I made this quick and easy Mother's Day card using my Cricut Imagine and the Expression2. The Imagine is great for making cards! It's just got so many images that you can print and cut, then glue- I mean how easy is that?? The die cut is from the Imagine cart, Lori's Garden, which is a fabulous cartridge for feminine designs. It has beautiful flower, birds and butterflies is soft pastel colors, which make it the perfect cartridge for Mother's Day!

 I started by cutting a soft green cardstock slightly smaller than my card and then running it through the Cuttlebug to give it an embossed look. I cut a banner with my E2 and placed it on the embossed background.

I cut an image from the Imagine and placed it on the banner.

 I then went into Word on my computer and sized this caption to fit and printed it out on a sample template. Then I went back and cut a banner from the Bloom cartridge to fit. An easy tip for printing on my cardstock was that after I made the cut I adhered it lightly onto my printed template and then ran it back through the printer to get it printed onto the banner.

I typed Mother's Day quotes into a search engine on the Internet and found one I liked then copied and pasted it into a document and sized and adjusted the font until I was pleased with it, then printed it onto vellum.
 I used another die cut like the one on the front of the card, but slightly smaller and a blue strip cut tp fit the vellum and placed them under the vellum for a faint pop of color on the inside.

 

The last step to this card was taking some Stardust Stickles and lightly going over the image to give it some sparkle and pop. I also attached 2 rhinestones to the sides of the banner. That's it! A card in less time than it could take you to drive to the store and pick it out! Hope you enjoy this!! If you like this, be sure and check out the CricutDIVA design team blog at  

 http://cricutdivablog.wordpress.com/

We don’t really live on a farm. We have about 40 acres that’s mostly wooded, where we live with our cats. If cats were a farm animal, then I guess with 10 cats I’d be considered a farmer! But we do have a chicken pen, that had chickens in it several years ago. My granddaughter, who just turned 5, decided that she wanted chickens for her birthday in February and they had to be live, so we now have chickens again. I took this picture the day after her birthday and knew that she would have to have a layout associated with it.

This layout is a mix of different cartridges and layers all put together as a backdrop for my picture. I decided that since the layers would be a mix of patterns, I would go with a solid piece of kraft paper for the base. Then I went through my paper stash and found two different sheets of paper that had chickens on them. I went through again and found some prints that matched the color scheme.
I knew that I wanted a quilted look as the main frame around the picture so after a little searching, I found a doily in the Martha Stewart Elegant Cakes cartridge that I like. I picked doily 1 and sized it to 9.403 width and 9.417 height in the Cricut Craft Room. I used the hide contour and removed everything inside the doily except for the hole in the middle and the holes along the border. Then I cut both pieces of the chicken paper at 6×12 and put them on the cutting mat horizontally. After it was cut, I used my paper trimmer and cut them into slices resembling a pie.
The next cut uses the Mini Books cartridge and I picked HrztIL 13 for it. I went to the hide contour feature and hid the holes on it. It was cut at 7.5 width and 9 high.

This is a piece that I cut out for a starting point to design around. It’s just cut with a paper trimmer and then I used a corner punch to round the edges. It goes down first on the paper.

 Next I placed 3 of the cut fan blocks so that they fan out.

Next is the piece cut from Mini Books.
The next part involves placing your fan block pieces where your photo is going to sit. You will notice that they don’t match up at the bottom, but that’s ok because your picture will hide that!

 I mounted the picture on a dark brown mat then positioned it on the blocks.

Now we come to the Folk Art cartridge! I went to the border section and picked one that looked like rick rack called Hen and sized it to 10.5 width and 2.5 high. I cut it with a light cream cardstock. I placed it under the photo on the printed paper.
Next I started working on the title. I used Country Life and picked the phrase Farm Raised. I put it directly on the CCR mat with no additional sizing. It sizes at 4.222 width and 2.5 height automatically which is about the size I wanted. Next I went to the basic section and found the 2 chickens. I dragged them onto the mat and kept them at the default size. I placed the first one and welded it onto the F and kept the 2nd one the same size as well. I welded it  onto the M and D. I cut it on dark brown cardstock. Making the shadow was not too hard since I had not resized the images. I just chose the phrase shadow and then the chicken images and welded everything together. I cut it from the same cream cardstock that I had used for the rick rack border.

 I attached the pieces together and used pop dots to raise them off the paper. I then placed it on the border strip.

 For the final piece on this layout, I used a couple of my Prima flowers and attached them along the side of my picture where you see the gap between the fanned out images and the paper.

 A close up of how the fan blocks look after the picture is mounted.

*Tip: I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink and inked all of the pieces of the layers to add some definition and make them stand out better.
I really think that this was a fun layout to plan and I was able to use several different cartridges and make all the page elements myself.

