BBTB2 A Child's Year and Vinyl

This week on BBTB2 our challenge is the adorable Valentine cut from A Child's Year chosen by our fabulous DT Sister Jen. We also had the opportunity to incorporate Cricut vinyl from our sponsor this week, Expressions Vinyl . Oh what fun! I'd never done a vinyl project and was so excited to see the number of fabulous colors available. Expressions Vinyl also has some videos that take all the mystery out of creating fabulous vinyl projects in no time. I was particularly excited about the Chalkboard Vinyl. Imagine the projects you can create with this product. I chose to cover a door hanger with the chalkboard vinyl and then added the shadow and regular cut from A Child's Year with the white and brown red metallic vinyl. The videos made it super simple. Can't wait to try more projects with this fabulous stuff. All I added were some metallic red adhesive hearts from J's enhanced with adhesive pearls and a gorgeous bow from May Arts ribbon. So fun and EASY PEASY! Love this project! Hope you do too! Be sure to visit BBTB 2 and view the rest of the wonderfully creative ideas from my DT sisters and if you play along you have the chance to win some of this fabulous vinyl from Expressions Vinyl for yourself. All you need to do is use the cut from A Child's Year, so what are you waiting for?

Love Struck Butterfly Heart

I love the intricate images on the new Love Struck cart and decided to play a bit. It is fairly frustrating that there not really shadows though, just sort of a blackout for the cuts, but I was not to be deterred. I cut the butterfly heart and instead of the blackout, I used one of the other hearts to make a shaped card and tweaked it again to make a shadow. Then, to add dimension, I punched butterflies using 3 of my MS punches. Although they aren't an exact fit, I still think it looks pretty. I traced around as much of the small bottom heart that I could and cut it out and embossed it with a tiny rose limited edition Cuttlebug folder that I got at Custom Crops.

Here's the dimension shot. The light blue dotted paper is BoBunny. I added adhesive pearls to the butterfly bodies and tied 3 sheer ribbons around the blue heart and tied a bow. I think with the colors it could be perhaps be used for an occasion other than Valentine's Day. Maybe Mother's day? We'll see.

I Stink I Love You!

First off, I'm sorry you'll be singing the old Partridge Family song the whole rest of the day but it couldn't be helped. LOL I just got a bunch of the new Cottage Cutz Camping Release dies from The Scrapping Cottage and the cute little skunks just cracked me up! There are actually 2 included on this die (the other guy is on all fours) but his little outstretched paw is so cute I picked him. I wish I could say the sentiment was original, but I'm pretty sure I saw it last year on the Cricut mb. Was it you, Shelly or maybe Kris, possibly Carole? All 3 of these ladies have quite the sense of humor. Anyway, I cut this little guy out using my Cuttlebug, colored him with my Copics, and added a little metal adhesive heart to his hand. I made a tent topper card by mounting him on the largest of the regular and scalloped heart shaped Nesties. The sentiment is computer generated and the white heart is embossed with the tiny heart folder from the Cuttlebug With Love card-making combo. It's mounted on an A2 card with a Fiskers Threading Water border along the front. The DP is from a little $1 mat pack I got at Target. There are quite a few adorable animal dies in the Camping Release as well as some great things for the man in your life (and we all know what a PITA male cards can be). There's also a preorder for the new Valentine's Release which is YUMMY so be sure and check it out.

There's just enough dimension to keep this card interesting. I popped the scalloped heart, the skunk body and his head. I stuck the ribbon down with 1/18th inch Terrifically Tacky Tape and made the bow with my new Bow Easy (which I'm finally getting the hang of. LOL) The inside is lined with the second half of the DP over the strip of red that shows through from the front. Besides the corny pun (my DH groaned and said "Well, I guess that's part of your card culture") I think it's pretty darn cute. Sorry about the lighting. Should have asked Santa for a photo studio. Well I'm off to a hair appt. this am. See you after I'm beautified!

Happy New Year with The Cuttlebug Spot and Cutting Cafe

This week at The Cuttlebug Spot we're celebrating the New Year. Naturally I thought of a champagne toast and printed and cut out the Wine Bottle Shaped Card from Regina's Cutting Cafe. At first I planned just to make the shaped card. I embossed the top with matte metallic card stock that rubbed off after embossing and I almost tossed it but it was the only green I had.

