Wedding Bears on Repeat

Despite the "Teddy Bear Parade" cartridge having a ton of options, I think the ones I've cut out the most are the bride and groom bears.  They're just so cute on a wedding card! And they look a little different when the background paper is changed. 

There are no sentiments on the outside of the cards since the customer requested that something be inside instead. I anticipate using these two on many more cards in the future!

Stay tuned for Lancaster updates! I started working on the travel portion of day 1. I'll post when hubs has the chance to edit his photos. Trust me; you'll want to wait. If it's just my photos, you might lose interest, haha.

House Card

I made this shape card for a customer who wanted to thank her boyfriend for renting a house for a big birthday gathering with all of her friends. I used the house from the "Just Because" Cricut cartridge, and the bears are from "Teddy Bear Parade."

This was either done before I started getting back in the habit of recording the measurements of all the cut pieces or I just can't find where I have them saved on my computer! Nowadays, I just keep the measurements on the desktop Sticky Notes program so I can copy and paste it when I post the card on my blog. Once that's done, I can just delete those few lines. Oh well! This was clearly a unique card for a special circumstance, so the need to know the sizes because I'll need to redo it is rather unlikely!

I used the shadow feature for the house to use as the base. I cut it out twice and scored the back piece before putting adhesive on it to stick them together. I really like how this card came out, and it's always fun using a Cricut cut I've never used before!

Pomp and Circumstance All Day, Err Day

I had yet another custom order for a set of graduation cards recently, and I was initially going to make the same basic ones I did last time. However, once I got up to making them, I really wanted to do something different just for variety. Instead of cutting the larger bears, I cut the bear from the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge at 2.5 inches because I knew I wanted to use the bear as a replacement for the "0" in 2014.

The numbers were cut from the Lyrical Letters cartridge at 3.75 inches. I thought about stamping the congratulations, but because of the size of the numbers, I had a lot more space on the card than I had anticipated. Instead, I found the "congrats" cut on the Simply Sweet cartridge, which made it a lot easier on me since I didn't have to find a font and weld all the letters together nicely.

Just to add a bit more color and focus in on the design itself, I added a blue mat to the card, which I think made the card look better than putting it directly on the white cardstock only.

Hmm, how many more times do you think I'll be using this graduation bear this year? Haha.

Graduation Bear

Because it's already May, the time for graduation is here! It's kind of crazy thinking that at the end of the school year, it can feel as if the year flew by, but throughout the first 85% of the year, it seems as if it's just crawling. 

I had a custom order to fill that was for 6 graduation cards. Of course, I went back to the trust Teddy Bear Parade cartridge. I had actually seen other more basic cards on Pinterest that I wanted to try, but I figured they might be too clean and simple for a card order. 

As I've said before about this cartridge, sometimes it's strange seeing how there are so many unnecessary layers when cutting out the clothing items, but when they're put together, it makes sense because then the cut has a little bit of dimension instead of just being one flat piece. 

I thought about using the same layout that I used the last time I made graduation cards with this bear, but I don't have many sheets of the alphabet paper so I decided to change it a bit. I feel that the plaid was a little academic-looking while still being colorful, so I went with that for half of the base so as not to be too overwhelming. With some ribbon and an extra blue mat, the card was assembled. The last thing that was needed was a sentiment from Pink by Design's "Scripted Year."

Yay for completing another card order! Finishing 6 feels like an accomplishment, and it's just enough to typically utilize the full sheet of paper for particular layers. Now to focus on a large 50 card order once again!

Bears Play Basketball

When I was working full-time, I knew that doing custom orders wouldn't really be possible because I knew they would stress me out. However, over the past year or so, I've come to realize that if I didn't have people requesting specific cards, I wouldn't be selling anything! Though I'm not into crafting for the money, I do enjoy what people ask for because it allows me to use cuts that I wouldn't normally use on general cards. This basketball bear (and really a lot of the other bears on this cartridge) is one of them!

