Vicki's Warm Winter Wishes!

This card went thru many alterations as I created it. My original sketch was significantly different, but as I started putting it together, it called me in a different direction. You know what they say about 'best laid plans'... Sometimes, you just have to go where the creative juice pulls you!

The base of this card is from Cricut Wild Cart. I used the Father's Day card, because I liked the deckled edge. I used the blackout feature, so that I didn't get the frame cutout that comes with the basic card. I finally broke out my Cricut 12x24 paper to get a large enough card for what I was after. I used the envelope that matches the card, and I cut that FIRST...using the "Fit toPage" feature. By clicking on that button on my Expression, when I hit "Cut", I kept an eye on my digital screen on the Cricut - and watched what size it said the envelope was - which turned out to be 7 1/2".

After the envelope cut, I set my Cricut to the size it cut the envelope...so I had a perfect fit! I also cut a liner for my envelope, so that the little circles on the envelope flap would show up as a different color and POP! Finally, I made a second 'front' of my card out of vellum, to look more 'cloudy'. I was going to use the snow background from ZooBalloo...but after I cut it, I realized that the shape was all wrong...so I set it aside to use some other time! Instead, I used the same card, but put it in Design Studio, making it the correct 7 1/2". I dragged the back of the card OFF the design mat, so that it would not cut...only the front, with the pretty deckle edge, would actually cut. It made a perfect fit.

To create my winter scene, I used multiple cut sizes of the Snow Drift in Paper Doll Dress Up. Two were cut from plain white paper, and the center was cut from a vellum swirl print. To make it more dimensional, and keep with the swirl theme, I then ran the vellum thru my Cuttlebug, using the Emboss A2 D'Vine Swirl folder. The white on white didn't appear as dimensional as I wanted, so I inked the edges of each white drift with some light teal ink I had on hand...but it could just have easily been done with a Copic Sketch like BG18 - Teal Blue. Then, using the score lines that my Cricut added to the drifts, I heat embossed white glitter to accent.

The trees were made from ZooBalloo. I used the same tree background in two different sizes, using two different papers. I simply 'flipped' one of them around to appear like a different cut. I then accented the front trees with marker to give the appearance of pine needles. I adhered each layer down, starting with the vellum, the back trees, the front trees, and then the three layers of snow drifts. I loved the way this looked, and scrapped my plans to add additional shapes and words to the front of the card! Instead, I used dimentional snow effects to make it look like there was snow on the trees and along the ground. This could have been accomplished with Glossy Accents, Flower Soft, or even Liquid Pearls! Then I used my new Ocean Twinkle Jewels to be the centers of snowflakes! They needed more bling, so I added silver Stickles to the snow flakes and top layers of some of the trees.

I was going to put a cutout on the front of the card, which I made using Design Studio showing "Happy Birthday", created from the Lyrical Letters cartridge. I cut it on Core'Denations Black Magic paper so that the edges would show the blue in my card theme. Unfortunately, this cut turned out a little delicate, and fell apart when I pulled it off the mat. However, I really wanted to use it...so I improvised. I glued the pieces down on the page piece by piece, putting them together as if they had stayed together...and once it's all glued down, you can't even tell that it fell apart! But then I ran into a problem...and how many times has this happened to you? You cut a word with a dotted letter like an "i" or "j" and by the time you get ready to put it on the page, the "dot" to your letter just disappears! I improvised, and brought the theme inside the card, and used another Twinkle Jewel inside the card for the dot of my "i" with some additional Stickles!

The primary focus of the front of the card was supposed to be the snow lady from the Limited Edition Snow Friends cartridge, which was my holiday gift from my best friend whom I was making the card for! By the time the front of the card was complete, I realized that she was now totally out of place...but not to worry...I put her on the INSIDE of the card for a little extra carry forward of my snow theme.

Cutters Creek Items Used:

• Copic markers
• Twinkle Jewels - Ocean
• Stickles - Silver
• Cuttlebug Emboss A2 D'vine Swirl folder
• Cricut Expression
• Design Studio software
• Cartridges:
• ZooBalloo
• Paper Doll Dress Up
• Snow Friends
• Lyrical Letters

All of these items can be purchased from Cutters Creek!