Eventually it grew on me. Then for the label I used the Cutting Cafe 99 cent special 2010...Out with the Old...circle and cut it out with my Nesties, and layered it with a scalloped circle and finally Labels Two. Added a bow, "cute", I thought, but before attaching the embossed bottle to the card I decided to do a bit of blog hopping. Lo and behold Kris had a fabulous side step New Year's card that was sooo cute! "Hmmmm....", I thought, "wouldn't that be fun?" So instead of attaching the embossed bottle to the card, I attached it to the tall part of the stair step, cut some champagne glasses from Wedding solutions on my Cricut and embossed those too.

I used the DCWV Metallic Stack for the layers of the step and embossed them with the Cuttlebug limited edition Christmas Stars folder I had gotten at Custom Crops. The "Celebration Time" sentiment is from the Happy New Year Huge Circle Word set also from The Cutting Cafe. The 6 sentiments included in this set are definitely not just for New Year's. They would be great for birthdays, anniversaries or any celebration.

What you probably didn't realize is the bottle moves back and forth to "pour" the champagne. I used the coin and dimensional "sandwich" fitted into a punched hole in the card base. It is similar to that which I used on my "Let Freedom Ring" card. Click HERE if you're interested. The only difference was I had to weight it at the base of the bottle so it would swing back after pouring. Stop by The Cuttlebug Spot and check out the great projects by my DT sisters and come play along for a chance to win a $20 gift certificate from Custom Crops.

Bitten By The Bug 2 In Style Challenge

By now most of you have probably heard that Regina, our dear leader and originator of BBTB, has stepped down to focus on her fabulous printable stamp store The Cutting Cafe. It is with great sadness we say farewell but Regina has passed the torch to our wonderfuly talented DT Sister, Heather Binnie, so the fabulous team can continue our weekly challenges at Bitten By The Bug 2. YEA HEATHER!!!! (BTW, Regina still continues as a DT member to join in the challenges when she's able so Woo Hoo!) This week Heather chose the In Style cut from Graphically Speaking. I was so hopeful that my Forever Young cart would come before this challenge but that was not to be so instead I used the sassy girl from Hannah Montana to grace the front of the handbag from Plantin Schoolbook. There's loads of girly goodness here. Satin ribbon and pearls and PINK! The DP is from Making Memories Sabrina and the card stock is Bazzill. I have to laugh a bit because the hair here reminds me of Heloise (as in "Hints from..."). This chick looks primaturely grey but I didn't want to mess up my color scheme. LOL

There's no welding or anything for this design and just a little bit of dmension. The purse was cut at 12 3/4", In Style was cut at 4 3/4" and "Heloise" was cut at 5 1/2". This makes for a really decent size gift bag to make some girly girl very happy. Now be sure to pop over to BBTB2 to see the fabulous projects by the rest of the team and be sure to sign up to follow and come play along.

Conversation Hearts from The Cutting Cafe

Happy New Year everyone! I've been reminded by some of my blogging frends that I have failed to post yet this year. Does anyone else feel a massive letdown after the holidays? Don't get me wrong, mine were wonderful, but I'm really not ready to let them go. Fortunately we will be celebrating with our good friends next weekend (they go away each year) so I don't even have to think about taking my decorations down. WooHoo! I pretty much blew off my creative side to spend quality time with DH so know I'm playing catch up with DT challenges and the like. Tough to get back in the swing of creating but I was certainly inspired by all of the fabulous new downloadable stamps that Regina has added to The Cutting Cafe recently. Since I have been feeling particularly smoochy with my hubby lately I decided to start on some Valentines. The background here is Love Heart which I resized and printed in dark pink. While browsing the other super Valentine offerings I came across All About Valentine's Day and noticed the little conversation hearts...too cute! I resized these to fit the hearts of the background and printed them in the same dark pink on white and 4 different pastels and then cut them out and popped them on the background. It made the front like a fun little love letter depending how you read the hearts. Some of you have asked what program I use to resize and recolor the stamps. I used Printmaster Platinum 18. There are other versions which I'm sure would also work fine, but our new computer is 64 bit so this was the compatible version for that. Regina has info and tips for using the printable stamps which are simple to understand (thank heavens since I'm such a idiot when it somes to all things computer).

