Tea light houses and Celestial Cards

When we lived in Germany I loved going to the Christmas markets.  We went to many of them and I started a collection of these tea light houses made by a company called Leyk Lichthauser.  Each house is based on an actual building in Germany.  I haven't added to this collection for many years.  The number of houses I have just fits nicely in the bookcase top of this secretary desk in our family room.  I used to use candles but it took a long time to light them and put them out so for safety and convenience I use strings of white lights to illuminate them now.  If you'd like to know more about these houses, here is a LINK to the English language site for the Leyk Lichthauser company.  There are many more styles available now.  The lichthauser shelves will have some greens added to make them more festive - I use fresh greens so I will wait until we are closer to Christmas to add them.

We were gone most of the day - first to the special music church service to hear my husband's parents and sister singing in the choir and then to our nephew's 8th birthday party.  The music was beautiful and the party was chaotic but fun (triplets, twins and birthday boy all 11 and under).  So I didn't get much done here but we did sneak in a quick stop at the mall between church and the party and checked a number of gifs off our list.

I did get my third swap finished and in the mail yesterday.  The swap was for A2 notecards and the theme was "celestial."  I had a few different ideas but ended up making these cards with some swirls of stars from Joys of the Season which I adapted in Design Studio and a large star punched with a Martha Stewart punch.

I used some Creative Memories shimmer paper to cut the star swirls and metallic gold for the punched star.  Unfortunately, this paper is no longer available.  It was one of my favorites and I save it for special projects now.  Each of the four swirls of stars is in a different color (it may be hard to tell from the photo - it is even a bit difficult to tell two of the colors apart in person).

Here are all my cards before I sent them for swapping.  They have plain white paper inserts so they can be used as notecards.  They are not quite what I had envisioned - I hope my swapping partners like them...

I have lots more decorating to do tomorrow.  I'll be away again for three days at the end of the week so I have to  make a big push to get it mostly done before I go.  I know I am behind on answering email and comments - I will try to catch up tomorrow (does anyone else need more hours per day right now?).  I will also try to add another video as promised.  A few people have had trouble hearing the videos - I am not sure why.  I have tried it from several different computers and the sound has been fine.  You can adjust the sound on You Tube and on your computer so please check to be sure you have it high enough to hear. 

Elegant Embossing

I recently purchased some Coredinations paper at Joann's when they had a sale price of 6 sheets for 96 cents. This paper is made with a "core" of one color with another color on the surface. The paper comes in several varieties with different color combinations. It usually retails for 50 to 60 cents a sheet so this was a great price. Here is a LINK to the Coredinations website if you'd like more information about this paper.


I used the type called "Black Magic" for this card - the surface is black with another color below - in this case red.



I embossed a piece of the cardstock using my new "Victoria" Cuttlebug folder. Then I sanded the paper to remove the black layer and reveal the red on the embossed areas. I found the sanding took a while and I did have a lot of dust on my table when I was done. I ran the paper through the Cuttlebug a couple of times to enhance the embossing after sanding it for a while. I still didn't get all of the black off the raised areas but I think the effect is pretty.



I decide to use my sample piece to make a card. I used a dark green cardstock for the card base. I added a couple of pieces of white satin ribbon - taping them to the back of the embossed layer.



I tied a couple of short pieces of ribbon to the horizontal ribbons on the front of the card to imitate the look of actually tying the knots. It is much easier to get a nice effect by doing it this way (Robyn, The Pink Stamper, calls this the "cheater method").



To keep the ribbons in position, I placed a small glue dot under each knot.



When I add an embossed piece to a card, I always put the adhesive on the card itself and then add the embossed layer - it is too easy to "erase" or flatten the embossing with your tape gun if you apply the adhesive directly to the embossed layer.



I had a couple of embossed angels left over from my June ATC swap (above is a photo of that ATC) so I decided to use one for this card. With the dark green cardstock and red layer it was starting to have a "holiday" look. The angel is from the Joys of the Season cartridge.



The angel was embossed with the "Textile Texture" Cuttlebug folder. I used foam squares to raise the angel and make her "fly" on the card front.



Here is the finished card - very simple, but still interesting with all of the colors and textures. It is always fun to try new products and techniques - I think next time I will use a coarser grade of sandpaper and see if that makes the color removal quicker and easier.

For those of you who have been asking, Jen and I will be teaching a couple of Design Studio classes on Thursday and Friday this week- details are available on the Let me Show you How to Do that blog.

ATCs "Angels"

The theme for June for my ATC swap group was "Angels." This sounded so simple, but I had trouble deciding what to do and, as usual, I was rushing to get mine mailed on time. I think I will do the July ones next week and be early for once!



I decided to use this angel from the Joys of the Season cartridge. It is graceful and elegant and, since I love music, I liked that she has a horn or trumpet of some sort.



I wanted to use some gold metallic paper from Creative Memories for the actual angel cuts. This is an older paper that is no longer available. I really like it for the soft sheen it has and I am very stingy about using it since I don't have much left. By using Design Studio, I was able to set up 16 cuts of the angel using as little space as possible. The paper is 12 x 10 so I needed to be sure that the cuts would fit in that area. I ended up with a clean narrow border strip left from the sheet of card stock (plus the "scraps" from the cuts - I can punch some stars and other shapes from these leftover pieces).



