Wednesday, November 6, 2013

"You Rock!" Birthday Card

My niece's birthday is coming up, so I thought I'd share the card I made for her. I wanted to make something cool but girly, and I thought the little girl with the microphone from Create a Friend was perfect for her, especially because the phrase that was with the girl said "You Rock!" And my niece does rock!


The card base is from DCVW's Street Lace Box of Cards, and the green background paper is the Wasabi color from Bo Bunny's Double Dot collection. The card is 4.25 x 5.5", so I cut the girl at 4", and the phrase at 2". For the shoes, bracelet, and microphone, I used stickles to bling it up some. The phrase is cut out using Doodlebug Sugar Coated paper.


For the inside, I used more of the Sugar Coated paper for the guitar and stars, along with plain black for the neck of the guitar. I used my individual clear stamp letters to to say "have a rockin' birthday" and used grapefruit pigment ink from American Crafts.

This card was pretty simple to put together, and didn't take very long at all. Thanks for dropping by, and happy scrapping!

Monday, November 4, 2013

5000 Subscriber Challenge Entries #6

http://www.youtube.com/v/NAP7MsH5PNY?version=3&autohide=1&autoplay=1&attribution_tag=oPq5Hv4uzRSeEdOv513VYg&autohide=1&showinfo=1&feature=share

Melody Lane 5000 Subscriber Challenge Entry!

About a month ago, I posted a you tube video by Melody Lane asking for people to help her make a banner for her craft room. I made two entries into the contest, an "E" and a "R." I shipped them off on Friday, and Melody showed them in her video today!

Anyway, I wanted to share with you the letters that I made for her. Her wall is purple and glittery, so I didn't want to make it all purple, but wanted to incorporate it into one of the letters.


I started with The Paper Studio zebra print kraft paper, and trimmed it to an 8x12 piece. I then notched the center and cut triangles out to form the pennant shape. I cut the "R" out at 8 inches from Type Candy Font, using black paper for the shadow and Doodlebug purple Sugar Coated paper for the R. After I pasted that on, I decided to cover the zebra stripes with Black Diamond stickles. I honestly thought I was going to run out halfway through, but to my delight, it made it all the way through and I still have some left over!

The two smaller flowers I had in my stash, but the larger flower I cut from Flower Shoppe, using paper from Out of print (dots and pink) and Bo Bunny (yellow). I used Elmer's glue to glue them together, since it seems to work better than a tape runner! The butterfly is cut from the same Out of Print paper from the Home Accents cartridge. I used mini glue dots to attach the middle of the butterfly to the shadow, but left the wings loose so it would look like it was flying. I used some gemstones to accent the body of the butterfly, then used my Crop-a-Dile to add the purple eyelets (WeRMemoryKeepers) to the corners for hanging purposes.

For the "E," I decided I wanted to go a more vintage-y distressed route. I found a sheet of Pink Paislee that was perfect - a light peachy cream color.


After I cut out the pennant, I began by using my Bo Bunny distressing stamps (It Is Written and Stained Textures sets) and my Tim Holtz distress inks and an American Crafts ink to create the background. I also used the Tim Holtz Just Thoughts stamp set for the sentiments. The "E" was cut from Type Candy Font using dark brown Bazzil Basics paper and wild berry Bo Bunny Double Dot paper. I had these butterflies hanging around for a while, so I can't remember exactly what paper they are cut from, but I do know they were cut from the Picturesque cartridge. I attached them using mini glue dots, again just attaching the body so they would look like they were flying, and embellished them with little adhesive pearls.

I had a lot of fun being creative with these. I do believe I will eventually make a "CREATE" banner for my craft room!

Thanks so much for coming by!

Friday, September 13, 2013

Have a Crabulous day!

My Father-in-law had a birthday this past weekend, and I took the inspiration for this card from one I saw in a Cricut Card magazine. I also wanted to use a crab to go with the stamp from the Cute Critters stamp set from My Craft Spot. This card was a lot of fun to make!


