Make a Wish ,Cut file Available

I just love the New A Child's Year cartridge so I decided to make a few simple birthday cards. They are A2 size which is small for me, but I thought it would be nice to have something that is easy to send for a change. They are a Design Team project for Custom Crops and the article and .cut file are available HERE. They also only require 2 carts, Plantin Schoolbook and A Child's Year.

For the inside I mounted another silhouette right behind the shaped front to stamp or write a sentiment.

I thought the images would be great for layouts or also make cute tags so I included the cuts without the card backing as well. I like these cuts even without the patterned paper and embellies. Just a little embossing and doodling and I was good to go.

The Cuttlebug Spot Christmas in July

This week The Cuttlebug Spot features Christmas cards. It felt like a welcome relief after all of the hot weather so of course I chose a snowy theme. I've been dying to try a tri shutter card so I watched this fabulous tutorial HERE by Bonnie Szwalkiewicz and found they were really easy to do. The mats were a little tricker for me but I managed and the front and back mats lent themselves to the Snowy Village Cuttlebug folder quite nicely. Much of the detail was enhanced by Frosted Lace stickles. The pretty acetate glitter snowflakes on the front and back panels are from Me & My Big Ideas.

I used the Snowflakes folder on the top and bottom larger interior mats and left the smaller ones blank to decorate with Rain Dot snowflakes. All mats are outlined with silver peelies. The sentiment was computer generated and cut and embossed with the Labels 4 Nesties. Between the iridescent blue card stock, the white mats and the stickles this card didn't photograph very well but it's quite pretty IRL. If you ask me, the Cuttlebug is THE way to go when doing multiple Christmas cards so why don't you get started early and come play along with us at The Cuttlebug Spot? We have another fabulous prize awaiting, and while you're there, do check out the gorgeous creations by my DT sisters.

We are the World BBTB Blog Hop

It's the last Monday in July (I can't believe it, can you?) and time for another BBTB BLOG HOP! If you happened upon this post by chance you may wish to start at BBTB, otherwise you probably arrived here from my talented DT sister Krista's Blog. This week Regina asked us to use the sort of graphic man and woman from Going Places. I must confess that at first I groaned because these figures look to me like those on a unisex public bathroom (I guess they aren't holding hands there, God forbid, but you know what I mean). Then all of a sudden this idea came to me and everything changed. Maybe Michael was reaching down to inspire me, but this may be my all-time favorite card EVER. It took me HOURS to get everything welded and to cut the individual couples in all the colors of the rainbow but I'm SO HAPPY with how it came out. Thank you dear Leah for letting me borrow this cart yet AGAIN (guess it's time to invest) because all of the cuts but the clouds (from Hello Kitty Greetings) were from Going Places. Oops, I lied, I did use a square and tiny heart from Plantin Schoolbook but that doesn't really count, does it?

I used quite a bit of popping to enhance the floating nature of the background cuts and the continents and ocean on the world. The sky and clouds were cut from Bazzil card stock with pre- embossed dots and the ocean was cuttled with the D'Vine Swirls Cuttlebug folder and the continents with the tiny dots from the butterfly die/emboss set and the sun was embossed with Swiss Dots.

Now on to my amazingly creative DT sister Enfys' BLOG. 893 followers wouldn't lie, so you are in for a real treat! But before you go, please leave a comment to be included in the random drawing for my blog candy. The winner will be announced Sunday morning, Aug 2. Happy hopping and thank you so much for stopping by! xxD

Remember I have Faith in You

Okay, I'm bummed. Although I ALWAYS check out the fabulous sketches at 2 Sketches 4 You I'm always intimidated and have only actually officially played along once. Kazan's sketch 31 spoke to me as I was already thinking along those lines because of the fabulous black and cream pad from K&Co. Obviously I wasn't aware of the deadline because there I was about to post my entry and they had already announced Card of the Week and the Fab 5. (Note to self. Do it BEFORE Sunday morning.) I still think it turned out pretty well though and the gorgeous paper just begged for a sentiment from The Cutting Cafe's "I Have Faith in You" printable stamp set. Even better, Regina is offering this beautiful set ABSOLUTELY FREE through the entire month of August!

I did the whole card with my paper cutter, my square Nesties, and Martha Stewart butterfly punches. Somehow foam dimensionals didn't really work with this card so I cut the 4 small squares 3 times each to give them more of a chipboard feel. The punched butterflies are adhered in the center only with the wings bent up and the bodies are adorned with adhesive beads. "Remember" is a metal adhesive sticker that I colored black with a permanent marker. There's a bit of a glare in the picture on it because it's shiny, but that worked really well.

