Lots of Tiny Peachy Keen Faces!

It's my third day as Guest Designer on the Peachy Keen Stamps blog and today I have something a little different to share with you.  If you are new to my blog, welcome and thanks for stopping by!

I stamped faces on these clothespins with StazOn ink to make little dolls for my neighbors (won't they be fun to dress up!).  While I was cleaning the tiny stamps an idea popped into my head.

I figured out a way to make my own "Peachy Paper" by stamping rows of tiny faces in a grid fashion.  The stamped piece above was my first attempt.  I didn't think about filling in the gap at the right until it was too late.  You can see more photos of the process in my post on the Peachy Keen Stamps blog HERE.

After I had filled the cardstock with images, I cut the word "Smile" from the Cricut Gypsy Wanderings cartridge.  I wanted to highlight one of the smiling faces in the background so I decided to make a ring to put around the face.

I could have set up a cut on the Gypsy or with Design Studio but I chose to use this "low tech" punch method.  If you have a set of graduated size punches it is a handy trick to know.  Just punch the first circle with the smaller punch.  Then, move the punched circle to the second punch area and center it in the opening.  When you punch the larger circle, you will have a perfectly shaped ring to use to highlight something on a card or layout.

Once the ring was placed, I couldn't resist adding a bit of bling to make the smiling face sparkle.  I also added a gem to the flower in the "Smile" and tied a piece of gingham ribbon around the top of the card.

I hope this card will bring a smile to someone's face when they open it.

Remember, you can leave comments on my posts here and the coordinating posts on the Peachy Keen blog all week for a chance to win the PK-590 Blushing Bride Interchangeable Faces set.  If you have questions about how to use the stamps, there is a very helpful "How To" section on the Peachy Keen site HERE.

This is the second card I made with "Peachy Paper" - just in time for the Fourth of July!  You can see more about this card on the Peachy Keen Blog HERE.

A special note for my overseas friends and readers - Most of you know that I am also on the Design Team for Scrappy-Go-Lucky which is based in Australia.  Scrappy-Go-Lucky works with Peachy Keen and sells Peachy Keen stamps to the Australian and UK markets.

In honor of my Guest Designer week, Mandy has set up a special code of PKDI which will take 10% off your order of Peachy Keen Stamps.  This code is good only for Australia and the UK and will expire Sunday, July 3rd at midnight (Boston time).  For those of you in Australia or the UK, this would be a perfect time to add to or start a collection of these great stamps!

I'll be back with another Peachy Project tomorrow - have a great day!

By the way - the "Look Books" for the latest Hello Thursday Cricut  cartridge release (the Event and Project cartridges) are now available on the Cricut.com site HERE.  The Cartridge Library has not been updated and when I last checked there was not an update for Design Studio available yet - soon, I hope...

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Cheery Strawberry Card

It all started with the strawberries...  These knitted strawberries are one of my favorite items from Creative Charms and when I saw the paper (Garden Variety by Cosmo Cricket) I knew they needed to be together.

The paper I had was six by six inch squares and I wanted to make a five by seven inch card.  As you can see - this paper is not big enough to make a conventional layer, however, there is a little trick you can play to make this work.  The strawberry paper above is cut to six inches by four and one half inches.

Simply slice the paper at about one and one quarter inches from the short end and move the two pieces into position on the card.  The card base is kraft cardstock.

I decided to add a red lower mat (cut at 4 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches).  You could stop here, but I chose to add a layer to hide the divided strawberry paper.

My first plan was to use the red and white polka dot paper as the coordinating layer.  I thought it looked passable for the strip of paper but the words were lost.  The "For You' is from the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge (this cartridge is only in the Gypsy so you would need to have a Gypsy to cut it - you could use a different phrase from a different cartridge if you don't have a Gypsy).

First I tried changing the top layer of the words to the same green as the medallions but I didn't think there was enough contrast.

So, third time is the charm as they say and I finally decided to change both the strip that hides the gap in the paper and the top layer of the sentiment to this lively yellow floral paper.

The small medallions were cut with the Spellbinders "Lacey Circles" dies.  I still like using metal dies to get perfect shapes with the slightly rounded edge that only a die will produce.  The smaller circle is adhered with foam dots centered on the larger scalloped lacey circle medallion.

The base medallion was cut from some dark green Cor'edinations textured carstock and it is also raised with some foam dots.

The double layering and the berries themselves make this a very thick card so I would plan to hand deliver the card when I used it.  It would be a nice "welcome to the neighborhood" card if it was delivered with some strawberry treats!

Creative Charms has a special weekend deal for you.  First, blog candy is back on the Creative Charms blog so you can visit and follow the Creative Charms blog and leave a comment on the post HERE (on the Creative Charms blog not my blog) to have a chance to win a free deal of the month for June.

Creative Charms has also packed up a great deal for this weekend only. The amber marble vintage brads, blue marble vintage brads and grey pearl vintage brads together are 50% off. That is 27 brads for only $5.25. Grab your Vintage Brad Sale right away and remember - the Simplicity items are all still on sale at 70% off HERE.

Is it cold where you are? The weather here has been quite chilly and rainy for several days - naturally it started raining right as the carpenters were taking off a big section of our house to frame in the repair and addition.  Fingers crossed for a nicer weekend.  If it rains we will just have to focus on indoor jobs and there are plenty of them to go around!

