A Thanksgiving Celebration!

Hello, everyone!  It’s Lori from The Singing Shell and I am so happy to bring you a Thanksgiving project I have been working on.  I am happy because I know how blessed I have been these past couple of days in the aftermath of Sandy.  My family and I have a lot to be thankful for – we have our home, we are safe, but, most of all, we have each other.  An event like this really puts things into perceptive for me.  When you have a chance, hug a loved one.  To those that have suffered any losses, my thoughts and prayers go out to you.  I hope that relief comes soon.

 

I have the pleasure of hosting Thanksgiving dinner at my house this year.  Because of limited time, I needed to make something that I could mass produce without a lot of hassle.  I wanted to try something clean and simple, too.  Let me tell ya:  It is hard to leave white space alone!  I kept wanted to stick something in those areas – a diecut, a stamp, a rhinestone, a ribbon, a photo corner, anything.  It is amazing the amount of embellishments one can use.  I had to chant to myself:  Leave it alone! Leave it alone!  Eventually, I was okay with it… eventually.

 

I have been playing around with the notion of making my own embossing folder when I came across a great site: Paper, Scissors, and Ink.  She tells you how to make your images to emboss without the folder!  How cool is that?  I used to the idea to deboss my images instead, though.  I like that look, too, because I think it is elegant..

 

1.  I cut the leaves image (page 35) in Art Philosophy eight times using regular card stock.  It took less that 2 minutes. If you use thicker cardstock you can cut less images.

 

Take four of the 8 and paste.

2. I pasted four images together to get  two thick leaves diecuts.

 

3.  I arranged them on my paper and used a rubber mat on top.  I used a rubber mat from Papertrey Ink, but you can use any brand.  In fact, plumbers red rubber gasket sheets from the hardware store work just as well and are cheaper!

 

4.  The sandwich I used was A – B – rubber mat + paper – B.  No shim needed.  You may need to play around with your sandwich depending on the paper and rubber mat you use.

 

5.  Voila! A debossed image from my Cricut instead of a folder.  A lot more possibilities for the future, too!

 

 

6.  I added some Perfect Pearls to the sunken image.  Because the Perfect Pearls is so light, it is very forgiving and I was able to go over the leaves very quickly and it took no time at all to do this step.

 

First, I added a white shimmer.

Then, I added the gold shimmer.

7.  I added my Thanksgiving Celebration sentiment welded on the Gypsy using a font from Quarter Note.  That font is so pretty! 

 

8.  Lastly,  I adhered the cream cardstock onto the pattern card stock and added the invitation information in the back!

 

You can use the pieces over and over again.  Here is a modified version I made for my parents in Spanish.  I used the label from from Folk Art Festival on page 69 for the sentiment.

 

So there you have it! A clean and simple invitation using an image I wanted instead of an image I had to use from my collection of embossing folders.  I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.  Don’t forget to hug those loved ones!

Cricut Info & Supplies Used:
Designed By: Lori Sjogren

Cricut Machine Used: Cricut Create
Cricut Cartridges Used: Art Philosophy, Quarter Note
Other Supplies Used: SEI - Patterned paper; Bazille - Plain cardstock, Cuttlebug, Ranger - White and Gold Perfect Pearls