Shhhh……Mr. Benny is 70!!!

My father-in-law turned 70 on Memorial Day. I met him for the first time just short of his 50th birthday and he doesn’t look a day older to me! He is the nicest man I know. I am very lucky to have him as my father-in-law and grandfather to my boys.

He always gets a kick out of my handmade cards, so of course I had to make one for his birthday! He always says funny little sayings like, “shiny as a new nickel”. So, I used the Nifty Fifties cartridge with it’s fifties lingo phrases,  and it coordinated so perfect with my left over papers from Club Scrap’s Cruisin’ collection! (I don’t have much of it left, that was one of my favorite kits.)

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Wild Card Graduation!

I used the Cricut Wild Card cartridge to make this cute graduation card, using Club Scrap cardstock of course! My Gypsy came in handy to fine tune the dimensions, instead of FTP.  I cut the envelope to match too. I forget to use this cartridge!

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Club Scrap Die Cutter’s Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Club Scrap Die Cutters Blog Hop!  Get ready  to see some awesome projects using a variety of die cutting machines and fabulous Club Scrap paper.

http://wbellino.blogspot.com/You Are HERE!!! http://craftchaos.blogspot.com/ (Go HERE next to see what Hetty has created!) http://www.pagesofpictures.com/ http://chrissiecreations.blogspot.com/ http://scraphappysistersink.blogspot.com/ http://www.capecodscrapper.blogspot.com/ http://www.creatingwithconnie.blogspot.com/ http://www.scrappingthoughts.com/ http://orezonia.blogspot.com/ http://squirrelyart.blogspot.com/

I just bought the Cricut cartridge Everyday Pop Up Cards,  and this was the perfect opportunity for me to rip open the box and start creating.  I immediately stuck the cart in my machine and chose an image to cut. I am used to making cards with the Just Because cartridge and usually use the Fit to Page feature,  if I’m not using my Gypsy. Hmmmm…. FTP didn’t work. The images ended up being huge and *GASP*  I wasted two sheets of my precious CS paper!  Before I screwed up anything else, I Googled the cart looking for some instructional videos. Turns out I wasn’t the only one having trouble with the cartridge. I found Crafting with Katie's blog and a video tutorial making a pop up card! She used her Gypsy to figure out the correct sizes of her images…duh!  Club Scrap’s monthly kit for May is Papillion (butterfly in French…*WINK*). I was inspired by one of CS’s members, Marilyn, who posted a 3-D butterfly card in CS’s forum. I decided to make a card using  the butterfly image…

I really liked the CS stamp “Beautiful Soul” from March 2011 and opted to use that instead of one of the die cuts in the cartridge handbook.

  

I wanted to make a 3-D butterfly for the front of the card, so I cut the butterfly images three times on vellum paper. I cut the overlay image  too and used cardstock from the Raku kit, also from March 2011.  The other cardstock is from the May 2011 Papillion kit.

 

I love my Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive for gluing all the layers I cut with the Cricut!

The tricky part was trying to figure out how to adhere the pop up. I scored the pop up tab at each notch and had to play with it for a while to figure out “which way was up”!

I wanted the card to open left to right, not up and down. It took a little wrangling, but it ended up working like I wanted.

Marilyn’s instructions were to “Peel adhesive off of one left wing and one right wing. Adhere. Repeat. You should have 3 butterflies stuck together. The center one has both wings attached to one other. Each one on the end has only 1 wing attached. Now peel off the last two pieces of adhesive and stick onto your original image on the card, matching exactly. Fluff the wings and you're good to go.” So I trimmed the antennae off two of the butterflies and glued them together…

I love how it turned out…first try!  And of course, Stickles for bling!    Oooohhh!!! I wanted to share this too… I made a light box for taking photographs for my blog. My craft room light is too “yellow” and I wanted the pictures to be brighter without having to photograph them in daylight. I bought some foam board and improvised, after I saw one on the internet for $75. Five pieces of foam board and some packing tape, less than $20.00. I rarely have to use my flash either.  

Thanks for looking and be sure to scroll back to the top for the next blog hop link!

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Viva Las Vegas!

My sisters and my oldest and dearest friend surprised me with a trip to Las Vegas for my 40th birthday. My sister travels often for business and has been to Vegas numerous times, so she tailor-made our itinerary.  It was an AWESOME trip! More pages to follow,I am putting a digital book together for each of them…

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Die Cutter’s Blog Hop!

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Thank you notes….

Ooof! I hated sending thank you notes after graduation. I would take one look at that little white card and get overwhelmed. I have to fill up the whole thing???  I had a good laugh a few years ago when my cousin sent me a thank you note for her graduation gift…” Thanks for the cash. I’ll try not to spend it on something that will make my parents worry.”  I think I still have that note somewhere! 

Creativity, limited writing space = CUTE card! I used my Just Rite Monogram Stamp inked with  Rangers Big and Bossy ink pad and embossed with gold embossing powder. I found a circle punch that was the perfect size to punch the finished images out, so I don’t stress over getting the image straight! I corner chomped with the Crop-A-Dile corner chomper. Done…

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Mother’s Day 1969

I posted the small picture of my Mom and I as my profile picture on Facebook as a Mother’s Day tribute. I encouraged her to tell the story of it on my FB page as a comment on the picture. I have heard the story many times, but I always like when Mom tells it. My Dad saw the picture and tried to find the original newspaper article that went with it, (Mom has it tucked away somewhere!) Since he couldn’t find it, he contacted the Associated Press to see if he could get an original copy of the clipping. They emailed it to him in four pieces! He sent it to me to put something together for her…this is what I ended up with! I love it. I think if I had asked her to write the quote for the layout, it wouldn’t have been as perfect.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you!

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Beau’s Baptism Card

 

My niece was  baptized today!  She wore the christening gown that my 86 year old Memaw handmade for me 42 years ago. I have a house full of boys. Maybe one day I’ll have granddaughters who will wear it. It was definately made with love.

Sweet girl…she smiled the whole time.

Of course the gift I am in the process of making for her isn’t ready (I am famous for this!), so I made her a card for the occasion…

I made my own iris folding template! I am so proud! I drew the christening gown outline and with the help of the instructions on the Simplicity of Iris Folding site,  I made my template.

Big feat for me…cutting out the design with a craft knife!

I used the metallic opal vellum paper from the  Club Scrap Vogue kit and the blue cardstock is from the Lotus Pond kit. I made the quilled roses…it’s been a long time since I have done it! I used pearl metallic fabric paint for the faux pearls.

 

 

I uh, forgot to ink the edges…I masked it with my cut out. It worked. It would have looked better if I had done it before I finished though!

I have designed a quillling piece that I am making for her gift. Maybe I’ll have it finished before HER children are baptized!

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