Use Your Cricut as a Stencil

Bitten by the Bug 2 challenged us to our cricuts as a stencil...and wow, that was a hard challenge for me! I went through stencil upon stencil, cut with Paper Lace cartridge. Finally realizing that cutting a stencil from transparency paper was better than paper because my mists were leaking, soaking, and spilling through to my cardstock, making the image very blurry.

Do I like my card? No. I feel like a need a lot more practice! And maybe a larger stencil would help? In the meantime, I will wait for a sunny day, probably tuck those feathers in better and take a straighter picture this week.

Hopefully these tips help you create something amazing...don't forget to link up!

Ciao

Paris in the Summer

Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #43

Using the French Manor Cricut cartridge, and Echo Park paper. 

Patriotic theme for President's Day

Today is President's Day, and we owe a day off from work and school -- and lots of shopping discounts -- to our country's forefathers. So for this week's crafty challenge, let's get patriotic and create a card, a layout (can even be vacation pics or last year's 4th of July or other American holiday), or project with the cricut. If you can snag some free digital images from cricut.com, I'd love to see it too!

BTW, did anyone else notice that President's Day should be Presidents' Day? Provocraft? Wish I noticed BEFORE I glued everything down, lol...I used Designer's Calendar and H20.

I based the LO on PageMaps' Feb double LO sketch:

Jayne's craft space challenge

Well, Jayne from BBTB2 has challenged us share our craft spaces...For me, that meant clean up ASAP! When I first started making scrapbooks, I stored everything on a shelf in my bedroom armoire...and lugging everything out while the kids were sleeping wasn't fun...So I decided to claim some space on our corner computer desk...Well, I soon outgrew that and became fascinated by IKEA storage all over Pinterest and picked up some storage units. Love the bright white cubes, esp down here in the playroom where it is often pretty dark. Still have to clean up some more (didn't take pics of the mess) and paint the walls...But this corner of the downstairs is my space -- I love it. 

Above is my embellishment center -- loved corralling all of those little itty bitty things and being able to grab the right shade of the right flower, button or brad without making a much of mess. I also don't expect that I will ever use it all, but ever since sorting my bling I have stopped buying,  knowing that I have enough, no matter how good a deal is.

Above is my cricut and tool center...With enough space to always find and access my toys. You can see that I am old-school when it comes to my cricut. I will run my cricut into the ground, using real carts (not digital) that I have collected -- at bargain prices. I have NEVER paid full price for a cricut cartridge. Some of them went for $100! My collection is feeling a bit obsolete, as the new machine and cloud technology means that others can digitally access my collection for a small monthly fee. In the meantime, I am using my investment and having fun.

Here is a tall photo of my back wall -- I also have my ribbon in mason jars, and love them corralled there on that wall shelf. No more finding ribbon everywhere!

Share your photos -- with us at BBTB2 and here -- don't be shy, we'd all love to see your scrappy escape!

Atlantic Hearts Challenge

                 Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #41

The bee and the word "happy" are done with Cricut Create a Critter 2, and the word happy is a rub-on. 

BBTB2 Design Team Heart Challenge

BBTB2 has given the Design Team a heart challenge -- so I went to my most loved heart cart -- Love Struck.  I used the "hearts" heart shape for a photo mat background and Elegant Edges cart for the stamp-shaped photomat. I wasn't sure which photos to use...until someone got in the way of my LO photo: