Cut it Up’s having a Fall Blog Hop!

When:  Friday, September 28th
Where:  Starts and ends at Cut it Up Challenge Blog
Why:  Fun, prizes, and inspiration!

Hope to see you there!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – Any Animal

Christmastime is right around the corner, so I thought I’d use this Any Animal challenge from Die Cuttin’ Divas to make some pillow boxes for gift cards and little presents.  It happens so often in our family that whatever we ordered didn’t show up in time, or it’s too big and heavy,  so what we do is wrap up a picture of the item to present to the recipient.  One advantage of wrapping up a picture is that they have no clues to help them guess what it is!  🙂  Pillow boxes are great for wrapping those pictures.The little reindeer are from Paper Crafting World, which was the first design team I was on.  He’s just called Rudy and is still available here.  The design paper is scraps.   I can’t wait to see the variety of projects that we get for this challenge!!

Evelyn

Travel Knitting

My husband and I flew to San Diego last week to visit my son for his birthday.  I knew I had to plan a LOT of travel knitting projects, just for the plane ride alone!  I usually bring along yarn to make Milos because they are so easy and fun to knit and really are a blank canvas for creativity.  When planning a Milo for travel, I like to choose a knitting pattern that’s easy to memorize and doesn’t include a cable;  I don’t want to lose my beloved red size 4 double pointed needle that I use for cabling!!  A second goal was to use up certain yarns that I had in my stash.

I cast on for this Milo August 31st, the night before we left.  I used the King Charles Brocade pattern from Barbara Walker’s A Treasure of Knitting Patterns book and a single skein of pink Rowan Pure Wool Superwash Worsted that I picked up on sale.  Comparing the Milo pattern and the yardage on the ball band, I chose the size that would use up the entire skein so I had no leftovers.  That was the 18 month size.  I finished this on September 3rd.I also brought along five skeins of Cloudborn Limited Edition Alpaca Worsted that I bought from Craftsy for Milo May.  I bought a ton of this yarn because it was on sale.  I’m not too inspired by the colors I got – beige and taupe – but I love working with alpaca and those were the colors that were on sale (no big surprise there.)  But since I had so much of it, I decided to knit Flax Light, thinking it would use up a lot.  I cast on right after I finished the King Charles Milo on September 3rd and got as far as finishing the body on September 7th.  I didn’t bring along double pointed needles for the sleeves, so I put that on hold and started another Milo.

(Seems like a lot of knitting, doesn’t it?  Let me explain that our son is a huge sports fan, the US Open was happening, it was the opening of NFL football WITH THE EAGLES! (who won, thank goodness!) so there was a lot of TV time included.)

Anyway, this last Milo is almost finished.  I decided to knit it up with the yarn held double both to use up more of it and to make the garment squishier and warmer.  I knit this one up in the Mock Honeycomb pattern, which was so much fun!  All I have left to do is about half an inch more of the honeycomb then the garter stitch at the bottom.  It’s really squishy and warm!

Every time we travel, I scramble to pull together something to knit.  Choosing what yarn I want to work with from my stash and a pattern to knit can be challenging, especially when I leave it to the last minute.  It most often is a Milo, but sometimes I want something different.  I came up with an idea on the way home to put together yarn, needles, and a pattern in a bag that I can just pick up when it’s time to go.  My husband came up with an even better idea – make it a surprise!  Put together several project bags and just pick one at random.  You knit what you get.  I like it!!

Evelyn

Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges – September 2018 – Cards

Here is my card for PDE Challenges – September!

It uses the hot air balloon from Lettering delights Steampunk simple shapes and the Tim Holtz Blueprint Embossing folder.

The Simple Shapes have two layers – one is for using your pens to make the line designs and the second layer is for cutting.I popped the steampunk hot air balloon up on the background, which was embossed and inked.  I love the funky look of this card!  Hope to see your card this month over at Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges!  You have one whole month to link your card.

Evelyn

Cut it Up – Birthdays

Hello!  It’s time for another challenge at Cut it Up and this time the theme is Birthdays.  A Day for Daisies is our sponsor and they provided us each with an image to play with.  I chose this adorable Carnation Pixie!  I do love fairies and pixies!!

First up, I made two tags for birthday presents.  The pink paper is digital from Fall Dolls paper pack by Lettering Delights; the blue paper is from the Let’s Bokeh in the Snow paper pack by Lawn Fawn.  The tag itself is just called Thank You tag from Silhouette.  I used a .03 offset to make black mats for all the elements.

