Penciling a Quick Thanks

Clean and simple cards are really my favorite because they look less cluttered and possibly like cards you can find at specialty stationery shops! Haha, well, maybe that's just what I tell myself. You'd think that they're easier to design, but they're actually not. When I first started crafting, I had to learn to be okay with leaving a lot of white on the card. I remember Howard used to tell me that it was okay, but it was so difficult for me to accept it as a finished card. But nowadays, I love the white on the card as evidenced by this card that has absolutely no pattern paper or fancy layers at all.

The pencil was cut from the "Locker Talk" cartridge at 1.75 inches. Since I was using the longer pencil as opposed to the stubby pencil, I chose to put everything on a 4x9 card, which means it fits perfectly in a business-sized envelope. It also made it easier to cut out the "thanks" too since I knew ahead of time that I wanted to use this specific script from  the "Wild Card" cartridge. For some odd reason, my notes say "Thanks from Wild Card at in," so apparently I forgot to jot down the size! Whoops!

Just to add a bit more to the card, I used a Martha Stewart punch for the stars on the bottom of the white layer before adhering the pencil to the card with foam adhesives for some dimension. I really hope that my customer liked this custom order and that the recipients of these cards (I believe I made 4) liked them as well!

Rainbow Smiles

I made a very simplistic card recently for a custom order. I used the rainbow from "Simply Charmed" and cut it at 3.25 inches. I think when using this cartridge, they are much cuter when cut at larger sizes so that the eyes and smile cut out nicely. Either that or the face should just be omitted. 

I've also been going through a phase of cutting out the sentiment instead of always using a stamp. The "smile" sentiment is from the "Wild Card" cartridge and cut at 10 inches. I've mentioned it before, but the cuts on this cartridge are in relation to the base card so that's why it had to be cut at 10 inches.

It's clearly much easier just having 3 colors in this rainbow than the 7 that should be there instead. Plus, it's probably easier not having to look for a difference between indigo and violet!

Birthday Cupcake

When I want to craft just for fun, I come cross a lot of cuts that I think would be fun to do for birthday cards. Then when I need to make a birthday card for a custom order, I just immediately jump to cupcakes! I think cupcakes are for all days of the year, but pop a candle in it, and it just fits!

I did want to make this one a little different so I made a card base that would fit in a business size envelope. I actually really like 4x9 in cards mainly because I feel that when they are mailed, people don't immediately think of it as a card because it looks like it could just be a bill or some other important piece of paperwork.

I didn't have any specific guidelines for this card, so that made the cupcake even more appropriate. It was cut from the "Simply Charmed" cartridge at 6 in. The face cut out without any issues since it was a larger size. Then since there was plenty of room underneath, I decided to stick with a Cricut cut for the sentiment instead of using a stamp so the "Happy Birthday" is from "Wild Card" also cut at 6 in (that seems weird, but you have to understand the cartridge to know why it's 6 in; it's all relative to the size of the card base cut on the page).

I was planning on adding the silver ribbon between the cupcake and sentiment, but I glued the sentiment on too high. Whoops! I then figured I'd use it to line the edge of the white mat on the top and bottom, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out since the ribbon itself is really pretty. It frays at the ends, but since I taped it on the back, it's not seen. I think I'll be doing that more often!

Heartfelt Sympathies

Sympathy cards are rather difficult to make because it's not really the time to use cutesy images, which is basically what I prefer using on my projects. I stuck with a really simple flower image. I found it on the Stamping Solutions cartridge and cut it at 4 inches though I did make it a little bit more narrow.

The colored rectangle was cut at 2.25 x 4.5 inches. I used the "Wild Card" cartridge to cut out the two pieces of the oval at 3.5 inches. Lastly, the sentiment is from Pink by Design's "Sympathy" set.

 I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder called "Juli's Garden" to add some dimension to the card base itself.

This was a custom order, and the person wanted an entire set. I chose to use different colors just for a bit of variety. These are the kinds of cards that you hope you don't have to make, but unfortunately, they're sometimes needed. 

School Bus Card

This school bus card was made for a custom order. The customer wanted cards to thank her students and parents who gave her gifts at the end of the school year. The only guidance I was given was that they had to be thank you cards, so it was very open for interpretation. I decided to do something school-related, of course, especially since I very rarely use my cartridges that have those images on them! In fact, I actually had to add "Cartridge: Locker Talk" to my list of labels since apparently I never used it before (at least on something that I posted on my blog since I know I used it once before).

I thought the back of the school bus was very fitting for the end of the year. The image was cut from "Locker Talk" (one of my first few cartridges!) at 3.75 inches. I have to say that this was a rather frustrating image to use! A lot of the older cartridges have all the pieces cut as one layer, so that means you'd have to cut out the yellow part, the red part, and the gray part in EVERY color. Thankfully, with the Gypsy or with Cricut Craft Room, you can hide certain cuts to separate them. It also makes it easier to mass produce. Unfortunately, even though I hid certain cuts, not all of them showed as an option to hide, so they cut anyway as you can see in the picture below. 

Although the cut was a little frustrating, I still was happy with the image as a whole because of how detailed it was. This is how the first black layer looked.

The "thanks" sentiment was cut from the "Wild Card" cartridge at 0.667 inches. It seems like an odd measurement, but it's in proportion to the other images on the page since each page is supposed to have all the elements for one card. It's kind of interesting how I cut out a lot more sentiments now instead of automatically stamping them. I think that with some cards, it makes it more complete. For this one, I cut it out in red and then in black and just created a shadow with the black layer since there was no option for a shadow cut on the cartridge.

