It's been a circus around here...

Hello!  This is Michele from MicheleGreen.com.  (I'm GreenGirl on the Cricut message board.)  I'm so happy to be here today! In going with the theme for September of "End of Summer", I have a card to share with you today. AND... it features what is supposed to be announced as part of today's Hello Thursday cart of Create a Critter 2! 

 

The end of summer for me is met with the beginning of school.  I am a teacher and one of my best friends is too.  We work in separate buildings so there was no time to see her before students returned.  I did want to take the time to wish her a great start to the school year so I made her this card: 

 

 I love the sitting lion on this version of Create a Critter! Let's look at some of the steps in how this card was made. 

First, I cut out all of the lions and their stools.  (I ended up not using the stools because it was just too much.)  I cut:

2 lions and stools @ 1.25"

2 lions and stools @ 2"

1 lion and it's stool @ 3"

I also inked the lions for some added cuteness.  I use orange around the mane and yellow on the body.  I decided not to cut the pink parts for the nose and ears.  Instead you will see later that I used Stickles to fill in those areas. 

 

Next I needed to create a circus ring for the lions to sit in.  I did this by using the Martha Stewart circle cutter (and um... believe the package when it says the blade is sharp - ouch!).  I cut a 4.25" circle and inked it in black and brown ink to make it mottled.  I then took my ATG and put adhesive around the edge so that I could circle the twine around it and have it stick without using wet glue. That's what I am trying to show in this picture. 

I came up with a cute saying for the card and printed it on card stock.  I wanted to save my card stock so I used painter's tape to hold my piece to the plain white printer paper.  I love this trick! 

The saying looked too plain to me just plain white so I added a red piece to carry the theme to the inside of the card.  This picture also shows the variety of pop dots I used to allow the lions to be straight on the front of the card, rather than just glue them all to each other. 

Look at that cute little guy!  He is so adorable! 

I hope you have enjoyed my post today and I would love to hear what you think!  Don't forget to create a back to school item for yesterday's Cricut Crafty Challenge too! 

Cricut Info and Supplies Used:

Designed by:  Michele Green

Cricut Cartridges Used: Create a Critter 2

Cricut Machine Used: Expression, Cuttlebug

Other Supplies Used: Card stock, Martha Stewart circle cutter, twine, pop dots, googly eyes, Stickles, ink, brads, Stars embossing folder, 

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED TO WIN OUR WEEKLY DRAWING IN SEPTEMBER.

Cricut Crafty Challenge #1- Back to School

Welcome Everyone to the Cricut Crafty Challenge day!

This is Becka from Creations With Becka and I am so excited to share the very first Cricut Crafty Challenge with you all today.

This time of year is all about getting the kids back to school, so this month's challenge is to make a Back to School gift, layout, card etc.

I made this awesome supply basket to give to my son's teacher on the first day of school. He started 3rd grade this year and has two new teachers. So I thought we would welcome them with this gift

 

 

 

 

 For my project, I  first wrapped the basket with yellow paper. I cut and added "photo mats" for the backgrounds of the glue, pencil and crayon. Then I pieced together and added all of the cricut cuts. The finishing touches were the ribbon and the buttons and of course some stickles.

 

Cricut Info & Supplies Used:

Designed By: Rebecca Maddux

Cricut Machine Used: Expression 2, Gypsy, CCR

Cricut Cartridges Used: Simply Charmed, Create A Critter, Cursive 101, Classroom August & September

Other Supplies Used:Cardstock, DCWV patterned paper, stickles, ribbon, twine, buttons

Cricut Crafty Challenge #1 - Back to School 

Ok, so now it is your turn! The Cricut Crafty Challenge is to  Make a Back to School project, this can be anything and if you don't have kids you can still play along, make a project that reminds you of school.

Here is what your project has to incorporate.

