Egg Shaped Card adapted from Free Silhouette Studio Shape

Every Tuesday, there is a free shape offered through the Silhouette online store accessed through the free Silhouette Studio software.  The shape is available for one week so there is plenty of time to log in to the software and add it to your collection. 

This week the free shape was this stitched egg candy pouch.  I thought it could easily be turned into a card so I made a few changes to the design.  I ungrouped the elements and then released the compound path to separate the egg shape from the stitching holes.

I mirrored the egg shape to the left and added a small oval at the edge between the two eggs, then welded all three shapes to produce the card base.  I adjusted the shape slightly to make the an A2 size.  To create the ring of "frosting," I grouped the remaining stitching circles and added a contour of .150.  Then I selected both the holes and the outline and made a compound path.  I stretched the shape slightly to fit the slightly resized card.

I used the Core'dinations Gemstone cardstock for all of the pieces.  It comes in such lovely spring colors and the pearly shine is perfect for Easter items.  I remember the large chocolate eggs we used to get in our Easter baskets usually had a ring of white frosting and some flowers so I added three sparkled flowers from Creative Charms in white, yellow and purple.

I put the letters and background of the sentiment on a straight line when I added them to the card.  The original design has them angling up to the right a bit.  I probably should have changed the angle of the cut on the mat, turning it 10 or 11 degrees to have the cut line up with the linen texture in the cardstock.  If you were using a solid color flat cardstock, it wouldn't matter.

I decided to leave well enough alone - it's probably one of those things that most people wouldn't notice!
(If I cut another card from this cardstock, I probably will straighten it - that's just the way I am...).

I liked the look with the holes in the center of the border, however, you can easily omit the holes to get the look in this screen shot.  It's fun to play around with the alternatives - just start over if you end up with something that doesn't appeal to you!

I am happy to share this simple .studio file - you can download it by clicking on the link below.

Easter Egg Shaped Card

It's great to have the ability to change these free shapes - it makes them even more useful and fun to use.

In other news - I actually used my Bind-It-All for the first time in ages.  My little neighbor had a school project (a comic book style book report) and she needed to keep the pages together.  She was very interested in the way the Bind-It- All worked and loved choosing some ribbons to add to the binding.  I asked her if she thought anyone else would put their book together this way and she said she didn't think so because, "not everybody has a Miss Diane on their street!" 

I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!

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Another Favorite Easter Project

Tuesday was a very full day and I was out at appointments for a good part of the day.  I am getting closer to finishing everything for the exhibit but I haven't had time to edit photos to post.  I will take photos after everything is in place on Friday morning. 

I realized that I totally forgot about my ATCs for this month - I'll have to send them late!  I made this bunny ATC a few years ago and I thought I'd share the LINK to the original post.  These would make a cute addition to an Easter basket. 

The eggs are loose inside the layered frame and they are fun to shake around.  You could even add a little loose glitter inside - everything is better with glitter!!

Thanks to everyone who shared an Easter Memory - if you missed yesterday's post here is a LINK so you can add your story on that post.

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Easter Memories

Easter is just a couple of weeks away.  After all the mild weather we've been having, the temperatures have plummeted and we may have a freeze overnight.  We had snow on Halloween and maybe we could have it on Easter too!

One of the sponsors at the Blissdom conference last month was Hershey's.  They had a fun booth where you could design a custom Easter basket and take a photo with the Easter Bunny (sorry - I didn't get one!).  My basket filled with some delicious chocolate treats should arrive soon.  When we made our basket choices, we were asked to join the Hershey's "Bunny Trail" and post some Easter tips, memories or traditions. 

You can follow the Bunny Trail by clicking the image above to go to the Hershey's site.  You'll find coloring pages, craft projects, egg hunt ideas, egg decorating stencils and holders and even some digital scrapbook papers.

When I think back to Easter in my childhood, there are a few things that stand out.  I have two older sisters and we always had special Easter outfits - including hats.  That's me in the photo with a corsage almost as big as my head. These dresses often were matching sister dresses in sets of two or three.   When my brother came along, he didn't have to dress to match!  Some years when the weather was still chilly we had fluffy white muffs to keep our hands warm (yes, I really am that old!).

Apparently, when we posed for these photos I was not about to let go of my Easter basket!  My love of chocolate started early and continues to this day.  When I was little my favorite was the plain Hershey milk chocolate bar, now I prefer the dark chocolate.  Growing up in Pennsylvania, I had several school field trips to Hershey, PA.  We would take a tour of the factory and then go to the amusement park (I guess the factory tour satisfied the "educational" component of the field trip!).

