Distress happy!

WAY out of my comfort zone!! :)

So I was playing with May's SOTM (which I still have a few left for those local to me that wanted one) and I had a few stamped out on different shape cutouts from the Art Philosophy cartridge. I coloured one with my new set of CTMH watercolour pencils and decided to make it into a card.

I actually distressed!!!! (I NEVER do this normally so this was way out of my comfort zone).
I was very happy with the card when it looked like this:

... but  of course I couldn't leave well enough alone and decided to add some more ink around the image because I was "distress happy" and now it looks like this:

which I am not nearly as fond of. I do still like it though. :)

The sentiment is actually the "zip strip" off of one of the Pemberley papers.

I'd love to know what you all think. :)

GYPSY SCREEN WINNER!!

I'm here with a quick post to announce the winner of the gypsy screens. I will say that the first number drawn had not left a comment over on Karin's blog as well so was disqualified. :(

Now without further ado.... the winner is........

Kathy213 who said:

Kathy213June 5, 2012 9:46 AM

This is such a wonderful idea! Awesome! I am kind of new at the Cricut and Gypsy so this would be so helpful to me. What an awesome idea to put all these photos into a file that anyone can upload into their Gypsy. Thank you for the chance to win the download.
Kathy:)

Kathy, I just know you will love these!!
Congrats again Kathy!!

A VERY quick birthday card

If you are looking for the gypsy screens giveaway post click here or scroll down to Thursdays post

Here is a card I put together in a bit of a hurry for my grandfather in laws wife. She is usually still at her house in Florida for her birthday and we just have a BBQ for her in the summer but this year they came back together in April so she was here and of course it slipped my mind until late the night before.

The picture really doesn't do this card justice.

The rosette itself is from the Ribbons and Rosettes cricut cartridge but everything else (including the home made embossing folder used on it) is cut from the Art Philosophy cartridge from CTMH.

The purple piece was sprayed with one of the CTMH spray pens with a mix of reinker, alcohol (you can use water but I find the alcohol dries faster) and CTMH pearl paint so it has some real shimmer to it. I then ran it through my cuttlebug with my home made embossing folder (I have another class on how to do this scheduled for June 24) and inked the embossing with some white ink.
The ribbon is a sheer organza one I had in my stash but it just didn't do enough for the card so I cut my border on fit to length for my card front from the cartridge and stuck it on the middle of my ribbon. It really is on their straight and stuck down well I promise even though the picture doesn't look that way! :)

The numbers are from the dimensional element numbers that come bundled with the Art Philosophy cartridge and I just used my Amethyst inkpad right on them to make them match my paper.

Art Philosophy Fathers Day Blog Hop

If you are looking for the gypsy screens giveaway post click here or scroll down to Thursdays post

Welcome to the Father's Day Blog Hop : Art Philosophy style. We are a group of Close to my Heart consultants and will be showcasing father's day projects made using the card feature key from the very versatile Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.  If you are visiting from Stephanie's blog then you are in the right place, if not, please go and start from the beginning at my gracious host and team mate Courtney's blog

Here's my project:

 

I used the card feature on page 63 but I used cricut craft room to change the height and width so that once cut and folded it fit a standard A2 envelope.

I used the Superhero paper for the card front and this is all the same sheet of paper. I simply cut the zip stip off and then used a 4 inch piece of that as the middle piece and cut 2 strips of the paper itself 2 1/2" by 4". The top half is one side of the paper and the bottom half is the other side. I still have a 9 1/2" by 12" piece left from this piece plus another 2 1/2" by 4" piece AND another 8" piece of the zip strip. YAY!! 

The trophy stamp is from the Superhero Workshop On The Go and is stamped in gold encore ink and embossed with gold embossing powder. 

The Ribbon is the scalloped circle from page 31with some Indian corn blue ink on it and then I hand wrote #1 DAD with my Black marker layered onto the scalloped circle from page 41 and a couple banner shapes criss-crossed from page 68. Since I already had some of these cut from white paper sitting on my desk I just took some Indian corn blue ink and coloured it with it rather than cut into a fresh sheet of paper. The whole thing is popped up on foam tape and I curled the ends so the flip up away from the card base.

I stamped the same trophy in 2nd generation using the gold encore ink on the inside and used my Indian Corn Blue Marker to and write the sentiment.

Here's another shot of the front so you can see the dimension on the ribbon...

