Erin Go Bragh - a Cute Treat Box!

Good morning, CardMonkey/Rumple Ribbon fans. It's time for me to post another Thursday blog post on the Lovebug Creations' blog site, as part of my Creative Team work fun.  How I enjoy playing with these delightful ribbons!

This week, I've made an adorable floral topped hexagonal paper container. In it, I've stashed some deee-licious Irish Potatoes in celebration of St. Patrick's Day.

Using a super-easy/super-fast cut file available from the Silhouette America online store ($0.99), I cut the box in a single piece. Folding it was a bit tricky to figure out, but if I could get the hang of it, so can you.

While the box stays closed on its own, I wrapped its "neck" with GREEN LEAVES Rumple Ribbon, part of the new collections by Lovebug Creations. For the tag, I used a Hambo Stamps digi-stamp that I colored with Copics and embellished with Stickles. There's also a little "Kiss Me!" tag that is part of the Irish Monkey file. I tied the tag on with green and orange baker's twine. The whole package is topped with a Shamrock, cut using the Cameo with a different file. 

To give you an idea of scale, the box is 2" from the bottom to the shoulder where it curves up to the cut-petal closure. It holds about a cup of Irish Potatoes.

Erin Go Bragh!!   

Thank You Cards

Greetings, Friends & Followers!

Yesterday's baby shower for daughter Emily was a huge success. We had a beautiful day for the brunch at the Five Ponds Golf Club (Warminster, PA). Forty guests showered Emily and Baby Girl ("Charlotte Grace") with niceties and necessities. The candy buffet was a hit -- I can't believe all that candy (woosh) went and there are no leftovers.

Today was a day to unwind after months of preparation, and to make some Thank You cards for my dear co-hosts, who include the two other Grandmothers (Sherry Michaels and Margaret Cohick) and Emily's godmother Mary Beth Hume (my sister). They were all generous with their time and contributions, even though they live 6-10 hours away!

Here is the card I made for them. I used a Cuttlebug embossing card to create the raised swooshes, and cut the butterfly using Cricut "Cake Basics" cartridge. The butterflies were decorated using Stickles; their antennae were gold wires highlighted by Swarovski crystals. The raised "Thank you" sentiment was given dimension with pop dots.

I've made a few more cards this weekend, which I'll be unveiling in the days ahead. Stay tuned!

July = Vacation!

Oh, happy day!

During the first week of July, the manufacturing plant where I work (day job = bills paid) closes for annual maintenance. It's a forced vacation, and a time to catch some rays as well as refresh my creativity in the loft. It calls for an easel card to place on my desk. Here it is!

To create this card, I used the adorable image of the relaxin' cat from Hambo Stamps. This image of the "Cool Cat" is actually a FREE digi-image that you can download by clicking HERE. I've purchased many of the Hambo Stamp images as I think they are totally adorable!

For this image, I colored it using a combination of colored pencils with gamosol technique to blend, Copic Markers, and a white accent pen. I cut the image from my white drawing paper using Cricut's Accent Essentials cartridge (the cloud shape, on shadow, using the "Center Point" feature), and cut a yellow highlight piece slightly larger for mounting. I inked the edges, as the white seemed to get lost on the yellow.

I then cut a palm tree using Cricut's Summer Vacation cartridge. I cut multiple images, some from brown (for the trunk), some from Bazzill's green for the leaves. I stacked the brown for the trunk to give it dimension, and then cut apart the green leaves and stacked/splayed to give the tree a more realistic feel. I used hot glue to be sure the leaves stayed where I wanted them, quickly.

Bling time! I punched through the leaves using my Big Bite CropADile, and placed two brads. The brads I used were yellow, which just looked a little "off" when said and done. So I blinged them with cinnamon-colored Stickles.

I created the text "On Vacation" using Sure Cuts A Lot, setting and manipulating the font to make it look more fun. I twisted the last "n", for example, and elongated some of the letters. Then welded, glued and blinged with Stickles.

The card design was placed on a small A-frame easel card onto which I glued a fun paper from a summer stack.

Hambo's Cool Cat accurately shows what I'll be doing at poolside for the next couple of days. Then I have some writing to do, and some more play too. Enjoy your "cool" days of summer!

Thinking of You

This morning while the loads of laundry were running ... thank goodness we're no longer beating our clothes on rocks down by the river! ... I was upstairs in the craft loft, finishing the 60 baby shower cards, and straightening up a bit.

I must have Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, because the smallest bits of usable treasure found on the floor leads me back to crafting ...

First, I found this lovely mottled bit of peach paper and the lavendar cardstock circle. I set them aside as I continued dealing with the mess, but they were calling me.... AHA! Louder and louder they called, until I found a darker purple butterfly that I'd recently cut from a pop-up template I purchased from a gal in England. (More on that another day!)

Then I spied my relatively-new, terribly expensive, and unfortunately not well-used Husqvarna Designer Diamond sewing machine. Hmmm. It was sitting there, lonely, already set with lavendar thread. It seemed like a perfect time to try out a decorative stitch around the peach paper.

On to the message: Thinking of You, which I have been doing a lot of today and yesterday, wondering if I will attract readers to my new blog. More importantly, I do want to give a bit of the joy back to the many bloggers from whom I get so much inspiration. I hope they know how much I appreciate their work!

One of the bloggers led me to Wild Orchid Crafts where I found the most beautiful paper roses, and I'd just received my precious boxful of them from England. Another blogger taught me by video how to make these myself ... which I haven't yet tackled ... but for now, isn't this just stunning?

The message, meant for all the paper artist bloggers in the blogosphere, comes from the Cricut Calligraphy cartridge, cut in 2" in both standard (dark orchid) and in shadow (cream, to match the card and the rose). Stickles glitter glue (I'm an addict) in deep purple and opal finished off the butterfly. Voila!

I hope you know I'm thinking of YOU today!