Hanging on Your Door

Last week while browsing on the Cricut Message boards looking at all the really talented people and their amazing projects, I came across one I just know I had to try.  I came across this amazing little door hanger by Happy Life Crafty Wife, and I put it on my list of to-do projects. 

Meanwhile, my granddaughter Abigail came down with the flu and so she was really on my mind.  I decided to make my first door hanger for her.  I think it turn out so sweet! 

I used George and Basic Shapes to make the door hanger and the box on the front to hold treats, and for Abby’s name, I used Ashlyn’s Alphabet. I used Hello Kitty for the Hello Kitty—of course!  The paper is from that My Mind’s Eye Love Nest stack. The ribbon and trim are from Hobby Lobby and the jewel flowers are from Paper Studio’s Gemstones.  I used my threading water border punch for the pink trim on the front edges.  Nice, huh! 

It measures about 5” wide and 9” long and the kitty is cut at 4”.

Now Stacey, if you visit and see this, don’t tell Abby about this little treat holder! 

There’s stars on that Mantle!

I wanted to say there’s stars on thairs!  Get it?  Dr Suess!  OK, anyway on with the business of the day! 

I added these stars to my mantle garland today.  They look very pretty and added some glitz to my plain garland.  I am really into metallic accenting this Christmas. 

See the silver and burgundy ink!

Here’s what I did.  First I created this 3-D star with my Gypsy  and George and Basic Shapes, and I cut 18 of them.

I choose white paper because I wanted to use some silver Rub and Buff paint I had and I thought white would be best for this.

After cutting them out I scored them using my clear ruler and my bone folder.  I don’t have a Score Pal or Martha Stewart score board. 

Then I trimmed the tabs on a slant so they wouldn’t stick out when I glued the two stars together. 

 

Next I rubbed some Rub and Buff on my Swirls Cuttlebug folder and ran one side of each star through the Cuttlebug.

Next I used a cranberry  or pine ink pad to layer in some more color. 

Next I folded the star and tabs and shaped the star

I added glue to all the tabs.

Then press the star flat so that the edges meet and are sealed and if needed clip to hold tight until glue adheres.

And ta-da!  Cute huh!  From here I punched a small diameter hole, added red ribbon and put them on my mantle garland. 

Here they are on the garland.

That’s it for now!  I hope you are getting everything done you need to do!

Yeah, That Stack over There!

But before I talk about my project for the day, I want to encourage you to pop by http://www.passionatelyartistic.com/ and take a look at the wonderful work being done over there and join in on the Linky Party going on.  It’s a place I can always go to see fantastic projects and gain inspiration. 

Pumpkins—again!  I’m terrible about latching on to an idea and just doing it to death! But this time it’s a stack of pumpkins, and I’m using them for a table centerpiece on one of my tables at Thanksgiving.  I’ll be adding more to it—I think!  Anyway, I thought I’d share them with you now. 

So how did I do it?  I used a dowel and glued the pumpkins pieces together around the dowel with a glue gun. The pumpkins are cut using a cut file I made using George and my Gypsy.  I adapted the file for the tall skinny pumpkin, but it’s essentially the same file. The bottom pumpkin is about 7” across so the piece is a good size.  There are a few more pieces to this that I haven’t finished yet.  I’ll post them all when I am done.  I had the ivy left over from doing the flowers at my son’s wedding , so I added it to give the pumpkins a lusher feeling.  Anyway here’s a few more shots of the stacked pumpkins. 

The ivy is attached with a hot glue gun. 

I hope you all have a productive day!  I think I’m going to make some pumpkin bread, and no, I won’t be using paper pumpkins. 

Giving Thanks

Today is Veteran's Day, and I for one am grateful for all those families who make the sacrifices that come when a family member joins one of our armed forces and serves our country.  It is a huge sacrifice and one without which we couldn’t enjoy the freedoms we now have.  Thank you, all of you, who served and those who endure long periods of time without your loved ones and who sometimes endure the loss of that loved one.  Thanks YOU!

