A Christmas Garland

 A bit late for the jolly holiday season, I know.  But I just found these pictures on my phone so I thought I would share.  I made this garland after watching 'Kirsty's Homemade Christmas'.  It was really easy to do and I used my Cricut to cut out the hearts :)

After the success of the Heart Garland I went on to make a garland with little Christmas stockings in much brighter colours.  I never took a photograph though so I can't post it, maybe next Christmas when I put the decorations back up.  

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 :)