Altered Card Box

     Good Morning on this beautiful Memorial Day! I hope you all are enjoying beautiful weather and are not too stuffed from all the cookouts, lol. Today the Erica's  DT has some beautiful projects to share with you so I hope you will take a moment to see what we have been working on.

     I have been exploring the CCR and had just purchased the Banners digital download so I thought I would show you what I came up with. Of course I also used my Imagine!!

     I found these plain boxes @ Michaels' and thought they would be perfect to hold some handmade cards of mine. The boxes are about the size of a cigar box and are ready to paint, decoupage, stamp etc. I didn't take pictures as I went along so let's just jump into the details.

      First I painted the edges with a gold dauber and then used gel medium to decoupage my paper on the box. The sides and bottom have a faux wood looking paper. This gave me the idea to make the banner wood looking also. I started by making the banner at 5" long out of a cream card stock in the CCR. By adding another mat in the CCR, I was able to add the "Cards" font by using Divine Wedding cart at .75". I used the separate layers feature to print the font first and then cut the banner.
     I cut 3 banners and then adhered them together before I inked the edges. Once the ink was dry I applied some paper glaze to give it a little protection. Would you like to see the finished project?

     I told you you could paint, stamp and decoupage these boxes so I did all three, lol. I even added a braided ribbon and some Tim Holtz adornments to the corners. I'll show you a few more pics of the details.

     I used some Zing copper embossing powder and some Imaginisce bling for the top and bottom right hand corners.

     I have so many left over beads that I made a hanging charm to peek out of a corner of the flowers.

     Speaking of flowers I love how these turned out. I used distress inks and found I had some that even matched my paper. I even love how the leaves turned out.
   Erica is so generous with her DT that she sends us some really neat stuff to try for our projects. In one of my orders she had sent me some cuttlebug dies that had these great leaf dies. They are 2 pieces sort of like a blackout and the top part of the leaf. They look beautiful with a chalk glimmer. You can find all sort of supplies at Erica's Store and she has fabulous prices as well.
     I hope this project inspires you just a little. Please check out my team members projects back at Erica's Blog and see what else they have to help your mojo.Happy Memorial Day and thank you to all who gave their lives to keep us safe.

    

Honoring Our Veterans

     Sometimes with the hustle and bustle of the first unofficial start to the summer, we forget what this week end is really all about. It's about the sacrifice our servicemen and their families make everyday. They are deployed without question leaving behind mothers, fathers, wives, children and a wide range of family members and countless friends. Some will never return while others return to us some what different. They have physical as well as emotional conflicts. Yet, when they are called to serve, they continue to go.
     To them, it is a calling. They certainly don't do it for the money or the fact they never stay too long in one place. They are always training and constantly on the move. This makes for a very different lifestyle than most of us would care to live. Yet with all that said, they do this to protect us. They do it to ensure our way of life. They do it because, with all the other choices in life, they feel it is their duty to serve.
     So, I salute the members of the Armed Services, no matter the branch, and thank you for your commitment. Your sacrifice does not go unnoticed. You are always in our hearts and we owe you a debit of gratitude.

    Now, I have something special to share with you that truly brought tears to my eyes. As many of you know, I am a floral designer for a local florist. Friday morning we received a box filled with roses of all colors. We did not order them and thought there had been a huge mistake. There was no mistake. They had been sent to use as a gift from the California and Ecuadorean growers.We are to hand them out to Veterans and share at Memorial Day ceremonies. These are from the same growers that hand them out @ Arlington National Cemetery. This is  (I believe) the second year they are doing this. So, if you happen to be at one of these ceremonies and they are handing out roses, ask if they are from Diamond Roses. You can read more about this wonderful tradition on this website MemorialDayFlowers.org. They hope to make this an annual tradition and get more communities involved all across the country.

     My boss is so brilliant! She contacted the Major in charge of a local J.R.O.T.C. They were beyond thrilled at the opportunity to pass these out. This is so gratifying to know that these young people will have the opportunity to do something special for their role models.
     I am not plugging this rose company however, with today's economy and some self absorbed companies, isn't it wonderful to hear about companies like this?
     I wish you all a memorable Memorial Day!

