By The Tide

I got this SU set ( By the Tide) a month or two ago and finally had a chance to get it out and play with it last week.  I used all the new In Colors plus Sahara Sand.  I did the rock-n-roll technique on the fish with Pistachio Pudding and Coastal Cabana. The sentiment is from Thoughts and Prayers.  I used my color spritz tool with my Baked Brown Sugar marker to do the misting, and I sponged around the edges with BBS as well.

The sketch is an oldie but a goodie--great for collage-type stamping, which I love to do.  This is the most actual stamping I've done in a long time and I have to say, it felt good.

Well, it's the last day of 2013!  Does anyone have big plans?  I never stay up until midnight--I figure the New Year will still be here when I wake up in the am.  But here's to 2014!  I hope you all have a happy New Year, with plenty of time for crafting!

Hairy Little Christmas

A month or two ago while shopping with Emily, I saw a T-shirt in Justice.  For those of you without tween daughters, Justice is a clothing store with bright colors and cute styles for that age that makes them feel in style without making them look like baby hookers.  This T-shirt had a Christmas tree made out of mustaches.  Of course I filed it away for future use.  I used a digi file from Cricut called Mustaches and Glasses.  I used my Gypsy to design 4 different mustaches, plus star and base, to fit on an A2 card.  Then I discovered a red mustache piece on my desk that came from a Santa tag I'd made, so I used that as the tree stand.

The star is cut from yellow glitter CS.  All else is SU.  Then on the inside I used a computer generated sentiment:

I just crack myself up!!!  I sent it to my brother, who has this HUGE handlebar mustache.  He and his family have a quirky sense of humor, so I knew they'd appreciate it.  I am thrilled with how this card turned out--hope you like it too!

Peace on Earth

On this card I was playing with some SU goodies.  Everything on this card is SU except the wooden star (Recollections-Michael's).  The burlap ribbon I cut in half lengthwise because it was wider than I wanted.  

I inked my stamp (an SU single) in Versamark followed by Chocolate Chip, then heat-embossed with clear EP.  I sponged the edges of the star with Choc. Chip.  CS is Crumb Cake, DP is Season of Style.

I like this card--to me it is very sweet and folky.  For those of you who make your own Christmas cards, do you usually make all one design, or do you make lots of different ones?  I used to do the former, and now I do the latter, kind of matching card styles to the personalities I'm sending the card to.

Thanks for dropping by today!

Simple Holiday Cards with the Cricut

Yes, yes, I know--I have a serious problem when it comes to Cricut cartridges!  These are all cut from the Simple Holiday Cards cartridge.  Both of these designs had greetings cut into them, which I didn't want, so I used my Gypsy to modify them a bit by hiding all the letters(Cricut Craft Room works as well).  It also cuts a whole card, but I only wanted the fronts.  So I hid the outer contour of the card and used a rectangle from Plantin Schoolbook to cut just a card front.

I had found a WONDERFUL 12 x 12 Recollections (Michaels brand) paper pad with these marbled foil papers.  I used the silver for the snowflake and the gold for the poinsettias.  On the snowflake card I used a sentiment from a PTI Christmas set called Love Lives Here: Holiday.  Then I used the SU Mosaic punch to trim the ends and added some rhinestone brads.  CS and ink is Island Indigo.

The second card is 8.5" x  5.5".  I put the gold foil poinsettias over vanilla CS.  I embossed the Old Olive with a holly EF from Sizzix.  It was for an executive in our company who took us out to dinner and so everyone signed the card.  

I also made an A2 version.  It is so pretty IRL.

Well, that's it for today!  Thanks for stopping by!

Copic Christmas Cards

Hi, everyone!  I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to do much blogging before Christmas.  I wasn't able to send out many Christmas cards this year, but I did get a few out (which was better than last year!).  so between now and New Year's, I thought I'd go ahead and post the ones I got done.

I had ordered a couple of cute stamp sets from My Favorite Things--I LOVE their Pure Innoncence line.  I hadn't messed around with my Copics in a very long time.  I guess I've been a lot more focused on my Cricut this year than I have been on stamping.  Anyway, I stamped this little girl on Copic X-Press white in Memento Tuxedo Black and colored some parts with my Copics.  I paper pieced her hat and coat.  The patterned paper is SU's Season of Style--beautiful papers!  There wasn't one I didn't like.  The sketch came from Jen Del Muro's blog--Reverse Confetti.  The little "brads" are the candy dots from SU.  Cardstock is Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler, and Old Olive.