I dragged the pixie into Silhouette Design studio and sized her to fit on the white mats of the tags, then printed and cut those. She looks beautiful in black and white with the colored background, but is such a sweet image I thought I really ought to try and color her.  I re-sized her to be a little larger in the Silhouette software and traced her.  Then I made a .05 offset around the trace and centered the image on that.   It helps to change the transparency of the image so I get it exactly where I want it, centered to the cut line.  Then I printed and cut her and colored her with my Crayola colored pencils.  Since she now had some color of her own, I wanted the background to be much softer.  This yellow paper is also from the Bokeh pad mentioned above.In this closeup, you can (hopefully) see that I used a silver pen to highlight some of the lines on her wings.I felt that my card needed a little something extra, so I put some dots in alternate corners.  They were just the touch that this little card needed.So now I have two little tags and one extra birthday card for my stash!  I hope you join us at Cut it Up for this challenge and make a birthday project.  The prize from A Day for Daisies is a $12 gift card (equal to 3 images of choice.)  Also, take a peek at the other DT members’ projects.  They’re awesome!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – September 2018 sketch

Here’s this month’s sketch from Die Cuttin’ Divas!  As always, it’s easy to use and always turns out great!  I can’t wait to see what everyone does with this winner.

I used the cutest Chihuahua from Pretty Papers Pretty Ribbons again.  This is the friendliest little pup you ever saw!

The paper is from an old DCWV Citrus Mat Stack.  (I just checked and it’s available on Amazon.).  I can’t remember where I got the white candies in the corners.  At least that’s what I think they were called . . .

Anyhow, hop on over to Die Cuttin’ Divas and check out what the other DT members did with this awesome sketch, then try it yourself!  See you there!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – What Makes You Happy

What a cool theme for a challenge!  Those Die Cuttin’ Divas really chose a fun one this time around!

What makes you happy?  For me, it’s definitely family first off.  I have a really great family and they make me very happy!  But craft-wise, I get great satisfaction of using every last bit of my papers and leftover die cuts.  My parents lived through the Great Depression, and I was instilled with the Waste Not, Want Not philosophy.  So I’m going to share with you some cards that were made with leftover cuts.  The birthday cake is definitely Miss Kate’s Cuttables, but that’s about all I know, and the fish probably is, too.  I don’t know about the papers or the other cuts.

Here are closeups of these four.Here are two more made with leftovers, but they don’t contain die cuts.So that’s it for me!  Share what makes you happy over at Die Cuttin’ Divas this week.

Evelyn

Cut it Up – ABC 124

It’s time for another challenge at Cut it Up!  This time of year, we start thinking about our ABCs and 123s.  Your project could be school-related, but doesn’t have to be.  It must contain numbers and/or letters!  Easy peasy, right?

My project is not school-related.  And the “letters” are not English letters – they’re Chinese characters.  I saw this adorable card by Jin Yong of Under a Cherry Tree and I loved it so much, I CASEd it.  The image is from Lettering Delights’ Happily Ever After cut file set.  I’m always happy to use my Washi!The Chinese characters say Thank You.  They were a freebie from Jin and are still available if you follow the link above.  The little Chinese girl is just too cute, don’t you think?I love those little sandals!!  🙂 Hope you join us for our ABC/123 challenge at Cut it Up.  There are two sponsors and two prizes for this challenge – Heartfelt Creations is giving a $20.00 Gift Certificate and  SVG Attic is giving a $15 gift code!

Evelyn

Pause, Dream, Enjoy Challenge #34, Birthday Cards

Time to add more birthday cards to your stash!  Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges‘ theme this week is birthday cards, something we need all year long.

I used my Cricut again!  The birthday cake is from Wrap it Up and the card base and sentiment are from Wild Card, two oldies but goodies!!

The embossing folder is Cuttlebug Number Collage.

I sized and placed the cake so you can only see the top tier from the front, but when you open it up, you see the whole, huge cake! I wish it was real; I would gobble up the whole thing!You can link your birthday cards here at Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges.  Also, don’t forget to pop over and check out the other DT projects.  They’re fabulous!!  🙂

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – Back to School

Die Cuttin’ Divas‘ theme this week is Back to School.  It won’t be long now . . . Some schools have already started up for the 2018 – 2019 school year!  I made a couple Back to School cards to send to my former co-workers at VSDB.  I was the middle school science teacher there but have been retired for a whole year now!  Time sure flies, doesn’t it?  The file is saved on my computer under the name Back to School, but there’s no identification as to who was the creator or where I got it from.  I kind of think it may have been Treasure Box Designs because their files don’t contain their name on them, but I checked their site and this isn’t there, so your guess is as good as mine.  Anyway, I really like shape cards and this file was perfect to make into a shape card because of the flat top on the chalkboard.

So that’s my Back to School project!  Can’t wait to see yours at Die Cuttin’ Divas!  🙂

Evelyn