A Very Special Birthday Card

     Aloha My Friends. I am so happy you decide to stop by today. Yup, I am still in Hawaii. I'll let you all know how things are going when I get back home over the week end.
     Well it is Monday so that means another day with the wonderful Imagine machine. I think by now you know how much I love this machine by Provo Craft, lol. I also am getting so much more comfortable with the Cricut Craft Room (CCR).  Last week I showed you the wonderful Vintage Box I made for my friend so I just had to make a card to match.

     First I chose the three paneled window card from Imagine More Cards on page 14. I sized this @ 5.5" and kept the colors the same. Next I used the image found on page 31 for the roses and cut them @ 1.5". I cut out 4 of these, 2 to position on the card and 2 to embellish and pop up. For the bling I used Diamond Glaze and Donna Salassar's Pixie Dust. This is such a sparkly glitter I just love it!
     Now it was time to use the CCR. I wanted to print the Happy Birthday sentiment from Martha Stewarts' Elegant Cakes because this Font is so pretty. I also wanted to add a butterfly for a little something to compliment the card as well as the greeting.

     First I started by placing the card image on my mat. I copied, pasted and then flipped the design. This was so that the oval would be on the right side of the mat for me to print my saying. I wanted to show you what I meant so after taking this pic I deleted the top image and slid my image to the top.

     Now it was time to ungroup the images and move them apart.( I cut the third panel). After choosing my HB greeting on page 47 in Elegant Cakes@ 1" I added the butterfly @ .5" from page 48 and welded the 2 together. I love how easy it is to weld in the CCR compared to the Cricut Design Studio. Now comes the tricky part. I placed the 2 panels side by side making note of where the + was on the panels and placing them on the same line. This was after I had placed my HB where I wanted it to fall on the oval. I did it this way because I wanted to just cut the solid panel and not cut out the oval. The oval is where I wanted to just print.

     When you go to work with your images you want to be sure you saved them on different mats. This way I was able to chose to work on each layer separately. The layer was printed first with the Birthday on velum and then I cut the solid panel by itself. (I used velum but wanted to show you the single layer I cut. I hope this is clearer than mud!!

     Here you can see all the mats I used, lol.

     I used some liquid Pearls to accentuate the oval and colored the butterfly wings with Spica glitter pens.

     You can see the dimension by popping up the flowers. I used the velum to cover the window since I wanted the beautiful printed paper on this card to show through.

     There you have it, a beautiful card for my friend. I also want to wish our top Leader Erica a very Happy Birthday tomorrow. Thanks Erica for allowing me to share my project with all of you. Now check out what the rest of the Team has to share with you over at http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/. I'll be back in MA by Sunday. Until then, happy crafting!~Mary

The Three Wisemen Card

     As you can see I am on a roll with my Christmas cards this year. The more I do the more intricate I am getting. This is my new favorite for the week, lol. Fortunately I had cut these out in anticipation of our possibly losing power. It is truly a miracle that THIS time we didn't. However you can still see the snow that is left over and this is 5 days later.
     This time I went with a 5x7" card base. The card stock is a cream with a nice sheen to it. The image was cut using the Inspired Heart image @ 3" and the background is from a pale blue glossy card stock.I really love using embossing of all kinds on my cards and this has both dry and heat embossing.The background is Swiss dots whereas I used heat embossing for the stars in the upper right hand corner as well as the sentiment "Unto us a child is born".  The embossing powder is a detail silver and really makes a statement! Both stamps are from Inkadinkado.

     The flower was cut from Flower Shoppe cart by ProvoCraft.  I cut them @ various sizes: 1 3/4" and 1- 1/2". I used a DCWV stack and Donna Salazar's technique with the tulle and added some of her Pixie Dust Glitter. I assembled the card by using silver thread to sew the image and background together before adhering it to the card base.

     I thought the flower would balance the stars off and the colors just seemed to fit.It gives it a quiet elegance don't ya think?

     I also added a sentiment on the inside and used a rich blue ink. It says: "Peace on earth will come to stay, when we live Christmas everyday." I just love this sentiment. It would be wonderful if we could have that warm feeling year round, don't you agree?