This adorable snowman is also from the MFT PI line.  He'd also be good for Valentine's I think.  I used Pool Party CS on a card base of PTI white.  Patterned paper is Winter Frost from SU, as is the bling and embossing folder.

Clearly I need to practice A LOT more with my Copics.  I have sadly neglected them, which is bad because with the class and the expense of the markers, it was quite an investment.  But I'm still pleased with these cards, and I hope you like them as well.

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!  Did anyone get any crafty goodies?  Do tell!

Cricut Christmas Tags

The design team at FCCB did a stocking swap--it was really fun!  One of the goodies we were to include was something handmade.  I made some tags.  The first one is from Teresa Collins December 25th.  The others are all from the Cricut digital file Holiday Gift Tags.  I used various to/from stamps from PTI.  Be sure to stop by FCCB every day this week to see awesome projects by the design team!

Colors used are SU Real Red, Gumball Green, Pear Pizzazz, Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake, Blushing Bride, Blush Blossom, Pumpkin Pie, and Primrose Petals, and Basic Black, plus CTMH white.

I cut most of these at 2.5 or 3".

The shadow layer on the Holiday Gift Tags has a hole for ribbon or twine.  I used baker's twine.

The layers are pretty easy to put togerher.

This adorable reindeer has pink liquid pearls for the inside of his ear.

And here's Santa with his bag of toys for all the good little girls and boys!  He was a little confusing until I realized one of the face layers is for his pink cheeks and nose!  I used a blue marker for his eyes.

For these last two I used another Cricut digi file, Quilted Ornaments. 

I hope this last one doesn't resemble a car deodorizer TOO much LOL!

Well, that's it for me today.  Tomorrow I'll share what I got in MY Christmas stocking.  Hope you all have a wonderful day!

FCCB Challenge # 191: Anything but a Card, Holiday Edition!

Hi, everyone!  I hope you all had a great weekend.  Now sit right back and listen to my tale of woe!

I usually like working with vinyl, but this project was a real challenge!  I wanted to do something with a chalkboard feel.  THIS was my inspiration.  Beautiful, right?  I went to Michaels hoping to find a piece of black slate to use.  Usually they have items like that, but I guess the Christmas decorations are taking up that space.  I didn't want to take the time to paint a piece of wood, so I bought one of their black canvases--12 x 12.  Then it turned out I didn't have any white vinyl at home.  Every OTHER color, but no white!  Back out again.  Bought some Cricut brand white vinyl.  I used the digital file Teresa Collins Christmas Collage and kiss cut it out of the white vinyl at 10 ".  But I couldn't get it to weed!  When the excess came up, the letters did too!  Arrgghh!  So I decided to use some of my Oracal red, which is much heavier than the Cricut brand.  This would mean scrapping the chalkboard idea.  Oh, well!  This time I was able to weed it.  Whew, thank goodness right?  I placed the transfer tape over my design and burnished.  All ready to transfer it to the canvas.  I knew it would be a little tougher than a hard surface, but I wasn't really worried.  Well, those letters would not stick to the canvas well enough to come off the transfer tape.  I was really feeling NOT in the Christmas spirit at this point LOL!  It took over an hour but I finally got the letters on the canvas.  I hot glued some Christmas sprigs from Michaels in the top corner.  Here it is:

It looks ok, but not as good as I was hoping.  Things don't always turn out like we planned right?  So my tip for today for all of you is--learn from my mistakes!  Don't try to put vinyl lettering on canvas!  all the time I "saved" by not painting a piece of wood was wasted in the transfer step.  

Have you ever had to learn something crafty the hard way?  Tell me about it in the comments!

Have a wonderful day!

FCCB Challenge #189--Christmas Without Red or Green

Happy Monday, everyone!  This week's challenge over at Fantabulous Cricut is to make a Christmas card without using red and green, and our sponsor this week is My Creative Time Stamps.  

