This uses the new Zoe paper & some of the current Blossom Paper. I’m still trying to use up scraps and sneak some crafting time in around Mom, farm, bookwork and other duties!
I ran the centers of the flowers through using the dotty embossing folder. (Not sure the photo shows it. Also used the bone folder to curve the edges of the petals a little.
The sentiment is from the August SOTM Framed. The shape is cut with the new Cricut Artistry Cartridge!
Happy Crafting!
My Mom is an amazing woman. She has always embraced technology and was quick to use design studio with her Cricut Expression machine. When she learned about the gypsy, she got one of those and quickly fell in love. I wasn’t sold on the cricut line as I sell CTMH and wanted something that would help me cut the stamped images. I looked into the Sure Cuts A Lot and Makes the Cuts and decided there was too much grey area for my comfort and researched other cutting machines. I ended up purchasing a machine that allowed me to scan my stamped images and it would cut that exact shape/size. I was in heaven.
Then, CTMH had to jump into the Cricut Cartridge wagon and I had to have a cricut. Once I got the first CTMH cartridge Art Philosophy I was impressed with all the great things I could cut and with a little imagination I could do so many cool things! I did think I was wasting time when I wanted to do many images at different sizes, but I worked my way around that problem too.
As we do with family, I asked Mom to watch the kids for me so I could go to a scrap camp. We arrived a couple days before the camp to settle in and have some fun with grandma. I had a camp roommate project in mind and as I knew Mom had a cricut I packed my paper & tool bag ready to create some cool gifts in the evenings before camp. This is when I fell in love with the Gypsy. Mom is fortunate enough to have a summer place and a winter place. She doesn’t carry all her stuff back and forth, so her cartridges were only on her gypsy and I would have to use it to create my gifts. After very little time and a few pointers from Mom, I was designing and cutting using the gypsy. Now I wanted one, but the practical side of me rebelled against the price tag. Patience paid off and I found a used gypsy with some cartridges already loaded on it for a great price. (Part of the cost was covered by bartered crafting supplies!)
Jumping ahead 4 years, I use the Gypsy for all my workshops and in day to day personal crafting. It’s so nice to have all the cuts that I made for a workshop sample layout all ready to go when the ladies are here. We just load their paper and presto, the cuts are exactly the same. It also means that they will have the same amount of paper left that I did so they can create their layouts the same if they want.
Why do I share all this with you? This winter was strange for many of my ladies. Some were out of town taking care of family, other’s left us and the snow for a while and headed south, and a couple who did stay in town were also dealing with family health issues, or the occasional snow storm prevented us from getting together. As we were scattered to the winds, it was hard to have everyone order the workshops at the right time. Wanting to have a workshop with my gals, I decided I would create one of my own using the bulk papers from one of the new paper packs. (At that time the new seasonal book had just come out so I choose the Heartstrings paper pack.) I got out my Wishes book and my gypsy and came up with these three cards.
The top card (card #1) is from page 53, the middle card (card #2) p89 and the bottom card (card #3) was inspired by p 97.
Each lady would make 5 of each card and have 15 cards to take home at the end of the workshop. The gypsy files are set up to cut for 2 sets of workshops, so if you cut all the different sheets you will have pieces to create 30 cards! There is also an instruction file that you don’t really cut, but I use it for instructions as there are some simple squares and rectangles that you can cut with a straight cutter. I think I limited myself to the Artbooking Cartridge & Art Philosophy.
Here are the files.
Heartstrings Cranberry
Heartstrings Neutral CS
Heartstrings Dark CS
Heartstrings Other Cut Info
Happy Crafting
In celebration of National Scrapbooking Month, Close to My Heart had a Taste of Summer paper pack as the monthly special. 12 sheets of B&T (Background & Texture) paper for only $8.95. They also had a stamp set that coordinated with the paper pack. For club night last month I took a half sheet of the pattern paper, a half sheet of black cardstock and a third of a sheet of our great fundamental cardstock and created four cards. As we had graduations, family illness and other conflicts there weren’t many ladies there so I had lots of paper already cut and ready to use. I decided instead of leaving the half sheets in a bag to be found in 6 months when I can’t remember how I created the cards I would create the cards now.
Here is a sample of the 4 different cards. As you can see, I also added precut sentiment medallions in White Daisy matted on Black. I also used the Art Philosophy cartridge and cut 205 flowers (3/4″). They just worked so well with the papers!
