Monday, May 29, 2017

Elephant Shaker Tag

Elephant Shaker Tag


Hi and welcome to my blog!  Thanks for joining me today!  

May is a big birthday month for my family and friends.  This year there have been some big birthdays too!  I decided that this year I was going to add a tag to presents.  I think it adds a little handmade thoughtfulness to the present. 

My nephew has a natural artistic ability.  He has been drawing pictures since a young age and even though he is only 7 this year, he has already become quite the little artist.  You can follow him on Instagram as thelittleartistwithin.  His birthday was this week and I thought I would add a little something to his gift.  He appreciates cute art which makes me love him that much more.  

I made this tag using the Adorable Elephants stamp set.  I colored the elephant with three shades of gray and colored his ears with two shades of pink.  I didn't do anything fancy with the coloring on this one.  I actually did some masking to create the balloon cluster.  I masked off the middle heart balloon and stamped the other two round balloons.  Then I removed the mask and colored all of them in. I colored the balloons all with just two shades of copic markers.  I was using bold colors that matched the background paper of the tag which was from an Echo Park paper pack.  

Echo Park has some wonderful paper pads!  I love their designs and 6"x6" paper pads.  The paper pads are small enough to take with you and are double sided so you have double the options! 

Okay, back to the tag!  I fussy cut the elephant and balloons out.  The tag I cut from a Queen & Co shaker tag die using my Cuttlebug.  The die cuts out the middle piece so in order to make the background piece, I used the top piece as a template and hand cut the base piece.  I used foam tape and created the shaker walls for the tag.  I filled the shaker with a bunch of sequins, and tiny cut stars to add some cuteness.  I attached the acetate on the foam tape and then glued on the top tag piece.  Using the Exacto knife, I cut a slit above the elephant's hand to make the balloons go behind his hand so it looks like he is holding them.  The finished tag went on his gift and I think it is so cute and makes my heart soar when he wanted to keep it.  :) Love this kiddo!  


I hope you are having a wonderful day!  I hope you are inspired to do a little crafting too!  Thanks for stopping by!  


Marvel Characters Cricut Mystery Box

Cricut Mystery Box

I just learned about this amazing monthly program through Cricut!  Each month they release a "Mystery Box" which is basically about 3 cartridges of images for around $30.  If you follow people on youtube like KensKreations or some others, they give you a discount code to use when ordering these Mystery Boxes as well as a sneak peek as to what's inside.  

I am a huge Super Hero fan!  All of these new movies that are coming out are so exciting to me!  I recently saw Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2!  It was full of laughs and tears!  Woohoo, the mystery box had the Guardians of the Galaxy included along with the Marvel Avengers!  I love them all!  I had to start with Thor though, he is one of my absolute favorites!  Who wouldn't want Chris Hemsworth saving you for all the evils in the world?  

On the left is Thor.  I was amazed at how many little pieces these characters had!  The nice thing about the Cricut is that it lays out each color on a different piece of cardstock for you and it even tells you what color you should use.  Like a good girl, I followed what Cricut recommended for colors.  Although I did add in sparkle paper for his hair and shinny paper for the silver, for the most part, I did stick to the preferred colors.  This character is actually two sided and you can make both sides at once.  I attached a piece of ribbon to him so I can hang him on my Christmas tree this year! Again, he is A LOT of pieces.  Each piece of silver from his helmet have to be glued down separately.  In hind sight, I think I would use paper with sticker backing before I cut everything out so that I could easily transfer the pieces to the black background piece easily.  You can also use transfer tape to move them if they already have adhesive on the back and this way you can place them exactly where they should go!  

The second character I created was Rocket.  He was my favorite from Guardians!  He is always thinking and trying to figure everything out.  He thinks ahead and is always prepared.  I had to make him!  Again, there were a lot of little pieces.  I lost one of the tiny brown pieces for his outfit and ended up having to cute on little tiny brown piece all over but it was worth it! I did think they could have made life a little easier by making his blaster one piece but it still turned out really cute.  

I did use some special tools for this project.  I used a fine point tip on my glue bottle, I also used an Exacto knife to move small pieces as well as my Quickpix stick.  

These characters are amazing and detailed.  I look forward to making a few more, especially Groot!  Just be prepared and have a lot of patience when attempting to make small versions of these. :) 

Happy Crafting and thanks for joining me today! 