It just so happens that I love to make blue and silver Christmas cards, and that was what I had planned for the cards for the shut-in members of our church.  We always put them out at church for the whole congregation to sign, so they have to be big--I always use a full sheet of cardstock which makes a 5.5 x 8.5" card.  I also like to use a very heavy CS for the base.  SU colored CS is fine but if I use white or vanilla I use PTI or Gina K.  I know the cards get displayed so I want them to stand up without sagging.

I used PTI white for the base here, and SU Pool Party, Island Indigo, and Brushed Silver for the layers.   The patterned paper is SU Winter Frost and it is gorgeous!  The photo really doesn't do it justice.  I cut banners of various widths and lengths and layered them.   Now you may be wondering, where is her Cricut cut, required for all FCCB challenges?  Well, I knew I wanted to use the SU single stamp Prince of Peace.  I just love that scripture from Isaiah.  BUT I didn't want to buy the whole set of dies, seeing as how I do have a Cricut.  So I went through the labels in Art Philosophy.  There weren't any that were exactly the right shape, but there is a circle and a label with a shape that I thought would work.  The circle is on page 21 of the handbook, and the label is on p. 47.  Then I measured my stamp.  The circle needed to be 2.4" high to give me a little edge around the stamped design.  Then I measured the corners of the stamp.  They were about 175" high, so I made my label 1.85" high.  Next I unlinked the height from the width so that I could make the the label the appropriate length, which was 2.8", then reset my link so that I could increase the size of my label without changing the proportions so I could make a slightly larger size for my silver layer.  It wasn't PERFECT, but it was pretty darn close.  It takes so much longer to tell how to do it than it does to just do it--it really is easy with a Gypsy or CCR.

Here is a screen shot showing the shapes, so you know I didn't cheat!  After I had my shapes cut out, I used a Stamp-a-ma-Jig to position my stamp over the label.  I heat-embossed the sentiment in silver.  The dry-embossing and scallop edge are SU folders and Edgelits.  The silver ribbon is also from SU.  I heat-embossed an ornate "Merry Christmas" from Our Daily Bread Designs on the inside.

I hope you enjoyed this project!  Please play along with us at FCCB this week.  Just make a Christmas project without using red or green and using at least one Cricut cut and link it up to FCCB!  It's that easy.  You could win a fabulous stamp set from My Creative Time Stamps!  

What Does The Fox Say?

He says "Brrr...It's cold!"  Hi and welcome to Fantabulous Cricut Challenge #187.  For this challenge we were to use an animal.  I chose this adorable fox from Jolly Holiday Lite.  That cartridge has some of the cutest images on it!

I cut all the layers for my fox at 3".  Colors are SU Close To Cocoa, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red, and Whisper White.  Glitter CS is DCWV.  Patterned is some very old stuff that I like for falling snow.

I finished it off with some baker's twine.  Stamp is PTI.

Please play along with our challenge this week--it's easy!  Just create a project using an animal and at least ONE Cricut cut!  Then link it to FCCB--that's all there is to it!  I can't wait to see everyone's creations.

Thanks for dropping by--have a crafty day!

Fantabulous Cricut Blog Crawl--Anything Goes!

Welcome to a Fantabulous Cricut Blog Crawl

A blog crawl is our version of a Blog hop. We are opening up a DT call, please see the FCCB blog for more information. We also have a wonderful new sponsor this week:

They are giving away a bag of crafty goodness to one lucky challenge participant.

Be sure to visit each of the Design Team members' blogs to see their projects.

If you get lost along the way, you can go back  to the FCCB blog or see the list below of all of the participating blogs.

When you are done with the crawl, go back to the FCCB blog and link up your project.

 The challenge is Anything Goes! We want to see your Cricut projects. To qualify for the weekly prize for a fabulous sponsors, you need to make sure to have at least 1 Cricut cut.

