Disney Cruise Studio J Layout

I've taken advantage of our February special -- EXTENDED THROUGH MARCH 15TH!
I started documenting some of the activities of our Disney Cruise from last June.  We flew to Seattle and boarded the Disney Wonder for an Alaskan Cruise.  The weather couldn't have been better!

The layout called for 3 pictures on the lower right page.  Instead, I took one picture and put it into two picture wells.  Then I lined them up so that it looks like one picture.  Super easy!  I also want to point out that this paper packet is Surf's Up, but I wanted to incorporate reds so I changed the background and texture paper (originally Lagoon) to Outdoor Denim.  This technique is easy to do too!

One other extra I did on this layout was to add the stitching.  The original design did not include that.  Everything else you see on the layout was there for me to choose my color.  A layout like this could take you 15 minutes to put together.  Try it out at Studio J on my website and fall in love!

Graduation and Wedding Money Flower Pot

Yesterday I showed you the graduation money flower pot for Paper Cupcake's Blog Hop.  Today I want to share the sizes and techniques I used to create the "garden."

Graduation Bouquet

I am going to be sending this to the Close to my Heart Corporate office.  I hope they enjoy it.  Oh, and just so you know, I'll be sending fake money.  ;-)

The "f" key is the star today.  This is found on page 54 of the Artiste booklet.  I like to note where on the Cricut keypad any key is located using a Column Row numbering system.  So for most of these images you'll find the key at Column 5 Row 4 or C5R4.

The pot (3D Object) was cut at 6.25" which, when it's put together, will be 2.5" high.  It's not that big, but you know big things come in small packages.  As I mentioned yesterday, our two sided background and texture paper are ideal because of the contrasting lip without any extra work.

The single leaf is from Accent 4 and sized at 0.75".  I cut two leaves per flower.  The vine was cut at 1.75" and is found on 3D Object <shift>.  I think 6 vines fill in the pot well.

The flowers consist of three flat flowers from Accent 3 <shift> sized at 2.5" (cut two per flower), 2", and 1.5".  The center of the flower is the spiky 3D flower from Accent 1 <shift> and measures 3".

Last prep is cutting the congratulations from the Art Philosophy Cartridge.  The image is from one of the three stamp sets included in the bundle.  Found at C1R2 (and page 30), the <circle2> was cut at 1.75".  The background  and texture paper was cut at 2".

Wedding Bouquet

On to assembly:

Money ~
The individual bills are rolled longwise.  I made them as tight as I could knowing they would loosen up after I tied them.  But in order to tie them, I placed a paper clip at each end of the rolled bill.  I tied 9" of Twine around the bill and then removed the paper clips.

Flowers ~
You want to glue 4 petals of the 2.5" flat flower together.  This will form a pocket for the money to slide into.  Make sure you only put glue on the petals or you won't be able to slide the money in.  I then sponged all of the flowers, including the 3D flowers.  Form the 3D flowers into, well, 3D flowers, then glue the 3D flower to the flat flowers.

The graduation flowers I left plain.  The wedding flowers I jazzed up a bit with Opaque Pearls for the center.

Single Leaf ~
I attached them to the money with one glue dot per leaf.  Money is made from paper so there was no problem getting the dots to stick, and they came off too.

Vines ~
Four of the vines I glued directly to the pot edges.  The remaining two I placed into the pot along with the flowers.

Extras ~
For my graduation pot, I used 24" of Cranberry twine for the pot.  I liked having something tied around the pot, but it isn't necessary.  The wedding pot, on the other hand, I dressed up with Color-Ready Ribbon colored with Honey.  The ribbon would not stick to our Tombow tape runner.  It also doesn't stick really well to glue dots.  I didn't want to use Liquid Glass because that would leak through the ribbon and show.  What worked well was Scor-Tape (red tape and the likes should work equally as well).

Congratulations ~
I kept with the round theme and used the stamp I did.  For the graduation card I only added two bitty sparkles to the word dividers (I don't know if that's what they are really called, but it's obvious where I put them when you look at the stamped image).  The wedding ensemble was dressed up with a Black Glitter Button tied with Black Hemp to the skewer.

Wedding dressed up with a bow tie

Making everything stand up:
I put bird seed into the pot and put the flowers and extra vines into the pot.  We are done!!

