All About the Guys Blog Hop

I hope you are enjoying the All About The Guys Blog hop!   You should have come from Samantha's Blog, if not you may want to start from the beginning at My Cricut Craftroom so you don't miss anything awesome!

I made two different projects.   One of my favorite musicians is Kid Rock and my favorite state is Michigan.  So my inspiration for my card is Kid Rock's beer brewed in Michigan.

I kept seeing the wings on the Indie Art cart and I knew I wanted to use these wings for something related to Kid Rock, maybe a concert page.   Then I remembered the beer mug card I made for my husband on his birthday.  It's on the Smiley Cards Cart.  And then because I was using two of the free carts lucky gypsy owners received, I decided to use another, Black Letter. I even used Cricut Craftroom to design and then cut using my gypsy.  Still getting used to it but so far I mostly love CCR.  Thank-you PC for all the freebies!

So here is my card.  My husband, the beer drinker, gave me his seal of approval.

Card Base is white Colorbok cardstock.   I placed the beer mug on the mat, copy and pasted a second mug, flipped and then welded it at the top.   I sized it at 4.87 x 5.72 prior to welding 2 together.

The black mug is cut from Recollections paper and the foam is cut from Colorbok paper.   I decided to add a second layer of foam that I cut a bit smaller to give it some dimension.  I also added clear embossing powder around the edges for more dimension.  (The foam would make clouds if you don't have a cart with clouds)

The wings are welded and cut at 1.67 x 1.33 before the weld.  I didn't even try to cut out the top layer because it was just too small.  I tried a gray Cricut marker and that didn't work so I drew on some lines added some black/silver embossing powder and then embossed with clear powder.  It is double layered and I used pop dots for dimension.

The banner is from Black Letter and cut at 3.51 x 1.21.  Happy was cut to fit at .83.

Birthday I also welded and cut a bit larger than Happy.

My next project is wall art for my grandson Austin.  His initials are AT and he absolutely loves trucks.   My inspiration for this project comes from the Northridge video for September's Cricut magazine and then Pottery Barn Kids wall art.  My project is not completely finished as we are not sure what canvas color will look best on his wall, that will have to wait until I can go up to her house. I like the white because it reminds of flash cards, my daughter isn't sure about the white.

I wanted this to be large cause he has a large empty wall right now, so I am using 16 x 20 canvas mats.

I used Plantin Schoolbook for the letters, Boys Will Be Boys for the truck and the airplane is from PopUp Neighborhoods.   I am not sure what company the paper is from.  

A and T are cut at 11.49 x 13.13 and 7.89 x 13.13

Truck is cut at 4.25

Plane is cut at 4.25 and narrower so it would still fit the canvas.

The truck is cut at 9.20 x 7.57.

The airplane is cut at 8.95 x 4.95.

All cut on my brand new Expression.  I was thinking I was the slowest scrapper in the world until today when I realized just how much extra time I spent because of the 6 x 12 limitation of the baby bug. 

So those are my projects.  I love comments and followers.  And don't forget about blog candy at the end of the hop!

Next you get to see what Kimberly has made.

Have fun hopping,

Laurie

The entire lineup in case you get lost.

Erica http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com

Yvette http://gammascreativecorner.blogspot.com/

Samantha http://samanthascricutcreations.blogspot.com/

Laurie http://www.lauriecandoit.blogspot.com/

Kimberly http://scrappingrookie.blogspot.com/

Tammy Smith  http://cuttinandstampin.blogspot.com/ 

Lori www.scrappinmystressaway.blogspot.com

Maria http://scrapfornat.blogspot.com/

Melissa http://pinkpolkadotscrappingblogspot.com

Erica’s Blog Candy J

http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/2011/09/all-about-guys-blog-candy.html

Christmas in July

Welcome to My Cricut Craft Room's Christmas in July Blog Hop!

You should have come from Tina's Blog.   If not please go to http:/mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com to start from the beginning so you don't miss any of the awesome designs.