Next you should go to Audrey's blog here

 

If you get lost along the way here is the entire line up

 1.  Courtney - www.creatingwithcourtney.blogspot.com  

 2.  Amanda - http://ajcreationsfromtheheart.blogspot.com

 3.  Eva - http://www.loveofcreating.blogspot.com
 4.  Gloria - http://www.purpleglocreations.blogspot.com

 5.  Stephanie- www.quiltedscrapper.blogspot.com

 6.  Darla ~ http://www.stampingunderdoctorsorders.blogspot.com/ <---- YOU ARE HERE

 7.  Audrey ~ http://scrappingwithscrappy.blogspot.com <---- GO HERE NEXT

 8.  Erin - www.imcreaterin.blogspot.ca

 9.  Connie - http://conniescraftycloset.blogspot.com
10. Vanessa http://wwwpaperkraftsunlimiteddesings.blogspot.com/

11. Pam Stewart - http://i-candy-scraps.blogspot.com/

12. Carol Loftus - http://carolloftus.blogspot.com/

13. Brandy Lees~ http://canadianscrappers.blogspot.ca/

Gypsy screens giveaway!

Today I have some exciting news for you!!

Lucy Kelleher and I recently decided to team up to cover US and Canada between us respectively for Close To My Heart products. We also decided to send out a couple Art Philosophy cartridge bundles to some fellow bloggers to use and post their honest review - good, bad or indifferent :)

Karin Adamczyk of http://cricutdivablog.blogspot.ca/ is posting her first post today reviewing the cartridge and since this is very exciting for Lucy and I, we decided to do a giveaway for all those that take the time to not only read our posts but also read Karin's review of the fabulous Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge bundle. 

Karin sells "Cartridge Screens on Gypsy" which are essentially a collection of pictures of the backs of ALL the cricut cartridge boxes that you can load onto your gypsy (or on your laptop or any mobile device) and view in the photo application for a quick glance of each cartridge.  She also sells a PDF version of these called "Cartridge Screens on iPhone" which can be loaded onto any device as well, that is simply a PDF document version instead of a whole bunch of individual JPEG files.

SIDENOTE: For all of you who LOVE to participate in groups on FB... when you go to Karin's blog you should check out all the groups/pages she has. Karin has conveniently created a tab on the top of her blog called Facebook Pages and Groups where she has listed them all out by category for you. I'm sure she has one for you!!

Since we really didn't feel that a written description does justice to Karin's fantastic "Cartridge Screens on Gypsy" I decided to make a video for you showing you exactly what these are and how to load them onto your gypsy.    


Check out the video below:

 

EDITED: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED

 

So HOW do you enter the giveaway??  
EASY!!
Follow the instructions in my video (HINT: you'll find out that there is ANOTHER giveaway somewhere if you watch the video)
or
If you don't want to know where to find the other giveaway just leave a comment on this post as well as a comment on Karin's first post about the cartridge here before midnight Eastern Standard Time June 7, 2012.

Can't wait to hear what you think and hope you enter our giveaway -- I just LOVE these screens. 


Come back and see me on Saturday for a Father's Day Blog Hop: Art Philosophy style!! :)

A customer/friends card

A customer/friend of mine, Douglas sent me pictures of this gorgeous card he made for his mom for mothers day. I loved it so much I asked his permission to share it with all of you and he agreed that I could. Yay!! :)

Of course it highlights the butterfly from the Art Philosophy cartridge and although he used a punch for the swirls there is actually a few of those on the AP cartridge as well.

Here are the details Doug gave me with the card:
"It is sized to fit an A2 envelope (4.25 x 5.5). I used the Art Philosophy cartridge to cut the filigree butterfly, small butterflies from a Stampin'Up punch, the swirl punch I don't know who's, the sentiment is a Stampin'Up stamp, patterned paper from Graphic 45, Little Darlings series"

Mystery Hostess - could it be you?? PLUS giveaway over at Ginger Snap Scraps I'm sponsoring!!

This month is National Scrapbooking month and to celebrate I decided to set up a Mystery Hostess online gathering. 
Everyone who places an order between now and May 30 by going to my website and clicking to "JOIN" the Mystery Hostess Gathering, will be entered into a draw to be named hostess for the gathering and win ALL of the Hostess Rewards for those orders! Anyone local can also email me their order for me to place and tell me they want it ordered with the mystery hostess giveaway and take advantage of the usual shipping discount. :)
Remember to share my giveaway with everyone you know because the more orders that go in the higher the hostess rewards will be!!

I'm also sponsoring a giveaway over at Ginger Snap Scraps check out all the details here!