Flakey Cards ;)

I love using my Cricut to make cards and now that I have a Gypsy, the possibilities seem absolutely endless. In one of my previous posts, I showed how I used my new super Gypsy, (insert super hero theme music here) to cut several trees and flakes. Wondering what I did with them??? Wait no more! I pulled papers from my arsenal, and yes, I could quite possibly fight a battle with the amount of paper I have and glued the down my trees and thank yous (also cut with the Cricut.) While I liked the look, once on top of the white card, it got lost. So, out come my chalk inks. I edged the paper in dark purple and found a shimmery dark brown cardstock and cut a shadow piece for the back. The fabulous damask embossing look was on the original paper I used. This made the overall look stand out, but it was still missing something. Hmm, what's a girl to reach for? Do I hear Rhinestones? Anyone? Anyone?? Of course! Instead of just stopping with the pretty cut-outs, I took it several steps farther and added paper layers, inking and rhinestones. One of the reasons I love cards has to be the fact that I can craft and craft and if I go overboard and don't like the look, I haven't destroyed any pictures or wasted an entire 12x12 page of materials. See, less guilt with cards! I do have to say though, if I don't like my "finished" project, I usually find that I haven't added enough details, ink, bling, texture, to the piece. For the snowflakes I cut, I used similar techniques: edging with silver chalk ink, iRock rhinestones and layering the papers. I did go one step farther and break out my Cuttlebug. (A cuttlebug is a pressure embossing system that sandwiches a piece of paper between two textured pieces. You roll the sandwich through and out comes an embossed piece.)
The piece on the left is the plain paper put through the Cuttlebug. The piece on the right has been hit with a 220 grit sandpaper to show off the inner white core of the cardstock. Love it!! Once the cardstock was prettified (love that southern drawl) I added my other layers and called it perfect! Had to mix it up just a little! So what do you think??

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

My favorite time of the year is Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love fall with Halloween and Thanksgiving, but by far my favorite is Christmas. Yesterday I was feeling rather cheery and decided to crank out a couple of Christmas cards. There is no rhyme or reason as to my creations. I don't usually sit down with a plan or a specific paper in mind. Instead I figure out what mood I'm in and what technique I want to use.

Apparently I was feeling in an embossing mood, hence the card. I started with a holly stamp and then embossed the image. I painted Glimmer Mist into the shapes to add some sparkle and gentle shading. The edges were inked with Charcoal and Red chalk ink. That wasn't enough, gee imagine that, and I felt a need to add the rhinestones. After placing the paper on red satin ribbon, I added it to Holly paper I had in my stash.


In an effort to get the most out of my time, I stamped multiple images to make at least two cards at one time. The first card went great. The second not so much...


It's fine now, but notice the gold band above and below the green paper? Yeah, I cut first and measured second. oops! After some quick thinking, I grabbed another piece of paper and embossed the edges.


The inside was easy enough. The paper was double-sided, so all I had to do was add a piece of white paper that I gold chalk inked the edges of. Enjoy!

Cricut Addiction

Okay, along with my need to spray paint everything, I also have a Cricut addiction. For those of you who don't know, a Cricut is a fabulous little machine that you insert paper into, press a few buttons and Voila a perfect item is cut out for you. Different cartridges are available for different theme items and can be cut any size from 1/2" to 24". It rocks!


Lately I've been using it to make different thank you notes. Never knew how many of those I was going to end up needing with buying a house! (Not complaining in the least, I LOVE crafting and will take ANY excuse!)

Accented with Stickles & Glimmer Mist (any reason to sparkle!)

Used the Cricut to cut the "Thank You" & Flower shapes. Stacked them and gave them a Glimmer Mist spritz.

Again, cut the flowers and sentiment with the Cricut. Added a bit of eyelash yarn for fun and because I had it laying around!

Cricut cut "thank you" with misc. paper accents. Cards are a great way to use up those millions of scraps from just about anything!

Notice the perfect shadow on the letters! Yup, the machine did that too! I'm telling you, I LOVE IT! (no, i'm not paid to say this in any way!)