Crafty Thank You Card

The Martha Stewart Crafts cake cartridges are some of my top "go to" cartridges.  These cartridges were designed with cakes in mind but they have so much content that is equally useful for paper crafting projects.  The borders and sentiments are great for all of the typical card making occasions.

I own lots of Martha Stewart border punches but I find it frustrating sometimes that they don't exactly fit the space where I would like to use them.  With the cartridges and Design Studio or the Gypsy you can adapt any of the border images to fit the space perfectly.  For this card I used the border shown from the MS Elegant Cake cartridge and then adjusted the size to exactly five inches in Design Studio using the handle in the lower right corner.  On the Gypsy, you can use the proportional resizing to make the border the perfect size.

 

The "Thanks!" sentiment is also from the MS Elegant cartridge.

The sentiments all have shadow options which is a great timesaver.

I decided to add a stamped border from a new set that I found recently (at Marshall's - always check their stationery section when you are there).  I added some white pen stitching above and below the stamped border.

This is the stamp set from American Crafts.  I bought it for the wedding images but the border is good for all sorts of projects.

I wanted to use this paper from the DCWV "Crafty" stack.  This stack has lots of homespun, textured designs. 

In case you haven't seen this stack, here is a photo of the front.  I really like the sewing motifs (buttons, little scissors, etc.).

I wanted to be sure to center this striking design.  I am a bit compulsive about aligning and centering items and I always notice when someone just cuts from one end of the paper instead of thinking about the design of the paper.  I cut a strip with plenty of extra paper and adhered it to the border strip.

 

Then I carefully trimmed it even with the blue border strip on my small trimmer.

I added the sentiment and the decorative layer to a kraft cardstock A2 card.

The sentiment is raised on foam dots to add some dimension.

The sentiment needed a little more punch so I did some white pen stitching in the letters.

For a finishing touch, I tied some twine in a bow at the top of the card.  This is "cappucino" twine from The Twinery (I ordered the "original sampler pack" a while ago to try out the eight colors they offered at the time - they have added more colors since then and there is a larger sampler pack now called "colorful bunch" with 11 colors).

The final card has a ""crafty" homespun look and will be good to send to one of my crafty friends!

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Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all fathers!  I won't be able to be with my Dad (or my father-in-law) on Father's Day but I will certainly be thinking of them.  I hope that many of you are able to be with family today. If you have recently lost a father or father figure in your life, let this be a day of celebrating your memories of him.

I'll have lots to share about my trip when I am home in a few days - these are just a couple of photos from the past few days.  Several of you correctly guessed my location.  I made a great discovery here and bought something that will provide lots of paper crafting fun to share with you!

Have a wonderful day!

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ATCs - Flying

 I haven't posted many ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) lately.  The groups that I was in with a regular monthly commitment ended, however, I still participate in a group where the members sign up on a month to month basis depending on the theme and their schedules.   The theme for June was "Flying" and all sorts of ideas popped into my head when I first heard the theme.

The idea that wouldn't go away was based on the song "Let's Go Fly a Kite" from the movie version of Mary Poppins.  When I was in grade school, I got a "record player" for my birthday (long before mp3s were ever heard of!).  The record album that came with it was the soundtrack from Mary Poppins and I played it over and over again.    I remembered the kite on the "Imagine More" cartridge that came with the Imagine machine and decided that it would be perfect for my cards.

I took this photo of the sky one day when it was particularly beautiful and I have used it as my desktop image on my computer for quite a while now.  So I had the perfect background ready for my kite to fly.

I brought the photo into my Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus 3.0 software and dropped it into a photo frame set up at 3 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches.  ATCs are 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches and I wanted to layer my image on a background of cardstock.  Then I added the text, using the "Freestyle Script" font.  I put the "Let's Go" at the top and placed the words "fly a kite" on a text path that I drew, repeating the phrase twice.  The words are white to fit in with the clouds in the sky.

I grouped the text and photo and copied and pasted to create a full 8 1/2 x 11 page with nine copies of the top layer for my ATCs.  I printed this on my home printer on matte photo paper and cut up the layers.

Next I printed and cut some kites with the Imagine on textured American Crafts white cardstock (this cardstock works very well in the Imagine).  There is still some "creep" when I print and cut with my Imagine.  Items that are at the top left of the mat print and cut almost perfectly aligned but as you get further to the right and lower on the page the alignment is off.  I think I have to do some more work on the advanced calibration.  In this case, the kites were small enough that they did not print too far down the page so the difference in alignment, while noticeable, was not bad enough to cause a problem for my little cards.

I used the custom setting to eliminate the extra border around the image and here you can see the detailed cut around the kite's tail.  I used my bone folder to help lift it from the mat without tearing.

