You are the Bacon to my Eggs...

Okay, I hate to admit it, but I am just LOVING this card.  So simple, yet perfect!  The phrase was #2 on my list of phrases I wanted to make a card from, and I thought, how in the world am I going to make bacon???  I mean, I don't have a Cricut cartridge with bacon on it, I am sure of that... so I made my own.  This is a 5.5" circle card, The outer solid blue ring has a 1/2" ring layered over white cardstock that is just inked with a sponge (trying to resemble a plate.. what do you think?) The eggs were cut from Just Becase Cards, the yolks are pop-dotted.  The bacon...  let's see if I can describe it.  I used a chocolate brown piece of card stock, and just made random wavy cuts.  I ran those pieces over my red ink pad to darken the color a bit, and  then glued it to a white piece of cardstock.  I then took my Tim Holtz Antique Linen ink pad, and ran over the the whole piece, to add the light brown inbetween the dark pieces.  The strips of bacon were then cut the same way I cut the brown cardstock (wavy), then I crimped the pieces of bacon so that they looked like bacon right out of the frying pan.  My hubby loves breakfast, and we haven't had real bacon since January (gotta love those New Year's resolutions), and this makes me want bacon, and NOT turkey bacon!  :o)  I nice BLT sounds so incredible right now, you have no idea!  Anyways!  This inside of the card is hand-written: "You are the Bacon to my Eggs." 

Thank you for looking!  It means a lot to me!
Mary

You are the ICING to my CUPCAKE

I have written out a list of random sayings...  you are the ____ to my _____.  I wanted to challenge myself to make a card using those phrases.  These cards are great for significant others, husbands, wives, friends, anything, and I think that is what I am excited about making a bunch of these!  My first one I have made is "You are the Icing to my Cupcake."  I used black cardstock, and cuttlebugged it.  Cut the cupcake from Wild Card and Cuttlebugged that one as well.  Lots of doodling on the Icing to make it pop a bit more.  The sentiment is hand-written and I used the scraps to add a bit more around the sentiment. 

As always thank you for looking! 
Mary

Congratulations/Happy Retirement!

I made this from the department I work in for a gentleman that retired today after 50 years in radio... 50 YEARS!!! What an accomplishment in any industry, much less in the media/radio industry! For this sweet, gentle soul, I decided to make a sweet simple card for him, once again, all made from pieces from my scrap bin!  I was clueless as to what to do with this card, so it was a comedy of this, this, and ooo this! (That's what was going on in my head)!  The Fleur De Lis is from Gypsy Wanderings and I cut an accent shaddow piece for it (in the blue).  I also used my fleur de lis edge punch and voila!  I used my Martha Stewart cirle cutter to cut a window into the front, rub-ons for the "Celebrate" and then also for the "Congratualtions" on the inside which you can't see in the pictures, a little inking and doodling.  Our department sure is going to miss him, he was a delightful man!

Thank you for taking the time to look!
Mary

L-Y-D-I-A's Letters

I am really pleased with how this turned out, and I had SO much fun putting all of this together!  My husband's niece just had a Birthday Party, and also a little combined celebration of her graduation from 5th grade.  She had mentioned around Christmas that she wantd decorated letters of her name to hang up in her room.  She is a cheerleader, and eats it, breathes it, lives it, loves it.  HOWEVER, I didn't want to make a cheerleading themed "LYDIA" because if she decided tomorrow she hated it, I didn't want to commit to a specific thing.  She is however, a girly girl and so I did her name accordingly!  I just loved the way all of these turned out, and the randomness of it.  With cards I struggle over what papers to use, what colors would match or clash, etc.  With this project, I wanted it to be a little funky, young, girly and just plain fun overall.  When she opened it her eyes lit up, so I guess she liked it!  I was proud of this gift, that is for sure! 

The letters I bought at Joann's on sale, plus a coupon and so I paid around 40 cents for each letter.  They measure aprox 6" tall.  They were white when I bought them, so all I had to do was DECORATE, of course... the fun stuff!   Let's see if I can break all of these down....

L - dragonfly from Gypsy Wanderings; flowers, layered from Cindy Lou, grass from Plantin Schoolbook, ribbon is wrapped plus 2 butterflies from a kit I had received a while back.

Y - "squiggle" welded from Plantin Schoolbook, The flower is from Gypsy Wanderings.  Various buttons were threaded with pink floss and wrapped around the letter.

D:  The tree is from Gypsy Wanderings and I embossed the green on the tree, inked the trunk and branches; the puppy is from Paper Pups, and the ladybugs are from Just Because?

 I:  The star is from Gypsy Wanderings, and I just wrapped a piece of orange ribbon around it and added quite a bit of bling!

A:  The scalloped edge is from Plantin Schoolbook, welded twice to get me a longer piece, the flower is from Gypsy Wanderings, and I just tied a few pieces of bibbon around it.  Oh, and another piece of bling.