I really don't remember my Dad wearing bow ties but he had one on for this Easter photo.  It's always fun to look at old photos and see the styles and how we looked when were were young.  It looks like that basket was getting a bit heavy - I can hardly hold it up.  We always had a chocolate bunny and there was a great debate over the proper way to eat it.  It seems cruel to take off the ears first, but I think that is the most popular way to start!

I scanned these old photos and made a digital scrapbook page with my Creative Memories StoryBook Creator 4.0 software using the Reminisce Spring Digital Additions.  It was interesting to see that the next photos in the book were from my birthday in July.  We didn't take a lot of photos, so the ones that are left are very special to me.

Our family has a great tradition of egg hunts.  When our boys were young, we lived near my sister in New Jersey and she would hard boil five or six dozen (!) eggs.  They were dyed in lots of pastel colors and my brother-in-law would hide them in the yard.  He would keep track with an elaborate hand drawn map to make sure that all of the eggs would be found.  The hunt was quite challenging (think yellow eggs high up in a forsythia bush) and everyone would get involved in helping the kids find the eggs.

My Dad always would get a big kick out of both the hiding and the search.  For years we have kept up a joke of hiding eggs (the plastic kind with Hershey's nuggets and jelly beans inside) at his apartment whenever we visit.  Last time I was there he gave me a bag with what he thought were the "last of the eggs."  Little does he know that they'll be returning, refilled and hidden in unexpected spots, when we go to visit Easter weekend.

In 2010, I made the layout above for some egg hunt photos.  I had forgotten about it but now I am motivated to find some photos from the New Jersey egg hunts and fill in the photos spots!  I even made an egg card with some of the offcut pieces.  You can find details about the card and the  layout and how I designed it HERE. 

Thanks to Hershey's for motivating me to make this heritage page and for the Easter basket that will arrive soon. Be sure to check out the Bunny Trail - there are lots of fun things for you there.

What are some of your favorite Easter Memories?  I'd love to hear about your family traditions.

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Spring Cleaning Discovery - Crocheted Chicken Egg Cozies

I am working on getting my laundry/sewing room cleaned up today.  One of my motives is to find a space for the gigantic Yudu screen printing machine that I "had to have" when it was on sale (it's still in the box taking up way too much space in my craftroom).

We enlarged the tiny (6 x 6 feet) laundry room in our house shortly after we moved here.  It is a wonderful space but has become a junk repository.  Whenever we need to tidy up the rest of the house in a hurry, things get tossed into the laundry room "for now." 

As you can imagine, this results in quite an accumulation that is always low on the list of priorities to clear up since we can just shut the door.

Since the laundry room is next to the garage entry into the house, it is an easy place to stash new purchases when I get home from an outing.

The laundry room is also a convenient place to put things that are on the way out - headed to Goodwill or another destination.  I have found all sorts of things (some good, and some that really need to leave the house...)

When I came across these egg cups and cozies they put a smile on my face because they made me think of Spring.  I bought them last year at a local charity shop and they had been sitting in the bag ever since!

I couldn't resist stopping my work to do an impromptu "photo shoot" with these willing models.  They are definitely staying in the "keep" pile.

I hope they make you smile too! 

Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead tonight and change your smoke detector batteries tomorrow.

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Easter Celebrations

We had a very nice Easter and the weather turned out to be fine!  I know that I said I'd have some projects to post for Monday, however, we spent most of the day with family and by the time we got home it was too late to assemble and photograph the things I had planned to finish.  I'll try to post those later in the day.  I thought I'd share a few photos from our day - some of these will be used for digital projects.

It was very foggy at 6:30 a.m. when we went to the Old North Bridge for the Easter Sunrise Service.  There were around 75 people who came out early for the service.  I grabbed my camera on the way out the door because the fog was so thick and I thought I could take some interesting photos after the service.

The fog was beautiful and made everything look soft and muted.  This is the view across the river toward the famous Daniel Chester French sculpture of the Concord Minuteman.

After the service the sky started to brighten up and I caught this lovely lavender and blue sky background.

 

As we walked back over the bridge the sun was starting to shine.

 

There were several spiderwebs on the bridge and I tried to capture their fragile beauty.

 

This view back across the river shows the bridge and the statue.  The atmosphere was very tranquil.

We went home to bake our cinnamon rolls to take to the larger family get together.  There is a traditional egg hunt hosted by my husband's youngest brother and his family for their neighborhood and we love to watch the fun.  There were hundreds of eggs to make the search easy for all of the children (though sometimes the older children who have graduated to become "hiders" placed them in spots that were just a little tricky).

There are hundreds of eggs for collecting, however there are only a few special, gold, silver or shiny eggs and these are limited to one per child when collecting the eggs.