Blog Crawl List:

Cindy - Creating with the Heart
Jackie- Luv 2 Scrap
Kim - Kim's Kreations
Amy HS - The Stamping Tree
Emily - Mollie's Motif
Heather - Scrapping Runner Creations
Lynn - My Cards n Stuff
Missy - Quick Chick Designs
Nikki - Crafty Calamities
Rebecca- Crafting Misfit
Michelle- Just a Nutter Paper Crafter
Caterina- Docerla Creations
Joneita- Create with Joneita
LB - Cool Beans by LB
Amy T - Crafting with Amy

My project is pretty quick and simple:  A Christmas T-shirt for the Scholarship silent auction at our church.  Since the end of September I have been tied up every day with my son's robotics team, so I haven't had much crafting time, so it had to be very quick and easy!   The competition was yesterday, so I plan to start making up for lost time in the craft room.

For this project I washed and dried a T-shirt from Jo-Ann's with no fabric softener.  I had some gold and silver glitter iron on vinyl made by Cricut that I wanted to use.  It turns out you can't iron vinyl on top of glitter vinyl, so my original idea of layering the silver on top of the gold wasn't happening.  So I welded the buck and doe images on the Anna Griffin Winter Wonderland cartridge using my Gypsy and cut them out at 10".  The glitter vinyl is very heavy, and of course when using iron on vinyl you need to flip your image and cut out on the dull side of the vinyl.  Ordinarily I use a kiss cut setting of blade depth 2, pressure 2, and speed 3, but with this very heavy vinyl I decided to use blade depth 3, pressure 3, and speed 3.  It cut beautifully without cutting through the backing material.  I ironed it on following the directions on the package insert.  For more info on using heat transfer vinyl, please see my blog posts HERE and HERE.

Here is a detail shot.  This stuff is VERY blingy!  I had used the gold to put our school name on black T-shirts for the robotics competition.  I think it was just a bit glittery for the boys, but they wore them anyway!

I hope you enjoyed today's project and will play along with us this week!  Remember--ANYTHING GOES--as long as it has at least one Cricut cut on it.  I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

FCCB Challenge # 183--Halloween Home Decor

So this week's challenge at Fantabulous Cricut is to create a Halloween or Fall home decor item!  Well, I almost dropped out--because there are SO MANY possibilities!  Just kidding--I didn't really consider dropping out.  But it WAS  hard to choose a project!  Part of the problem is that I am coaching my son's high school robotics team, in addition to all the other stuff I have to do, plus work and take care of my family.  I have got to learn how to say "No"!  So I wanted something quick and easy.  One of the neat things about Cricut is that you can make it as simple or elaborate as you want.  So this time, I went with SIMPLE!

I have always wanted to mess with those fake pumpkins that they sell at Michael's but just never got around to it.  This one was on sale for 1/2 price--sometimes it pays to wait until the last minute, right?  I used black vinyl and my Happy Hauntings cartridge.  It has 2 cool fonts on it:  Spooky and Vampire.  I love that drippy Vampire font!  I sized my letters at 2" and cut them out of my black vinyl.  I was a little worried about how the vinyl would adhere to the uneven surface--I needn't have!  It went on like a dream!  I just used my bone folder to burnish the letters very well, especially into the grooves.

I am pleased with how this turned out, and I made it in about 20 minutes, if that.  

Please play along with us this week at FCCB!  Just make a fall or Halloween home decor item using at least one Cricut cut and upload it to the blog!  

Happy creating!

FCCB Challenge # 181--Have Your Cake!

Good morning all!  Time for another challenge at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog!  This week's challenge is to make something with a cake or cupcake on it.  Do you know how many Cricut images there are involving cake and cupcakes?  I went on My Cut Search to help me sort them out so I didn't have to look on every page of every cartridge handbook.  I knew when I saw this cute kitty popping out of the cake that it was the ONE!  I don't know why I was surprised--it's on Birthday Bash--one of my favorite cartridges!

I thought this would be a cute image for a 3 x 6 card--finished size is actually 3.25 x 6.5".  The cat/ cake image is separate from the flag image, but they are on the same page in the BB handbook.  I cut the cat/cake image and at 3" wide, which made it 4.69 " tall, so I cut all the layers at 4.69".  The flag image/layer is cut at 2.5".

I wanted my kitty to be orange, because ginger cats are my favorite kind.  So I knew pink and turquoise would look good with it, and of course my cake had to be chocolate!  I also knew I wanted some glitter paper on there.  I used pink for the flagpole and the sentiment, and realized that I also have some orange glitter paper, so the kitty is kind of blingy!  I used pink liquid pearls for the insides of the ears.