Again, the beautiful sentiment is from The Cutting Cafe "I Have Faith in You", a set of 12 lovely sentiments that is Regina is offering free for a limited time. Click HERE for details. She also has some .99 specials and a fabulous new wedding set so be sure to browse a bit.

Boo to You from The Cutting Cafe

I don't know about you, but I LOVE Halloween and for me it's never too early to start thinking up fun ideas. That's why I couldn't wait to play with the "Boo" printable background stamp from The Cutting Cafe. I just love the small scale and cool font, and the O's look like little eyes. OOOH! So much fun!

First I printed out the background on white cardstock for my card mat, cut a frame with my Labels 1 Nestie and a big moon out of orange with my Nestie Circle. That spooky tree is a Cottage Cutz die sold exclusively at The Scrapping Cottage. I wish I could say I thought up the google eyes idea myself, but I saw it on The Scrapping Cottage Blog and fell in love with the idea. Too cute, don't you think, and perfect with the background stamp. The little bats are RainDots and the spooky is a puffy sticker I added some more google eyes to.

The cool part about this background stamp is the image is large enough to use for layouts and in this case, wrapping paper. I just printed it this time on regular printer paper and wrapped a little box of treats with it. The tombstone tag and bat are Cuttlebug cut and emboss dies. How fast and fun it that?! Hop on over to The Cutting Cafe. There's loads of fun printable stuff to get your creative juices flowing and they're only an email away!

Caution Men Cooking .Cut File Available

I had this card in my mind since way before Father's Day but it took awhile to get it together, and the idea grew and grew. It was designed exclusively for Custom Crops and the .cut file and article with detailed instructions are available HERE. The card is held closed with a band that is supposed to resemble Caution tape. I don't know about you, but I really stand back whenever DH decides to act as Grillmeister. LOL

I thought it would make a cute Father's Day or B-Day card for the man in your life, or even a Barbeque or Cook-Off invitation (as long as you're not inviting a ton of people. LOL)

I'm afraid I used a ton of carts on this design and I apologize. This seems to bug some people when I'm sharing the .cut file, but as I said, the idea grew and grew, so the list came to George, Indie Art, Zooballoo, Mickey Font, Plantin Schoolbook, and Joys of the Season. YIKES! I just couldn't stop until I designed a cute inside as well with a hot mitt that opens for the sentiment.

I'd love it if you'd go to Custom Crops and take a look and if you could leave a comment there so much the better! Oh, BTW, my Forever card is also available HERE for download. WooHoo! You can see all of my designs on the Custom Crops site by clicking on my Design Team blinkie on the sidebar. Thanks for stopping by! xxD

BBTB Indy Art Ice Cream Cone Challenge

This week at BBTB Regina asked us to use the ice cream cone from the Indie Art cartridge. I made a simple shape card using Design Studio and popped the layers for dimension. I decided on strawberry ice cream so I used the cute paper from the DCWV Nana's Kids Baby Girl matstack and used pink stickles to add some Martha Stewart mica flake glitter to make it look frosty. To add some texture to the cone I embossed both pieces with the Tiny Mosaic Cuttlebug folder.

Some of the designers were sent gorgeous hand crocheted flowers from Paper Blooms. I already had my own stash of these fabulous flowers so of course I included one on my card too. And now Leah is making beautiful butterflies as well! WooHoo! The sentiment tag is from The Cutting Cafe A to Z is for 24 piece downloadable printable stamp set. They are the perfect size to use your Stampin'Up label punch and Nesties, and there are 23 more fun sentiments to choose from, perfect for a whole variety of occasions. There is also a new contest going on over at BBTB where you can win some of these gorgeous Paper Blooms, and it just happens to require the word "yummy" to enter. Be sure to check out the rules HERE and also take a look at the YUMMY creations my DT sisters came up with this week.