1. Must use at least 3 cricut cuts.

2. Must use ribbon and buttons.

3. Must be a new project for this challenge. Please link your project with the link below.

Now RUN don't walk you only have until the 26th to link up your project to eligible for this month's prize and you don't want to miss out! RockinRobin1  from www.robingoens.stampinup.net has generously donated a $35.00 gift certificate to her Stampin Up Store. So please stop by her site and give her some love.

 

 

 

 

Wedding Card

Hey ya'll, this is Trinity from http://trinityscraftingcreation.blogspot.com/. I hope everyone had a relaxing and safe long holiday weekend. This is my very first time to be a designer for a blog other then my own. I think I'm going to have so much fun coming up with something new every month and getting to see what everyone else comes up with.

 

Today I have made a card to show ya'll. A good friend of ours just got married over the weekend and this is the card I made for them. For the card base I used my Art Philosophy cartridge and used the card on page 37 and cut it out withh the layers at 5.5". I used Echo Park paper from a 6x6 pad for the top layer and then used a few pieces of a darker red under the top layer for the pop of color to go with the dress. For the bottom layer I used a thin sheet of off white. I also added a couple of dimonds for a little bling.

For the dress I used Tie the Knot and the dress is from page 46 and cut it at 3.75". I used a piece of kinda darker red for the bottom layer of the dress and I also wanted to give this card a pop of color and have always thought that red looks very pretty and eleagnt with black and white. For the top layer of the dress I took a card and cut it in half so it would stand out from the other shade of white that I used for the card base using the devine swirls folder. I added some Martha Stewart pearls along the sash and bottom  and cuttlebuged the top layer to give it some texture.

The MR. & MRS. I found also on Tie the Knot on page 62. I cut all layers at 1" and added some Martha Stewert crystal glitter to give it that extra sparkle.

Hope you have a wonderful day and can't wait to be back here this time next month with something new to show ya'll!

 

Cricut Info & Supplies Used:

Designed By: Trinity Wallace

Cricut Machine Used: Cricut Expression 2

Project Type: card

Project Theme: Wedding

Cricut Cartridges Used: Tie the Knot, Art Philosophy

Suppies Used: Echo Park 6x6 pad, Martha Stewart pearls, Martha Stewart crystal glitter, dark red/off white/black card stock,  Divine Swirls cuttlebug folder, random bling found at M's

 

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED TO WIN OUR WEEKLY DRAWING IN SEPTEMBER.

Turn Taking Made Easy

Hello, this Beth from SeaSwan's Thoughts . I made these "Super Hero" Shields to help me maintain computer time in my classroom.  My school is using a Super Hero theme this year so I am trying to incorporate the theme as much as possible.   My students have  had  great time choosing their shield.  I wrote their names on the shields using a permanent marker.  This idea could also be used for scout meetings, church groups or even family chore charts. 

I cut the shields at 3" real dial on using Letter Envy.  I used my Gypsy to help me place the shields on the 4" x 6" inch wallpaper samples. The art teacher has boxes of vinyl wallpaper samples so I used those.  I used the regular blade with a multi-cut of 4.  I then attached apiece of magnetic tape to he back of each shield.  I have easily organized Computer Time in my classroom.



Part of the set of 40 shields I made.



Back of shield.
Shows the layer of magnetic tape.

Cricut Info and Supplies Used:
Designed By:  Beth
Cricut Machine Used: Expression, Gypsy
Cricut Cartridges Used:  Letter Envy
Other Supplies Used: Vinyl wallpaper, magnetic strips

 DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED TO WIN OUR WEEKLY DRAWING IN SEPTEMBER.

Matchbox Time Capsule

Hi!  This is Lori from The Singing Shell blog.  One of the things that I love doing as a teacher is showing my kids how much they have grown academically from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.  They look at their portfolios and reflect on their growth.  Ultimately, they are really proud of their progress and so am I.

I was thinking about how I could translate this idea for my son, Anders, and came up with the idea of a time capsule.  Time just flies, doesn't it?  I see a picture of my son from months ago and think: "Oh my gosh, I can't believe how much he has grown!"  A time capsule would help scrapbook memories and Anders' accomplishments in the future.

