Cupcakes :)

Hi Everyone!

I made 3 cards tonight and they all have cupcakes (I cut from the Create A Critter Cricut cartridge)!

Voila!

I used various shades of orange and red solid papers for this one :) I ran the red square (behind the cupcake) through Cuttlebug, using the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I layered my border-punched border on the bottom of the card... I really like how the double border looks. After punching out my cupcake top, I embossed it using the D'Vine Swirls embossing folder (which I've seen many people do to make it look like swirly icing)... and to add a little more dimension I rubbed a pale orange ink pad along the embossed image. I must say that I have joined the D'Vine Swirl & Swiss Dots Club! While researching which embossing folder I should buy with the Cuttlebug... I read many ladies said D'Vine Swirl and Swiss Dots were their go-to folders... and now I'm one of those ladies!



 I used the same cupcake techniques for this card... The brown designer paper is from the Let's Party! Pyramid Paper pad (and I must say, I'm in love with the papers in this pad). The yellow cardstock is embossed using the Spots & Dots embossing folder. I also decided to add some purple buttons, just for fun!

I love, love, love how this card turned out! I ran a strip of paper through my border punch and then matted it with some orange card stock. I suppose it's hard to see, but the D'Vine Swirls design on the cupcake is embellished with some micro white sparkles :) I also added some purple buttons to tie in another colour from the background paper (Let's Party!).

Alright peeps! That's it for now!

I need to make at least another card by the end of the month to keep up with my 10 cards per month goal on Disboards :) so I'll be back soon!



Baby Shower FUN!

I can finally post the decorations I made for my cousin's baby shower!!!!

I'm very happy with how they turned out and everyone loved them! They were very well received... and I may be making a lot more of these in the near future :) (Thanks to my aunt for pretty much selling everyone my ideas!)

So, I have shown everyone a sneak peak of the banner before, here it is again:

Each letter I believe is cut at 3 inches and the bases/scallops are 5 1/2 inches :) All the letters are tied together with red and yellow ribbon.

And this was the final product:

I also made 2 centerpieces for the gift table and food table:

I love the Create A Critter Cricut cartridge... it is by far my favourite and I love the variety of the animals! For these centerpieces, I went along with a farm theme and cut 8 different farm animals in different sizes and displayed them in a pail, which the kids can eventually use at the beach, at home, wherever (they'll have plenty of ideas what to do with them once their imagination starts kicking in!)

I also made washcloth lollipops as centerpieces for each table... people loved them so much they wanted to take them home, but they were part of my gift to my cousin lol. Here's a pic one with an animal centerpiece:

My beautiful gift, that did not get unoticed.... at first glance, some of the ladies thought it was actually the cake :) They are washcloth cupcakes.... made with 2 washcloths and I cut some cupcake wrappers from my new Cricut cart 3 Birds - Life's a Party! (This cartridge is pretty cool cause it has different themes for birthdays - pirates, aliens, princess, etc. And each theme comes with its own themed cupcake wrapper... adorable!!)

And a close up:

And last but not least.... the thumbprint alternative guestbook!!!

I've seen this idea before, usually for weddings but I thought it'd be super cute to make one for a baby shower! And it would look amazing in the babies' nursery.

This is the final product (for all of you interested in how it turned out!):

It all started with 2 little piggies (from Create A Critter) holding on to strands of string... until people inked up their thumbs and left their thumbprint to create balloons. Some people left their thumbprint outside of the cluster... and there were little itty bitty baby thumbprints in the corner... what to do? Make them fly away balloons! I love, love, love how it turned out :) Hope my cousin loves it just as much!

Once people got the hang of what they were supposed to do... people really got into the idea and urged other people to come and leave their print :) Again, very well received!

Well, that's it for today peeps!

I am gonna try to work on some cards tonight... gotta get back into my groove now that I'm home from vacation, the baby shower is done... and well, there's still cleaning and massive decluttering to do around the apartment, but let's face it - making cards is so much more enjoyable (and relaxing!)

Oh, and for the sake of it, though I have posted it before... my baby card for my cousin:

P.S. I promise I will never leave the blog for 3 weeks again!

I'm back.... with a reveal tomorrow!

Hey everyone!

I am alive and well... but don't have anything to show you today... I promise tomorrow (or possibly Sunday) I'll have some cool projects to show you. I've been making decorations for my cousin's baby shower and have given teases here and there about what I'm making but I will finally be able to share everything after the shower tomorrow!

Stay tuned :)

A birthday card and name art!

Hey everyone...

Unfortunately this will be my last post for about 2 weeks since I'm going to visit family and will not have access to any of my craft goodies! But... fortunately, when I get back I can make as many cards as I want because I stocked up on glue tape today!!

So, in my last post I mentioned I need to make a card for Granny (my boyfriend's amazing grandmother) and here is the final product!

I used my new favourite thing, the Cuttlebug! and the happy birthday embossing folder on lilac card stock, matted with citrus-y orange. The little flowers are cut from my favourite Cricut cartridge Create-A-Critter, and I believe these flowers are the hippo's accessory (for those of you curious). I curled up the petals slighty before securing them and completing them with a purple rhinestone in the center of each one! I whipped this up pretty quickly and I'm sure granny will love it!

We'll also be visiting my boyfriend's mom, sisters, niece and nephew! We haven't seen the kids for about 20 months... and 20 months is a long time when they're so little! I'm so excited to see how big they've gotten and if they still love me more than they love their uncle :P

I decided once we finalized our trip that I wanted to make something for both kids... and this is what I came up with - framed name art!