The Cuttlebug Spot Blog Hop

We're doing things a little different at The Cuttlebug Spot this week. Each Design Team member was asked to do a project using a technique formerly featured as a challenge. Instead of posting our projects on the blog, you're gonna have to do a little hopping to see what we've all come up with. If you missed the starting point of this hop, you can start HERE at the blog of our fabulous sponsor this week. I chose embossing something other than paper because I was hot to use more of my new Cuttlebug summer release folders. My DH is extremely fond of Diamond plate, and so much the better I could emboss actual metal. The word "Tough" is from the Tim Holtz grungeboard alphabet. I used the Herringbone folder on those because I think it looks like tire tread and then painted them with Ranger acrylic paint daubers and sanded a bit to enhance the texture. The metal letters are from Colorbok which I again used paint daubers in both white and black to dirty them up a bit, the gears are Tim Holtz Sprockets, and the screws are actual screws that my DH cut the threads off for me. WooHoo, he came home a day early from his trip because of stormy weather and boy am I glad! (Not just to cut off screws for me to use in my project LOL, I REALLY missed him! )

Lotsa metal going on here! This is one heavy card! More embossing and metal letters on the inside, and the "2 withstand" was done with Scrapyard 329 alphabet that I pounded with a mallet into a Ten Seconds Studio slate covered metal sheet (it's kinda like coredinations card stock, but metal) and then used one of their texture wheels and sanded.

Besides all of the texture from the embossing and metal embellishments I popped the "T" and "G" with foam dimensionals. You didn't actually think I'd do a card without them, did you? Your next stop on our little hop is my talented Design Team sister Kerri's blog so click HERE to see what she's come up this week. And thank you so much to our fabulous sponsor Katz Designz. She has an adorable stamp set that you can win by making a project using your favorite past technique and leaving a link in the comments section. So have fun and keep on hopping!

Blackletter Note Cards and The Cutting Cafe Social Butterflies Set Winner

First of all, without further ado, the winner of the Cutting Cafe Social Butterflies set is JENNIFER PELLEGRINO! Congratulations Jennifer! Please email me your email addy so we can get your prize sent right out to you. And thank you all for participating.

Yesterday I had a really bad day. My Dh is STILL gone on a backpacking trip and has been gone since Tues. morning and of course I'm having all sorts of technical difficulties with my desktop computer, my air conditioning and most disturbing, my cat box. Yes, you read that right, my CAT BOX. I have a litter robot which sort of looks like R2D2 from Star Wars. The cats climb into what looks like a space pod to potty and when they're done the top rotates sift the litter to deposit the contents into the base and then returns to it's original positon, except now NOTHING HAPPENS. Scooping out of this contraption is no mean feat either. WHAT A PITA!

Sorry if this is TMI for all of you non-animal lovers, but I'm really getting frustrated and had to vent. Anyway, I miraculously managed to make a set of note cards using several of the new Cuttlebug folders, some gorgeous paper from K&Co, and the Blackletter Cricut cartridge. I was amazed at how the folders coordinated so well with the paper designs.

The first uses the Victoria folder. this is the one that got me started because the embossing almost matched the paper exactly!

The second uses Textile Textures, not a new folder but definitely a great one.

The third uses Morroccan Screen. I'm really loving these new folders. The images seem more crisp and I love the variety.

Finally I used my Stampin'Up label punch and my Labels 1 Nesties for the monogram layers and popped them for dimension. These were cards were really simple (which was about all I could handle yesterday), but I think they turned out quite elegantly just the same.

First Card with my New Cuttlebug Folders

I'll admit it, I just couldn't wait! When I saw that HSN was offering the brand new, not yet released Cuttlebug folders I just HAD to get them. Worse yet, I HAD to have them NOW! so I paid almost as much to ship them as I did to buy them and of course next day wasn't REALLY next day because it was over the weekend. Then wouldn't you know I must have been the absolute LAST stop on the UPS driver's route because they didn't arrive until almost 7:00p.m. Seriously, I was pulling my hair out! LOL I was still feeling rather romantic from my BBTB card so I chose the gorgeous swirly frame and found that the "Together Forever" sentiment from the Sizzix Wedding Set #2 just about fit in the opening. I cuttled the card front itself with Swiss Dots, then used an iridescent mat, the regular white card stock for the frame, and the iridescent again for the sentiment. The flowers are "wedding confetti" that I found in the wedding section of Michaels and I added a few adhesive pearls. Wow was this easy!

Tuesday I was lucky enough to snag Leah (BeeCherryLady on the Cricut message board) and baby Cody away from her family to come over and craft. A whole girly day, seems like it had been forever. Here's a pic of Mom and baby. Isn't he the sweetest!? I just wanted to eat him up with a spoon.

He was such a good boy, but I don't think he thought much of this card. (What do men know LOL) BTW, Leah just started a blog and hasn't really posted much (except adorable pix of her kids) but why don't you bop on over there and say "Hi" and give her a little encouragement. Just click HERE.

The Cutting Cafe Social Butterfly and a Chance to Win this Set!

