Teacher Card with Lori

The end of the school year is upon most of us in the next couple of weeks. I like to send the teachers a little something in a card to say thank you for their efforts. My son is not likely to appreciate anything too girly, and since I want him to sign it, I went with this easy number:

The entire thing is cut from the Cricut Wild Card cartridge, using My Mind's Eye papers and cardstock. The Stella & Rose - Mabel paper pad I used is not in the store, but many of their lines have the same muted feel. I think it looks a bit like a county fair, which I think is pretty cool!

To add to the rustic look, I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Spiced Marmalade and Evergreen Bough to edge all of my cut papers.

 After assembly, I added accents with Distress Stickles in Spiced Marmalade, Broken China, and Clear Rock Candy. I also slightly curled up the bottom ends of the ribbons.

It's a great way to accent small bits, or to draw attention to a certain part of a single color item, like this sentiment.

I cut the matching envelope from the cartridge, and also ink distressed the edges of the closed envelope to coordinate.


Items available from Cutters Creek:

• My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pads
• Tim Holtz Distress Inks
• Distress Stickles
• ATG adhesive refill

Other items:

•  Cardstock

I hope you enjoyed today's project; I had a great time making it! Thanks for stopping by.

Graduation Card by Michele

 This is my first project as a Designer for Cutters Creek.  I needed to make a graduation card for a co-worker so I made this cute and simple graduation cap card.  I used my Cricut cartridge Wild Card (if you are interested in this cartridge please ask Kim to order it for you).  I just used some black and yellow cardstock paper and then I wrote Class of 13 using a white gel pen.  I added some diamond stickles to the tassel and  on top to give it some bling.

Birthday Layout by Chris

I wanted a quick cheery layout for a first birthday and pulled out my Expression, Wild Cart cart, and the Storybook cart. I used the cupcake (cut at 6) and phrase (also cut at 6) from the Wild Card to page the first half. There was no mat for the words so I just glued them on a darker piece of blue and free-hand cut around the phrase. The circles are different sizes from my Spellbinders Nestabilities Standard Circle Small and Petite Scalloped Circles. The candle has yellow and gold Stickles for the flame.  The second page used a phrase from StoryBook cut at 4 inches. The scalloped mat was in my remnants folder and I can’t remember if I cut it with Scal or a cart—sorry. But to jazz them both up I used stickles (again--J). Christmas Red to outline the two letter Bs and I used Faded Jeans Distress Ink to glitz up the mat.  Quick, easy and ready for photos.

Fairy Thank You Card by Vicki

I have been needing a lot of Thank You cards lately, so here is one I made for a family member. Since I have needed a bunch, I felt like my mojo was out of sorts, so I used a sketch from a new Facebook friend I made, Sketch Support.

I used a simple kraft paper base, and then challenged myself to use a color I normally do not gravitate towards...Orange! Since it was a simple 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card, I was able to use paper scraps in my stash - I didn't need to cut up a bunch of sheets of full cardstock!! I used my Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper to round the corners of the nested squares.


The 'Thank You' sentiment was cut from the Wild Card Cricut cartridge. I sized it up just the right size on my Gypsy, and cut it in orange cardstock. Then, I used my markers to outline the sentiment in brown, so it would stand out better on the card.

The sketch called for a variety of hearts cut in matching papers, but I wanted to make this a little more personal for my family member, so instead, I used a digi-image. I used an image called Fairy Belle, from The Character Cafe. I printed the digi on my laser printer on Bazzill Simply Smooth White Cardstock. I colored her with several of my Copic markers. I used G24 and G28 on her dress, E21, E00 on her skin, R20 for her cheeks, and E44 and E47 on her hair. I didn't have any orange Copics, so I supplemented with my Sharpies. I thought she still needed a little something, so I used Rusty Hinge Distress Stickles for her flowers, and Diamond Stickles in her hair. The Diamond color has flakes of orange, gold and green tinged glitter that matched perfectly! I was making her wings separate from her body, so I cut around the image closely with my Cutterbee Scissors. The images from Character Cafe often come with little extras. In this case, they have a separate image of just the wings on the PDF file. I cut her wings out separately, coated them with Flower Soft Glue, and used Polar White Diamond Range Flower Soft to make her wings look like feathers. Although the Flower Soft has a touch of glitter in it, I thought it need a little more, so I used more Diamond Stickles as a thick outline on the edges of the wings.

Just a hint - when using Stickles AND Flower Soft - allow PLENTY of time for the products to dry before you try to assemble them. Otherwise you end up with glitter and glue all over your fingers!!

So, after waiting a sufficient time to let them dry, I assembled her on the card, using 3-D Dots. The result is a fairy that appears to 'fly' off the card with a little bit of magic dust.


Just a reminder that EVERY comment left this month will be eligible for our Blog Candy drawing at the end of the month. You can comment once per project so make sure you check back often!!!!

Cutters Creek Shopping List:
Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper
Cricut
Bazzill Simply Smooth White Cardstock
Copic Markers: G24, G28, E21, E00, R20, E44 and E47
Rusty Hinge Distress Stickles
Diamond Stickles
Flower Soft Glue
Polar White Diamond Range Flower Soft

Gift Card Holders by Lori

So, hubby was in charge of getting some gift cards for a couple of nieces for Christmas.  Not knowing the importance of a good gift card holder, he got cards that are a weird size; twice as tall as a normal gift card.  What to do?  Lucky for me, the Wild Card Cricut cartridge has lots of cool envelopes that can easily be adapted to a gift card holder.  Just follow my steps below and you can create a gift card holder for any occasion using either the card or the envelope.

I chose the Christmas Tree envelope (it's on pg. 74 with the ornament card) as it seemed well suited to resizing.  You'll need to use either Design Studio or a Gypsy for this.  I used a Gypsy, so my directions are for that, but they should be very similar in DS.  First, place the Blackout feature image on the virtual mat.  Using measurements from your actual gift card, size the image up until the plain center section is larger than your gift card.  Here's a picture to show you what I mean:

Next, unlock your aspect ratio (on the Gypsy, this is the little icon that looks like a chain under the Height & Width boxes) so you can adjust one size at a time.  Make that empty center section a little larger than your gift card all the way around.  Add another layer to your virtual mat and add the regular image - no feature buttons on.  Resize it to match the blackout version.  Finally, add a third layer for the liner and any add-ons needed (my envelope needed a star and garland) and resize each to match the other layers.  Cut in desired colors of cardstock.

For the tree to show up well on the envelope, cut just the tree from the regular image envelope and adhere that to the Blackout feature envelope you cut.  Now is the time to cut tabs in the liner piece to hold your gift card if desired.  I have a tool for this, but you could also cut by hand with an Exacto knife, or just skip it if you don't want to cut.  Then adhered the liner and any add-ons.  Finally, use a Scor-Pal to score all of the fold lines on the envelope.  The little cut marks on the design make it super easy to score them in the right place.  Now add your gift card under the tabs or just stick it in with a Glue Dot.  Fold the envelope closed and just use a couple of Glue Dots to adhere.

Ta-da!  Since these were for teens, I stopped right here.  For someone more appreciative, you could add some bling in those round ornament cuts, using some Kaisercraft Pearls or Rhinestones.

Items available at Cutters Creek:

• Cricut Expression
• Wild Card Cricut cartridge
• Cardstock (there are tons of choices - just search "cardstock"!)
• Scor-Pal
• Glue Dots
• Kaisercraft Pearls and Rhinestones