It was actually my boyfriend's idea to make a swimming monkey for the under-water themed one! All shapes are cut with Create-A-Critter, and some shapes are altered in Craftroom... for example, the little googles were made by welding some shapes together! The font is Craftroom Basics.

I'm so excited to give these to the kids/their mommies!

That's it for now... I'll be back in a little while with some more projects! Baby shower decoration projects! I'll give you guys a little sneak-peek...

 This is the baby banner so far...

See ya real soon! (I'm really starting to miss Disney World...)

Side-step Baby card

Hi hi!

I was looking through my card pins on pinterest for some "pinspiration" and I saw that I pinned this. I got really excited and thought this could be my next project! Lately I've been having baby paper creation fever! I have come across so many cute baby banners, baby shower cards/invites, centerpieces and a ton of other goods made from paper... butI suppose I brought this upon myself by volunteering/being hired to make some baby decorations for an upcomming baby shower.

So last night I watched this tutoral:

And this morning I made my own versions :)

Baby Girl Card:

I used white/silver rhinestones for the dresser knobs and adhered the dresser drawers with dimensionals. I cuttlebugged (obviously!!!) the  purple background... created a simple crib using a bunch of rectangles in Craftroom. I made a teeny tiny teddybear from Create-A-Critter (which was such a pain since the paper kept unsticking to my mat). I used the baby onsies from the Craftroom Basics digital cart and coloured them with my copics :). I love, love, LOVE how it turned out and I think it may be one of the cutest baby cards I've ever seen!

I also made a Twin Boys Card:

These were my first attempts at a side-step card and I love how they turned out... and the construction of the base is not as complicated as one would think.... I'll definitely be making more step cards in the future and hope I can make many more baby cards (though I only know a handful of women who are pregnant/recently had a baby or two!)

Not sure if I'm going to work on any more cards today... I need to resticky my mat. I'll probably share another card or two sometime next week before I go to T&T to celebrate my boyfriend's granny's birthday :) (Oooh, yes!! Another birthday card to make!)

Cuttlebug = my favourite thing (at least for now!)

So, I ordered a cuttle bug on New Years Eve and patiently waited for it to arrive in the mail and it FINALLY came yesterday! I swear the week felt like one of the longest weeks of my life... it's kinda funny how excited I was to get it (and I'm still very excited to own it!). I think I was mainly so excited because I had 2 ideas for cards I wanted to make and I really didn't want to forget them!  So last night, I took it out of the box, opened all 12 embossing folders I ordered with it and played all night!

Here is what I made:

Idea #1 - for my sister's birthday

I really wanted to use the Happy Birthday embossing folder for the background but also wanted the card to fit 'landscape' so I decided to use 2 different shades of purple.
In Cricut Craft Room, which I also recently started using, I made a spool of thread by welding a yarn ball from the Create-a-Critter cartridge, a square and two trapezoids... and this is what it created! I also ran the orange 'thread' through the Forest Branches embossing folder to give it some 'thready' texture :)


Idea #2 - for Valentine's Day (initially, but I already showed it to BF since I was so excited about it... so I'll have to make him a new card for Vday)

So I saw a bunch of mitten/winter cards when I was googling/pinning and thought that one of the embossing folders from the Oriental Weave set would make mittens look knitted... so I was determined to make knitted-looking mittens... only problem was, none of my Cricut cartridges has mitten cuts. So.... I created mittens in Craft Room (I love this software!) and made mittens from a fish shape, an oval and rounded rectangle... and voila! Mittens! I was so excited to run them through the Cuttlebug and I think they turned out pretty nice :) I also used a white gel pen to give a stich border to the card (thought it made it look more cozy).


Now, today I made 2 cards just because I wanted to play with the Cuttlebug, and this is what I made:

While googling/pinning Cuttlebug card idea while I waited all week for the machine to arrive, I saw a lot of cool ideas including single-coloured embossed cards and running envelop flaps through the Cuttlebug! So, of course I had to try this envelope thing and I wanted to use the D'Vine Swirls embossing folder but I wanted to make a card first for it to go with. I used D'Vine Swirls as the background, added some blue ribbon, and some black accents, a touch of rhinestones... and I made a wedding card! I lined the envelope with matching blue paper, secured it to the envelope then ran the flap of the envelope through the Cuttlebug and voila!

Another cool technique I saw was running aluminum foil through the Cuttlebug... and of course I wanted to try this too! I used the Clocksworth embossing folder with the foil to create a techy/inside of a computer/electronic background. It's so shiny! Sorry for the quality of the picture, I took it with my phone so that I could post it quickly.

Anyways, that's it for today... I think I may work on some other cards later... but I think I'm gonna go wake up my boyfriend now because our 30 minute nap turned into a 2 hour nap for him. It's almost time for dinner!

- Alicia

Welcome!!

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my new blog, where I hope to share the cards and other paper projects I work on. I started making cards in April/May 2010 and I thought to myself... "hmmm, I think I could really get into this hobby!". Of course my boyfriend said "yeah, freakin' right!" and thought I'd be on to the next hobby in a couple weeks time. Well, I'm proud to say that it's January 2012 and I have made well over 100 cards and have stuck to this hobby since I first fell in love with it (for the most part, I also fell for LEGO recently and think it's absolutely amazing).

Maybe I should make a new year's resolution... that would involve a lot of thinking, I don't know. I do know that I'd like to make many more cards this year, try some new things and hopefully sell my cards and start up my Etsy shop for real.

So here's to blogging about my card-making experiences, tips... and sharing my creations with the world! (Well, the 1 or 2 people who may read this blog).

- Alicia