What better time to make snowmen than when it is 100 degrees outside!   I love winter, especially when it snows a lot so I always make snowmen gift tags for Christmas.

This tag is made using the Smiley Cards Cartridge.   The snowman is cut at 4.12 x 5.05.  I used Colorbok white textured cardstock and patterned paper along with unknown black card stock.  I added some floss on the buttons.

The next snowman is exactly the same except I colored the hat black, then added some stickles and finally used a silver sharpie to go over the hat.   I also used a pale blue card stock and added yarn scraps for the scarf.

This size snowman also works well for an A2 sized easel card.

My 3rd snowman is from Gypsy Wanderings.

The tag size is 3 x 5 and is from Gypsy Wanderings.   The snowman is cut at 3.75 x 3.82 I think.   I cut these out last winter and just put them together for this project now.    I used Cricut Blues paper for the tag and then used a Stampin Up Stamp to add embossed tiny snowflakes.   I then added a piece of Colorbok shimmer paper for the snowdrift and added some stickles.    The Snowman is layered with a pale blue and white cardstock.  I added a Stampin Up sentiment, matted on a silver scrap and then attached with some Martha Stewart twine.  The back of the tag has To and From cut from A Child's Year.

It wouldn't be Christmas without some red and green gift tags.  The tags are from Plantin Schoolbook and cut at 3.59 x 4.19

The Poinsettia is cut from the Christmas Card at 4.07 x 3.0.  It has a few pieces that I inked and sprayed with some homemade red shimmer mist.   I just wrinkled up the pieces and put them together with a brad that I covered with gold stickles.  I placed it on top of greens, also from the Christmas cart and cut at 2.49 x 1.49.  I flipped one upside down and then cut 2 of each to give them a bit more dimension.  The cream tag is from Popup Neighborhood and cut at 3.05 x 2.91.  I added some Memories Soft Gold ink to the tag and stamped the to and from with Stampin Up Always Artichoke.

I went a bit nuts with inking and stickles on this one.  The cream tag and tree are both from Popup Neighborhood and cut at 3.22 x 2.98 and 1.95 x 3.75.   I inked the red tag and tree trunk with Walnut Distress ink, the cream tag with Memories Soft Gold and then covered the tree with stickles with Distress Gold Stickles and smeared it around to cover it.  It wrinkled up the tree a bit too much but hey trees are not flat right?

My last project involves one of my many favorite Christmas day activities, food.   I started making place cards for our family dinner.

 I am making Santa and his reindeer for each of my family members.

The place card is from Plantin Schoolbook and cut at 5 x 4.

The tag is again from Popup Neighborhood and cut at 2.5 x 1.30.

The names are from Plantin Schoolbook and cut at approximately 1.79 x 1 and welded.

Santa and Reindeer are from the Christmas cart and cut at 2.19 x 3.13 and 1.72 x 2.41.

I used assorted Paper Co and Recollections value pack card stock and inked the cream tags with Memories Soft Gold ink.  Santa has a bunch of tiny pieces that I tried to use but ended up using stickles and gel pens for some parts.  

 I am giving away 6 snowman tags/embellishments.   All you have to do is leave a comment or if that doesn't work leave me a message on facebook.  I will be posting the winner on Sunday on my blog and facebook.

The next stop on the hop is Gayle's Blog.   

In case you get lost I have posted the lineup below!   Thanks for visiting my blog and happy hopping!

Laurie

start http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com

tina http://craftyandgreen.blogspot.com

laurie  http://www.lauriecandoit.blogspot.com/

gayle http://gscraptime.blogspot.com/
jen  www.mybusycraftylife.blogspot.com 

lucinda www.thegrowinggibson.blogspot.com

sheila  http://2pawprints.blogspot.com 

yvette http://gammascreativecorner.blogspot.com/

enjoli http://mississippihippycrafts.blogspot.com/

connie  http://conniescraftycloset.blogspot.com

raina http://www.scrapwithraina.blogspot.com/

heather www.papercrafteranonymous.com

Tammy  http://crazycardcreator.blogspot.com/

autumn http://autumnsbuggycreations.blogspot.com

melissa http://pinkpolkadotscrapping.blogspot.com   

Sunshine and Smiles Cards

Erica from My Cricut Craft Room posted a challenge of making 5000 cards for Children at St Jude's Children's Hospital.