Some of the eggs substitute for flowers that aren't blooming yet!

 

The end of the street is blocked with these cones and the eggs are hidden in four or five adjoining yards.  If you look closely at the cones you can see that there is an egg perched on top of each one.

When you start to run out of room in the garden, you can always "hide" a  few eggs right on the cars!

Here are the younger cousins - just waiting for the go ahead to start searching for eggs.

 

The day turned so warm and sunny that we actually had a taste of Spring.  With the sun shining so brightly, I took the chance to get some more close up photos of flowers.  Whenever I have the chance, I try to get some clear closeups to use for converting into digital elements for my digital projects.

These tiny purple flowers on the ground-cover are one of my favorites.

I will work with these flower photos to make some pretty flower clusters for some of my pages.  I'll post the results for you to see how a photo can be used in many ways.

I'll be participating in two blog hops this week.  The first is the Creative Charms blog hop on Friday, April 29th (which happens to be the date of the royal wedding).  This is a farewell hop as a number of Design Team members have finished their terms.  There will be some great prizes and lots of inspiration.

The second is a Disney/Pixar hop on April 30th and May 1st - I'll be in the May 1st group.  I don't make a lot of Disney projects so I thought it would be fun to do this and challenge myself a little.  There are also prizes for this hop so it looks like another busy weekend!

I hope you had a lovely weekend and I want to thank you for your patience.  This has not turned into a photography blog - I will be back to posting crafty projects later today.  I'll also have some thoughts to share about the latest cartridge release.  If you've had a chance to check them out, I'd love to hear what you think about the new cartridges.


link to Discussion Day 2 - How much is enough?


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Happy Easter

I hope that you have a lovely holiday and that you will be able to spend it with family and friends.  We hope to watch the younger members of the family hunt for eggs after church - if it isn't raining too hard.  This is my Easter card to you - made digitally with the Reminisce Spring Digital Additions and the Nancy O'Dell Hummingbird Series Digital Kit.

I did manage to clear out a lot of the storage area - it was full of things I had saved to "alter" and it was time for some of them to go!  Later this afternoon I hope to find time to put together a few of the projects that I have had designed in my mind for days - and continue with the clearing out process.

If you are eager to see the new Cricut cartridges (all 17 of them!), the Gypsy update is ready - when I checked late last night the Design Studio update had not yet been posted.  The Hello Thursday bloggers were finally given the go ahead to post the information and their projects on Saturday.    Here are the links...

Joy's blog 
Melanie's blog 
Robyn's blog
Tammy's blog 
Mixology Crafts (new this month)

link to Discussion Day 2 - How much is enough?

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SImple Easter Treat Bags

Here is a quick and easy way to present Easter treats.  These are inexpensive to put together but look more special than just placing the candy in an Easter basket.

Here are all the pieces you need for these treat bags.  I get the 3 x 4 inch zip top bags at Michael's.  If you can't find this size just adjust the size of your pieces to fit the bags you are using.  I cut the backing piece at 2 3/4 x 3 3/4 inches to allow room for the candy to fit in comfortably.  The topper can be cut at about 3 1/4 inches x 4 inches and folded in half.  You can make this narrower or wider and adjust the height according to the punch you are using.  I used the Martha Stewart Double Loops border punch from the Punch Around the Page set.

I found these cute foil wrapped chocolate chicks at our local Concord candy store, Priscilla's, on Walden Street.  They have lots of delicious treats and I often find cute things for gifts there.  These three bags were part of the "extra" surprises that went in the Blogoversary celebration boxes.  I wanted to wait until the three winners would have received their boxes to post these photos.

After your topper is punched you may need to trim the punched area to neaten it.  If you prefer a perfect edge, you can design the topper with one of the many borders from a Cricut cartridge of your choice.

Here are some similar bags I designed for Valentine's Day - you can read all of the details about how to design these toppers at THIS POST.

Once you have assembled the bags, you should punch two holes to thread the ribbon from the front to the back.  The ribbon is about a foot long.  It helps to use a binder clip to holder the pieces together once they are punched.  For more detailed directions on assembling the bags, please see THIS POST.

Next, insert the ribbon ends in the opposite hole and bring the ribbons around to the front.

 

You could just pull the ribbons tight and trim the ends, or continue on to tie a bow as I did for these treats.

The cardstocks I used for these bags were from a DCWV Spring Glitter Stack from a couple of years ago - you may also have some of this hanging around if you are a paper collector like me!

I'll be heading back to Massachusetts just a few days before Easter so there will be a flurry of decorating when I get home!

link to Discussion Day 1 - Why do you craft?

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