Happy Fall Turkey Card: FCCB Challenge #34 "Bird Bonanza"!

This week's challenge at Fantabulous Cricut is called "Bird Bonanza": make a project featuring a bird or soemthing to do with a bird.  I LOVE BIRDS!!!  It was hard for me to pick what kind of bird I wanted to use, but since we're coming up on Thanksgiving now, I decided a little turkey guy would be perfect!

This cut is from Simply Charmed...one of my newest (and most favorite) cartridges!  This cartridge to me is like an update of one of my go-to cartridges, Doodlcharms.  LOVIN' IT!  I cut the sentiment and all layers of the turkey with it, then just added some brads in the corner and ribbon at the bottom.

Hope you'll head over to FCCB and link up your own bird project for you chance to win this week's FANTABULOUS prize!

Happy Crafting!!!  :)

Fall Wine Glass Charms: FCCB Challenge #32 Leaf Theme

This week's challenge at Fantabulous Cricut is to create a project using a leaf for Fall!

I haven't made wine glass charms in a while, and thought this was the perfect opportunity to make some new ones to celebrate this gorgeous season!  They're soooooo easy and really turned out pretty cute!  To make the leaves, I used the Storybook cartridge and cut the leaf (shift "B") out of clear shrink plastic at 2 1/2" three times.  I inked each leaf using a different color of Adirondack (Tim Holtz) alcohol ink with a sponge dauber.  Then I punched a hole at the top of each with a standard size hole punch.

To shrink the plastic, I used my heat gun.  The two sides of the leaves wanted to overlap a little while shrinking and not lay completely flat, which actually made them look a little more "realistic" and less one-dimensional.  One shrunk, I added them to a silver ring and added some coordinating glass beads and the ring of leaves to a metal charm loop.

That's it!  Hope you check out Fantabulous Cricut's FANTABULOUS prize for this week and enter your own Fall leaf project for your chance to win!

Have a creative day!  :)

Halloween Treat Bags For Teachers!

With Halloween coming up, I wanted to give the Mess Maker's preschool teachers something sweet.  I came up with little treat bag covers to dress-up a plain little cello bag with their favorite candies!

For each bag cover, I cut a piece of 12x12 black carstock in half (2- 6"x12" pieces).  I trimmed one of the pieces to 10", then scored one end of each piece at 2 1/2".  I scored the other end of the 12" piece at 2".  Then I adhered the two 2 1/2" sections together to form one long strip.  I folded along the score lines and folded the 2" flap over the end of the shorter piece and had my cover.  Then I placed the cello bag with candy inside the cover, punched holes at the top and threaded ribbon through to secure it.  Here is a side view:

To embellish, I covered the front with cute little pumpkin paper by the Paper Studio (Hobby Lobby).  I added a die-cut pumpkin (Create a Critter) and printed "No Tricks...Only Treats!" onto it.  I tied green leaf ribbon to the stem and adhered it on the front.  Then I cut two candies from the Mini Monsters cartridge and adhered them on the flap.

Hope the teachers will get a kick out of these "sweet treats"!  :)

Have a creative day!

"Little Pumpkin" Layout

Another layout made on my scrapbooking retreat...the orange scallop edge cardstock square was cut with my Cricut.  I like that I can make any color of cardstock into a decorative edge piece, instead of paying a higher price for pre-cut shapes!!!  :)  I also used my Cricut for the title.  Thanks for looking!

"FALL" Layout

 This is a layout I made at my weekend scrapbooking retreat...it's based on a design I found in one of my scrapbook magazine subscriptions from a while back and I honestly can't remember which one.  I used my Cricut to cut the letters and used the negative space from each letter to trace the letter onto my photos.  I cut them out, then matted them with cardstock and trimmed around the edges.  I also cut some pumpkins (Doodlecharms) for accents.  Thanks for looking!  :)

Projects From My Scrapbooking Retreat!!!

I was lucky enough to get almost three full days of scrapbooking this weekend....without any distractions!!!!  Wow, I'm one lucky girl!  Just wanted to share some of the projects I made.  The projects pictured below are all made with CTMH products...and will be featured at my Launch Party in a couple of weeks.  Check out my CTMH Website for more information...thanks for looking!  :)

"Autumn" Banner For The Mantle

I have to admit that I have had Cricut Design Studio for about two years and have NEVER used it!!!  So the other night, after watching an infomercial for the new Cricut Gypsy, I decided to play around with it...OMG!  It's AWESOME!!!  So much easier than I anticipated and sooooo many features that help customize your creations.  LOVE IT!!!  So now I don't feel like I need to run out and purchase the Gypsy on the release day!  :)

This banner is a creation that meets the criteria for several current challenges:

1.  SPCC:  Hoppin' Combo (orange, green, light brown, dark brown color combo)

2.  Creative Belli Blog:  Create a fall/halloween themed item

3.  Use It Challenges:  Challenge #27

4.  Practical Scrappers:  Blog Hop Challenge

To make the triangles for this banner, I used the birthday hat image from Doodlecharms.  I resized and stretched the image in DS and then cut them out on dark brown cardstock.  Then I cut the same triangles out of this beautiful Basic Grey paper and adhered them together.  Because the short edge of the triangles were somewhat rounded (that's how the image is cut), I had to use my trimmer to cut the edge into a straight, even line to form a perfect triangle.

Using scraps from the patterned paper, I cut 1/2" strips the same length as the tringle edges, cut them with scallop-edge scissors and glued them on all three sides of the triangles.  Then I inked all edges.  I punched holes in each upper corner and connected the triangles with light brown ribbon.  To make the charms, I cut small leaves from Doodlecharms, inked the edges, and then muted the tops with chalk ink.  Using a needle and thread, I attached them to each bow, allowing them to dangle between the triangles.

To spell "AUTUMN", I used the Storybook cartridge and cut the letter bases out of dark brown cs.  I cut the accent/layer out of medium brown and matted them on the back instead of the front.  Using a flourish stamp covered in liquid glue, I then stamped randomly over each letter.  I sprinkled brown flocking over the glue and shook off the excess.  I heated the flocked images with my embossing gun to set the powder.

For the first and last triangles, I cut leaves from Storybook out of dark brown cs and flocked them as well.  I also cut an acorn out of orange cs (using Doodlecharms) and inked/distressed it.  I added two layered flowers with a brad center and layered the embellishments on the triangle.

To finish, I took the flourish stamp I used to do the flocking, and used dark brown ink to stamp randomly over the triangles around the letters.  It was a somewhat time-consuming project, but I LOVE the results!!!

Thanks so much for looking!!!  :)