My friend who requested this card said that the recipient liked sneakers (Jordan's), basketball, and poker. The only sneaker cut I had was on Nifty Fifties, so I knew that wouldn't work, and I didn't actually have anything that would work with the poker theme. If I get through these orders, I must must must pull out my Silhouette because then I would definitely have a wider range of images that I could use! For this situation though, basketball was it! I asked if a "cutesy" card would be okay, and it was so I immediately went for this bear on the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge. This 2012 birthday gift from the hubs is really getting a lot of use!

I actually made the bear bigger than I normally do because I knew I would cut out "30" to put on the front of the jersey since it was the recipient's 30th birthday. The normal cut has a "1" so I wanted to make sure there was enough room. It's really interesting how the pieces are set to cut. It seems as if there might be wasted paper since, for example, there's a red piece that's the size of the jersey and continues to the stripes on the sides of the pants. But after the cuts are adhered, I realize that the reason for that is to create depth. It wouldn't look as nice if the pants and jersey were just flat without any added dimension. The way it cuts makes the jersey come out more than the pants. Love it!

I decided not to pop the bear like I typically would but popped up the basketball instead. I really like how it turned out! It gives it a 3-D look, making it seem as if the basketball could be in play. The sentiment is from Pink by Design's "Birthday, Birthday" set stamped on a banner cut out using a die from Papertrey Ink.

It was really fun making this card also because I only made one, so I just planned all the cuts on the mat and had to cut just once. It's so different from mass producing, but I do love doing both especially when it's with this cartridge! I wonder if I'll ever use ALL the bears on this cartridge!

Droppin' You a Line

I remember when Pinterest first came out. I couldn't figure out what it was all about and why everyone wanted an invite to join. Now that I've been using it for a while, I really enjoy having all the links of things I saved so readily available and easily seen. It's also fun to post my own cards on a board and get notifications every time someone else pins a card I have made. Lately, the cards that get the most pins are the ones made using the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge, so I figured I'd post another one here on my blog!

Even though you need to have patience when putting these cuts together because there are so many small pieces the end result is so adorable. I love all the accessories on the bears!

I also really like the Recollections paper I used as the layer because the blue circles remind me of water droplets, which works for a fishing bear. The sentiment is from Pink by Design's set called "Simply Everything," which was one of the first sets I purchased because of the variety. I think the phrase fits so well to make this card general enough for a special occasion or just as a note of encouragement.

Graduation Bear

Enough time has passed since I posted a card using the bears from the Cricut cartridge "Teddy Bear Parade," right? I posted this on Facebook at one point and possibly on Instagram, but this is another one of the cards that I made for my church's bake sale last November. This one sold very well! Even though all 6 didn't sell at the bake sale, I had people order them once I posted the card in my Facebook store.

The bear is such a cutie with those glasses. I'm a firm believer that putting glasses or other nerdy/geeky accessories on critters or kids can be the absolute cutest! The sentiment is from Pink by Design's set called "Our Kids" and was stamped on a banner from Papertrey Ink's "Double-Ended Banners Die."

The thing I like the most about this is the layering of the papers. I wanted to do something different, so I used the patterned paper with the letters on it and layered it on blue so that it would add another color. Howard was also quite pleased with this card too, which makes me happy because I often have trouble piecing the cards together at the end so that they don't all look the same. He did, however, help me in choosing the yellow for the sentiment banner, so thanks hubs for your help and your support!

Wedding Bears

When Howard initially surprised me with the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge for my 28th birthday two years ago, I was super excited because I had wanted it since I first saw it on Cricut's Hello Thursday announcement.  I'm not sure if I wrote about it on my blog, but I know I posted it on Instagram.  The morning of my birthday, Howard brought me to the closet and just stood me there.  It took me a minute to realize that my stack of Cricut Lite cartridges was actually different!

BTW our closet doesn't look like that anymore since I started couponing, haha.

He had put the new cartridge in the middle of all my other Lites!  I was beyond giddy!  I'm a sucker for cartridges that have characters wearing different things for different occasions.  That's why I wanted 3 Birds on Parade and why I like putting accessories on the Create a Critter animals too.

