Bookmark and Book Gift Box

Hi all!

Today I am sharing my entry into the Cricut Circle Blog Monthly Challenge.

The challenge is to make a gift for someone.

I made this Gift Box to look like a book to hold the bookmark I made.

For the box, I used Tags, Bags, Boxes and More Match2 blackout cut on pg. 65. I then sized some rectangles from George to fit slightly larger than the box base for the covers. I cut them out of chipboard, and covered them with a patterned paper from my stash. I scored a piece of Black Magic Cardstock for the spine. I cut the word Read from a font on Calligraphy Collection that I welded together with my Gypsy.

I scored the edges of the box to look like pages in a book.

I lined the box with a page cut form an old book. I inked up the edges with Distress Ink. I hand cut the tab that holds the magnetic closure on the inside of the box.

Here is a close -up of the bookmark I made.

I am a complete novice when it comes to beading, but I really wanted to make this bookmark using the book cut from Graphically Speaking.

I cut the base cut at 1.5 inches using Shrinky Dinks. I then hand colored the details on the plastic. I shrunk it with my heat gun. It may be hard to see, but the book isn't flat. While it was warm I bent it to a shape more like an open book.

I then covered the white areas with a fine white glitter and some diamond glaze.
I am making these for my daughter's teachers and aides. I am really excited for how they turned out. I will probably make them all a little different, as many of those beads are older ones from my stash and I need to make 8 of these.

Thanks for visiting today.

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

Elegant Edges Mini book Mother's day gift

Today I am sharing a mini book I made using the new Elegant Edges cartridge. I love, love, LOVE this cartridge. There are so many beautiful cuts on here. I think this is going to be one of my new Go-To cartridges. I made this book for my Mom for Mother's Day.


I cut four pages using the book-Shift key. All pages were cut at 3.5 inches. I first cut them in chipboard, and then cut paper layers for both sides of the pages. I then inked the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Tea Dye and Walnut Stain. For the cover, I then had cut the flowers and centers and layered them using pop-dots. I added a few peals to the centers of some of the flowers. I colored the pearls using Bic's Mark-It markers.
For the inside pages, I matted a photo on one page, and hand cut a small pocket for a tag on the opposite side. I have a 2-page spread for each of my three girls. Each of my daughter's then wrote a Happy Mother's Day message on a tag for Grandma. The tags were cut from Tags, Bags, Boxes, and more cut at about 3 inches.
I added gems that I had hand colored using the markers around each picture and a few gems on the pocket page as well.

It is a simple little book, but I am happy with how it turned out.

I used DCWV 8x8 Craft Stack for all the pages.
I picked up at TJMaxx for $3.99. If you have a TJMaxx or Marshall's near you, I would highly recommend checking them out. I picked up quite a few stacks there a few weeks ago. The 8x8 stacks were $3.99 and the 12x12 stacks were $5.99.

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

My Money Bag - Cricut Circle Monthly Blog Challenge

Hi All! I am posting today to show my entry into the Cricut Circle Monthly Blog Challenge. Here are the requirements:

In honor of Earth Day (April 22nd) we would like you to recycle, reuse or repurpose 3 items on your project. For example, cut a shape from junk mail found in your trash can. Reuse something found in a junk drawer, or whatever! Use your creativity! Create a layout, card, altered project, etc. The choice is yours! This month entrants will be playing for their chance to win a Cricut Mini Cake Machine, Martha Stewart All Occasions Cake Art Cartridge, AND $50 worth of credit to Cricut.com.

Well I have been wanting to make a little box or something to hold all my loose change in. When it gets full, then I can cash it in for some more scrapping supplies..as if I needed more. LOL

Here is what I came up with:

I used Tags, Bags, Boxes and More and cut the purse as big as would fit on my cereal box. It ended up being 11.53 inches. I then cut the same out of DCWV Adhesive backed 12x24 paper. I will say that this paper is not very good for box making as it cracks on the edges where its folded. I had to really ink up all the edges to hide the white core.

And the backside:
The large top note shape I printed on my Imagine and used Seeing Spots Cuttlebug folder on it. There is a smaller one on the front too, but it is mostly hidden by the embellishments.

I cut the phrase from the Cricut Everyday cartridge. I cut it at 1.53" and I used vinyl as the letters are really thin and they kept tearing when I used cardstock. The vinyl cut much better, but was a little tricky to work with as it was pretty small.

I added a few mini ribbon roses that came from in the stash from my Mom! The love was printed off the Imagine too, from Imagine more cards.

These are the three things I recycled in order to make my bag: A cereal box, some play money we bought for my girls, and some packaging from K&Company.

I thought it would be fun to make a rosette out of the play money, since it is really large.

For the big rosette I cut the bill in half and then used my Martha Stewart Scoreboard to score at every half inch to make the rosette. It is easier to see the money face that way. On the smaller rosettes, I scores them at every 1/4 inch to get a tighter rosette. I also cut that bill into fourths. the centers were made using some plastic coins that came with a toy cash register. I used some alcohol inks on them to give a more realistic look.
For the roses: I used Sweet Treats and cut the shadow layer form the flower on page 50. I then used an technique that my Friend Janice from Craft place taught me. You can see all her beautiful creations here. I cut three layers all the same size for each flower I made. I made a 2", 2@ 1.4". and 2@ 1". Then I trimmed and rolled them into roses. There are many tutorials on this technique on Youtube. I sprayed each one with Glimmer Mist in Candy Apple Red. They all have a golden sparkle to the. I stuck pearls in a few of then centers.

