Bella's Birthday Blog Hop

I hope you are enjoying today's hop!  You should have come here from Jenny's blog.  If not, please start at the begining at My Cricut Craft Room so that you don't miss out on any of the fun!

I've been in serious ornament mode lately!  I used Life's a Party and Ashlyn's Alpabet on Cricut Craft Room to merge the two cartridges together and create this ornament!

Happy Birthday Bella!!

I had to add some bling... in honor of Bella of course!

I will be giving this ornament to my niece Ashley for Christmas.

Thank you, as always, for making my day by stopping by today!!  The next stop on the hop is BELLA'S MOMMY!!!  Now you KNOW that stop's gonna be good!!!


In case you get lost, here is the line up:

Start http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com
Tracy http://scrappininthewoods.blogspot.com Karey  http://www.creativecraftcorner.comEnjoli http://mississippihippycrafts.blogspot.com
Lisa www.allmadebylisa.blogspot.com
Jenny R http://myimagitivity.blogspot.com Heather Sipes www.operationcricutdesign.blogspot.com <----YOU ARE HERE
Bella’s Mommy http://ericascraftroom.blogspot.com Pat Holloway http://micraftygal.blogspot.comRosa http://kleymanr.blogspot.com
Lezlye www.lezlyes.blogspot.comGayle http://gscraptime.blogspot.com 
Doris http://mybugandmecreate.blogspot.com
Jen L http://mybusycraftylife.blogspot.com
Blog Candy http://ericasblogcandy.blogspot.com

Scrapbook Saturday with Erica's Cricut Craft Room!

Welcome to another Scrapbook Saturday with Erica's Cricut Craft Room Design Team!  Once you are done checking out my layout, hop back over to My Cricut Craft Room for more scrappy inspiration!  And if you want to be temped... click on Erica's shop link for some awesome Cricut deals!!

This week's page is about my son, Alex.  My goodness is he silly.  And the kid won;t sit still for a picture, if he does, he's making a face.  And I'm ALWAYS catching him in the act of doing goofy stuff like what is captured in these pictures.  Letters are cut using Opposites attract (silly) , Ashlyn's Alphabet (quirky), and Alphalicious (happy, fun).

Thermoweb pop dots behind fun for dimension.

Thermo web pop dots behind "happy" for dimension.

Chalked over white paper.

As always - thanks for looking!  Have a great day!

OCTOBER CRICUT 100 CARTRIDGE BLOG HOP DAY TWO

Welcome to DAY TWO of our monthly hop around the block and visit a wide range of wonderful Cricut crafters. SO MUCH TALENT on this Design Team that I am honored to be on, and on your travels you will see over 100 different Cricut cartridges in use!

You should have come from the super amazing Laura's blog.  If you did not please start at the beginning of the hop at http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/  
Too many great projects we don't want you to miss!   NOT TO MENTION THERE ARE PRIZES INVOLVED!!!  WOOO!  Should you get lost the entire lineup can be found at the bottom of this post.

Onto my cartridges for this month.  I was recently asked to make a banner and card set for a John Deere themed birthday party.  I thought...  sure... I could do a green tractor, but how cool if I could get the logo on there somewhere.  So here's how I did it:

Using Cricut Craft Room (trust me, its worth the wait.  The kinks are annoying and the program seems to work better every time I use it) I selected the tractor from "Everyday Paper Dolls" and then found the perfect deer shape on "Going Places", tilted it, and dropped it ontop of the tractor engine area.  I cut that from green.  I cut one of the same without the deer in yellow.  Once cut, I trimmed the green seat, wheel and bumper away to further show the yellow.  Then I custom created ovals to match the wheel sizes to cover over the tractor wheels.  Once it was put together it looked a little too "clean" to me so I dirtied it up with some walnut ink brushed on with a piece of felt by hand.

Not sure what to do with my new little creation, I decided to give it a sceen on a card.  Not sure if I will put a child's age in the clouds?  Either way, its blank for now.  I used Plantin Schoolbook for the grass and Going Places for the clouds.  The sky and grass hill are hand cut.  Chalking completes the detail. 

My next project was made for a friend of mine named Amy.  She has a business called Forever In A Flash Photography and she is incredibly talented.  Her pictures literally make me gasp sometimes.  If you are in the Baltimore area, you should check out her work.  MY photography, on the other hand, leaves a little to be desired.  Sorry for the poor quality here....

Once I saw this posted photo on Amy's page, I wanted to show what a custom mat could do to enhance the photograph.  I wanted to compliment the soft browns and reds of the photos and add some femininity with a soft purple.  I used CCR to create a mat, and a plum border for the mat opening.  I chose a little sentiment from "Sugar and Spice" and cut it at 3.25" in a dark gray color and used the plum cardstock for the heart.  For a variation, I made a second mat "accessory" cutting "S" from Ashlyn's Alphabet  in black and used a prima flower on the bottom right side.