This layout is also featured on the CricutDIVA design team blog! You can find it at http://cricutdivablog.wordpress.com/ Come check us out and see everyone's amazing work!!

Quick and Simple Mother's Day card

I finally got my Cuttlebug and was doing some playing around with it, trying out different designs and such. I decided to make a simple Mother's Day card using a blank A2 card and just a few elements. I embossed the card with an Anna Griffin folder then cut a silhouette and the word Mother from the Heritage cartridge. I adhered small rhinestones between the blocks to give it a little sparkle.

Then I went online and found a Mother's Day poem and printed it on a soft blue paper and cut to fit. I adhered a few Prima flowers to the inside and used some Liquid Pearls for the flower centers. Very quick, simple and an easy beginner card.

With a Little Help form My Friends!

My best bud Tina called me out on my last blog post! I know that she was teasing, but it's true! My room never would have gotten rearranged and organized, if she hadn't answered the call Labor Day and came over and helped me decide and rearrange everything so it would fit!! And she showed me how to do vinyl! I would have never got that done by myself. She doesn't get to make it over very much to play with me though! That needs to be remedied. Love ya girl!!

My cozy retreat from the world!

This is my scrapbook room. I've combined a mish mash of furniture over the last couple of years and just made it all work! I'm a "junker" at heart! I'd much rather have older pieces that I get for free or next to nothing than spend the cash that could otherwise be put towards my hobby!

This is my embellishment bookcase. I found it at a yard sale and the size was perfect! I have clear glass recycled jars full of chipboard letters and embellishments, spare ribbon and lace, flowers, anything that I had opened and then wanted to consolidate. I also keep punches, inks, my Ice Stickles, and other things there.

 

Then my pegboard. Jason had an extra piece that he wasn't using so he hung it up for me. It holds about anything that's unopened with a hole!

 My machines. I have 2 Imagines and my Expression 2 that I use an old computer desk and an old dining table to sit them on. The computer desk also holds 2 of my Cricut binders and my photo boxes. It's right behind my desk for easy access!

 The desk closet is my spare. I put them together so that anyone that came over to work would be facing me so we could visit while we crafted. Usually it's my 5 year old granddaughter that sits here and works with me! My desk is an antique library table that Jason bought me at an auction. It pretty large and has a shelf on the bottom that holds my tub of paper scraps. At the side of my desk is a small laptop desk so that I can use my laptop for the Craft Room, but it won't take up room on my table. I also use the table part of it to keep my snacks and drinks on.

My paper stash. I've done some purging and got about a 1/3 of it gone. But I've still got a ton! My 3 Art Bin cartridge containers also sit on top of the holders.

I have another small table for my embellishment spinner and my Cuttlebug that butts up against the desk also.

 My wall art and you can see my Stickle rack.

My old laptop hooked up to speakers so that I can either watch Netflix or listen to a playlist on Spotify. I also keep my coffee k cups in the bookcase. The bottom shelf is full of Addy's crafts.

My other bookcase that's full of scrapbooks, craft magazines, some embellishments and the bottom shelf is old cookbooks that I didn't have room for in my cookbook bookcase.

Last on my tour is my Keurig! I am a coffee fanatic, so when I planned my room I wanted a Keurig so that I could have a cup of coffee whenever I wanted. I spoiled myself with this one!

That's my tour! I've got lots more I want to do and I'm running out of room! But I figure I can always find another spot to stick something!! All it takes is a little rearranging!

Bright Lights, Big City

I created a layout for my heritage album for my Mom's trip to the city when she was a teen. She went to the city that was 100 miles away (a far piece in those days!) for an FHA conference. The town that we live in at that time had a population of probably around 3500 so for them to get to go to the capitol city was a big deal for the farm girls! I love this picture as much for the background as the ladies that are in it. It was Mom and her best friends that she's still friends with to this day. I'm really loving the Nifty Fifties for some of the pages I'm putting together from this time in Mom and Dad's life.

I can't wait to get to work on my layout with my Daddy and this convertible that I made from the same cartridge! Be watching for it. I'm not sure when I'll find the perfect picture, but I know that I will!

You Should Have Seen It In Color

I absolutely love the country song, You Should Have Seen It In Color. I have started a Heritage album with some of the old pictures that my Mom gave me. 2 of them are the house that was my grandparents and now Mom and Daddy live in. The other was a picture of my Mamaw and Papaw and 2 of their friends. Both are black and white pictures and when the song came on one day while I was sitting in my scrapbook room wondering what to work on, it hit me. I had the perfect pictures to go along with the title of the song.

I decided to use a silver Bazzil Bling background paper with black letters. I also printed out the course of the song and made a frame from my Heritage cartridge to frame it with. The letters, you should have seen it in, are from Paper Lace 2 and the word color is Cricut alphabet that came pre loaded in my E2. Enjoy!!