CS is PTI Berry Sorbet for the base, CTMH Daisy white, SU Chocolate Chip and Tempting Turquoise and some old SU DP.

I really like this cut and will be using it again.  Why don't you join the fun and play along with us this week?  Simply create anything with a cake or cupcake image and at least one Cricut cut and upload it to FCCB!  Have a great day!

FCCB # 179--Going Places

Today's challenge over at FCCB is Going Places.  Create a project using at least ONE Cricut cut with a mode of transportation--car, bus, plane, spaceship etc.  So I figured, Santa uses a sleigh to get around, and I needed to get started on some Christmas cards!

This is one of my favorite cuts--it's from the Christmas Noel cartridge.  I cut Santa and his sleigh and reindeer at fit to length 6".  This made it 2.61" high.  I wanted a 3.25 x 6.25" card.  I actually used Nesties to cut my moon out of some silver glitter paper that SU offered as an incentive at some point.  The stars and sentiment are embossed in silver, from 2 different retired SU sets.  Cardstock is Night of Navy and Brocade Blue.  Card base is PTI white.

I love blue and silver for Christmas cards--what do you like?  Do you usually go traditional or do you like to use non-traditional colors for Christmas cards?  

Have a wonderful day!

Sweet T--Layering Heat Transfer Vinyl

Good morning!  While I had my heat transfer vinyl out last week to make my Name That Tune project, I decided to make another T-shirt showing you how to LAYER heat transfer vinyl, so I could add those instructions to my video.

I cut the word art at 3" and the flower at 4" from Create a Critter.  Please see my video below for instructions on layering heat transfer vinyl.

Using vinyl really is easy and fun!  Don't forget to play along with us at FCCB this week!  You could win a fabulous prize from our wonderful Sponsor, Cricket Vinyl Supplies.

Thanks for dropping by--feel free to critique my video!  I need all the help I can get!

Vinyl University--Using Heat Transfer Vinyl on Fabric

Hi, everyone!  It has been a long process with a steep learning curve, but I've finally got my first video tutorials ready to view!  I've broken the video into two parts, because I'm not really good at making short videos yet--sorry!  I hope my next ones will be shorter.

The first one shows how to cut and weed heat transfer vinyl, and the second shows the process of ironing it on.  It really is SO much quicker to actually do it than it looks in the video--please give it a try!

The second video shows how to iron the vinyl onto the fabric.  Again--it takes much longer to tell about it than it does to do it!

To see the original post please go HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Please leave a comment and let me know if this video was helpful.  

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog Vinyl EDU Cricut Crawl and Blog Candy!

Welcome to The Stamping Tree and the FCCB Vinyl EDU Cricut Crawl - Fantabulous Cricut's version of a Blog Hop!!

This week we are challenging you to create a project using vinyl you have cut using your Cricut. We have a fabulous sponsor, Cricket Vinyl Supplies. If we get 100 participants in this challenge, Cricket Vinyl Supplies will give away a Cricut Expression package that includes a Cricut Expression machine, deep cut blade, Jasmine Cricut cartridge, ten 12” x 12” assorted sheets of matte vinyl and one 12” x 12” gridded transfer tape. How exciting is that??

If you've come from Emily at Mollie's Motif, you're in the right place!  If you've just happened across my blog and would like to see all the fabulous Design Team creations head on over to Fantabulous Cricut HERE  to start at the beginning.

Make sure to check out each DT member's blog!  There will be Blog Candy along the way at ALL our DT members' blogs, and there will be a Grand Prize up for grabs at FCCB for one participant who submits a project using vinyl at FCCB!

For my project,  I made Thanksgiving wall decor.  I spray painted a wooden plaque from Michael's almond and chose the Thanksgiving subway art from Word Collage.  I cut it at 11", which made it about 9" wide, from several colors of vinyl--metallic gold, burgundy, dark brown, forest green, and orange.  I wish you could see it in person--it turned out gorgeous!  I plan on ordering some more of the gold and burgundy at least--very pretty!

Since it is Vinyl University, I even made a video showing how I made this.  Check it out!