I thought the back needed a little extra something, so I used Stickles to fill in one of the circles! I'm sure it would've been more interesting to add the glitter glue to more of the circles, but it actually used up a lot of my small bottle so I kept it as is.

Lately, I've also been using an extra black mat in my layering before I put the patterned paper on the card. I think it looks better that way even though it is an extra step.

The picture shows 5 cards, but it was a complete set of 6. I consider 6 a set because I can get all the patterned paper layers from one sheet of 12x12 paper. I'm rather happy with how this card turned out and am happy I got to use what might be an otherwise obscure image!

Challenge: Simply Charmed + Wild Card + Embossing!

I think it's so fun to jump back between digital stamps and the Cricut.  It's way easier to use my Expression now that I finally have a Gypsy!  I haven't posted an update about that yet, but yes, I do have one now!  Yay!  I can play around with sizes and hide features and weld.  In the end, it saves a lot of paper!

For this card, I used a flower on the Simple Charmed cartridge because the MAG challenge asks for a certain page.  It's actually a pretty fun challenge because it "forces" me to use things I may not have used before.  Now that I've actually used it, I think I might reproduce this flower for those "any occasion" cards!  If you know this cartridge though, there are a lot of cutesy faces on them.  That's the reason why I bought it in the first place.  However, I've found that it's difficult to cut them cleanly when the size is small.  That's where the "hide" feature comes in on the Gypsy!  I hid the face for this cut, which also eliminated the need for the black layer.

I used the scalloped circle from the Wild Card cartridge again because I intended on entering this into another challenge that required a circle.  Of course, silly me didn't realize that it was a circle card AND thank you card.  Blah.  If I had read it carefully, I would've just used thank you sentiment and been able to enter that too!  Oh well.  I'll just do it tomorrow if I have time!

I did emboss the outer layer of the flower with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.  It's kind of the go-to folder for any embossing need!  I actually also embossed the sentiment with my Ranger clear embossing powder using Stazon Timber Brown ink.  I might get back into heat embossing again!  I've read that the Ranger  holographic embossing powder can be used to make it look as if the paper is glittered paper, but I digress!  The sentiment is from Pink by Design's "Our Kids."

After I was done, I actually wasn't happy with it.  Then I went downstairs for dinner.  When I went back to look at it, it actually started to grow on me!  I guess I'm so used to having it a big busier, but this would work for certain recipients that I wouldn't necessarily be able to send a loud card to ... does that make sense?  I showed it to my mom, and she really liked it.  It's more like the cards she would send to others, so despite my initial thoughts on it, I do actually like the basic notecard look to it!

Here are the challenges that I'm entering:

• Challenge #34 (use images on pg 39 of Simply Charmed cartridge) at M.A.G. Challenge by the Page [Click the first link to see that I'm linked in at #11]
• Throwback Thursday Challenge (use Wild Card or Just Because cartridge, incorporate embossing either dry or heat) at My Creative Time [Click the first link to see that I'm linked in at #68]

Challenge: Shaped Birthday Card with Sentiment

On top of sleeping as much as I can, this summer I'm trying to enter challenges on other blogs.  Not only are prizes super fun (woohoo!), they also really get me to think outside the box.  If you've been following my blog, you know that most of my cards are pretty much the same ol' same ol'.  Well, the challenge this week at Birthday Sundaes was to "create a shaped birthday card {no squares/rectangles allowed} and include birthday wording/sentiment on the card front."  For me, that would definitely be a challenge!

When I started, I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it.  I used a new cartridge for it though - Hello Kitty Greetings!  It was the one I won through a blog candy giveaway from Theresa over at Scrappers Anonymous.  The first thing I cut out was an image of Hello Kitty herself (cut at 3 1/2 inches)!

Then I thought I'd use the card feature on this cartridge for the actual shaped card, but when I cut it out, it wouldn't really match up.  Plus, it was super small.

I decided to change my idea and instead took out another card that I've never used before - Wild Card!  I've seen many people use the doily card, and I wanted to use it too!  It cut very easily at 5 inches.  Of course, it was a birthday card, so I cut out a present from Sweet Treats at 1 1/2 inches.  Then I had to choose a sentiment.  I picked one from Pink by Design's "Take the Cake" set.  As you can see in the following picture, I decided to curve the sentiment on the acrylic block a bit since I wanted it to line up with the circle card.

Since it was a challenge card, I actually tried it out on scrap paper to make sure I Had the right pressure.  Haha, and you'll also see that this was not the final design because I changed the location of the present to her other hand.  Oh, and the picture spoiled the fact that I added some purple faux stitching with one of my Bic Mark-It markers!  Here's the final result after it was all put together:

And just because Howard has been telling me it's better to shoot with a white background, I pulled out my folded poster board to shoot that way.  I was having a ton of issues with it though, and they all kept coming out super crooked.  Haha, thankfully when I uploaded the 73 million I took, I just cropped it in Paint.  No fancy-shmancy Photoshop here!

You can see that I used those lovely foam adhesive squares to pop up the present.  Plus, I added a bit of bling to the bow!  I love it when I get to add bling to the actual image!

Though it may not be that creative as compared to the really talented crafters out there, I like how it turned out.  I was able to use carts I've never used before, and I was able to step away from those darn rectangle cards!  I might just have to go back to the safety of a rectangle card after this, but I did enjoy the challenge!

(And just because I think it's so cool when I add my link to any site, click here and you can see my card at #48!)