Here's a view of the dimension, and yes, I did cut all those little hearts out by hand. Good for the manual dexterity. LOL However, if you own a Pazzles or SCAL (or a few other machines out there) you do it automatically. Click HERE for those info and tips.

Inside I used the LOVE you, also from All About Valentine's Day. This set has tons of great stuff which allowed me to keep one of my resolutions of finishing the insides of my cards right when I make them. I had added this sentiment on each of my pastel sheets when I printed the hearts so I just cut out the colored blocks and added a few more hearts for good measure. Ahhh, now I feel ready to dust off the Cricut and tackle my BBTB challenge for TOMORROW! YIKES! Better get moving!

My Faves From 2009!

New Year's Eve is special for us because it's my Dear Husband's birthday! Imagine the whole world celebrating with you! LOL Makes for difficulty making reservations at times, but we're spending the night back in Sausalito at Cavello Point where we spent our Anniversary. WooHoo! I want to wish everyone all good things in the New Year. I look forward to continue being inspired and encouraged by all of you. Your friendship has meant so much to me. I've decided to do what my fabulously talented friend and DT sister Enfys did on her blog and take a walk down memory lane and pick my fave projects from each month in 2009 so without further ado...

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Wags 'n Whiskers Punches and Die Cuts Challenge

I'll be the first to admit I'm NOT done with Christmas so I was so happy when my package arrived with some ADORABLE Wags 'n Whiskers stamps from Stamp and Create. My gloriously talented and dear friend Sharon is on the DT over there and she introduced me to the stamps through a fabulous blog hop for their new release. Well I was smitten. Not only because these girls and boys have the sweetest faces EVER, but they are often with KITTIES!!!!!!! (or puppies, but KITTIES!!!!!) One of my resolutions is to stamp more and learn to use my Copics so I decided to join in on the current challenge at Wags 'n Whiskers to use punches or die cuts with your image. Yea! another opportunity to use my MS holly punch. Although this challenge runs through Jan 7, it started BEFORE Christmas and I was just DYING to color Sweet Danni and Bella.

Just LOOK at their faces! Tooo cute! Sorry, AGAIN I didn't take pics of the Copics I used, but because my table was such a diasastrous mess I thought I might lose one if I didn't put them pack in their rack. The DP is from my favorite K&Co Christmas Cheer stack along with that cool tree from the DCWV Holiday Collection Christmas stack which I wouldn't have known what to do with until this idea came along. The frame is cut with my Nesties Petite Ovals Large and the sentiment with Petite Scalloped Ovals Small which was perfect for the peelie sentiment I colored green with permanent markers. the star on the tree top is from a K&Co chipboard assortment that coordinates with the DP.

I did do a bit of popping and love the look of Danni and Bella cut out and standing in front of the tree. I rarely make A2 cards but I'm really pleased with how this one came out and can't wait to color some more of these adorable stamps.

Dream Big - .cut file available

Hi guys, did you miss me? Just relaxing a bit with my hubby for a change. Here's a card I did for one of my BFF's son who turned 16 recently. He had visions of getting a car which I think we ALL knew wasn't happening so this was my little tease. Of course I made it in manly colors but think it would also be pretty cute in girly colors as well. And wouldn't it REALLY be cool if someone was actually GETTING a car? This shaped card uses the the car from Graphically Speaking as the back and the key from Locker Talk along with the sentiment (also from GS) for the front. The free .cut file and full instructions are available HERE at Custom Crops.

Inside I used the Cuttlebug Birthday Wishes Card Making combo for the sentiment. As I said in the article, I did doodle a bit around the car windows, etc. after seeing this pic but I didn't have time to take another because we were late for the party. I've got a few more b-day cards to make (including Dh's on New Year's Eve) but I really haven't quite gotten over Christmas yet. Does anyone else feel that way?

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I took a few days off to enjoy time with DH and we've been playing alot of dominoes. Isn't that funny? He complained that although we're in the same house most of the time, I'm in the craft room and he's practicing piano and when we finally sit down together it's often in front of the tv so that's really not "together". I said that I'd love to play games but he isn't particulary thrilled with them, but he used to play dominoes with his grandpa as a kid so Santa brought me dominoes. I'd never played but it's easy, fun, and quite addictive. WooHoo!

