A few cards

Unfortunately, these cards demonstrate my ineptitude with a camera.  If I wasn't so lazy I would retake take them in better lighting but.... Anyway, this is a bulk upload of cards done over a few months.  

These cards were made using the Cricut cartridge 'Once Upon a Princess'.  The cartridge gives you 3 dolls and then lots of costumes to dress them in, very sweet.  And what self respecting princess would be without a tea party, unicorn, ice-cream, cupcakes, balloons, castle, crown and wand; you will find lots of these on the cartridge too :) 

This card isn't really finished, it needs a sentiment but I will leave it as is until I know who it is for.

I used the Provocraft Swiss Dots embossing folder to emboss the card base.  I love Swiss Dots, they are so cute that I hate to cover them with excessive embellishments. I made the flower from felt.

I used Michelle Powell's 'Iris Folding' book published by Search Press to make this card.   It has lots of really nice designs with the templates and papers to recreate the designs in the back of the book - I had never really fancied trying iris folding until I saw this book at a local craft store and had a quick flick through.  I will have to take some pictures of the landscapes I have made using designs in this book; they are so different to anything I had seen before.  

Again with the Swiss Dots.  Not sure why this cupcake has wings, maybe it's Angel cake :) The base card is Core'dinations with the dots lightly sanded over. 

I have no idea what occasion calls for a card with laundry on it but I really wanted to do these cuts from the Country Life Cricut cartridge.  Maybe I will present it to my other half with my bill enclosed for all his washing I have done over the years :)   But then if he charges for DIY....?

I did this cut with my Slice.  It is the 3rd Slice machine due to the other 2 breaking within weeks of getting them.  I was tempted to sell this latest replacement on Ebay whilst it was still NIB but temptation got the better of me and I used it.  As I now have a Cricut E2 I have hardly used the Slice; maybe this way it will last for years before it breaks :) ha ha.  

Cricut Craft Room

I now have access to the Cricut Craft Room.  This is a piece of on-line software that allows users with a Cricut machine to lay out their cutting mat on a PC or Mac but with lots of added features not available on the machine itself.  You can choose to omit a cut eg if you don't want the eyes to cut out of a face just a couple of clicks and they are gone.  You can skew a design, resize it to any size, weld shapes and letters, flip shapes.  You can also use layers so you can build designs on the mat to see how they look in the colours you want; it reminds me a little teeny weeny bit of Adobe Illustrator in they way it uses the layers (yes Dave, you can stop shaking your head and rolling your eyes).  It can be a bit glitchy getting it to detect my E2 without crashing; I found it helps to sync my E2  (even though it is fully up to date) then when in the Craft Room, I click CUT before I have even laid out my on-screen mat to make sure my E2 is detected - a few times I spent ages doing a mat and then lost it when I clicked CUT and it crashed, a disappointing lesson to learn.  Another fab feature is, as it is on-line, you can log in on any PC and design your mat, it then saves it so that when you get home you can cut it on your machine, now how cool is that - lunchtime in work has just got a whole lot better :)   My over all opinion is this is AMAZING; I am not easily pleased (well, except when it comes to chocolate) but I am loving the Cricut Craft Room; it was one of the reasons I finally gave in an bought a Cricut and I am not regretting my decision.   Oh oh oh, I can't believe I forget to mention the most amazing part of all - IT IS ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!!!!! (and yes, I did just use 7 exclamation marks)

My Heroes

For my son's 12th birthday me and his dad took him to Alton Towers amusement park.  It was a fun packed, stomach churning day.  My two brave boys went on Oblivion - I held the coats :) 

Life's a beach

I took this picture on New Brighton beach in Merseyside.  In the middle, if you look very closely, you can see my mum and my nephew.  The panoramic effect is done with a clever iPhone app.

Juicy

I really loved this card when I made it with solid coloured Bazzill card so I thought I'd have a go using patterned papers - I think it looks really good, I much prefer this to my original attempt.  The papers are from Basic Grey's Lemonade collection (6x6 pad).  I stamped the phrase using alphabet stamps and brown ink on Sour Apple Bazzill card. The cut is from Cricut's Country Life cartridge. 

Rock n Roll, baby!

These cards are made from the Rock Princess Cricut cartridge.  I am really liking the cutesy look but with attitude - cherry skulls, OMG -  I'm in love. 

The characters on this cartridge work well as shaped cards.

Even this sweet little strawberry card was made with a cut from the Rock Princess cartridge.

Suzel has left the building :)

Shaping up nicely

Here are a few more shaped cards I made using the shadow feature on the Country Life Cricut cartridge.

I think the cherries are sweet but I wish I had used softer greens for the pea pod.  Oh, maybe I should mention the size, these are about 6-7 inches tall.