Thank you, as always, for stopping by and honoring me with your visit today!  I hope that along this weekend's hop that you have found some great project inspiration from the fantastic gals on this team!

Your next stop on the hop is on Lezlye at  http://lezlyes.blogspot.com

In case you get lost, here is the lineup:

18. Erica – http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com

19. Connie - http://conniescraftycloset.blogspot.com

20. Lucinda Gibson - http://thegrowinggibson.blogspot.com

21. Tanya Adams - http://nonnascraftcorner.blogspot.com

22. Karey Jeans - http://www.creativecraftcorner.com

23. Jenny R http://myimagitivity.blogspot.com

24. Gayle Schrader- http://gscraptime.blogspot.com

25. Laura - http://laurascraftsandmore.blogspot.com

26. Heather S - http://operationcricutdesign.blogspot.com   YOU ARE HERE

27. Lezlye http://lezlyes.blogspot.com

28. Rosa http://kleymanr.blogspot.com/

29. Autumn Willis - http://autumnsbuggycreations.blogspot.com

30. Lisa Newton-Orensky - www.allmadebylisa.blogspot.com

31. Sharon http://simplysweetbysharon.blogspot.com

32. Kat http://katscrapfever.blogspot.com/    

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

34. Blog Candy http://ericasblogcandy.blogspot.com/

Mom Mom's Brag Book

I made this album as a gift for my mom for Mother's Day.  She now has three grandchildren so I thought she'd find this useful : )  Similar to Ashley's Album, I wanted to try to hand make as many of the embellishments as possible.  In the process of this I "discovered" Walnut Ink and alcohol ink.  Oh. My. Gosh.  What rock have I been hiding under?  I've known about it forever, but I've never beden interested in trying it.  Now that I have I'm totally hooked!    I hope you have all had a great day today - thanks for reading and letting me know what you think!

Scrappy Girl

My favorite thing to do is create scrapbooks.  I love to make complete, themed albums and I really feel honored when I am asked to make one for someone else, or when someone I love is really touched by a personalized gift.  This album was made for my neice Ashley, who was just born on April 4 and it was my first attempt at using my Your Story binding machine, which I got for a SONG at http://www.cricutmachine.com/ .  I LOVE that place for their awesome prices on cartridges and supplies.  ***Ahem....  hear that cricut machine?  lol***  The  front cover was decorated using a stencil and some pink chalk.  I took Ashlyn's Alphabet and used it to cut a cereal box (cheap chipboard!!!) and then out of paper.  Cereal boxes do not need a deep cut housing blade and cut very nicely if you use a slow speed and the highest pressure setting.  I decided to adhere yellow cardstock to the back of the front cover, so that a picture could be interted into the front (that's the black line you see when the book is opened.  I had two goals when creating this book: to make ALL of the embellishments (or as many as possible) on the Cricut and to use only supplies I had on hand.  NO new purchasing, lol.  I really need to clean my scraproom out!!!  As I built the book, I realized it was becoming quite thick!  So I attached ribbon inside of the covers to tie it all together.  My sister in law loved the book, and I'm looking forward to gifting more!  Thanks for looking!

Styrofoam Wall Art

Another project I had in my head for quite a while.  Back in September of '10, we experienced a major flood in our finished basement.  The light at the end of that tunnel was that we got to completely remodel our basement.  One of my desired projects was to tear out a MASSIVE built in entertainment center (large enough to house three 30"+ sized tv's) and rearrange the set up.  I decided to paint one wall an awesome bold teal color and a soft gray/cream for all of the other walls.  This project was designed to set off the bold wall and jazz up the softer walls a bit (where the mostrosity used to be).

First, I purchased three 12x36 styrofoam blocks that were about 1 inch thick and then cut each one in thirds.  Then I layed them out on my floor while I played around with DCWV paper combinations.  I'm a  HUGE Stack fan, so almost all of my projets come from their lines.  I used Ashlyn's Alphabet for the S, and Accent Essentials for the corners.  Once I cut a circle design, I sliced it into quarters to put in the corners.  I used regular glue (elmers?).  I cut coordinating paper strips and hot glued them alonng the sides.  Fishing wire was hot glued to the back to use for hanging.

In hind sight I think using wood or canvas would have worked out better.  The styrofoam was messy to work with and cut, and I think that sealing it would have resulted in a longer lasting product.  Hot glueing the fishing line to the back was difficult as well.  And as basements are humid, over time the paper has started to buckle here and there.  Thanks for looking!