Time capsules are usually buried but there is no way I am doing that with this!  I am putting it on Anders' dresser unopened until March 2nd which happens to be my husband's birthday.  He absolutely adores Anders and will love to reminisce about how he has grown with me.  Anyway, here it is:

 

 

I used Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More to make the matchbox on pages 123 and 124.  I cut the letters at 1 in. using the Martha Stewart Birthday Cake Art cartridge - Chic font. The train is from the B is Boys cartridge. That measurses 3.5 in.  I chose the train because Anders is in love with trains.  Every single train's name is Tom.  Yep, he is so friendly with Thomas the Train he calls him Tom.  :)

The fun thing I discovered was using washi paper like photo corner.  I tore off pieces of washi tape and wrapped it over the corner.  Voila! Instant photo corner.

I used cotton to make the "steam" and Divine Swirls to emboss the background. I also inked the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink.  Love the stuff!

 

 

I typed up the "Do Not Open..." sign on my computer using Comic Sans font.  Then, I simply folded the ribbon in half and tied it to make a pull where the slit is.

 

You can put anything your time capsule.  I put some sea shells for his love of the water and ocean, two letter cards representing the letters he likes to say, three pictures of Anders, and a letter from me talking about what he likes and what he knows and his height and weight.  My husband contributed two rocks from the North Shore of Lake Superior where he taught Anders how to skip rocks. Well, to be honest, Tom skipped rocks and Anders just tossed rocks.  It is a really sweet memory of the two of them side by side.  I can't wait to open it up in six months to see how much Anders has grown and changed.

The great thing about a project like this is that there are no hard and fast rules.  You can use any box from any cartridge and any diecut that represents your son or daughter.  You can even open it up at the end of the school year or in one year.  Have fun with it!

Cricut Info & Supplies Used:

Designed By: Lori Sjogren

Cricut Machine Used:  Imagine

Cricut Cartridges Used: Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More; B is for Boys; and Martha Stewart Birthday Cake Art

Other Supplies Used: Bazzill Solid Cardstock, SEI Patterened Paper, Washi Tape, Melissa Frances Buttons, Divine Swirls embossing folder, ribbon, October Afternoon Letter Cards, Ranger Antique Linen Distress Ink

 

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED TO WIN OUR WEEKLY DRAWING IN SEPTEMBER.

This is Absolutely Fantastic!

Hi! This is Sara from www.sarawandrews.com  with a quick mini album to share.

I don't think I've had this much fun crafting in a long time. Also,I think I giggled through the whole process.

It all started with the purchase of the DCWV the Snapshot Stack. I love this stack. I love the colors, the prints and of course the camera images.  So when I had to come up with a project to share here, I decided to make this a family affair. I wanted to have snapshots of the kids and me just having some good old, silly fun.

And what's more fun than making your 13 year olds wear funny looking hats, glasses and mustaches while posing with a giant Polaroid cut out?

I know NOTHING! Right?

My props~

I used various images from my Cricut Imagine collection to make my props with the Hello Speech Bubble being my absolute favorite.

With all the options found on the Best Friends cartridge I could have made an entire wardrobe, but I think I'll save that for next time.

The Mustaches and Glasses Digital Cartridge was perfect for this as well.  Those glasses were super easy to assemble.

I simply adhered all of the images on to wood skewers with Glossy Accents.

My album~

 

 

 

My album pages are 5 x 6" giving me plenty of room for multiple pictures and embellishments.

I printed all of my pictures as 3 x 3", so they could easily be trimmed to fit into the glittered Polaroid paper found in the stack.

I have to tell you that I am still giggling at these pictures.So, I think that means this project was a success! Plus, I have some pretty embarrassing pictures of the kids to use in the future if needed.