Inside each card I glued a matted piece of B&T paper and stamped my sentiment. In addition to the Taste of Summer stamp set, I also used the Happy Everything stamp set. This stamp set is great, and it is also the Operation Smile stamp, where all proceeds from the sale of it goes to Operation Smile. (Orders your now as they won’t be available after August.)
Here is another combination of the papers.
All said and done, I was able to create 52 cards all using the same cutting guide.
I still had some pieces left, so last night after I put kids to bed, I created some card fronts for embedded embossing. I got 13 more cards that way, and this is what I have left. (I haven’t embossed them yet, and need to cut a few more sentiment medallions for after they are embossed, but I can do those in the evenings.)
65 cards and counting. I am guessing I’ll get 4 more cards out of this pile and call it done. I found an OLD club night project that’s already cut and just needs to be assembled (birthday calendar book) so now when I finish putting that together, I will have cards to go in it right away.
Happy Crafting!
Not me. I am starting a series of blog posts around a technique tag book that my club night gals and I made over the last year. We did four techniques each month over nine months. 4 x 9 = 36 techniques right? Wrong. I duplicated one of the techniques, so one month we only did three new ones. What does all of this have to do with winning? You can win all 35 of the new technique tags that I am making just for this contest! Over the next several weeks, I will be posting a couple of techniques each day.
Now you might want to know how you can earn chances to win this great prize. There are several ways. Write a comment on this post. (1 entry) Share this post link on your Facebook post and let me know on my FB page that’s you’ve done it. (1 entry per share)(https://www.facebook.com/CraftingWithAmanda). Like my FB page. (3 entries) If your a pinterest person, for every technique tag you pin, you receive an entry. (up to 35!) At the end of the contest I will assign each entry a number and using a random number generator will pick a winner. I will announce the winner on this blog, and then contact them to get the address where the tag book should be sent.
I will be showing photos of the technique samples tags that I made for the club night gals, AND the brand new tags using Seaside papers & Skylark. With no further ado. . .
Technique #1
Cardstock paper Tearing & Rolling:
This is a great technique to add interest to your project without adding bulk. If your cardstock is white core, (like CTMH) you can also add contrast or help direct your focus to your photos or other focal point.
In my example I rolled the edges on one of my samples to help bring the focus to the flowers. On the beach image I used the torn edge to help balance the white of the image and help draw your eye to it.
Here are the stamp sets I’ve used in this example, and many of the other tags that we will be looking at in the upcoming posts:
I also used Seaside papers (X7192B)
Our awesome markers were also put to use throughout this process of creating the technique tags.
This is the sample from our club night. Notice on this one I rolled all the edges of the framed image. I also showcased the tearing techniques for showing the white core (top) and not showing (bottom) of the cardstock running diagonal. It can be varied depending upon which way you tear the paper. (towards you or away from you.)
So. Remember to comment on this post, share on FB, and pin the tag to Pinterest to earn entries into this contest. You can share your pinterest shares with me on the FB page.
If you would like a copy of my technique instructions file, leave a comment with your email and I will send it to you.
Happy Crafting and Good Luck!
We typically do the scrapbook workshops, but we like to mix it up with a card one now and then. None of my gals needed the love themed cards in the Heartstrings workshop CTMH created, so I challenged myself to create one they would enjoy. These ladies are advanced crafters, and very particular on their cards. I have learned to create “my” workshop and not be upset when they make changes and do them better! This time I cut all the pieces for them. (I haven’t done this in years as I’ve taught them how to use their cutters and follow instruction booklets) At first there was grumbling that the workshop would only be a short one, and we do so enjoy our crafting time. About half the pieces were cut on the cricut using Art Philosophy and Artbooking. The rest where manually cut. I chose three patterns from Wishes, page 53, 89, & 97. I then cut five of each card. Here is the first card.
I had challenged my club group that if they purchased so many of You’re the Bomb stamp set, I would do a drawing for a free paper pack. We are currently short of our numbers, so I thought they needed some inspiration of how to use it. I was thinking that by keeping the sentiment open, the cards could be thank you, birthday, or congratulation cards. Here’s another variation of the first card.
The other two cards followed the same philosophy. I will say the ladies took the full workshop time to complete the cards, and were actually happy to not have scraps to worry about using up later. 
I have really enjoyed adding tags to cards. Some I create as a bookmark for the recipient.
Still using up some my glitz, and of course love to pop dot! We also used a hostess reward stamp on this card as most of my workshop gals are past hostesses and if they liked the stamp set already have it!
As I have all the cuts on my cricut (saved files), I think I will do these cards again with a different paper pack. Look for a post highlighting another great CTMH paper.
Happy Crafting!