You Better Not Pout!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! We had a lovely day in Carmel yesterday. That town is so magical, especially during the holidays! Believe it or not, I DID finish a card before we left but it's been in the works for at least a week. One of my New Year's resolutions to to stamp and practice coloring with my Copics more and although this stamp is digital, called Two Jill by Mo Manning when I saw that adorable face I just HAD to do a Christmas card. Of course I forgot to take pix of the marker colors but I did find that I was more successful on shading using a monochromatic palette on her outfit.

Not nearly as accomplished as so many of my fabulous blogging friends, but at least I didn't have to toss it. LOL There are tons of great tuts out there but I've looked at so many that I'm sorry I don't have links. I do know that I used my dear friend Sharon's tut for the skin and hair. Her coloring is SOOO fantastic. Thank you so much girly! You can check her's out HERE. I also spent alot of time looking at the beautiful Christmas card my friend Barb sent me. I so loved this card when I saw it on her blog that I went out and ordered the stamp. Wow was I surprised when this gorgeous card came in the mail! Her Blog is so inspirational and I had it in my hot little had. WooHoo! Thanks so sooo much Barb.

My poor Cricky has been so lonesome because I really haven't had time to sit down and do any designing like I normally do but I did manage to get in a couple of cuts from Christmas Cheer in the mix. The papers are from the 6x6 pad of BasicGrey's Eskimo Kisses. The packages are cut from that stack and the bows are cut in white and colored with my Copics. The cute stickers are from my stash and weren't in the package so I have no idea. I'm pretty sure I got them on clearance when a LSS went out of business. Bummer! That's really been happening alot and I mourn the independent retailer who just can't compete with the M's and J's. So often you could find more unique products there.

These stickers had quite a bit of dimension so other than that I think I only popped the presents. The LO is a bit wonky, but I thought it fit the whimical presents and that stubborn look on Jill's face. So the rest of the day I must play catch up. We actually celebrate on Christmas Eve so I've got my work cut out for me! Some of the gifts may just spend all of 5 minutes in their wrapping. LOL To all of my dear cyber friends, I wish you a magical Christmas and a New Year full of health and happiness! Big Hugs! D

Peggy Loves Vintage Candy Cane Santa

Well 2 more days and it's Christmas! We spent Sunday in the city and I ran around all day yesterday so no, I'm STILL not done with decorating but I see the end in sight. I can't totally give up all of my crafting time though so again I turned to the fabulous Santa Cut Outs 1 from Peggy Loves Vintage that I won on sweet DeeDee's blog. I really can't thank you enough for these images DeeDee! I'm still able to get in my crafting fix amongst all of the other Christmas preparations and the cards turn out so cute! (If I do say so myself) This time the paper isn't even Christmas. It's from Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird line but the bright retro colors were perfect for this Santa, don't you think? I punched the bottom with an EKSuccess punch from last year and the gingerbread men show through to the little brown dotted paper from Me&MyBig Ideas. Doesn't it all look like a 50's kitchen? The sentiment is embroidered twill ribbon from M's that I adhered to card stock using Terrifically Tacky Tape and trimmed the edges. That made it stiff enough to pop using sticky strips. I really love how that turned out, especially with the bow behind it.

I used my nesties rectangles to cut the window and frame and again the frame is popped using 1/8th inch strips while the Santa is popped with 1/16th inch. Just a few adhesive pearls on the corners of the frame and it was done! Now it's back to the ladder for me because DH wants to run down to Carmel tomorrow and I don't have the heart to say no. If stuff doesn't get done, it just doesn't get done. I'm just not gonna stress it this year. Spending time together is really what it's all about.

Finally, Meet Me Under the Mistletoe -.cut file available

So sorry this has taken so long. The file took while to clean up and originally hadn't planned to share it because it was such a mess but Custom Crops liked the design and I had so many requests that here it is. I didn't take pics while assembling but more pix, the instructions and Free .cut file are HERE. At least with the .cut file there's still time to make this for your Sweetie. Hope everyone is all ready with their Christmas preparations (unlike me LOL). OOh, I just read the post and I sound sort of crabby. I'm not, just harried. Better get moving. TTYL