I used some pink damask card stock from the DCWV "Luxury" stack for the background. It has a beautiful sheen. I cut the actual cards using a Design Studio file that I have shared before - it is very fast, easy and accurate this way.The angels were embossed using the "Textile Texture" Cuttlebug folder. I "fussy embossed" by carefully placing each angel in a certain position in the folder to get the swirls and the "halo" just right.



Here are all 14 of the ATCs just before I sent 13 of them flying to Arizona to be swapped.

I use my Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus software to create the backs of my ATCs each month. I set up the file with all the information required and then print the backs, 9 to a sheet of cardstock and trim them to 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches.



I used some digital paper that was a little bit similar to the front of the card as the background (it is from the "Gazebo" Digital Power Pallete). I signed and numbered each ATC before sending them to be swapped.



The angels were attached using foam squares for some added dimension. Three pearls - one large and two medium - in the lower right corner, give the final finishing touch.


Jen and I are teaching three Design Studio Classes this week - a Getting Started class Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. Eastern time and Basic Cards on both Thursday and Friday at 1 p.m. Eastern time. If you are interested in either of these classes you can sign up through the "Let me Show you How to Do that" blog.

Pine Branch Card Front (adjustable)

Thanksgiving has come and gone and now we are in the unusually short stretch from Thanksgiving to Christmas - only four weeks this year! Earlier this month I gave a sneak peak at this design and now I finally have a chance to post it. I think it makes a lovely holiday card.

This is a simple adjustable design made from just two elements. If you want to make this using another element in the center you can follow the same method I used for the adjustable snowflakes in circles (here is a LINK to that post).

The file has three copies of the design sized appropriately for some standard card sizes but you can adjust this file to suit other projects. It lalso looks nice as a full scrapbook page background. Just copy and paste the design to a new page and adjust to the size you want.



Above you can see the A2 card front placed on a 5 x 7 card. I like to try mixing up the sizes to try different effects.



Here is another one of my test cuts. The lower part of the inner frame was torn a bit in the cutting so I trimmed it and left the pine cone "hanging" from just the top bars.



Above you can see the 5 x 5 card size placed on a 5 x 7 vertical card. These are plain photos just to give you a few ideas of sizes and placement. You could cut a phrase for the greeting and add it to the card front.



Here is a 5 x 5 card with the square design. I used a Versamark embossing pad and sparkle embossing powder to get this effect on the plain white card stock.

Have fun with this one - I love the frame from Graphically Speaking and plan to use it for many more new designs. It always pays to spend some time "browsing" the carts for some of the surprising elements that can be used in new ways!

Pine Branch Card Front (A)

Trim the Tree (title swap 2)

Here is the second title I did for the swap. This title can also be adjusted to be wider or taller depending on the space you have on your page. A few variations are shown in the photo above.

Below you can see how the cuts looked on the mat - in this file all three variations are on one page. You can copy and paste any of these to a new page and cut them individually (the two smaller ones will fit on a baby bug mat - just rotate the tall skinny one 90 degrees to fit the smaller mat - portrait orientation).



You can also copy and paste the design on a new mat and then set your desired height and width in the Shape Properties box. Below you can see the cuts after the larger piece of cardstock was lifted - the grid gives you a better idea of the exact sizes (please excuse the paper lint in the photo- I think it is time to wash my mat!)



One more view in traditional red and green - a bit hard to get a nice photo due to the contrast!




Trim the Tree (A)

Welding in a Circle - I finally found a way!

I have been trying for weeks to figure out a way to weld images inside of a circle and found frustration at every turn! I thought there certainly would be a way to get two sets of parentheses from one of the font cartridges to do the trick but none of the ones I tried were consistent enough in width. I was working on this back before Valentine's Day and the cuts in the photo below were the best I could come up with - and not satisfactory!



Today, I was looking at the various feature keys on Joys of the Season and saw a shape that inspired me to try again. It is actually a layer for the jingle bell which is the shift of the rocking horse (center row, sixth key from the left). Now why wasn't that obvious to me before?!?




So, not being terribly original, I decided to try to weld the word "circle" inside a circle. By using four of the JOTS jingle bell layers and welding them "just so" I was able to get what I thought was a decently even circle. I then used Alphalicious, typed out the word "circle", welded and placed it inside the circle. On the first preview the inner edge of the circle was gone (as it is whenever you do a square) but by "burping" the design (copying and pasting one of the four circle sections away from the design, deleting that section from the circle and adding back the copied section) I was able to get it to work! EUREKA! (OK, I know I sound like a crazy person but I was so determined to find a way to do this and had been thwarted so many times!)



This is how it looked when I removed the outer offcut - there are little "ears" left over that would have been used as a layer on the handle of the jingle bell.

Here it is when I took it off the mat!



Next I tried to put in a flower from our old standby George - worked like a charm!

