The Merry Christmas Challenge – August, 2018

This adorable Santa Card, the third piece of My Scrap Chick’s Santa Claus 5-Piece Set,  is my August project for The Merry Christmas Challenge Blog.  I just have two more pieces to make and I’ll have completed the set. The patterned paper is from Pink and Main’s Jolly paper pad.  It’s actually a leftover piece of paper!  :).

The green paper that Santa is on is actually the same paper as his mittens, but I darkened it with more ink so the mittens wouldn’t blend in with it.  Well, that’s one more Christmas card finished for this year!!

Let’s see your Christmas project over at The Merry Christmas Challenge Blog!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – Birthdays

We’re celebrating birthdays this week at Die Cuttin’ Divas!  I don’t know about you, but I’m always in need of birthday cards and wrappings.  Our sponsor this week is Spellbinders and they sent me a really nice die set to use on my project.  It’s called the Shapeabilities Petite Double Bow and Flowers Etched Dies Elegant 3D Vignettes by Becca Feeken.  It comes with two dies that, together, make a double bow, and there’s a third die that makes a flower.

I started with the bow.  I admit I was a little baffled at first (I thought it was a flower with leaves!) but I found the die on their web site and there were instructions on how to make the bow.   “Die-cut two each of the double bow die and bow tail die. Match up the tabs of the double bow die cut and loop each bow piece to the bottom hole, secure with a brad. Then loop over the protruding tab over to cover to make a center loop, add bow tails and secure all with the same brad. Decorate with the flower accent or leave as it.”

While I was cutting out the pieces, I noticed my Envelope Punch Board.  I hadn’t used that in ages and thought I’d give it a go.  I followed Pootles Papercraft’s tutorial and made two boxes, decorated with the Spellbinders’ bows!The first one has a little Velcro closure. The second one has a belly band closure.The papers used are from the Echo Park Birthday Wishes paper pad.

As I mentioned above, this die set comes with a flower die, and I decided to try it out.  I used the Cricut Wild Card cartridge for the front panel of this card and a font on my computer (CK Timeless) to make this simple birthday card with the flowers.

Hope you join us at Die Cuttin’ Divas this week and make a birthday project!!

Evelyn

Cut it Up – Your Favorite Color

What’s your favorite color? or do you have more than one?  Some people like all colors equally, and sometimes favorites change.  For our challenge this week at Cut it Up, we want you to create a project using your favorite color.  Can you guess what mine is?My very favorite color is brown with orange as a close second.  I used some very old paper to make this note card using a file from our sponsor, Ink on 3.  The file is actually a gift card holder, but I just left that one piece out to make it a note card.  It’s from the Pansy Tea Party SVG Kit.

The prize is a $10 gift code to Ink on 3 for any of their SVGs and Printables.  We’d love to find out what your favorite color is, so just make up a project using it and link it to Cut it Up.  While you’re over there, check out the gorgeous projects from the other design team members!

Evelyn

Pause Dream Enjoy Challenge #32 – Anything Goes!

Getting crafty again with Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges!  And it’s an Anything Goes challenge – easy peasy, right?  😉

I have a quick project today.  It’s a page for a scrapbook-like recipe book that I made for a swap.  The soup pot is from the Country Kitchen Cut Set from Lettering Delights.The soup is delicious, by the way, and freezes really well.

Hope you join us this week at Pause, Dream, Enjoy Challenges!  ♥️

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas’ August, 2018 sketch

Here is the August sketch for Die Cuttin’ Divas!  Just in time for those August birthdays.  The card needed to be music-themed because the recipient will be a music major this coming fall, and I recently reorganized all my Cricut cartridges and I always want to use them more often.  So, this is what I came up with!!

The 45 record is from the Cricut Nifty Fifties cartridge, cut out with the Explore.  I was born in the fifties and grew up in the sixties and have so many fond memories of playing records with my sisters and friends, singing and dancing.  I even had a portable record player that looked like a briefcase with a handle and everything.  I think it was red and white.

The grey strips are embossed with the Cuttlebug Spots and Dots embossing folder, and the stitched rectangle was made in Silhouette Design Studio.  The Happy Birthday sentiment was also printed from Silhouette Design Studio.  I know how to make words become shaped (in this case, as an arc) in Design Studio but have no idea how to do it in Cricut Design Space.  I’m sure it’s possible and one of you may know, but I don’t even know how to just print using Design Space. I popped the focal image up on some foam tape.  And that’s it!

Our sponsor this week is Waffle Flower, who are offering a $15 gift certificate as a prize.  Thank you!!

Georgiana’s sketches are always fun and easy, so why don’t you play along?  You might win!  See you at Die Cuttin’ Divas!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – Anything Goes!

We Die Cuttin’ Divas are a wild and crazy bunch at when there are five Tuesdays in a month . . . Anything Goes!

My son recently completed his Masters’ Degree in Aeronautics.  I had envisioned this card and just had to make it for him.  Luckily, it was an Anything Goes challenge this week because I can’t think of another category it could be used for!He’s a scuba diving, motorcycling, skydiving helicopter pilot who loves football and played it from 5th grade on up through high school!  So the phrase “Jack of all trades” always comes to mind when thinking of him.  The full phrase is “Jack of all trades, master of none” but I love to turn a phrase!!