Attention all butterfly lovers, The Cutting Cafe now is offering a number of fabulous downloadable printable stamps featuring backgrounds, sentiments and those glorious winged creatures themselves. And Regina has graciously allowed her Designers the opportunity to give away the set they used in their project to launch the new additions to her wonderful line. I fell in love with the "Social Butterfly" set which includes 22 sentiments and gorgeous winged creatures. Remember, the images and sentiments can be resized (which I did for the sentiment) and printed in different colors (see instructions on The Cutting Cafe). I chose to print my butterfly in black however, to compliment the cool Basic Grey Ambrosia paper. I cut a frame with my Blossom Nesties and popped the top mat, then attached 2 layers of the beautiful butterfly at the body so he looked like he was in flight.

I resized the sentiment in my photoshop program and used my Nesties to cut it out. Then I layered some Prima flowers and popped the sentiment on top.

I really love how quickly and easily this card came together and these are just a few of the options from the Social Butterfly set. So if you would like the opportunity to win this set of 22 images from The Cutting Cafe all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and I will be announcing the winner on Saturday morning. Also be sure to check out all of the new offerings at The Cutting Cafe where there are links to more fabulous projects by my Design Team Sisters and many more opportunities to WIN!

The Cuttlebug Spot-The Inside Counts

This week The Cuttlebug Spot focusses on the inside of cards so I actually designed this card from the inside out. I challenged myself to use as many embossing folders and dies as I could so I've counted 5 different folders, two different Nesties, and 3 dies. WooHoo!

I really love the idea of all kinds of pop-ups so when I saw this Sizzix Bigz spiral ornament die I thought maybe it would work for the inside pop-up so I cut it in acetate on my Cuttlebug. The cute bee is a Cottage Cutz die exclusive to The Scrapping Cottage. I used the Nesties Blossom for the large polka dot flower and cuttled it with the large dot folder from the Baby cardmaking combo with the center cut from the paper from the front of the card using my petite scalloped circle. It is embossed with one of the small Cuttlebug flower folders. The green "grass" bottom mat is cuttled with Forest Branches and the top floral mat with the flower folder from the with Gratitude cardmaking combo. The floating flowers are prima.

On the front the individual flowers are cuttled with 2 different small flower folders. All of the printed papers are from the Cosmo Cricket Early Bird line. LOVE IT! The adorable ladybug is a BossKut die and the sentiment letters are JoAnn Essentials. Please stop by The Cuttlebug Spot to view all of the fabulous cards from all of my Design Team sisters, and we're offering another great prize this week so come and play along.

BBTB Mickey Ring Challenge

This week at BBTB Regina chose the ring from Mickey and Friends. I can't believe I don't have this cart, but fortunately my dear friend Leah does so it gave me an excuse to bop over there and peek on her little new bundle Cody as well. He's 3 weeks old already and growing so fast!

I thought this would make a lovely engagement, wedding, or possibly anniversary card so I did some welding in DS to make the shaped front adding the heart from the Wedding Solutions cartridge and the beautiful "forever" sentiment from Home Decor. The card was a bit difficult to photograph because of the mirror card stock I used for the ring, and the holographic paper for the stone. The inside mat and that for the inside of the heart was from the DCWV Luxury Stack and the card itself and heart filigree is iridescent card stock.

Of course there are multiple layers and lots of popping going on and I embellished with lots of adhesive pearls, beads, and rhinestones. I particularly like how the diamond came to life by creating facets with the rhinestones. It looks like the gorgeous platinum ring my DH gave me for our 25th anniversary. Maybe I'll save this one for our anniversary.

WIN $1000 at THE CUTTLEBUG SPOT!

HOLY MOLEY! You read this right! The journey to 1000 followers starts TODAY at The Cuttlebug Spot with (are you ready for this) a $1000 gift certificate to CUSTOM CROPS as the prize for one lucky follower. DO YOU BELIEVE IT?!?! $1000!!!!!!!! And the rules are so simple!

1) Become a follower (if you already are you've got this covered.)
2) Post this fabulous info on your blog
3) Go to The Cuttlebug Spot, leave a comment and hook up your blog post on Mr. Linky

Not only that, but one lucky winner will win a $50 gift certificate every Friday until we reach our goal! All winners will be chosen by Random Org. All I can say is THANK YOU CUSTOM CROPS for offering this unbelievably FABULOUS prize. So what are you all waiting for? Click HERE to see the official rules and link your post up TODAY. I cannot tell you how proud I am to be a Design Team member on BOTH these fabulous sites!

