Happy Birthday Butterfly Card

This week is all about butterflies, so let's just hope that we don't get our weekly snow storm! Since it is technically spring now, join us at Bitten the Bug2 for a butterfly challenge. I know that you can make a beautiful project with your cricut machine and butterflies.

For my card, I used a free cut of the day: Blue Butterfly SVG from https://www.misskatecuttables.com. This was really difficult for me to piece together, and the final cut is far from perfect. I cut the butterfly in different card stock colors, with one being glitter. The outline and sentiment is black vinyl, a good choice because the outline is very delicate as is the font, Archemy from font bundles.net. The free (at the time I downloaded) bundle is called the Brilliant Bundle. I then tore the edge of the sentiment banner. But what I like most abut this card is the patterned paper that a friend gave me, which was the inspiration for this card.

Flower Box Card

I created this Flower Box Card using some beautiful pattered papers from Prima. The cut file that I used is from SVGcuts.com: Flower Box Card Kit. I cut the flowers from scraps of card stock that I keep on hand for small die cuts. One thing about paper crafters is that we keep all scraps instead of buying more 12x12 sheets of paper. Being thrifty has its benefits! I used adhesive pearls from Stampin' Up! for the centers and inked the leaves in Pear Pizzazz green. 

The birthday sentiment is one of my favorites from the Beautiful You stamp set from Stampin' Up! Here is a side view where you can see the card base.

And the card itself folds up nicely to fit inside a custom envelope. I have a happy home in mind for this sweet birthday card!

Happy Easter Layout

Our talented Susan from Bitten by the Bug2 is hosting this week's challenge: Anything Easter. Here's a throwback Happy Easter layout from 2011! As you can see, I am way behind in some scrapping! I love these Easter Egg Hunts that our town puts on for the children -- what sweet memories are then captured in a scrapbook. I used the cricut for all of the die cuts: Happy Easter, the bottom layer of an egg, and the grass border from "Easter 2010" -- and the bunny is from Animal Kingdom. Come join the challenge this week!

Claddagh Treat Bag

I am loving svgcuts' Lucky Day file set -- and this is the Claddagh Treat Bag. I am not using their score file - just the entire image - and skipping the score. This way I can alter the bags a bit. So for this one, intend of it having a fold over top and inset sides, I left it as a box, with just a bit that closes over to the back. The ribbon holds it together nicely. Just using American Crafts card stock and my specialty gold and shimmer green. Oh and stickles. Always need stickles.

Tie Close Celtic Knot Treat Bag

Here's another St Patrick's treat bag from the SVGcut set. This one is a Tie Close Celtic Knot Treat Bag. I used sturdy patterned paper and matt gold and a green with a green and gold metallic card stock. It was a little tricky to put together because it has side scores that fold inside. Other than that - pretty easy to throw together.

Use Green Challenge

Here's another challenge from Bitten by the Bug2: use green on your project. Not hard to do when St. Patrick's Day is approaching. I made this cute clover box from SVGcuts "Lucky Day" for a Women's Club meeting and added a "happy st. patrick's day" stamp from Teeny Tiny Wishes, a Stampin' Up! set. The lower part of the box is made with Recollections white glitter paper and the top portion is American Crafts card stock. Inside, I will add some paper grass and gold coins - how cute will that be? Here's the box:

"Just a Note" Cards

Here's two cards that I made while we were hunkered down during Friday's heavy snow and wind storm -- we were lucky to have heat and light! I used Tim Holtz patterned papers and put Glossy Accents on the flowers (can't see it well in the photos). And believe it or not, the green damask print is from my Christmas papers! The yellow below is Basic Grey paper and I like how it has the aged, distressed look that the Tim Holtz paper has. "Just a note" is from Cricut "Wild Card" cartridge, which was free this past week. I love the fonts and sayings in the set, and my project for the weekend is to cut a bunch of them up for future cards.

Sending "Birthday Wishes For You"

Here's another set of Happy Birthday cards -- made with a new stamp set from the Stampin' Up! Occasions catalog: Birthday Wishes For You. The bright and cheery yellow card is colored in with alcohol markers -- and a bit of bling. The pink and purple card is made with blended colored pencils, clear stickles, and retired sequins. The blue one with alcohol markers and stickles.

Show Me Your Shamrocks Challenge

This week's Bitten by the Bug2 challenge is to make a project using using shamrocks. And how cute is this SVG? The file is from Lovesvg.com, and it is called "Feelin_lucky_5667" and the original looks like this:

I ungrouped the image in Cricut Design Space and enlarged the shamrocks so they would cut cleaner on the cricut, and added a few more. I used matt gold paper from Stampin' Up! for the "lucky" and the pot of gold and lucky horseshoe. The kelly green card stock that I used is Coordinations', but I didn't distress it because of I love the rich color it is has before being sanded down. I can see that the card still needs some tweaking - the "L" isn't quite lined up, but hey, crafts are not meant to be perfect, right?

Happy Birthday on a "Beautiful Day"

Here's a few of my recent birthday cards made with Stampin' Ups! Occasions' catalog Beautiful Day Clear-Mount Stamp Set. I used Stampin' Ups! watercolor pencils with their aqua painters (watercolor brush) and when dry, outlined the images in black stickles on a couple cards. I then added Rhinestone Basic Jewels and retired rhinestone strips. Not a quick card to make, but fun.