I used google images, and the paper is digital paper I downloaded years ago called ShabbyP Two Soon Scratchy Paper.  First I made a 5 x 7 rectangle in Silhouette Design Space and filled it with the digi paper.  Then I dragged in the google images, sized them and placed them where I wanted on the card.  I printed and cut that.  Then I traced the images and printed and cut out them by themselves, and then just cut the traced lines out on white paper so I could glue them together to make them real thick. I glued these layered pieces right on top of the card in their proper places.  So that’s my Anything Goes project for this week!  We’d love to see what you come up with. Head on over to Die Cuttin’ Divas and link up your project (that includes a die cut) and you’ll be in the running to win a $20 store credit from Newton’s Nook Designs!

Evelyn

Cut it Up – Christmas in July

I do love Christmas in July!!  🙂

Cut it Up’s sponsor this time was My Scrap Chick, who is awesome!!  There were so many designs to choose from, and so many that I already have because, you know, she’s AWESOME!

I finally went with a set called Santa Claus 5-Piece Set.  I made two of the projects so far and plan to make the rest of them soon.  Here are the Chimney Card and Santa Tag. The Chimney Card is meant to have a gift card adhered onto the tag which pulls out of the chimney.  I inked the chimney parts with black soot – appropriate, right??

This Christmas tag is just adorable.  Of course Santa is covered with ashes and soot, too!

Hop on over to Cut it Up to check out the other awesome My Scrap Chick Christmas goodies, then link up your Christmas in July project.  You could win a $20 store credit to My Scrap Chick!  🙂

Evelyn

Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges #30 – Get Well Cards

You never know when you might need one, so better have some in your stash, right?  I was plum out of Get Well cards.  Time to stock up!  Luckily, that’s the theme this week at Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges.  🙂

I started by doing a search of Get Well images on my computer and came up with some adorable clip art.  Unfortunately, there is nothing to identify where I got it from.  The file info says it was downloaded in 2008!  They’re all the same design.  I dragged the bears into Silhouette Design Studio and traced them.  Their hair made the trace pretty ragged, so I did a .02 offset of the trace and centered my bears to that, then did a print and cut.  I used the text tool to write Get Well Soon in a font saved on my computer called PC New Beginnings, placed it on the bottom-center of a circle, and print/cut that.  I inked the circles slightly.

The brown layered element they’re on is from the Design Studio library, simply called “label.”  I added some brads to give them more substance.  The patterned paper is from probably the very first pack of paper I ever bought!I thought they all turned out really cute and they would brighten someone’s day if they weren’t feeling well.  Check out the other get well cards over at Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges then make some for your own stash!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas Christmas

Can you believe it’s Christmas already?!?!  🙂  At least that’s what we’re getting ready for at Die Cuttin’ Divas this week with our Christmas challenge.  Since I’m still short of all the cards I’ll need, that’s what I went with.  Our sponsor this week is Avery Elle and I happen to have one of their dies, the Burst Die, so I thought it would be fitting to make my cards using it.  I also have a ton of beautiful clip art and wanted to use some of it for some cards this year.  This is what I came up with: I printed out the clip art (from a collection called Christmas Traditions) using Microsoft Word and used the aforementioned Burst die to cut it out.  I wanted to really focus on the images so I cut bold colored rings in Silhouette Design Studio and used the same paper to mat the images.  Because the die is square, I made the cards square also.  That left me precious little room at the bottom for a sentiment, but I remembered I had an old Close to My Heart stamp set from a card kit called Winterhaven (see my old post about it here) that contained a really thin, long sentiment. Perfect!  So now I have five more cards ready to go.

We hope to see what Christmas projects you’re working on this week at Die Cuttin’ Divas!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – Lots of Layers

We’re looking for lots of layers on your projects this week at Die Cuttin’ Divas.   We couldn’t go wrong using files from our sponsor, Dreaming Tree!  I chose the Carnation Card from the Sentiment Cards SVG Bundle.  There are three cards included in the bundle and they’re all stunning!  It was hard to choose which one to start with. This was very easy to put together.  All the files have an assembly video on their site that is easy to follow.  I used mostly the same colors as in the sample, but I didn’t have any gold sparkle paper.  What I did have was a roll of gold sparkle tape, so I used that.  You can see it on the horizontal strip but I also covered two of the diamond shaped pieces with strips of it.  You can’t even see the seams!  That was lucky!!  🙂

From this angle you can see the cool shape of the card and its construction.  Basically, it’s mountain and valley folds.  Here’s a close up of the flower element.  I used an embossing folder on the white diamonds for more depth and interest (and because Leo did in the video!!  Can’t argue with success!)Let’s see your layers at Die Cuttin’ Divas.  You could win a gift card from Dreaming Tree!  You should head on over to Dreaming Tree anyway, just to grab all their freebies!!  There are a TON!

Evelyn