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Eyelet Border Card with the Gypsy

I love to use border punches but it can be tricky to get them perfectly lined up for a nice card edge.  Some border punches are not sized to fit neatly on a card front.  With Design Studio or the Gypsy, I can create card blanks with "punched" borders that are a perfect fit and save my hands from all that punching!  I started making bordered cards this way a couple of years ago and I have learned a few helpful tricks along the way.

I had my Gypsy along on the trip to Virginia so I worked on a few of these designs while I was flying back and forth.  I decided to make a design using only the preloaded Gypsy cartridges.  This is the image I used.  The keywords identify it as "watermelon, half circle or grapefruit" - I thought of it as a lemon slice!

I added a group of seven of the images to the mat.  I prefer to make borders with an uneven number of images so there will be an obvious centerpoint to the design.  On the Gypsy the kerning I applied was -.12 and the scallops were evenly spaced when the kerning was applied.  In Design Studio you usually need to fix the kerning by nudging a few items in order to get even spacing.

I then changed the length of the group to 5.5 inches so it would make a border for an A2 card.  On the Gypsy the sizing can be locked to stay proportional or unlocked to allow the height and width to be individually adjusted.  Design Studio does not have this proportional sizing and there is no way to lock the aspect ratio when you change one dimension.  I generally use the lower right "handle" to get the size as close to my intended size as possible and then type in the final values.

To create the base of the card I needed to use this square from the Gypsy Font cartridge.  There is not a perfect square on the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge (I discovered this on another project - it doesn't really matter since both of the Gypsy cartridges are preloaded on the Gypsy so you will have a square).

I used one guideline rectangle to figure out the sizing for the card with the "punched" border.  I placed the 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch rectangle on the mat, added the border section and then added a rectangle adjusted to the width to fit with the punched border.  The border and this rectangle are then welded to create the card base.  The guideline rectangle should be moved to another page or deleted before the design is cut.

I am using Design Studio screen shots to show you the steps but you can not cut this design from the computer - it uses the Gypsy cartridges so can only be cut with the Gypsy.  You can click on any of the screen shots to see a larger version.

 I set up a 12 x 12 mat to cut two card bases with eyelets borders at once.

I cut the card base from Core'dinations Gemstone cardstock in opal.  I used multi cut 2  times to be sure that the eyelet sections would be cut cleanly.

I scored the card at 4 1/4 inches on my Scor-Pal  to create a neat fold in the heavy cardstock.

Once I had the card base cut I could quickly pull together a card by adding a layer, a sentiment and some gems.

I added some glittery striped cardstock from the DCWV "Linen Closet" stack.

The "Thanks" sentiment is from the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge.  I cut the top layer in the same opal Gemstone cardstock and the shadow layer in a darker tan cardstock.

The card was quite simple but also shiny and pretty- it just needed a little something more...

 I added some Creative Charms small gradient gem stickers in blue along the eyelet border.  I put one more on the tail of the "s" just for fun!

I can use this same card base cut over and over.  I can even prepare some of these bases when I am not very busy and then have them on hand to decorate.

There are many more images that will work to create a punched border effect for your cards.  I think I gave enough details about how to create your own file that you should be able to make one of your own.  If you have trouble and want me to post the file (after I "clean it up" a bit!), please leave a comment and let me know you need it.

Link to Gypsy file added 9/30 - 


A2 Eyelet Edge Card


There are just a couple of days left to purchase the Creative Charms Deal of the Month for September  - this deal comes in a boy or girl version and includes $24.00 worth of product for just $7.99 - here is a LINK to the page on their site.  New deals for October will be announced soon...

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Graduation Celebrations

In many parts of the country the graduation season is over, however, here in Massachusetts most high school graduations are in the first two weeks of June. We have several young friends graduating this year and so I have been making some graduation cards.

Here are the pieces of the card.  I used a 5 x 7 card base, and cut a black layer at 4 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches.  The top layer is cut at 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches from a graduation pack of Creative Memories paper that is discontinued.

The diploma is cut from the A Child's Year cartridge at 4 inches.

The Congrats for the inside of the card is from Gypsy Wanderings and is cut at 3 inches.

I cut the shapes from American Crafts metallic black cardstock with a linen texture.  This cardstock has a white core.

I didn't care for the white edges so I used a black pen to color the exposed edges.

Paying attention to details like this makes your final card look much more polished.

I used foam squares to raise the diploma for some dimension on the card front.  (My messy pen marks don't show on the front!).

I cut the diploma a second time in yellow gemstone Core'dinations cardstock and hand trimmed the two pieces to form the ribbon tie.  I added a metal tag with the word celebrate to join the two sections and cover the hole in the center of the diploma ribbon.

The "Congrats" cut was all I needed for the inside of the card (with a personal note added by hand).  There is a lot of great word art on the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge that comes pre-loaded on the Gypsy.

 It was very handy to use the Gypsy to make this card.  I could check my sizes and quickly cut the two elements I needed for my card.  I have been using my Gypsy more since the update - for simple tasks like this I don't even need to bring my laptop to the Cricut.

Congratulations to all of you who have loved ones graduating this year - I wish them happy and successful futures.


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