This is one of the cards I am sending.    I used a large card for this from a package of printer cards with envelopes.   I used a piece of paper that I have had forever and then used yellow and white cardstock for the cricut cuts.  It doesn't show up well but I added white gel pen and stickles to the sun.   The inside of the card I cut out "Are Coming Your Way"

I will post more cards as I complete them!

100 + Cartridge Blog Hop

You should have come from Lauren's Blog.   If you did not, please go to Erica's Blog

I selected Summer in Paris, Plantin Schoolbook and Happy Hauntings for my cartridges. 


Summer In Paris

The bottle/glass is cut at 4.99 x 9.34. and the word Wine is from Plantin Schoolbook and cut at 9.26 x 3.
I used magnet paper (the kind HP sells) and then I covered it with paper.  I used Stampin Up and Paper Company Value Pack Paper.

Summer in Paris car cut at 3.89 x 2.13
Welded Plantin Schoolbook cuts Happy  1.92 x.89, Sweet 2.33 x 1.47
Plantin Schoolbook 16  - .95 x 1.75
I used a DCWV black card, layered with ColorBok patterned paper.  I also used Colorbok cream pearlescent paper and DCWV black paper.   Added some bling for exhaust.

Happy Hauntings

I love finding new ways to use seasonal carts.  All cuts on this page are from Happy Hauntings.
For the Salem Title I used spooky font and welded it together.  Cut size is 4.57 x 1.69.  I then added white gel pen for embellishment.   The witch is cut at 2.37 x1.81 and I used the shadow layer.  All cut out on black DCWV paper
The tombstones  Smallest is cut at 1.3 x 1.81, larger cut at 2.19 x 3.06 and I used part of the layer feature that was cut in a gray scrap.   The journaling tag was cut from Coredinations paper using the tag under the vampire shadow feature key.   It is cut at 2.7 x 3.05.
The background paper is from Colorbok and so are the gold photo mats.


Plantin Schoolbook

I absolutely love this cartridge!

The following layout is unfinished as I am waiting for the photo from the photographer.  The colors I selected should work well with the photo, I just want to wait to see what looks best for the photo mats before cutting and placing them on the layout

I wanted a water spout to make this page, but I don't have one.  So I created it myself on the gypsy using 4 parts found on Plantin Schoolbook (see waterspout post for directions)  I wanted it to be large to make the spider look "itsy bitsy".    I cut it out of coredinations paper and sanded the edges to make them look worn.   The spider is from Happy Hauntings and is cut at 1.5 x 6.49.
I used White textured Colorbok cardstock for The Itsy Bitsy Spider Title using Plantin Schoolbook font.  I then used orange Coordinations for the shadow.  
The is welded and cut at  1.62 x .85
Itsy is welded and cut at 2.16 x 1.64
Bitsy is welded and cut at 2.61 x 1.67
Spider is cut at 1.5 height


The background paper is DCWV from the Doodlin' Around Stack.  I will use a combination of green/orange/white, depending on how it looks with the photo for the mat.

Last fall we went on vacation to New England.  I took a what seems like a million photos and just now getting around to making layouts.   This page will be the first in the book.  I used Photoshop Elements to make a photo collage using photos from the 4 states we visited.  I used a brown mat and layered it on top of DCWV Doodlin' Around and Colorbok textured card stock.  I then created the New England Title using the regular font shadow with the italic font and welded it together.  I then cut out the New in tan and adhered it to the title.  I used The Paper Company's textured value pack paper in brown and tan.  The cut size is 6.58 x 2.33.
Road Trip is cut using the Roly Poly font and is cut at a height of 1.30.  I cut 2 at the same size, brown and tan.  It gives it just a bit of dimension.   I then added leaves cut at .96 x 1.22 and 1.25 x 1.59.