I gathered some black satin ribbon on a thread to make a ribbon flower, and then added a stick pin I made from a corsage pin and a couple of beads. I also added a short strand of pearls and a bow made from Black Satin ribbon.
The tags were stamped using Inkadoo stamps onto the inside of the K&Company packaging. I then distress the edges with my distressing tool from Stampin' Up.

Other tidbits: I used Colorbox Chalk in Charcoal for the edges, and a magnetic disc closure from Basic Grey to keep the purse shut.

All in all, I am so happy with how this turned out.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

Butterfly Matchbox

Today I have a gift box I made using Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More. It is the Matchbox cut on pages 64 and 65 in the handbook. Using my Gypsy, I sized it as big as would fit on a 12 x 12 page.



The paper I used was left over from making Valentine's Last year. Its Eskimo Kisses Starry Night by Basic Grey.

The Frame and butterfly on the front are Embossed Stickers from Little Yellow Bicycle. I used some Mettalic rub-ons to add some color to the stickers. I stuck a light blue scrap behind the frame to make the butterfly pop. I finished off my box with an Organza bow.

Wow I have been crazy crafting for Dallas, but I managed to squeeze in this extra project. I hope when I come back from Dallas, that I can settle down to a more routine pace of crafting.

Until then....

Have a great and Crafty Week!

Cartridge Challenge changes to Monthly

Howdy! I am really starting to get excited for my trip to Dallas for the Stampede! I have been in Dallas project mode for a while, and as the event nears, I have more and more things to do to get ready for that.

So...I have decided to change up my Cartridge Challenge.

I am still going to tackle the challenge of using all of my cartridges. I seem to be having trouble keeping to the one week deadline I gave myself, so I am going to start pulling a months worth of cartridges at once, and then have the entire month to do them all. I will still be attempting to use 2 a week, or 8 for an entire month.

So for the March I will be using:

Chore Chart -Lite
Accent Essentials
Tie the Knot
Rock Princess
Twinkle Toes -Lite
Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More
Imagine More Cards -Imagine
50 States -Classmate

With this new system, I think I can still challenge myself to use cartridges that are just sitting on my shelf, but allow for a little more flexibility to do other projects as well.

Now I'm off to make something!

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Happy New Year! And some crafty resolutions.

Just a silly little tag for all my crafty friends. I used Celebrate with a Flourish, Car Decals, and TBBM.

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year. I look forward to all the great projects and ideas for 2011. Not to mention all the new products and tools that will find their way into my collection this year!

I have decided to make a few New Year's Crafty resolutions.

1. Participate in the Use What You Have Challenge for January and February.
This is a challege posted on the Cricut Circle MB to not buy any crafting supplies during the month except adhesives, blades, and inks. I think mats are included in the approved buying items. What you can't buy is any Cartridges, Paper and Embellishments. You must only shop from your stash. Which give the amount of shopping I have done over the last few months, shouldn't be too hard.

2. Use a different Cricut Cartridge every week. I am going to challenge myself to use all those cartridges that have made their way into my library in 2010. I am going to just put the names of all my cartridges in a bowl and pull one out every week and make myself use at least one cut from that cartridge.

3. Post more often on my blog. As I make those projects, using the cartridges from my challenge, I will post them on my blog. I am going to shoot for posting a few times a week, and at the least once a week.

4. Participate in more of the Circle Blog and Magazine Challenges. After all that is one of the perks I pay for in my Circle Membership.

A small list to start me going in the right direction this year. I hope by posting this here to give myself some accountability.

Best to you all.
See you in 2011!

Jan

My Countdown to Christmas Project

I saw a project like this in the Stampin' Up Holiday Mini Catalog, amd I thought I could make one myself.

I made four sets, one for our home and one each for my sister, and my two cousins.

Cutting, scoring, and folding 100 boxes was a little time consuming, but I hope that we all will get many years use out of the sets.

I used Tags, Bags, Boxes and More for the box. The boxes were cut at 7.75" I used my Gypsy to hide the original holes on the sides and placed in smaller ones. I then strung a piece of gardening twine for the handle.


I used DCWV's new 12 x 24 stacks for the paper on the fronts: Adhesive Backed Pattern Stack cut into 2" squares and Adhesive Backed Texture Stack cut into 1.5" squares. The numbers were cut at 1.25" from Designer's Calendar.

My daughter thought that the back sides needed something as well, so I cut random Christmas and Winter icons and put them on the back sides. The cuts were from various cartridges, cut at the biggest size in order to fit on the 2.5" box side

Cartidges used: Create a Critter, Chrismas Cheer, Winter Frolic, Doodlecharms, Winter Lace, Christmas Solutions, and my Imagine Snow Angel Cartridge.

The completed boxes were hung from some more Garden Twine using mini clothes-pins, and I made bows with jingle bells for the corners and center support hooks.