AND to top it all off, I have BLOG CANDY!!! Who wants blog candy?  Why, everybody of course!  Just leave a comment on this post for a chance to win!  One comment per person please, and include your contact info please.  You could win a $10 Joann's gift card!

Your next stop is Ro at Toodle Noodle Creative.  Make sure to visit all the stops along the way and when you get done, make sure you link up your project to FCCB's Fantabulous Cricut Crawl post!!

Happy Crawling!!

Here is the line up in case you get lost (please be sure to make everyone's blog address link to their blogs):

Robin http://robinscreativecottage.blogspot.com

Jilliene http://jillienedesigns.blogspot.com

Heather http://scrappingrunnercreations.blogspot.com

JoNeita http://createwithjoneita.weebly.com/index.html

Jackie http://luv2scrappp.blogspot.com

LB http://www.coolbeansbylb.blogspot.com

Connie http://www.conniecancrop.blogspot.com

Amy T www.craftingwithamy.com

Missy http://www.quickchickdesigns.blogspot.com

Cindy http://www.cindyvernon.blogspot.com

Rebecca craftingmisfit.blogspot.com

Catarina http://blog.docerelashop.com/

Kim ogdendoll.blogspot.com

Emily molliemugsblog.blogspot.com

Amy HS http://thestampingtree.blogspot.com

Ro http://rodonner.blogspot.com/

Lynn http://mycardsnstuff.blogspot.com

Michelle http://justanutterpapercrafter.blogspot.com

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge # 176--Name That Tune!

Happy Monday, FCCB fans, and welcome to FCCB Challenge # 176!  The theme is Name That Tune--just create a music-themed project using at least ONE Cricut cut.  Since our fantabulous Vinyl University starts next week, I thought I would use some heat transfer vinyl to make my project for this week!  Please check back with us next week for some awesome vinyl projects and video tutorials, as well as some Fantabulous prizes from our sponsor.

I  love using vinyl with my Cricut--it really is easy and fun!  I won't go into too much detail about how I made this because--surprise!  I made a how-to video which I will post here next week during Vinyl University.  But the basics are:

1)  Wash and dry T-shirt with NO fabric softener.

2)  Use the FLIP function and cut out your desired Cricut artwork from heat transfer vinyl using machine settings:  blade depth 2, pressure 2, and speed 3.

3)  Weed  your vinyl.  

4)  Apply it to the T-shirt and iron on with a DRY iron using pressure for 15 seconds.  

5)  Peel off protective backing.

I made this shirt for my niece who is very talented musically.  This subway art is the signatures of various composers (Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven), and it is from the Word Collage cartridge.  I sized it at 10.5" high.

Please play along with us this week at FCCB!  And don't forget to check back next Wednesday for my video tutorial on heat transfer vinyl.  Thanks for dropping by!

My First Video!!!

OK, I admit it, it's pretty awful.  Lucky for all of you it's SHORT!  So watch it please and constructive is very welcome!  I know there's too much hemming and hawing.  I don't think I'll be going into the movie business anytime soon, but it's fun to learn something new.

It's a teaser for FCCB's Vinyl University!  I'l (hopefully!) be making another video or two showing vinyl techniques.  So keep checking back!  Thanks for dropping by!

FCCB Challenge 3 175--Heat Wave

Ordinarily, a heat wave is something Kansans know a lot about!  But this summer (so far, knock on wood LOL!)  we have only had a few 100+ days and they were at the beginning of the summer.  July was mostly cool and rainy--in fact we went from drought to no drought during that time.

Well, enough about the weather--our challenge at FCCB this week was to create a project having to do with summer heat.  I remembered this fun lady from Fun in the Sun and cut her out at 3".

I cut the base out of both black and Riding Hood Red and cut off her hair so she would have that brassy red hair.  You can't tell in the pic, but I added Crystal Effects to her sunglasses lenses to make them look shiny.  All CS, ink, punch and brads are SU.  Polka dot DP is PTI.

Is it hot where you live?  Why not join in this fun challenge?  Just make a project pertaining to summer heat and be sure to use at least ONE Cricut cut.  Then upload it to FCCB!  That's all there is to it.  You could win a "fantabulous" prize from our sponsors!