What are you thankful for?  That’s the question I asked myself when I started this project. I wanted to create a project that put all those things I hold dear together and expressed my feelings.  My husband jumped in when he saw what I was doing and added his own thoughts.  It turned out great except for the couple of words that I got crooked and I didn’t catch it until it was too late to change it. 

For this project you’ll need:

One sheet of solid colored card stock

One sheet of background paper

one small scrap of contrasting paper

One 12x12 artist canvas

Paint to cover the edges of the canvas

Mod Podge

Glue

Tools:

Gypsy

Several Cricut Font Cartridges.

paint brush

craft knife

This project started with my Gypsy and really was pretty easy because of the Gypsy.  I used just about every font I have, and I threw in a few graphics in to fill some holes and to add interest to the canvas. 

Before I cut the words out, I took my 12x12 canvas and painted the edges with black paint.  It took at 3 coats to sufficiently cover the canvas.  Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of this process as well as all the other steps.  After the sides dried, I liberally painted the canvas with Mod Podge and added a sheet of paper on top of the canvas from the Old World stack from DCWV and then liberally spread a coat of Mod Podge over the paper. 

I cut the words from a sheet of black Core’dinations paper and then left them on the mat until I was ready to glue them on.

When the canvas and paper was dry, I trimmed the edges of the paper that over lapped the edges of the canvas, and sanded off the rough edges.  This meant that I had to go back and touch up the black paint on the edges, but I didn’t do that at this point. I began gluing the words on the canvas using the negative images left in the paper as a guide.  I actually laid the 12x12 negative image of the words on the canvas and began gluing the words on according to the outlines of the words.  I did cut one of the graphics in a deep autumn orange to give a little pop of color and to add interest.

Once all the words and graphics were glued on and dry, I went back and repainted the edges pulling some of the paint onto the edges of the paper.  I like the look this added to the canvas.  Sorry for the glare on this picture.  Pulling the black paint onto the top of the canvas covered the edges of the paper which has a white core. 

At this point it was time for a top coat of Mod Podge, and I was careful to make paint brush strokes as though there were actual paint strokes on the canvas. 

And I was done.  I hung it on my family room wall to show you my work. 

One more look:

That crooked “friends” is really bugging me!  Oh, well!  I like how it turned over all. 

My final words for you all today are be thankful for the freedoms we have and the people who have made it possible.!

Hey, where do I sit?

Well, you sit over there by that pumpkin!  He he he! 

OK, OK, I will cut the cuttin up!  No I didn’t use Cuttin’ Up for this project.  I used my pumpkin cut file from my wreath, made it smaller and made place cards for my Thanksgiving table. 

How did I do that! I am going to tell you.  I started with my pumpkin file made with George and cut 105!  I have 15 people sitting at my table this Thanksgiving and for each place card I need 7 pumpkins. 

Yeah! My expression hummed along for quite a long time.  Once they were all cut, I dragged out my Cuttlebug and embossed each one of all 105 pumpkins with my Dotted Swiss A2 folder. Sigh!  Yes, my arm did get tired!  OK you’re right. Not really! 

After embossing I folded each of the 105 pumpkins in half.  I know I keep saying 105!  I can’t help it!  That’s a lot of pumpkins!  After folding I trimmed the bottom of each pumpkin so that each pumpkin would sit even.  Can you see the trim? I had originally intended to ink these with gold ink, but I changed my mind.  I mean, come on . . . 105! 

At this point I glued them together and added a green stem to each pumpkin. 

I also cut three of each parts of the actual name plates. This cut came from Gypsy Wanderings and was cut at 3x2”. The leaf paper is the back and the green the front with the beige name plate.  Then I stamped the name plate with a Basic Grey $1 stamp, wrote each person’s name on the name plate, and added faux stitching.   The name plate is attached with a paper clip. 

Turned out sort of cute!  Now to finish all of them! 