Here it is on the mat



and again after it was removed and placed on a blue background.



Knowing that some of you would want to try this but would may not have the George cartridge, I did one using the star from Plantin Schoolbook. Here is a photo of that cut next to the first one



So, give this a try - I have all sorts of ideas of ways to use this and will get busy on them but wanted to share my "breakthrough" right away.

Here are the simple files for these two demonstrations of the circle welding - you have to have Joys of the Season to do this (do you think I can get a commission from Provo Craft!?!)

You don't need to use a full sheet of paper - just be sure to place your paper in the proper area of the mat. A piece 5 x 5 inches will be more than enough if you place it correctly. When I watched these cut, the Cricut did the little "ears" or bell handle layers last. If you watch the progress of cutting carefully, you could stop your machine just before that last part of the cut but I am reluctant to try that - I don't think the "waste" is significant enough and I don't want to harm my machine (I have to research whether this is OK to do on a regular basis - I have only used it to stop the machine when the paper got loose once - to avoid jamming the blade). You could always save those little bits and use them on something later!

Flower in a circle

Star in a circle

I'll be posting more creations using this concept soon - if you do some please share through a comment here or by posting to the Cricut message board (there is a link to the message board in the right column). Have fun with this!

Large Pine Cone Frame (by request)

So, it is hard to please all of the people all of the time! There are some folks with the little bug and George and there are some with the Expression and Plantin Schoolbook. So here is one of the favorites from the recent baby bug frames adapted for the big bug and in a larger size.

If you remember the leaf frame (posted March 4th) - I have discovered that even though the file is set up to be perfectly symmetrical it does not seem possible to get the outer edges to come out at the design dimensions of 1/2 inch. I can't really explain this but the side of the mat that enters the machine and the top edge as you look at the mat on the screen have a bit extra added to them (5/8 inch) and the right side and lower edge come out a bit thinner (3/8 inch) - so, once again you will need to trim these edges slightly. The photos below show the four corners of the mat while the paper is still stuck to it.

Upper left corner



Upper right corner



Lower left corner



Lower right corner



Here is the full page before trimming - you can see that the left side and the top are slightly thicker. If the slight difference doesn't bother you, you could use it this way but I prefer to make the outer edges even.



Here is the frame after trimming - you can see the very narrow border of the background color



Here you can see the small strips that were taken off to make the outer edges even.



To remove this frame you need to be careful - I deliberately tried to make it rather open and airy so there are not as many areas attached to the inner frame. I use a old kitchen scraper (not sure where I got it) that has a very thin/sharp edge to remove the frame. Just take your time and it will be fine.



Here is a photo of the scraper - it is particularly helpful when there are lots of detailed cuts close together because it can lift them all at once, reducing the risk of tearing as you remove the cut.



Here you can see how thin the edge is - useful for getting under the paper smoothly.



I like the look of this on a natural beige background - could be useful for "outdoorsy" photos or camping layouts - not just for the holidays!



Enjoy using this one and I would appreciate it if you could leave a comment to let me know how you plan to use it (or post a photo of the layout to the Cricut Message Board). Thanks.

12 x12 Pine Cone Frame

Little Frames for Baby Bugs

Several people have commented that they love the frames I have been doing but couldn't cut them since they didn't have an Expression. I decided to take on the challenge of designing something similar that could be cut on the baby bug. Thanks to Suzanne for testing this size - she cut the pink frame on her baby bug and told me it came out just fine.



The pink frame is all George - it is a bit fiddly removing all of the pieces from the center and petals of the flowers but I like the final effect.



The pine cone frame uses George and Joys of the Season - this one is very easy to remove from the mat and to "clean up" by removing the offcuts - they are larger in size.



The next frame uses George and ZooBalloo and is a bit more delicate. When I first did a test cut I did not like the thick "bars" that were forming at the corners of the inner frames so I went back to work and readjusted the length . I think the second one is better but you may want to tweak it a bit more if you have the patience!



Here you can see the rejected version (on the left) and the second one - the difference is slight but I feel it improves the overall look of the frame.



The final and most delicate/frustrating of these is also George and Joys of the Season. Due to the limited amount of room to add the decorative elements in these frames, the garland is very small and there was a bit of tearing when I cut it (as you can see on the mat below) and it is also difficult to get the offcuts to come apart cleanly on the swirls.



I will put this file up but you need to be extremely careful to get all of the offcuts removed - you may want to try redesigning it a bit (I might but I have a few other things in the works right now).

For designing purposes it was easier for me to work from the center of the mat but you do not need to waste paper. Simply cut 6 x 6 inch squares and position them at the top but on the three inch line.



When you do this you will have only a very small edge of paper that is wasted (you can even cut these squares at the corners and save the strips to use on another project - if you are extremely frugal!).



I will be doing more of these but they are rather fiddly - it takes a lot of time to get the elements arranged attractively (and then there is always "burping" to be done to get the welds to take). I hope you enjoy using these in your projects

George Square Frame Hearts and Flowers

George Square Frame Pine Cone Garland

George Square Frame Vines

George Square Frame JOTS Garland