Cricut Info & Supplies Used:

Designed By: Sara W Andrews

Cartridges Used:

Best Friends for the Tie, Spinner Hat and Crown cut at Fit to Page

Imagine More Cards for the Pointing Finger and Hello Speech Bubble cut at Fit to Page

Mustaches and Glasses Digital Cartridge for the Mustaches cut at 5.5" and 8.8" and Glasses cut at 7.5"

Cricut Machine used: Cricut Imagine and Cricut Expression

Project Type: Mini Album

Project Theme: Family, Kids

Suppies Used:DCWV the Snapshot Stack, Studio Calico Mistable Fabric Camera Sticker Shapes, Mister Huey's Inky Black, Tim Holtz Paper Clips, Tim Holtz Type Charms, Amy Tangerine Bits Happy Memory tag, Pebbles Clothes Pins, Doodlebug Boutique Buttons in Bettle Black, Crate Paper Storyteller Brads, Papertrey Ink Twine, Misc Flair Buttons and Brads, Making Memories Tiny Alphas, Recollection Gems, and White Chipboard

Studio Calico PL Adventure, Heyday Sentiments and Wonderful World Stamps, Basic Grey Guest Check Stamps, Unity Simple Pointers Stamps, Dear Lizzy Date Stamp, Smash Date Stamp and Glitz Destressing Stamps

 

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED TO WIN OUR WEEKLY DRAWING IN SEPTEMBER.

Hawaii Vacation Layout

Greetings Everyone!  This is Cindy of Scrap-obsessed Blog . Happy September and the last holiday weekend of the summer. I hope everyone is having a nice three day weekend. I'm hoping to spend some quality time in my craft room at least two out of the three days I have off work. I'm not ready for summer to end. There are still so many things I want to do while the weather is still warm. One thing I would love to do is go on vacation to Hawaii. Unfortunately I will have to wait until January. Until then I can have fun preparing for it though.

My layout today was made using three different Cricut Cartridges.

For the title of my layout and for the airplane in the clouds I used the Cricut Circle Exclusive cartridge Something to Remember. They were both cut at 4" except for the word Hawaii. That was cut at 1 1/2".

The green scallops on the top and bottom of the pages were made using the Art Philosophy cartridge, cut at 1/2". I used my Gypsy to weld 4 of them together to get the 12" long size that I needed.

The hibiscus flower was cut at 1 3/4" from the Life's a Beach cartridge. The photo mat on the left side will hold a 5x7 photo and the mat on the right side will hold a 4x6 photo.

I hope you've enjoyed my project today. Other Hawaii pages and projects will be posted to my blog as I prepare for my first big vacation. I have a feeling I'll be needing a lot of layouts! Thanks for looking. Cindy

Cricut Info and Supplies Used:

Designed by:  Cindy

Cricut Cartridges Used: Art Philosophy, Life's a Beach, Something to Remember

Cricut Machine Used: Expression, Gypsy

Other Supplies Used: cardstock, patterened paper

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED TO WIN OUR WEEKLY DRAWING IN SEPTEMBER.

Getting crafty with the Cricut

Greetings-Christel AKA the scrapworm here of Scrapworm Blog ! Very delighted to be part of this incredible blog. I have several projects to share with you today but first I would like to tell you a little about myself. I live in western Kentucky. I am employed a school teacher. I teach history and special education. I have a wonderful husband and four children(two girls and two boys). My children's ages range from 18 to 14. To top it off, we have two dogs(a havanese and mountain cur) and two cats(shorthair and longhair). One of the kids,Allee, graduated this year and she is now enrolled studying to be a nurse while working fulltime as a CNA. She had a full ride to play softball but decided to stay home and go to school. Katee who is a junior runs cross country and track. Brett and Bryce both play football. My husband and I are constantly on the run shuffling kids to practice, meets or games. Well more than enough about me. Let's get onto crafting!

Using the cricut to make a ruffled spirit scarf: First project I would like to show you today is what I call a spirit scarf. I saw this on Pinterest and decided it would make a great accessory to where to games to try and spiff up wearing blue jeans and a tee. I used my cricut to try and make one. Here are the steps to make a ruffled scraf.

