CCC#1 - part 4

3 Birds on Parade -project #4 (last but not least)


Wow! Can you believe it, 4 projects form the first cartridge in my collection. I sure hope I don't start with great momentum, only to burn out before I'm even a month in! :) I'll try not too!!


Remember project #1 - that cute little birdie on the perch? I really loved that bird and wanted to make him into a shaped card. So once again I pulled out my Gypsy and got to work!
To create the base of the shaped card, I welded two of the bird shadows together at the top of the head (be sure to flip the top one both up/down and side/side). The bird and all the layers are also cut at 5".

After I made this guy and got him all together, I realized that it needed a liner on the inside of the card, since the base was dark brown. :( I went back to the Gypsy and cut the main bird layer but I hid all the interior cut lines . . . leaving me with the liner you see below . . .At this point I didn't really like the birds eye's - they were kinda empty, just dark holes. :(

So I switched to white for my base (which mean no more liners!) and made my own eyes 9and eyelashes for the girls) with a black marker.

Much better don't ya' think??Here's the whole flock together. :)Aren't they just the cutest things you've seen? I figure I can always stamp or write something like "Just Chicken in", "A little birdie told me...", "Happy Bird-day". . . they are good for several occasions!

Be sure to "CHICK" back in to see what my next cartridge will be . . .

Thanks for looking! Please leave me a comment!

Supplies; Patterned Paper-SU! retired Welcome Neighbor & Print Pack paper stacks; Cardstock-SU!

CCC #1 - part 3

3 Birds on Parade -project #3

I must have been hungry for something off the grill when I picked this one! :) This little guy is on page 55. I cut him and all his layers at 3.5" and the phrase at 1.79" . . . then I decided I wanted a mini hat for the phrase so I cut that one at 1.97"

I really wanted to use a craft card I had available, but it looked too plain. So I cut up the card and matted a piece of it on a piece of Real red pattern paper from the SU! prints pack (retired) and I inked the edges to give it that 'char-grilled' look! :) Once I got it all together, something was missing, so I added the 'sizzle' marks by hand . . . also, when I cut the grill, I used white for the back layer (and I 'hid' the cuts on my gypsy) which worked well, but the color was off . . . so I got out my gray marker and colored in the bits that needed work. I'ts not pretty, but I think it makes the point.

Supplies; Patterned Paper-SU! retired Prints Pack: Cardstock-SU!

What do you think?

Cricut Cartridge Challenge (CCC) #1-part 2

3 birds on Parade - project #2

For my next project I really wanted to do a round scallop card, so I found one on page 52 of Wild Card.

I cut the card at 5.5" and the liner at 5.38" but I used my Gypsy to take out or "hide" the cuts inside the scallops and inside the liner. Next I cut my bird (and all his layers) from page 49 of 3 Birds on Parade at 3.5" and I put him on an action wobble!

The sentiment is from MyPinkStamper Punnylicious stamp set.

Don't you want to know what the centers of my flowers are? . . . check them out . . . look close . . . can you guess what they are?

HOT GLUE!! A while back I got some "faux wax stiks" for my hot glue gun, you know to do a wax seal? Well that didn't really work out, but I did find that if you drop little drops of this colored (pearly/metallic) hot glue onto the Ranger no stick mat and let them set, you have your very own set of flat back pearls! And the best part is that you can make them in multiple sizes!!

Supplies; Patterned Paper-SU! retired Sweet Pea paper stack; Cardstock-SU! and PaperTreyInk

Aren't they cute! What do you think??

Cricut Cartridge Challenge (CCC) #1

3 Birds on Parade -project #1

The first image that jumped out at me was on page #1 :) I just love this simple little birdie! But as I flipped through the book I found the really cute perch on page #77 . . . I decided I had to use it with the cute little birdie on page 1. I got out my gypsy and went to work.

I had a set of long (#10) cards I picked up in the discount bin at one of my local scrapbook stores. Since I wanted to use the bird perch, I figured these long cards would be perfect, but they had a weird fold/opening- so I improvised! This is what I came up with . . .see the weird opening? I really like the way it turned out! Just in case anyone wanted to know what kind of cards they were . . . here's a picture of my card next to the packaging . . . and yes I scored them for $1.50!! :)
Perch was cut at 5", bird at 1.71" and sentiment was cut at 1.5"
Supplies; Patterned Paper-SU! retired Sweet Pea paper stack; Cardstock-SU! and PaperTreyInk; misc. ribbon

Thanks for stopping by! Please leave me a comment, I'd love to know what you think!

Challenging myself - you benefit

I've been wanting to organize or alphabetize my cricut cartridges and handbooks for a while now. I finally did it with the help of my computer (since it can alphabetize in seconds) I created a list of all my cartridges and HOLY MOLY was I surprised to see how many cartridges I have. 77! Really? 77!?? That's everything from original cartridges, gypsy cartridges and imagine cartridges. Holy Moly! If my husband asks, they were all free! ;)

I can honestly and pathetically tell you that I have not used nearly half of these, not even once. SAD! Apparently I'm a COLLECTOR not a USER. :) So I am challenging myself to use each and every cartridge. By putting this challenge out here for the world to see I'm more likely to actually do this! :)
I am going to go thru each cartridge and make 2-4 projects (mostly cards). My plan (which is subject to change) is to post a project everyday Sat./Sun. and Weds./Thurs. - so theoretically I could do a cartridge a week or ever 2 weeks depending on how inspired I am by that cartridge.
So let's see, 77 cartridges at a cartridge a week means I would have enough content to post for the next year (or longer if I do more projects =2 weeks for a cartridge).

Do you think I can do it? I'm not 100% sold, but I'm going to give it a shot! At least once a week you should see something . . . stay tuned!!

Since I organized my cartridges, I thought you might like to see how I store them.
I take them all out of their boxes (with the exception of the imagine cartridges) and I keep them tucked away in a drawer like this . . .

I keep the handbooks and overlays (alphabetized) in photo boxes, and the cartridges in a Stampin' Up! punch box tin. A friend of mine had given me these plastic divider things with sticky on the bottom, and that's what I used to keep the cartridges in nice rows. This tin will hold 50 cartridges with a little room left for things like blade refills or markers (or carts turned the other direction).

As you can see, I take a sharpie marker and write the initials for the cartridge name on the top of the cartridge - this way I can easily identify which cartridge I want.


If you are interested in storing your carts this way, and don't have access to one of the SU! punch tins, please send me an e-mail- I've got 2 left. :)

Old Buzzard Birthday Basket

My creative sister made this awesome gift for a friend of hers, who is turning 60!!

Check this out! She made a birthday basket with a matching 'casket card'. She used the Life's A Party Cartridge for all the images.

What and awesome job! I'm so proud of her!

Black Current Cards

Recently while on a trip to Jo-Anns, I found the prettiest DieCutsWithAView (DCWV) stack called Black Current. I picked up a 12x12 stack (since it was on sale).
pardon the colors in the photos, they look a little muted and I don't know why. The paper in person is gorgeous with lots of pretty pink foiling!

I cut one of the patterned pages into pieces of 4"x 5 1/4" and matted them onto dark gray cardstock to make some cute card bases . . . I used a couple miscellaneous stamps, versamark, black embossing powder and some miscellaneous gray ribbon

. Viola! Easy Fast and Fabulous!