Need a Little Christmas

I happen to love December. From December 1st to the 31st, I love the hub-bub and celebration of the birth of Christ.  All the trappings and ceremony make me look forward with anticipation.  So last Saturday, I whipped up these tags just to tease my anticipation of Christmas. 

I know there are paper crafters out there who have created much more elaborate tags, but these are simple and easy to make.  I’ve got some more elaborate ones in mind and will share them over the next few weeks, but I’ll share these today.

I make all my tags for our Christmas gifts, and with our large family, it takes many tags, so the creation of tags makes it expedient that I be able to do so quickly.  So here are the tags I’m sharing today. 

See, simple.  I used cuts from Joys of the Season, the ornament and gifts, and from Winter Woodland for the poinsettia.  The tags came from Tags, Bags and Boxes, and the rectangle from George.  I embossed the rectangles with the Christmas Ornaments A2 embossing folder and gave them and the tags gold faux stitching.  I used my fanciest hand lettering to write the “to” and “From,” and popped the Circuit cuts off the tags. 

On this poinsettia I detailed the flower and leaves with metallic gel pen, used Stickles on the yellow center and then because I wanted more dimension, I used a yellow tri cornered bead in the center.  You can’t really see it in this photo. 

I used Stickles on the the swirly bits and tip of the ornament and cut the hanging thing on the ornament out some gold holographic paper I had in my stash.  Nice! 

For this tag, I welded the shadow of the gifts in the three different sizes together with my gypsy and then added the gifts with their Stickled ribbons.  The paper is from last year’s Christmas stack.  Fun! 

Now go! Create some thing today!

Fall Flower and Pumpkin Wreath.

So where did I use those flowers?  Here on this wreath.  I think it tuned out fantastic and since I’ve already shown you how to make the flowers, there’s not much else to tell you except the 3-D pumpkin.

I used two colors of organza twisted together for the ribbon.  I tied a big blow but when I tried to use it, I saw the wreath really didn’t need it.  The pumpkin is a cut file I made with George because I didn’t like any I had on any Cricut cart.  I embossed it the Cuttlebug Victoria A2 embossing folder and rubbed the embossing with a gold ink pad.  I can’t remember what cart the leaves are from, but I folded them down the middle and curled the edges down.  I also inked them with a brown ink pad.  Every thing is wired on the wreath because hot glue has a tendency to release when in the sun for long periods of time and I wasn’t sure where I would hang it. 

The pumpkin is about 6 inches across and the largest flower is about 3 1/2 inches across. 

 

Well, that’s it!  Check in for more surprises, paper wise, this week.

Future Baseball Star

Yeah!  I am going crazy scrapping my youngest grandson’s photos. I really like how this LO turned out.  I love the colors and paper in this LO.  I hope you like it too. 

The background paper is from ummmm . . . Autumn Leaves and the patterned paper is from We R Memory Keepers.  I love this patterned paper and brought several sheets a few years ago when I did a album for my husband for Father’s day.  It reminds me of a man’s tie.  Just love it. The card stock comes from my usual sources—Bazzill and Coordinations.  Also, see the woven net on the LO.  I’ve had that forever and I pulled it out and knew it would be perfect for this LO.  So nice. 

I used Base Camp for the words “Future” and “Star” and the Baseball word art comes from the Sports Mania Cart.  I used the black out feature on my Gypsy to get rid of rest of the cut.  The stars are all from George and Basic Shapes cut at various sizes and the swirls are several different ones welded with my Gypsy and are from Ashlyn’s Alphabet.  I journaled at the top and bottom of the LO because I thought it would make the best use of space on the LO.

I blew up the photo on the title page on my scanner and reprinted it as n 8 X10 and then trimmed it down. Then I scanned the smaller photos as pairs and printed 2 of them per regular 4 x 6 photo sheet.  I used my 2” square punch to trim them to size.  I also used some little star buttons I had in my stash to add some interest to the page and mix things up. 

Tomorrow’s Friday and I have another project to share with you.