1. You will need Flower Shoppe cartridge, two XL tees, fabric glue or sewing machine and flower embellishment (if you choose to put a flower on the scarf).And of course, your cricut expression.

2. Cut of sleeves, neckline and bottom seam. Next, cut the sides.

3.Cut 12 ten inch squares.

4. Place one square on the cricut mat. Put in the Flower Shoppe cartridge. Using the Fun1 image cut a 9 inch segment. Note: I used the heavy cutting blade instead of regular. I put my settings on medium cutting each image twice. You may want to play around to see how your cricut reacts to fabric.

5. Once you have cut out all twelve pieces, take each piece and stretch it. Do not be timid. This stretching allows the fabric to curl inwards. Hence, no sewing for the strands. Then, hold one piece by the end and run your hand down the fabric. Kinda like milking a cow! Do this for each piece.

6.Taking two strands, place them end to end. Join them together with fabric glue or sewing. Do this until you have no more fabric. You should have six strands all together. If you glue them, allow ample time to dry before going on to the next step. 7. Gather strands together grasping in the center, place around neck. With a scrap from the tees tie the strands together in front about in the middle. 8. Take a flower embellishment and pin to the scrap. Now, you are ready for the game!

Note-I have an alternate version. Instead of using Flower Shoppe, use Cricut Basics circle. Once you have cut 12 circles, cut about two inches into the circle making a swirl. Do not worry about being precise, the stretching and pulling will take care of minor impurities. Follow the rest of the directions. Another option is to cut four "fun1" images and 8 circles. Just have fun with it.

Using mulberry paper for dimension When using my Create a Critter or Camping Critters, I like to use mulberry paper to add depth to my scrapbook pages or cards. Another thing I like to do is tell a story using several pages. Materials needed are the Camping Critters cartridge, Zombies from CCR. Mulberry paper, 12 by 12 paper of your choice, glue, leaves, glue, ink and chalk. Last but not least your cricut expression.

For the first two scrapbook pages, I used the Camping Critters cartridge. I cut out the raccoon and bigfoot images. I used mulberry paper on the outer layer to give the images dimension. The raccoon was cut at four inches. Big Foot was cut at six inches. Also, on the raccoon, I chalked the mask. I used leaves and an evergreen branch (which was secured down with a glue gun)to give the pages a more wilderness feeling. The pictures I added were from this summer which commerate my first mountain biking experience. Look how happy my daughter and I are. An 11 mile trail should have took about an hour and half took us over four hours.

The final image was cut using the CCR exclusive file called Zombies. I used the girly skull and nuclear symbol. The skull was cut at five inches. I dropped ink on the notebook paper where the word zombie is. This page is the final of our mountain bike narrative. Katee contracted some funky mess in the woods. Hence, the zombie title. I said she had zombie bumps because all of the crazy news stories about zombies. She had to get a steriod shot and passed out in the doctor's office which landed her in the hospital.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your day! God Bless and craft often!

Cricut Info and Supplies Used:

Designed by:  Christel

Cricut Cartridges Used: Campin Critter, Flower Shoppe, Zombies

Cricut Machine Used: Expression

Other Supplies Used: t-hsirts, fabric glue, sewing machine, mulberry paper, cardstock, patterened paper, ink, chalk, artificial foliage

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED TO WIN OUR WEEKLY DRAWING IN SEPTEMBER.

Happy Summer

Greetings ya'll, this is Debbie of Debs Eclectic Thoughts Blog.  The Cricut FANatics Blog theme for the month is End of Summer so I wanted to make a project to show all the wonderful things I did with my 9 year old granddaughter over this summer. 

First I started off making a collage of photos from some of our favorite things we did this summer. It was super easy.  Walgreens now offers a collage option where you can just add up to 20 photos and it creates a wonderful collage for you.  You can even change the background designs and colors. I had mine printed at 8X10 size.

