~Circle Mania 2014

Well summer is officially over, but I had the chance to enjoy a few more nice days by heading SOUTH to Alpharetta, GA in late September for the annual gathering of Cricut Lovers from everywhere hosted by Paulette from Around the Block with scrapalette.  It was an exciting weekend with over 50+ like-minded ladies and we also had a special guest in the form of the CEO of Cricut - Ashish Arora.  To prepare for the big event, I needed to make calling cards, treat bags, and of course a little hostess gift for Paulette!  That was my first time using G45 paper. I wish I had taken pictures of the sides, but if I did, I can't find them!  I also made a Thinking of You/Get Well card and suncatcher for the daughter of one of Paulette's friends. 

The franken-owl for my calling cards was one of the first svg purchases I made from MissKatesCuttables.  Halloween/Fall was the theme for the weekend.

Over the weekend, I had a chance to take a bunch of classes, but I think my favorite was to decorate a Christmas ornament with vinyl and transparencies.  This was taught by Susan at Croatian Crafter.  Check out my Photobucket Album of Circle Mania 2014.  That's it for now.  Next up will be Halloween cards I made for a World Cardmaking Day challenge on the message board.  Thanks for stopping by!

~Paper pumpkin

This was an easy one since the Cricut Design Team did all the work.  All I had to do was pick out some paper.  And I just happen to have some really cool Recollections Halloween paper.  The CCR file for this is in the project center.   You will need Tags Bags Boxes & More 2 and Autumn Celebrations to complete this.  I also added a stem and some leaves to the original design.
Super simple Halloween decorations!  Thanks for stopping by!

~Happy Harvest - A color challenge

The weekend challenge on the Circle message board this weekend is to use any two or more of the following colors in a project.  I didn't have a specific idea to work on so I just started browsing through my papers looking for fall colors and then decided on  a theme.

Not sure who would actually SEND a Happy Harvest card, but I do like the way it looks.  ;-)
I used Autumn Celebrations for the pumpkins at 1.25 and 1" .  The Happy Harvest phrase was cut from Simply Scarecrows at 1.5".  The hay cart is an accessory on Pop Up Neighborhood, so I had to do a little hand trimming on this because I wanted full wheels.  Actually what I wanted was a hay stack and I could not find one on any of the cartridges.  I also didn't feel like hand cutting one, so when my search found the hay wagon, I decided to go with it.  It is cut at 2.6"  I added a scrap of burlap to the card front that I had left over from a Welcome Back to School wreath.   

I hope you enjoyed my little piece of fall and agree I met the challenge.  Thanks for stopping by!

~Back to School Challenge

Last post for today!  I promise!  I will be caught up after this.  The weekend challenge this weekend was to create a back to school project.  Well, since I hadn't yet done the layout for Tacoah's first day of Kindergarten from LAST year, I figured I would do TWO layouts.  These weekend challenges are really kicking my butt into gear, and that's a GOOD thing!

Ok, for the Kindergarten layout, I used the Lite Recess cart to create the layered apple embellishment at 2.5" for the base layer.  I adjusted each of the upper layers down a little bit and used book paper to create the "inside" of the apple.  The School phrase was also cut from Recess at 1.5".   The First Day of School cut was in my stash, but pretty sure I cut this from Imagine More.  It was from one of the Imagine carts anyway.  Here, I hid the School in the phase with some patterned paper, so that I could add the School phrase to the bottom.  The little eyeballs in the O's were waste I found in my hole punch.

And here is Back to School for Grade 1.  Here the cricut cuts are the School Bus tag from Autumn Celebrations cut at 3" and the Back to School phrase from Simply Charmed at 2".   I really like the colors and patterns on this one.  For both of these layouts, the focal pictures were taken while waiting for the school bus to arrive.  Incidentally, that t-shirt she is wearing for her first day of Grade 1 is a vinyl kitty from Brooklyn Iron-On that I made over the summer.  ;-)  Thanks for stopping by!

~Simple Thanksgiving Cards~

Here are a couple of quick Thanksgiving cards I whipped up this evening using my stash.  The first card uses a plaid background paper (don't ask me why) and the cornucopia was cut from Autumn Celebrations at 3.5 inches.  The second card was my first use of Teddy Bear Parade.  What a cute cart!!!!  This little Turkey Teddy was cut a 4 inches and has 4 layers excluding his "feathers".  I went a little overboard with the pattern paper for his feathers, but I think it turned out kinda cute.  Oh, and since I am now a bow-tying expert (lol!), I added a little yellow ribbon to finish it off.  Thanks for stopping by!

My Little Scarecrow

I did not feel like cleaning or doing laundry today, so I went into my craft room and pondered what to play with.  I have a big stack of various size canvases that I got on sale at Michael's a few weeks ago and they were sitting there staring at me, so I decided to make a little Halloween canvas for one of my g'friends.

I used my Cricut and cut two pumpkins from Autumn Celebrations for the project.  One at 1.5 inches and the other at 2 inches.  The layers were then painted in 2 different colors of acrylic orange paint and the stems/leaves were colored using Faber Castell india ink pens.  I also added some Glossy Accents to the pumpkins.  Mr. Scarecrow and his little buddy Crow were both handcut.  They were inspired by several non-paper projects that I found on the internet.  The crow was painted with a mixture of black paint and tar gel to give him some shine.

The canvas is 5 x 7 and I used several colors of acrylic paint in the background.  Orange, Lime Green, Perfect Purple and Turners Yellow over scraps of Fall MME pattern paper.   Rub ons and a little metal butterfly in the corner complete the project.  This was a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon and I sure hope my g'friend likes this.  Thanks for stopping by!