Spring Bling with Creative Charms

This week it was my turn to post a few projects on the Creative Charms blog.  I hope you are in the habit of checking the blog regularly to see all of the projects my fellow design team members post to inspire you.  I always have fun working with these embellishments.  Here is a LINK to my post.  I have some more details about the cards to share here.

I decided to make some bright and happy cards to help chase the winter doldrums away.  I am happy to report that the snow is finally melting in New England and Spring is just around the corner!

For the "spring" card I made a flower stem and some "grass" from the fancy polka dot ribbon (from the deal and kit of the month for March).  You can use an ATG to apply the ribbon but I find it easier to use 1/8 inch Scor-Tape for the narrow ribbon and 1/2 inch Scor-Tape for the wider ribbon.

 

I cut sections of the ribbon and angled the ends for the "leaves"- the bottom ends will be hidden under the "grass" strip.  The base card is an A2 card (5 1/2 x 4 1/4 when folded) and the layers on the card are cut at 5 1/8 x 3 7/8 inches (white layer) and 4 3/4 x 3 1/2 inches for the blue layer.

The wider and darker green ribbon makes the "grass" along the bottom.  I tried a few Cricut cuts for the "spring" word (cut from white gemstone Core'dinations cardstock).  This version was from the Cheerful Seasons Cricut cartridge.

I ended up using the "spring" from the Cupcake Wrappers cartridge.  I dotted the "i" in spring with a purple gradient gem sticker.

It is from the layer or topper section of the cartridge and the word is cut from the center of a circle.  I simply adjusted the size so the word would cut to fit the space I had on the card.

I used a purple and white sunflower for the flower - the gingham center is fresh and cute and makes me think of Spring.  

 

I used a large dimensional Glue-Dot to secure the flower to the card.

 

I added an extra green gradient gem sticker to form a head on the green sparkled butterfly.

I also made some simple birthday cards (for significantly numbered birthdays!).  I use a lot of the gradient gem stickers in my projects because they are simple to use and come in such nice gradations of color.

 

First, I colored some chipboard numbers with my Promarkers.  This was a quick and easy way to make them coordinate with the papers I chose for the card fronts.

 

I added lots of bling to the numbers for the cards that were for our nieces.

The cardstock for this card is from the DCWV "Sweet" stack - an older stack but still a favorite of mine.

These were 5 x 7 inch cards and for the 18th birthday card I added some peel-off borders around the edges.  The colorful glitter cardstock is from the DCWV Citrus stack.

 

This pattern from the"Sweet" stack is one of my favorites - but hard to look at when you are watching your weight!

The decorative tag is for the Display Board in my kitchen.   In some other parts of the country, St. Patrick's Day is not a very big holiday but it is greatly celebrated in the Boston area!  The tag is cut from heavyweight watercolor paper with a Nestabilities long scalloped  rectangle die.

The word "Lucky" is from the Straight From The Nest cartridge.

It always pays to search for a pre-welded version of a word you want to use on a card or page.

I cut apart a  Pure Blossom dark green gem and used the sections to make a four leaf clover.  The word was cut from metallic American Crafts cardstock.  I like the texture with the ribbed design.  Four of the pieces are arranged like a clover and I added a stem with some more gradient gem stickers.

A couple of notes...

I am excited to tell you the Dollar Days are back at Lettering Delights.  This is the time to stock up on digital content and printables for the holidays.  You can visit the site by clicking my affiliate link in the left side column or the image below.  I'll have some new examples of my digital scrapping projects using some of the Lettering Delights fonts,  images and papers soon.



Here are some of the special offers:

1) Over $40 in FREE PRODUCT with new account sign up.  SVG's have been added to the new account product.  If you already have an account, you will find the new product available in your library.

2) 9 Free Fonts are available to everyone who signs up for the newsletter

3) $5 off if you refer a friend who signs up for the newsletter.  You'll both receive a $5 coupon good on any purchase of $15 or more.