I used a light green cardstock that coordinated with the color in the kite as the card base (cut at 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches).  It looked a bit too plain so I added an additional layer in bright yellow/gold cardstock cut at 3 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches to add a fine line of color and create a frame for the sky.

A couple of foam dots allow the kites to "fly" in the sky.

I let the thin tail just drift over the words.  A little orange gem sticker adds a bit of sparkle in the center of the kite.

The group was small this month so I only needed to make seven cards.  I always print a few extra images to allow for errors in cutting or assembling and I may use the extra pieces on other projects.

ATCs are supposed to be limited editions and are signed and numbered on the back - since the group was small this month I simply hand wrote all of the information (sometimes I create the backs digitally as well - particularly for a larger group).

I hope you have a wonderful weekend - maybe you'll have a chance to fly a kite!

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More new cartridges -

 

Six new Cricut cartridges were announced on Thursday - the second of three "Hello Thursdays" for the month of June. These are all full cartridges. 

The six new cartridges are 

Ornamental Iron 2  

Summer Celebrations

Autumn Celebrations 

Phrases

Sophisticated (designed by Teresa Collins)

and Traveler  (exclusive to Creative Memories). 

The first five cartridges are already available on the Cricut.com site for $59.99, click HERE to go to the page (Phrases is showing out of stock at the moment).  One cartridge (Traveler) is exclusive to Creative Memories.  I have ordered this cartridge (consultants can order one of each new item early) but it won't be available to purchase on my Creative Memories website until July 1st.  I'll post a review once I have received it and have a chance to try it out.

If you click on the colorful names of each cartridge, the link will take you to the Cricut.com product page for the cartridge.  There do not seem to be any "Look Books" for these cartridges.

You should also visit the Official Cricut Blog to see more information and projects featuring the new cartridges.   Click HERE to go to the post for Hello Thursday.

You can see even more projects on the Hello Thursday blogs:

Joy's blog 

Melanie's blog

Robyn's blog

Tammy's blog 

Mixology Crafts


Retiring Cartridges

Tinkerbell & Friends 
Cars
Pooh Font
Mickey Font 
Happily Ever After and  
Dinosaur Tracks
 

Six more cartridges will be retiring.  These are all on sale for $34.99 on the Cricut.com site right now (click the titles to link to the site) and can probably be found at other retailers for competitive prices.  If you want to see the full content of these cartridges you should go to the Cartridge Library on Cricut.com where you can find PDFs of the full handbooks.

When I checked Thursday night, the new cartridges had not been added to the Cartridge Library and there was not an update for Design Studio to include them.

I have just assembled the information and links for you in this post - I haven't really had a chance to look over the cartridge images in detail.  The Creative Memories cartridges have been excellent so far and it looks like Traveler will also be very good.  Ornamental Iron 2 is just the sort of thing I like and the designs on Sophisticated look useful to me as well.  The Summer and Autumn Celebrations cartridges and the Phrase cartridge will probably be ones that I'll need to see in detail to decide if there are enough images that I would use.  The style and type of layering on the Celebrations cartridges doesn't appeal to me at first glance and I am not sure how many of the Phrases I would use - I like to make my own phrases and word art.

(Can you guess where I am from the photos?  I am sure that a few of you can!).

Here is a sneak peek at part of the project I was going to post today (until I remembered that this was a month full of "Hello Thursdays").

link to Discussion Day #5 - Life is too Short...


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A Quick bit of Inspiration...

I did not make this card.  It's actually rather ironic that I am posting it today since I just politely turned down the opportunity to post some Provo Craft Father's Day projects on my blog.  I had seen these popping up in a lot of places and I felt like most of you would have seen them already.  I usually post only my own work but sometimes I see something that appeals to me as a source of inspiration that I want to share with you.

This was a card that my son and future daughter-in-law received at the party.  It is so "on trend" with the damask patterns and black and white color scheme.  On the back it says "Paper Magic Group."  As soon as I saw it I thought "something like this would be easy to make with all of my crafty toys!"

Most of the detail is printed but there is some ribbon and pearls added for dimension.  The cake stand itself is printed on the card front - metallic and embossed.

I thought it would be fun to use this card as the inspiration to create a wedding card.  I don't mean to suggest that you should try to replicate the card - just see what it leads you to design.  I have a small prize for one random winner to be chosen from those of you who take up the challenge (just a hint - it does include some black and white)!

I will show you what I did for the last two challenges soon - thanks to the people who gave them a try.  This weekend is going to be very busy for us (as I am sure it is for many of you with end of the school year/beginning of summer activities).  I hope you find some time to be crafty!

Please use the linky -  if you need directions please visit the challenge post HERE to see some step by step screen shots.

link to Discussion Day #5 - Life is too Short...

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