Since I forgot to take pictures when I was actually working on the card, I cut a new piece to show where I put the score lines. It's simple, I scored each side at 4 inches and that left me with a 3 inch center.

 I fan folded the card.

 

So this is how it looks before you embellish it.

 

Here is my card, folded. I think in the future I will either tie a bow around the accordion cards or make a gift box for them.

 

Using Hello Kitty Greetings, I cut two of my favorite Kitties at 3.25 inches. I forgot how much I love this cartridge, the layers are so easy to use.

 

 

I cut two oval scallops from Close To My Heart Art Philosophy in co-ordinating pinks and used my CuttleBug and Anna Griffin Hearts Embossing folder to emboss the inside. I also added some  crystals to the edges because what little girl (or big girl for that matter) doesn't love some sparkly things on a card?

 

I used the Hello Kitty Font to cut Hello at 1 inch. The corners are all from my stash. When I have small scraps that I don't want to save, I use an EK Success Corner Punch and make corners for future projects.

 

 

In the January 2012 issue of CardMaker Magazine, There was a card I really wanted to scraplift made by Lora Brinkman in the Card Challenge Corner. The challenge was Hear Ye, Hear Ye and you needed to make an accordion fold card with a banner. Her card was amazing! I love banners and mostly create home decor banners, so it was fun to shrink one down to a card size. I used Something To Celebrate for the banners and Hello Kitty Font for the letters. They are 1.25 inches. I welded them together on the Gypsy. I have these little clothes pins in my stash so I used them to hang my banner.

 

I computer generated Have A Happy Day. The Kitties are popped up on the oval. All the papers except the pink cardstock are from American Crafts Dear Lizzie, Neapolitan 6x6 Paper Pad.

 

Sometimes I make a card that truly tickles me, and this is one of those cards. Thanks to Nadia at With Glittering Eyes for showcasing the cards I sent her.

 

Thanks for visiting my blog today!

 

Happy Crafting!

Colleen



St. Patrick's Day Decor Using Vinyl

Hi friends and fellow crafters! Today I am a guest designer at the Cricut FANatics blog. I thought I would share the post with you too. If you haven't visited the FANactics blog yet, I hope you take a moment of your time to stop by and see all the amazing projects featured there. There are also fun challenges to enter too.

Now that St. Valentine's Day has come and gone, it's time for the wearing o' the green in our home. I finally got around to one of my bucket list projects, a St. Patrick's Day Subway Art Frame.

This was my first time attempting to use Word Collage and vinyl. Up until today, I had only used it a couple of times with my Imagine. This is a very versatile cartridge and upon closer inspection of it, I was thrilled to see the Irish inspired subway art.

I set my Expression 2 to the kiss cut (speed 3, depth 3 and blade 4) and loaded the mat. I cut a small shamrock just to make sure that it would cut. It cut nicely, so I felt safe to cut my word collage. It cut most of the words smoothly, but the smaller phrases were ripping. I changed my setting to a speed of 2 instead of  3 and set the blade at 3. I found that worked much better. It was a new blade, so I think that was why I needed to lower the setting for it. I also found that no matter what I did, I couldn't get the "Top Of The Morning" phrase to cut without tearing some letters. To fix that, I used my Gypsy to add a row of shamrocks where that phrase would have been. They are from Paper Doll Dress Up. At this point, I used the hide contour function on the Gypsy so I could change the colors of the words and phrases that I needed to re-cut. Below is an example of some hidden contours and a different color vinyl.

I weeded out all the small pieces before transferring the letters to the glass. The picture below shows the transfer paper on the letters. It really makes working with the vinyl easy.

In an effort to keep the phrases straight on my frame as I transferred them, I used a piece of scrap paper and created a grid to put under the glass while I was working. I cut the word collage at 7.5 inches wide, so I drew a line at .5 an inch in from the edge of my scrap paper. I didn't draw any lines across the paper, but I will the next time I create one of these frames. I also think I will reverse the letters the next time so that they will be inside the frame and not on the outside as they are on this one. I'm such a vinyl newbie! I used a piece of green paper from my stash as a backing for my word art.

Here's a close up of the frame. I really am happy with how it turned out.

With my vinyl scraps, I made a candle that would compliment the frame. I used a Martha Stewart Punch to make a doily border and I cut some shamrocks in varying sizes from A Child's Year. I can light this candle if I choose to because it melts into itself and the outside stays the same. If you are unsure how a candle might burn, I would suggest removing the vinyl before lighting.

If you have been wondering about trying out vinyl, I say give it a try! I really enjoyed creating this project and I know I will be digging into my stash of vinyl again very soon!

St. Patrick's Day is a double the fun holiday in our home. We love celebrating our Irish heritage and it's my birthday too! It's a great day for a birthday, everyone celebrates with me and I get a parade to boot!

Thanks fro stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!
Colleen

Designed By: Colleen McCauley

Machines Used: Cricut Anniversary Expression and Gypsy

Cartridges Used: Word Collage, A Child's Year, Paper Doll Dress Up

Materials: Vinyl, Martha Stewart Punch, paper, frame and candle from my stash. The paper is is from Penny Black and is called Green Sponged.

Love Me Tender

Hi friends and fellow crafters! Today I posting my final entry into ProvoCraft's Extreme Fonts Contest. They are announcing the winners Feb. 15th on Facebook. This is for the Valentine category using the week three sneak peek font.

It's a larger Valentine, measuring at 7 x 7 inches, but I have so much love for my sweetie that I couldn't contain it into a tiny card. :-)

Truth be told, I never expected it to be that big. It's just that I had already cut and colored the hummingbird and loved how it looked, so I just went with it. LOL!

The Hummingbird is from Art Nouveau and cut at 4 x 4 inches. It's the reason I bought the cartridge. I love hummingbird images and thought this one was lovely. I cut it all in white and then colored it with copics. I saw one colored on fellow Circle Member's blog, Linda from All Scrapped Out and loved her version so much that I really wanted to color one too.

I switched out the round background cut from the cartridge and replaced it with 2 scalloped hearts from the Cricut Craft Room Basics. I sized them at 5.2 x 4.6 for the shadow and 5 x 4.5 inches for the top layer. I used pop dots to adhere the hummingbird to the hearts.

The flower is from Art Philosophy and the leaves are from my stash of Martha Stewart Leaf punch cuts. The hearts are from my stash of left over cuts. They might be from the Craft Room Basics or Artiste.

I used Vintage Photo Tim Holtz Distress Ink to distress the hummingbird and hearts. I left off all the usual sparkly embellishments because it's for my hubby and wanted it to be romantic, but not girly. That was not easy for me to do.

I enjoyed creating this. It was a welcome distraction from the madness that has over taken our lives recently. My Mom broke her hip and had surgery last week, so I have been running back and forth to hospitals and now rehab. Somewhere in between, I made this. It was just what the doctor ordered for me.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Designed by: Colleen McCauley

Created with: Cricut Craft Room using Extreme Fonts for the letters, Art Nouveau for the Hummingbird, Cricut Craft Room basics for the hearts, and Art Philosophy for the flower.

Cut With: Cricut Expression 2

Materials used: Copic Markers, BG0000, BG11, G00, R27, R29, E17, E23

Tim Holtz Distress Ink-Vintage Photo

Papers: American Crafts White Card Stock, Core'dinations for the base, Pink Paislee for the hearts, & K & Company Paper for the card background.

Martha Stewart Leaf punch. 

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