Unicorn treat holder

Woohoo!  I found a download card for the Silhouette design shop!  It's been a while since I've bought from the design shop but since I had this download gift card I thought it was a good excuse! What I had forgotten is that the credit is only good for one month! Yikes!!! So I downloaded this adorable unicorn design and had to try it out.

 

I cut the base piece from 110 pound white cardstock so that it would be a little more stable. Then cut the hair, tail and back legs from a piece of lavender cardstock. This is one piece that hides behind the body. Next, I cut the body in white cardstock along with the front cloud piece. The wing and nose I cut from purple cardstock. Lastly I cut the blue cloud. To assemble, I glued the white body piece onto the lavender piece with Scotch liquid glue. Then I glued on the nose piece. I glued half of the wing and used a foam square to pop up the edge of the wing for more dimension.

I glued down the blue cloud and then the unicorn over it. Last I popped up the white cloud in the front.  The project is 3-D so it folds in the middle where I used some score tape to adhere the small flaps to the back and the ribbon is added to keep I together.

I was thinking this would make a great party favor for a birthday. So much fun. Such a cute quick and easy project!  After starting at this project I think I will go back and add some bling or sparkle to it.  All unicorns need to shine!

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great day and I hope to see you soon! 

Flamingos!!!

Flamingos! 

Hello!  Thanks for joining me today!  For us here in the US it is a holiday.  It's Memorial Day, a day to remember and appreciate those who served our great country.  My father in law and my father both served years ago. I am grateful for their sacrifice and hard work to help keep this country safe and free.  Thank you to those who have served, are serving, and the families of those who have and are serving our country.  Thank you.

Today I had the opportunity to get some card making done.  I initially was thinking of making a card for my friend that was a shaker flamingo card but I recently learned that she is making that for her daughter's birthday invites!  Yikes! There went my idea! It's okay though, it gave me a chance to think outside my shaker cards and figure out a new plan of attack.  She is really into flamingos right now so I had to come up with something cute. :)

I had made a flamingo the other day using my Cricut Explore Air machine, it was a free design from access that I was able to use as often as I wanted during the set time period.  The flamingo is adorable.  She has a little tutu and a ribbon on her head.  Her sassy attitude just made me fall in love with her.  I cut one out with my friend's birthday card in mind but at the time I was not sure what I would do with it. Today I thought I would put this cute flamingo to good use! I wish I had cut out a bunch of them!  She turned out so cute!

Planner paper clips are so cute and fun to make!  I decided to make this cute little flamingo into a paper clip bookmark.  I glued her to the paperclip and wanted to create a scene around her.  My thought was something fun for summer.  What comes to mind when you think of summer?  Beach? Vacation? Sun? Well, those are the things that came to mind for me.  I cut a few waves out using my Cricut Explore Air and then I die cut the beach out of some pink cardstock from Stampin' Up using the Impression Obsession Hills die set.  I cut the sun out using a die as well.  I love the stitched look on the sun!  Then I created a border using the Queen & Co. nesting rectangles.  I love these because they have a thick border around the edge which I used to hide the glitter tape I am holding the paper clip in place with.  I know no one can see it so I didn't have to use glitter tape, but I am in love with the shinny glitter tape!

After cutting everything out, I assembled the front of this card to look like a post card that was sent from a sunny beach somewhere where this adorable flamingo is relaxing on the beach.  I added a few wriggles on the sand with a white Signo Uniball gel pen just for some texture on the beach sand.  I popped up the entire frame with foam squares and the front was complete with the exception of the sentiment.

For the sentiment I use the Hero Art Stamp & Cut set DC150 which has a die cut for the word happy which is written in script and then has a bunch of sentiments included like "birthday," "anniversary," "mother's day," etc.  I love that it can be used with so many different sentiments! I ended up double cutting the "happy" and layering the two cut pieces together to give the word a little more stability.  I also put thin strips of foam tape before the letters so they were popped up off the sun.  I stamped the 'birthday" with black ink on the sun.  Did I mention I am obsessed with these Nuvo drops?  So after I was done I came back and looked at the card and I couldn't help it, it needed some Nuvo drops!  So I added three along the side.
Before the Nuvo Drops! 




My card is complete!  This card was super fun to create and I really hope my friend enjoys it too.
Today I ordered a bunch of products from My Favorite Things Stamps so I will be sharing my haul with you once it comes in!  I can't wait!

Thanks for joining me today!  Have a wonderful day!