Summary:

	Graduation	Wedding
Pot Paper	Scholastic	For Always
Flower Cardstock	Cranberry	Honey
Flower Sponge Color	Barn Red	Goldrush
Leaf and Vine Cardstock	New England Ivy	Olive
Congratulations Color	Cocoa	Black
Twine Color	Cranberry	Creme Brulee

Paper Cupcake Artiste Blog Hop

If you've come from Tasha Valdez's blog, you're on the right trail!  I hope you've been enjoying all of the samples from Close to my Heart's Artiste Cricut cartridge.

The "f" key (found on page 54) is really awesome! I might be biased, so you should discover for yourself how good it is -- oh, wait, the whole cartridge is awesome!!

Back to inspiring you! I started thinking about how to do something different with the "f" key.  Flowers in a pot are always a nice thing.  A bouquet would make for a lovely teacher, co-worker, and/or boss gift and liven up an area.

But then I thought about the upcoming graduation season.  How about a unique way to give money to someone?!

If you look closely you'll notice the stems of the flowers are money.  In this case $20 bills, but you can use whatever denomination you'd like.  And as many flowers as you want to make.

I took our Scholastic paper (this is for graduation after all) and cut the pot.  The best thing about our background and texture paper is that it is two sided so I only had to cut out one pot and got the lip with a contrasting pattern and color -- PERFECT!  Next, I cut the leaves and vine out of New England Ivy and the flowers from Cranberry cardstock.  The flowers are made from two cuts.  The back part is the flat flower cut at 3 different sizes.  The center is a 3-D flower.  I glued them together and whaalaa, a beautiful flower.

The final cut was the saying for the "garden" and that came from our equally awesome Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.  The saying came from the included stamp sets.  It says "congratulations".

Since I've taken so much of your time, you should come back tomorrow to see more of the step by step method I used to put these together.  And I have another sample for a wedding!

Hop on along to the beginning of our trail at Bren Yule's blog!  See you soon!  :)

Break Down of Spring has Sprung Card Workshop

I want to revisit the cards we made in January so you can see them individually and up close. Avonlea paper (available while supplies last until July '13) colors inspired each card.

  This first card used pattern #19 from the Make it from the Heart Volume 1 publication.  First, I rotated the card counterclockwise 90 degrees.  Next, I removed the square pieces from the pattern but replaced one square with the circle.  The silver banner is from our glitter paper.  At the time it came from our Whoo's your Valentine kit, but now you can order it on it's own (the silver comes with black and grey)!

"you're SWEET" (stamped in Chocolate), the owls (Twilight and Sweet Leaf), and the hearts (Chocolate again) are all stamps from the Whoo's your Valentine stamp set.  The larger owl has sparkle eyes.  :)  The Smokey Plum Cardstock is sponged in the same color and was added to the card because of the accents in the background and texture paper.

I really liked the way this card turned out.  The pattern used was #24 from the Make it from the Heart volume 1 publication.  The rose bunch is from the January Stamp of the Month set, stamped in black on white cardstock.  After about 5 minutes, I colored the roses with Cranberry Markers and the leaves with Olive Markers.  Our alcohol markers come in two shades which is why the images have so much depth.  The Black Grosgrain Ribbon takes the place of a paper piece but ties the card together well.  The Whisper paper was stamped with the words within the Avonlea Card Workshop on the Go kit.  And you probably can't tell from the picture, but a smaller rose image was stamped in second generation black on the white card base.  I had thought about putting bling on the roses and subsequently on the ribbon.  However, bling added nothing to the card and was removed.

I've seen variations of this last card within our idea book and other publications. This 4"x4" card used the Whoo's your Valentine stamp set and Avonlea paper.  The green and teal are exclusive to the paper packet.  The hearts are from the Artiste Cricut Cartridge at 3/4" and 1/2".  The corresponding heart was then stamped in Chocolate and Twilight filling the entire surface of the cut-out. A 1/2" banner was used for the saying and the "UR" was cut out and raised above the heart.  A little bling and the card is done! 





While any of these cards can be used for Valentine's day, they are generic enough to be used throughout the year.  I hope you enjoy these cards as much as I do!

February Stamp of the Month -- Home Sweet Home

Home is where you hang your hat.  Where your loved ones gather for memories.  Where you are the most comfortable...

Celebrate your home with this month's stamp of the month, "Home Sweet Home".  This D sized stamp can be yours for $5 with any $50 purchase or for $17.95.  Visit my website under promotions for more information on the below projects and inspiration.

Don't wait too long because this stamp set is only available until February 18, 2013!