 You really can't make a summer layout without the sun on it so I started there with my design.

I made the sun in two layers using CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge. To give more dimension to my Cricut cuts I often like to use an alcohol marker to trace around the edges.  I used Distress Marker in Spiced Marmalade here. I then added small foam dots to pop up the two pieces of patterned paper. I am using Echo Park's Hello Summer patterened paper in my layout.

To make the Happy Summer 2012 title, I started with a label shape from CTMH Art Philosophy.

 I also welded together using my Gypsy the 2012 numbers from the same cartridge.

The "Happy Summer" is from Summer Celebrations cartridge and was cut in

 two different patterned papers and then layered one on top of each other slightly off set.

I then adhered the label to the 2 dimensional sun.

Washi tape is so fun to use and I could not resist adding a bit to the border area

of my background page. As you will see in my final layout version, the great thing about washi tape is that you can peel it up easily and change where you place it :) 

Still using CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge, I made these little

tag shapes and added the word FUN also cut from the same cartridge.

And a layout isn't really complete without a bit of journaling.  I cut a piece of patterend paper as a base, then used my Dynamo Tape maker to print out the words. Makes it easy to add to the paper since it already has adhesive.  I cut a couple of little slits in the paper and added some gorgeous twine to give it a little umph !

 

And tada...

Happy Summer 2012 is all ready.

 

Cricut Info & Supplies Used:

Designed By: Debbie O'Neal

Cricut Machine Used:  Expression, Gypsy

Cricut Cartridges Used: Art Philosophy, Summer Celebrations

 Other Supplies Used: Bazzill Cardstock, Echo Park Patterened Paper, Washi Tape, Twine,

foam dots

 

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED TO WIN OUR WEEKLY DRAWING IN SEPTEMBER.

 

Welcome to Cricut FANatics Grand Opening Day !

We would like to welcome everyone to the Grand Opening Day of Cricut FANatics Blog !!!
We have a lot of crafty inspiration planned for you each and every day all month long.

Our designers have been hard at work preparing some amazing projects to inspire you.  Each day different designers will showcase the Cricut in their own unique ways. Be sure and stop by every day to get your crafting dose of goodness.

Each month we will have a Theme of the Month that our designers may follow. Our theme for September is End of Summer...projects can run the gamet from Back to School, Vacations or  Things We Loved About Summer.

We have some great challenges planned for you to join us and show off your own creations.
On the 5th of each month we have our Cricut Crafty Challenge.  We will give you a "receipe" you need to follow to create your own project and then you link up in that thread to be eligible to win a prize.

On the 20th of the month we will have our Cricut Sketch Challenge.  You use the sketch we provide and make either a card or layout following the basic sketch design and your Cricut. Link up your project and we will select a few people the following month on show off their sketch project on Cricut FANatics. It's a great way to get to know members of our Cricut FANatics community.

And on the 15th of each month we have lined up some Special Guest Designers to wow you.  These are some of our favorite Cricut Designers we have all come to know and love their Cricut projects. You won't want to miss their special projects.

But wait, that's just the great stuff that will happen EVERY MONTH on Cricut FANatics.

So how are we going to celebrate Cricut FANatics Grand Opening...why with prizes of course !During the entire month of September we are going to be giving away one Cricut cartridge  every Friday and one BIG grand prize at the end of the month.

For a chance to win each week you need to do the following:

1. Be a follower of our blog
2. Make one kind comment on each designers blog post during the week to be eligible for the weekly prize.
3. The weekly comments deadline is at 11:30 pm CST on each Friday in September.
4. Weekly Winner will be announced on the following Saturday.

The Grand Prize drawing will be held on the last day of September and winner will be drawn from all weekly entry comments.  More info on the Grand Prize will be announced later this month.

Be sure and grab our Cricut FANatics Blog Button and show your support of our blog.  We hope what we have planned inspires you to create with your Cricut products.

Stay tuned for our designers projects !