Please come back tomorrow--I will be uploading my VERY FIRST VIDEO!!!  It will be sort of a sneak peek into our Vinyl University Blog Crawl in a few weeks!  

FCCB Challenge # 174--Summer Camp!

 Good morning, Campers!!!  Is everyone ready for a new Fantabulous Cricut Challenge?  This week the theme is Summer Camp.  Make a project having to do with summer camp and using at least ONE Cricut cut.  Please join us!  Visit FCCB for more inspiration.

Being the mom of a Boy Scout, I have LOTS of camping photos.  So I decided to make a layout, something I need to do a lot more of!  These pix are from my son's trip to Philmont Scout Ranch last summer.  This is THE premier scouting experience.  Brad went too.  They backpack through the mountains of New Mexico.

This is a 12 x 12, two-page spread.  I used CTMH Artbooking, Outdoor Man, and Campin' Critters cartridges.  The sort of chevron BG is from Artbooking and cut at 11" in Garden Green.  I think this is my fave BG--it's just too cool, and I have been wanting to use it ever since I saw it on the cover of the CTMH catalog.  I also cut 4 different colored squares at 5.5", laid them on my mat, butting the edges together, and cut it again, so I would have some different colored pieces to fill in places in the lattice.

All the photo mats are cut from Artbooking also, out of Real Red.  I wound up cutting these with Real Dial Size on, to make them closer to the size I wanted.

The letters are cut at 1.75" from Outdoor Man.  

I backed the arrows in the photo mats with some K & Co. DP from their BSA pad and also filled in some of the chevrons with it.  

What says Boy Scouts to most people?  Why, badges, of course!  And Campin' Critters has a nifty badge feature, which I used for some embellishments.  These are not official BSA badges of course, but I felt like they conveyed the general idea.  They are cut at 1.5".

The base of the pages is Creamy Caramel; other colors used are Summer Sun and Night of Navy.

I really had fun with the Summer Camp challenge this week, and I hope it will get me back on track with my scrapbooking.  What are some of your favorite summer camp memories?  Hiking, swimming, s'mores?  Whatever it may be, make a project celebrating it and link it up to FCCB!  Thanks for dropping by today--have a great one!

FCCB Challenge # 173--Cool Treats!

It's Challenge Me Monday over at FCCB again and I just realized I goofed on the theme of this week's challenge.  I thought it was Sweet Treats, turns out it's Cool Treats!  Oh, well, I'm going to say since gingerbread houses are made when it's COLD, and the icing on the roof is meant to look like SNOW, it's going to have to count! Besides, I need to get cracking on Christmas projects! LOL!  Our sponsor this week is Cri-Kits.  They make all kinds of nifty gel pens and markers to be used in Cricut and other electronic cutters.  So stop by their website and check them out!  

I thought it would be fun to make a box for treats with a Christmas theme.  Wrap It UP has an adorable gingerbread house box, so I used that.  I cut the box and its layer at 11.5 with my Gypsy.  This box was extremely easy to put together and at that size makes a box that would hold lots of candy or 3-4 large cookies or a cupcake.  The main image has several layers but the box only has one.  I used a red Cri-Kit glitter gel pen to outline it, then cut it in white and then used punches and scraps to add color.

Here is the front of the box.  I used a scrap behind the door frame.  I cut out the door so it would be brown.  I punched some strips for the "curtains" over the windows and the porch roof and trimmed a little piece for the top of the chimney.  I colored the cut out pieces of the square windows and the arched window yellow (to look like candlelight).

Here is the side.  The front and back match and so do the two sides.  I used some old SU Christmas DP, Cherry Cobbler and Whisper White CS, Nesties,  and Gumball Green ink, plus some old Dress It Up buttons I had in my stash.

 

Here is a detail of the little wreath I made--I think it's so cute!  It's an old SU punch with a hole punched out of the middle and some stickles.  The tree punch is current SU.  You can also see the Cri-Kit outline a little in this picture.

Here are some close-ups of those cute little cookie cutter buttons.

Other CS used is Gumball Green and Close to Cocoa.

Well, thanks for dropping by today, and don't forget to play along with FCCB this week!  Remember, be sure to use at least one Cricut cut on your project!  And if you have some Cri-Kit markers, use 'em!  They are really fun and can add a lot to a project.