 

     

A Remote Birthday

                   It's another creative day @ My Cricut Craft Room. I hope you are all enjoying this wonderful spring time weather. Today we could either use our Imagine machines or the Letter U. I used the Imagine cart JT to create the background paper on this card.

     I don't know about you but my husband is always walking around with a tv remote in his hand. He doesn't so much watch a single program in its entirety but rather surfs from station to station. (Swamp people, Pawn Brokers, History Channel, Discovery Channel in addition to House Hunters, Cooking Shows and endless sports commentaries, lol). I swear he has attention deficit since nothing holds his attention for too long. But, I digress. Here are the details on my card:

     As I said I used my JT cart to create the background. This went perfectly with my remote. You can find this pattern paper on page 42. I selected a square 3 3/4" x 5" and flood filled the rectangle with the pattern. I backed it with red card stock and rounded the corners on both before I adhered them together. 

     I noticed that CCR is coming out with a similar remote but I made mine with the Fathers' Day cart and cut it @ 4" and all layers. I used a silver, cream and dark gray card stock to cut my various layers. I wanted to make this as realistic as possible so I had to hand write in the "vol.", "Ch" "DVR" and #'s. As luck would have it, Erica had sent me some "goodies" that included Sakura Black and White Glaze pens and they were perfect for writing on this glossy surface. Erica is great like that. She is always sending us free "stuff" to play with. It's almost like getting crafty products for Christmas, lol.

     I needed to add some buttons to the remote (if there are no buttons to push then he wouldn't have any fun!). I used some liquid pearls in Key Lime and Ruby Red for the stop and go buttons. I even added some Candi (faux brads) in gold, red and green.

     The stamp is from Pink By Design "age is only a #" and I used black embossing powder to add some texture. I also cut a small rectangle in red and wrapped it with some black and white twine from the Twinery again for a pop of color and to add some more texture.
     The finally step was to add a Wobble to the back of the remote. Hey he needs to have some action!!!      All of the supplies to make this card are available in Erica's Store .  It's  true: the liquid pearls, Candi, twine, stamps, embossing powder, card stock and Provo Craft Cricut cartridges are all in there.She is having a fabulous sale for the month of May. I would love for you to stop by and tell her Mary inspired you to shop there.

Please use the code 33 for 33% off your orderworks on everything not already marked down except Cricut and Cuttlebug products.

     Be sure to pop back over to Erica's Blog and see what the rest of the Design Team create just for you.

Until next week, Hugs to all of you~Mary

My Big Fat Wedding Blog Hop

Welcome to My Big Fat Wedding Blog Hop. We are a group of a talented ladies who love paper crafting (well most of us) and will be show casing Our Amazing Creations along they way.  If you are visiting from Tammy  http://anonymouscricuter.blogspot.ca then you are

in the right place, If not, please go and start from the beginning at Vanessa

http://wwwpaperkraftsunlimiteddesings.blogspot.com

Blog Hop Giveaway is............ $10.00 Gift Card fom Ginger Snaps Scraps

Here is what I came up with:

Nautical Wedding Invitation

     Now that I have been to the wedding shower and know everyone has received their invitations I can finally share the process!Becca wanted a nautical theme, not a beach theme so we looked for ships, anchors, and ship's wheels. Thankfully Provo Craft has Life's A Beach and I was able to find all that I needed along with Imagine More.
     I presented her with the idea of a pocket type card to hold the reply card, reception and direction cards as well as the main invitation. I found the perfect kit by Wilton called the "String Of Pearls".

     This was a perfect selection for the outside since it had a wonderful crisp white with a nice satin sheen to it.

     This layout was just perfect for what we were looking for. It was very neat and organized and had a nice bead border almost like roping. The nice thing about this is that the template allowed me to change the font color and style so I could really customize these. Her colors are like a navy and a nice fresh green color so they were a very refreshing color to work with.