I looked at the trifold (Lites have trifolds instead of full handbooks) over and over again, examining all the details that could be used for each bear.  Despite all the time I spent looking at it, I didn't use it much when I first got it!  Clearly, you can see that I am making up for lost time!  It's been one of my go-to cartridges especially after I made a huge stack of bears ready to be dressed for whatever occasion.

One of Howard's friends from his old job requested a wedding card.  I actually made a card similar to this one for my cousin Jay's wedding.  All I did was change the background color.  Just like the past few cards I've posted, the sentiment is from Pink by Design's set "Scripted Year."      

Every time I put together the groom bear, I hope he doesn't spill his champagne, haha.  I also remember how I had a few issues putting together the bouquet the first time I did it.  It's actually fairly simple considering the Cricut cuts out some guidelines to help put everything in place.  I like how it's layered so that the bouquet pops out more from the rest of the image.

Maybe tomorrow I'll post a card that's not using Teddy Bear Parade and "Scripted Year."  Seriously, this cartridge and that stamp set?  It'd be perfect for ALL occasions.  I don't even need anything else.  I'm kidding.  KIDDING.  Please don't take away my other cartridges and craft supplies.

Swimming in January

Last November, my sister-in-law asked me to make a set of thank you cards.  She is an elementary school teacher, and during the previous marking period, she had the opportunity to take her kids to the community pool each week.  There were a group of parents who helped out during those days and she wanted to write them notes to thank them for their help.  I immediately knew that I would be using the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge!

The super fun thing about specific custom orders is that I get to use cuts that I might not use for myself.  A lot of Cricut images seem to be perfect for scrapbooking, but since my main focus is cards, there's an abundance of cuts that I haven't yet used.  These two bears were happy to finally get some attention!

I wasn't very original and just kept to the colors that were in the handbook, but I did leave out the little ball or float that the girl bear carries because I wasn't sure what it was.  The sentiment is from Pink by Design's "Scripted Year."  

The paper is from a big paper stack from Michaels, which is really where I get the majority of my patterned paper when making cards.  I only own a few non-Recollections stacks, and I don't really touch them because they're cardstock stacks.  It's definitely one of the biggest issues of all paper crafters!  It's fun to have tons of paper choices, but we always feel bad using them too!  I do think this blue paper worked out well though because in my mind, I saw it as the lanes of a swimming pool.

I made a set of 15 for her.  It took a good amount of time since I chose to do two separate bears for each card, but I'm rather pleased with how they turned out!  I think it'd be difficult finding a card in the stores that would be specific enough for what she needed, so I'm always excited when I can complete a custom order like this!

* By the way, I used Howard's camera to take these pictures!  I just had to record that because I think they look pretty good!  Usually the hubs always photographs my cards for me, so I just found this to be a momentous occasion for me, haha.

Welcome, 2014!

It would make sense that as I attempt to blog from my iPhone for the first time that I would forget to save it and lose everything I just wrote for the past 10 minutes, right? Right. Haha, happy new year to me!

I'll cut to the chase this time and save the chatter for another update. My mom requested a custom order of thank you cards for some of the kids at school who gave her Christmas gifts. She had a few at home but specifically wanted cards that were more fitting for this winter season. Since I already have a bunch of bears from the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge cut out and assembled, I decided to just add on a sweater and warm hat to complete the look.

I eliminated some of the accessories and cuts to keep it simplified, but I did add pants considering the recipients of the cards are 2nd grade kids, and I figured it was the right thing to do! The sweater looked too plain, so I actually found a small snowflake stamp from one of my Pink by Design sets and used Versamark to stamp it in the center.

The sentiment is from an Inkadinkado set of all different fonts and phrases of gratitude. I really do love the options and wish that Pink by Design had a thank you set in different fonts just like one of my favorites, "Birthday, Birthday." As much as I love all the punny sayings, my mom prefers the simple sentiments and card designs more.

It was fun being able to complete this order since some of my other orders are a little bit more stressful. Maybe I should take a break from custom orders just until I figure out how to use my Silhouette Cameo. 

Yes, I said Silhouette! But that's a story for another day!