4) Monthly freebies.  This month's freebies are the Modern Miss Alphabet (available through Try Me Now Tool) and the Fancy That Digital Paper Pack.

There are also some early bird specials for orders placed by the 23rd:

Early Bird savings from March 15-March 23rd. 
Save 10% on $15 purchase or more with code: InBloom.
Save 25% on $35 with code: BiggerBloom.


I hope Spring comes your way soon! 
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About Snowflakes

I don't know why I am so fascinated by making snowflakes - but I am!  I always liked geometry in school and I enjoy finding new uses for old shapes too.  Today I want to share a quick process for making snowflakes and to "reveal" how I made the snowflake I posted last week.

Quite a few people left comments trying to guess what shapes were used to make this snowflake.  . This snowflake is made from just one shape with a circle added to strengthen the center.  Cartridge guesses included Accent Essentials, Home Accents, Winter Woodland, When it's Cold Outside and Storybook.  A crown, a diamond and a comma were some of the shapes suggested.  Deneen was correct about the element (a fleur-de-lis) and she thought it was from the French Manor cartridge

Here is the fleur-de-lis shape that I used - I drew the red box to help you see how it fits in the pattern.

The fleur-de-lis shape is from the Cupcake Wrappers Cricut Lite cartridge.  I chose this one because I thought it would look nice and lacy with the cut outs already in the shape (the diamond and other teardrop shapes).  You can use a solid shape and add other shapes to create cut outs but it takes a lot more fussing to get things perfectly aligned.

This is a screen shot of a snowflake made using the silhouetted fleur-de-lis on the Accent Essentials cartridge.  I did this just to test the look.  I think it is pretty but perhaps a bit too open.  You don't get a strong hexagonal impression when you first look at this variation.

This snowflake is very clearly six sided and has a definite hexagon center.  It might be improved by adding an additional layer.

So here are the basics for making a snowflake in Design Studio.  The same simple principles apply to creating a snowflake with the Gypsy but a few things will work differently - I'll try to point these out.

1.  Remember that a snowflake has six sides.  Think of a circle or pie with six wedges or slices and try to imagine if the shape you have chosen will fit nicely into a slice.

2.  You need to remember your geometry and the angles or rotation for a six sided shape.  You start with an element that looks interesting and check weld.  Then you copy and paste the element and, while it is still selected after pasting, change the value in the rotation box in the Shape Properties box.  (it is important to change the rotation right away in Design Studio because if  you click off the shape and go back to it the original and the copy will have merged and you can no longer separate them).

You will copy and paste 5 times and the values to place in the rotation box are 60, 120, 180, 240 (or -120) and 300 (or -60).  On the Gypsy, you will want to group the six items and you could enter six in the queue at the start or group them after you are done duplicating and changing the angles.

3.  You may spend quite a bit of time figuring out the best way to overlap the images enough to create a continuous snowflake design.  Some shapes look like they will overlap nicely but don't actually work very well.  Sometimes you will need to add another shape or another set of shapes to finish your snowflake.

4.  It is helpful to work at a large size so you can clearly see the areas where the images overlap and then adjust the size to be smaller or larger.

5.  If you are working on the Gypsy you will be able to duplicate the entire group and resize it to suit your project.  You can group and resize in Design Studio but you will not be able to copy and paste the images as a whole.  Since there are usually only six or seven elements, it won't take to long to create additional copies for the file.

 

This image is actually the "offcut" from another snowflake that I made tonight.  The actual snowflake is sooo pretty...but I will have to wait until another day to share it.  I do have a few other ways to make snowflakes and I'll try to give you some examples soon.  I had intended to post the file for this snowflake but while I was taking screen shots the file somehow corrupted (0 bytes left) and I will have to redo the file and post it in a day or two.

I am working on my layout for the cruise contest.  I hope that I will be able to make something that attracts a lot of votes on Facebook!  Please keep your fingers crossed for me...

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