     Ready for the finished product? Here ya go:

     I started by adding a band of navy satin ribbon. ( My oldest daughter suggested it. Hey ya gotta give credit where it is due, right!).   I had found this roping at A.C. Moore in the yarn section. It has a nice satin sheen to it as well so it was just right for a classy wedding invitation. The image is from Imagine more and I changed the outer ring color to a more navy color but kept the inner ring and ship the same. This was cut @ 2" but I separated the layers but kept them at relative size so that everything was proportionate. I used a glue dot to secure the rope and image but made sure to bring the rope thru the ring.

     Here's the inside. Tada!!! First I used the Imagine More cart again. I chose the cut and print option and cut a 5"x7" with the same patterned paper as the inner ring of the life preserver. How cool is that? The outer layer is a blue card stock that also has a sheen. I bought that at Michael's from their recollections collection.In order to keep with the nautical theme I cut an anchor from Life's A Beach @ 1.25. Since I had to make 100 invitations I wanted to save some money on this project. There wasn't any silver card stock with the right color I wanted so I went to the canvas section @ M's and found this poster board for $4.00. I just cut it to 12x12 so I had 4+ sheets to work with. (Maybe there will be a lot of silver in my Christmas cards this year!)
     Once everything was printed it tucked neatly into the pocket. The only thing I would do different would be to add a silver compass on the directions card. BTW speaking of directions card. The front has directions to the church and the back has directions to the reception. Rather than buy more cards to use for the back, I cut some card stock the same size,printed the directions and used my ATG gun to glue them together.

   This is how the guests received their invitations. ( even though they were hand stamped, thank USPS for the wrinkled appearance, grrr). Bet you were wondering where the ships wheel I was talking about went to. Here is where it ended up! It is also from Life's A Beach and is also cut at 1.25". The circle behind it is from a circle punch with the leftover scraps from the blue background paper.

Becca had purchased these cute silver ships as part of the favors so everything just sort of fell into place. I had used the same RGB codes so all the font colors were the same from the invitation to the place cards.
I will leave you with one final picture. Of course it is of the wedding cake. Although I had nothing to do with this, I wanted to show you how wonderfully everything continued to carry out the theme.

As you can see the border includes small anchors.

Next you should head over to Jennifer and show her some love! Thank you so much for stopping by.

Kimono Birthday Card

     Happy Monday morning! I hope you all had a wonderful Mothers' Day. Mine was quiet and subdued which is wonderful. I am a floral designer and next to Valentines' Day, Mothers' Day is our next busiest holiday so I am always glad to sleep in and have a lazy day.
     If you are familiar with My Cricut Craft Room, then you know we get to strut our stuff with either a Letter of the week, our Imagine or the online FREE CCR by Provo Craft. Today I am going to show you one of the CCR digital carts that are for purchase @ cricut.com. I used the Chinese Letters.

       The thumbnail  highlights the Chinese Letter that symbolizes "Friend". The fan is from Ashlyn's Alphabet on page 54 and was cut @ 1.5", I highlighted it with gold stickles and added some red pearls on the holes on the fan. The "friend" was cut both shadow and symbol @ 1.25".
     Are you ready to see what I did with the fan and Letter? 

     I made a card of course, lol! I used a 5"x7" card for the base. The Kimono is from Pagoda and was cut @ 2.83 x 3.50 with both image and shift keys. You can find this on page 73. I love texture so I used the cuttlebug folder of chinese lanterns to kind of tie this card's theme together.I also used a stamp of a lantern that I had. The Happy Birthday is another rub on that I had. A few rhinestones and this card is all blinged up!!
     If you are looking for any of the products that I used here, you can find them over @ Erica's Shop. She has all sorts of goodies over there and best of all they are on SALE. Thank you Erica!!! Her sale runs the whole month of May so you won't want to miss out.

Please use the code 33 for 33% off your orderworks on everything not already marked down except Cricut and Cuttlebug products.

     Please pop back over to Erica's Blog and see what the rest of the team has to share. I am always amazed at what my fellow DT members create.