I created this tag for one of the Vermont layouts I plan to do for a page in our New England trip scrapbook.   I used the mountain and adjusted the size to get a layered mountain look and have room for Stowe. 
Stowe is welded and cut at 3.15 x 1.08
Green Mountain is cut at 3.56 x 2.76
Yellow Mountain is cut at 3.56 x 2.19
The brown I cut by hand to fit.  I inked all the edges and used popdots between the yellow and green mountains for some dimension.

I printed all photos on my laser printer on plain cardstock paper.   Cheers I just hand cut around the sign, inked the edge with black and placed it on a black piece of cardstock.   I absolutely love the skyline on Plantin Schoolbook and I added the end cap feature for the skyline and combined it with the tag feature with the word Boston.   This was cut twice once in red with the word Boston hid so it wouldn't cut, the top layer in Black.  I adhered these together and set aside.   I then cut the skyline in black and its shadow in yellow.   I then glued together and used pop dots to attach the Boston Tag to the skyline.    The width is 5.37 on all cuts.  Skyline height is 2.69 and the Boston tag height is .78.  
I then cut out 2 Roly Poly Tags with one cut a bit larger to use for my journaling tag.   I added a heart brad that I colored with a silver sharpie, because we loved Boston.

Thanks for visiting my blog!  

Next you should go to Lezlye's Blog



Water Spout

I wanted to do a layout of The Itsy Bitsy Spider and this is how I made the water spout using Plantin Schoolbook and my wonderful Gypsy.   It really is amazing how you can take some basic shapes, manipulate them, weld them and make something totally different.   Who would think you could make a water spout with a minus sign, a bracket, an exclamation point and a square?

My first step was to find a photo of a water spout.  I found one and then opened up the trial version of Design Studio, just to see the shapes better and to play around with sizing and placement for a 12 inch layout.   I wanted a long pipe (skinny rectangle) or minus sign.  I placed it on the design mat.  And then added the brackets.  I hid one of the brackets and then layered the bracket on the pipe and it really did kind of look like the water spout in the picture.   I decided on the exclamation point turned on its side with the dot part hid and then copied it and flipped one and then lined them up with the dot part in the center.  Added a small square to the center of it and it doesn't look exactly like the photo I found but it really is close.

Then I grabbed the gypsy and thought it would be easy to just set the sizes that I used in DS but it didn't exactly work that way.   The minus sign shape is actually a lot larger than the actual cut so it is sized correctly when actually used as a minus sign, but no biggie, I just resized it until it looked right.  I then placed the bracket in place, grouped them together and welded it.    At this point if I had cut it out like that it would have cut a bracket centered on a rectangle.  I could have easily cut off the part I didn't want with a scissors  but then I would probably mess up and have to cut another.  So what I did was copied the minus sign and placed it so it lined up with the edge of the other one. Do not weld this as you will just end up with a wide pipe.  You want it to cut that line between the two rectangles. 

I then cut a sample and I remembered to take a photo.

I took a marker to show the cut lines. You can see how part of the bracket cut.  Then I remembered to take another photo.   This is pretty amazing because I always forget to take the photo.

I then went back to the gypsy to make the handle.  I cut the welded together exclamation points with the square in the center and then copied the square and cut it by itself.   Wow 3 pictures. 

Yay, I did it.  I did make the handle a bit smaller in my final project and I probably could have went even in smaller, but overall I am very happy with how it turned out.  Besides who is going to notice that the handle might be a little out of proportion after I put my handsome grandson's photo on the page!  

So I hope this gives you some idea of what is possible with the gypsy and 4 basic shapes that really are on most cartridges.  If there is something you really want on a layout but don't have it on a cartridge, take a different look at what you do have.  It might be there hidden in a font cartridge.