The really nice thing about these cards is, when they are on the shelf, they don't look like a card; they could sit there looking pretty long after the event they were given for.

Rosey red yumminess

I made this shaped card using the Cricut Country Life cartridge.  The shaped card is made using the shadow feature cut twice and then glued at the leaf with the crease being in the back half of the card.  I used American Crafts paper for the apples and Echo Park paper for the tag.  I am rather pleased with this card; yup, I love my Cricut ;)

My new Cricut

Here she is, I think I will call her Fred :)



Hang up the bunting

I made this to hang over my desk.  I used Papermania Blueberry Hill papers and cut it out using the banner feature on the Cricut Country Life cartridge.  This photograph is not very good but the banner says SUSIE

A whole lotta cards

I started this blog so I could share my cards as I make them but as I have a few already done I thought I would post them all in one go.  Here we go:

The diecuts on these first few cards are done using various Making Memories Slice design cards. 

These cards used the Zootopia design card which offered layering, a fairly new feature on the Slice.

The flower cut is from the basic design card.  The butterfly cut is from the Just Chillin design card

 The 3 cards below use cuts from the Dilly Dally design card. 

I have to say that within a 6 month period I had 2 Slice machines die on me, both with the same fault. When they were working the cut wasn't that clean, there were nicks left in the shapes, circles were not perfect and forget about symmetry such as in love hearts. All in all, I would not recommend the Slice.  I am now waiting for my Cricut Expression 2 to be delivered :)  

More cards:

I found a tutorial on how to make these windmills on Youtube, I think they are so sweet.  I stamped the words Happy Birthday in a way that I hoped suggested they were blowing in the wind :)  I love the papers used here, they are from Echo Park's Spring collection.

This is my Eco friendly card, well not really but rather than throw away those tiny scraps, I punched out lots of little butterflies and have used some here. This was meant to be an A5 card but it was starting to look a bit silly so I stopped gluing on butterflies and just cropped the card.  I put some pink jute behind the punched out flower.

I drew this cupcake free-hand on Bazzill and cut it out.  Cupcakes are really easy to draw.  The back ground papers are from Kraftwork's scoop range.  The letters were a bargain find, 2 sets of alphabet stickers on each sheet for just 20p a sheet in Home and Bargain, they come in all different colours and I have bought loads and loads :)

Stamps used here are Cupcake background from Hero Arts and Foxy Love from Gorjuss Girls.  The tops of the cupcakes are flocked.

I love this stamp so much, its 'Meet me at the Cafe' from My Favorite Things' 'Who's that girl' range.  I used Martha Sterwart's Trellis deep edge punch to make the fence.  Rather than colouring in the stamped image,  I inked it all with Broken China Distress ink for the background colour and then paper pieced the image using various papers.  The flowers are from Prima.  Unfortunately, while drying, the awning got a bit scewed :( I dare not try to peel it off and restick it as that way maddness lies :)

The whole inspiration for this card is the background paper.   It's from A Walk in the Park by Echo Park.  I simply cut some circles and then drew and cut out the trunks free hand copying the trunks on the paper.

I watched a demo of this inking technique so gave it a go.  The background is made by simply applying ink direct from the pad onto a acrylic stamping block and then pressing onto the paper. My colour choice was unplanned but the result looked like a beach view so I added some beachy touches.  I only wish I had thought it through as I could have masked out the sun rather than sticking it on afterwards.

Okay, just counted and that is 17 cards in one post :)  I hope you have liked them.

Gorjuss and foxy

I love the subtle colours in this, creams and pale pinks.  The background papers are both from Basic Grey's  Lemonade collection.  The image is a Gorjuss girl stamped in cappucino Rangers ink and coloured with Promarkers.  The sentiment is a white vinyl peel off.  I love this pink ribbon, it's from Papermania.  The raffia type string is East of India's Twisted paper string in natural and I love that too :)

Pinks and Greens with bells on

I made this card for my friend's birthday.  I cut the letters with Making Memories Slice, I can't recall which design card. I have layered up pink jute, then ruffled pink grosgrain, then satin ribbon, finishing with raffia to make the main focal area of the card then added some co-ordinating flowers.  The flowers are by Prima and I layered them using a brad to hold them together. I have used some thin wire to hang a large bead and a pink bell.  I love using vibrant lime greens with bright pinks.

Gorjuss girly card

I made this card for my friend to give to her daughter.  It is A5 in size.  I think bunting is so cute so it is featuring heavily on my cards at the moment.  I made the flower using Bazzill cardstock and I tried to imitate Prima roses but on a larger scale. The image is a Gorjuss girl stamped in Cappuccino and coloured with Promarkers.  The backing paper is from Basic Grey's Lemonade collection.