Hello Kitty Ballerina

I finally had a chance to make a card just for fun. I'd received a sweet thank you note from my BFF Becky's niece who stayed with us for a few days before moving into the dorm at USF to study with the San Francisco ballet this summer so I decided to make her a card. I had bought Hello Kitty Font awhile ago just for the ballerina and thought Leslie might think she was cute. I made a simple shaped card by welding the shadow cut using Design Studio. The tutu, bow and slippers were cut from glitter paper I had gotten a in pack from WalMart.

Leslie has been working hard and is very tired from her classes. She says they're even more difficult than the ones in New York where she has studied the past 3 summers so I thought this sentiment might be a little pick me up.

There aren't alot if bells and whistles on this card but I did do a little popping of the layers for dimension. Other than that I think she pretty much stands on her own. Hope she likes.

I'm getting questions on this post that I can't answer personally because there is no contact info or blog in your google account. Not you Julie, but I figure you'll be around again sooner or later. LOL I did cut the mat for the inside sentiment first and then used removable tape to position the cut on the paper that I had already printed with the sentiment, then ran it through again. As far as the welding, I only have DS. To weld the tops you must turn the image 180 degrees and then flip the shapes to get it to match up. Hope that helps. xxD

The Cuttlebug Spot Make Us Laugh Challenge and the Drive for 5 Contest Sponsored by Custom Crops

This week at the Cuttlebug Spot we're all about making you laugh. I was having a really hard time with this but I happened to be on the Cricut message board and saw a beautiful card by missbliss using a free downloadable image of a fairy reading while sitting on a pile of books. I followed the link to her blog where she had posted a link to the site she had found the image. Click HERE to view all of the fabulous free images by Elizabeth Dulemba. I continued to browse through all of the darling images when I came to this one called (appropriately) "Gotta go". Well I burst out laughing and thought it would make a great image for my Design Team card. So THANK YOU missbliss, you really saved me this week! Be sure to visit her blog HERE.

So now I had the image, but no sentiment and then it came to me in a flash of light. (Well, more like a wave of feeling that I had to go potty). I wanted a sentiment that I could complete using my Cuttlebug. It was done on the computer and the "Hi" was cut from the Friends Forever cardmaking combo. I colored the image with my Copics following the colors on my pretty paper from Sasafras and cut her and the scalloped mat behind using my Nesties on the Cuttlebug. The background paper is cuttled with Swiss Dots, and the turquoise strip is embossed with the folder from With Gratitude combo. The flower is Prima and the little bit of bling is from Darice.

Please stop by The Cuttlebug Spot for a chuckle, the DT cards are loads of fun this week and we'd love to be amused by your creations as well. The winner of this week's challenge will receive a $20 gift certificate from Custom Crops. Also, The Cuttlebug Spot is celebrating our new look and has a new contest to boost our followers also sponsored by Custom Crops so be sure to spread the word for a chance to win a $50 certificate. I'd say it's time to start making a wish list, wouldn't you?

Welcome Home Love

Sorry again about the few blog posts last week but I spent the week preparing for out annual 4th of July party and crafting went by the wayside. We had loads of fun but with 3 hours of sleep, Sunday was a tough one for challenges. This week at BBTB Regina asked us to use the house cut from Wildcard. It started out to be a "Welcome" card for new neighbors so I welded "Welcome" down the side using Design Studio and Plantin Schoolbook. I cut another house by moving the back of the card off the mat (in DS) and cut it out of patterned paper and embossing it with the distressed stripes Cuttlebug folder. For the roof, I accented the little cut outs by punching blue circles and taping them under each scallop. I liked the paneled door (I think it's actually from the envie) so I downsized it and cut out the panels and popped the frame for dimension. (in fact all of these elements are popped for dimension ( big surprise, huh?)

When I set about to embellish the card I was going to use these cute letters on mini paperclips but I accidentally kept popping the letters off the clips so I ended up just gluing them on around the circular window. The pretty flower buttons came from a recent StampinUp order. Then I wanted a key. Of course I could have cut a key using my Cricut, but I had all sorts of lovely keys in my stash of embellies and finally decided on the "love" key from Tim Holtz's word keys. I guess the theme changed there because even though I'm all for neighborly love, but I haven't even MET these people yet so I'm gonna save this for DH when he gets back from one of his grueling backpacking trips.

My amazing Design Team sisters have really rocked this challenge to you must bop over to Bitten by the Bug to check out their amazing designs. This challenge was loads of fun so please come play along with us too, okay? Also, don't forget there's a CONTEST going on at BBTB as well sponsored by so click HERE for details. It runs through July 14 so there's still time!