Here is the card I made for her as well.  The balloon is just a 3" circle and the cap is from Wild Card.  I apologize for the glue that is still showing as it was not dry and way too much came out, once it dried though, you could barely tell that it was there.  I was able to scrape most of the excess off when it started to dry a bit more.  The letters are hand-written.

The best part about this whole project, is that every single piece that was cut out with my Cricut was cut from SCRAPS from my SCRAP bin!!!  SO MUCH fun!  There is a bit of doodling as well on every letter in some way shape or form.  I would love to do another one of these very soon, as it was that much fun!

CELEBRATE - Quilled Balloons

I made a Birthday card for someone I work with who is very dear to me!  She is quite the girly girl and is an all-around wonderful person.  I wanted to make a card for her that was girly, yet fun for her Birthday!

I am still trying to sharpen my quilling skills and just keep trying basic shapes/techniques while playing with different lengths of paper.  I decided that I wanted to make her a bunch of ballons, but instear of cutting them out with my Cricut I would give a try at quilling them to add some dimention to the card! 

The best part is, other than the base of the card, this is once again, all made from scraps!  I used several different fonts from the follosing cartridges, Lyrical Letters, Plantin Schoolbook, CindyLou; altering their sizes and stretching them a bit here and there, as well as adding a simple square behind the "C" and welding all of that together.  I used floss for the strings on the balloons, and then accented the ballon (can't really tell that well in the picture) with some glitter pens of the same color rubbed ofer the ballons.  You can see it a little bit, but not much.  I used  a pink brad to fasten them all together,doodled a bit, and then the inside has a simple "happy birthday" stamp in hot pink to match.

As always, thank you for looking!
Mary

You're OLDometer....

So I completely stole this idea for an OLDometer for a 60th Birthday from someone on the Cricut MB.  I remember seeing the post, and then thinking that it was so clever!  I hoever can't find the original post and didn't bookmark it b/c I didn't think I would ever be abe to make one of these anytime soon.  So to whomever made this card recently on the Cricut MB's - Thank you for your cleverness and I hope you don't mind my scraplifting your idea!

I remembered my Father In Law's birthday, which is today, and he is turning the BIG 6-0!  He's pretty funny and if you ever sat down with him, you'd realize he is such a big kid! I think he might find this card to be funny and take it humorously, not seriously!  So the phrasing was stolen, but then I gave it my own touch! 

The half circle is actually a watermelon from Just Because Cards, with the inside enhancements taken out with my Gypsy.  I cut a rectangle and two circles from Plantin Schoolbook.  I wanted to try to make it look like a dashboard as far as the placement of the pieces, so I hope that worked!  The letters for "OLDometer," and the numbers were cut from Plantin Schoolbook as well as Cindy Lou to make the "60" pop a bit more.  I used Black Magic paper with white on the other side and tore it to expose the color!

Thank you so much for looking - it always means so much to me!

Mary

FISHERMAN FATHER'S DAY

This is a card I made for my dear FIL, Joe, as he (and my hubby) are avid Bass Fisherman!  I thought this would be perfect for him!  The rod and reel are from Just Because Cards.  The sentiment is from Wild Card as well as the circle frame and shadow behind it,  stretched with the Gypsy to fit the card size (6x4.5).  The water waves are the scrap pices I used up from my Turtle Beach card I made earlier!  I love using up scraps, in fact, this entire card was made with scraps, except the base of course!  I used a piece of thread for the fishing line as well.  The fish is layered twice and inked/colored with carious pens to try to resemble a largemouth bass.  I sure hope he likes it! 

As always, thank you so very much for looking!
Mary

TURTLE BEACH

This was such a fun card to make and super easy (I thought) to put together, especially after designing it on my Gypsy!  The sea turtle, shell, starfish, palm tree, sandcastle and waves were all cut from Stretch Your Imagination Cricut Cartridge.  The sun is from Gypsy Wanderings, while the scallopped background is cut from I believe Just Because Cards.  All of these images I have never used before on a card or any ther project, and I am challenging myself to use more cuts than I have, other than my "go to" cuts.  There is a lot of layering going on as well as a little inking, and a little texture added with my Cuttlebug!  I am trying to use up more scraps because my scrap bin is still overflowing, and this entire card was made from scraps!  I love using up scraps!  :o)

Thank you for looking, as always, it means a lot!

Mary

My Mother's Day Card

I wanted to post these AFTER Mother's Day, because my Mama sometimes checks out my blog to see what is going on!  So here they are!  I used every tool that I had to make this card.  I used my Gypsy, my Cuttlebug, my new Crop-A-Dile (the latest addition to my craft tools), and I just loved how these turned out.  I ended up having to make 5 of these cards because I took these to work to display on my desk, and they were gone!  Apparently some people really liked them!  :o)  They weren't stolen, mind you, but they were lovingly bought for other people's mothers, wives, etc...  So here are the original two that I made.  I used Just Because, Cindy Lou and Sentimentals Cartridges, along with a lot of inking on the flowers, and lots of layering with pop dots.  I hope you enjoy!

As always, thatnk you for taking the time to look, it means a great deal to me!
Mary