The crab, palm tree, and sun were all cut from Create a Critter. The crab and tree were attached with a Zig glue pen, and the sun was highlighted with some Pebbles chalk, and attached with a foam dot.


I cut the banner using my paper trimmer, and used scissors to cut the notch at the end. I inked it with my Prima chalk ink, then stamped it and attached it to a toothpick in which the ends had been trimmed off. I attached it to the card using the small Glue Dots. The crabs eyes are black gemstones by Hero Arts. This crab is definitely much cuter than the live one we saw at the beach a few weeks ago!

I hope you enjoyed this post! Thanks for stopping in!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Altered Composition Book

Today, I just finished a project I've been meaning to do for a long time. I finally got to a point that I needed it, because I need something to write in to keep track of what I have taught in each flute lesson. At the end of the last school year, I had five students. This school year, I will most likely have twenty! I am extremely excited about expanding my studio, but I also came to the realization that my brain cannot keep track of what I did with each student from week to week. It was hard with five students. Twenty? Impossible! So I dug out the composition book I bought in the spring to make a personalized notebook for my notes.


The paper is My Mind's Eye, and I thankfully had enough for the front, back, AND the tabs! I measured the notebook, and used my paper trimmer to cut the size I needed. I used Tim Holtz's Tea Dye Distress Ink to ink the edges, and used the same ink to stamp the cup stains on the paper (Bo Bunny's Stained Textures Stamps). The hatched stamp is also from the Stained Textures set, and I used Brown Sugar ink to stamp that. The other stamps are from Bo Bunny's It Is Written stamp set, and I used a few different Tim Holtz inks with those - Tea Dye, Walnut Stain, Brushed Corduroy, and Weathered Wood. "Enjoy the journey" is a Tim Holtz stamp.

I believe the butterfly is from the Cricut's Picturesque Cartridge, and the frame and "just a note" are from Wild Card.


The stamp on the back is from Tim Holtz. I love this sentiment!

Thanks for dropping in!

Friday, August 9, 2013

Mater Birthday Card

My nephew that just turned three loves Cars and Mater. I wanted to do something a little different (well, different to me!) for the background, so I used a couple of papers from the Bo Bunny "On the Go" 6x6 paper pack. The card is 5.5 x 8.5", so I cut two strips of each paper 5 x 2". I decided to offset them, since sometimes I have trouble cutting pieces all the exact same size and was afraid they wouldn't line up (they would have only been maybe a 32nd of an inch off, but it bugs me).



I cut Mater from the Cars cartridge at 4", and used a VersaMark ink pad with Zing! black embossing powder to emboss the wheels. The speech bubbles were cut using Plantin SchoolBook. They were cut out of white textured cardstock, then I used my brayer and AC Brown Sugar ink to color them.


I used my tiny letter stamps to spell "dagum", and "Another birthday? It's like an annual event for you!" comes from the "Inside & Out" stamp set from My Craft Spot.


Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend!

Hip Hip Hooray!

One of my nephews turned one a few weeks ago, and I've been wanting to use the hippo from Create a Critter because it's so gosh darn cute! To start, I took a piece of plain white card stock and used my brayer to roll blue and green ink on it. I then used a dark green Copic to draw grass blades. I cut the hippo at (I think) 2.5", and used my Pebbles pearlescent chalks to shade the hippo.


The phrase is cut at 1", and to rhyme with it, I used Type Candy Font to cut "You're 1 today!"


The "Happy Birthday" stamp is from one of the "Inside & Out" stamp sets from My Craft Spot. She has some wonderful stamp sets - go on over and check out her store! http://craftspotbykimberly.blogspot.com/

Thanks for dropping in!

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Mater Invitations

My sister-in-law asked me to make invitations for her boys' birthday party, and asked for me to put either Lightening McQueen or Mater on them. Since it was for both boys, I thought it would be cute to have Mater towing a 3 and a 1 and stamp the boys' names on their respective ages. She loved the idea, so I went with it! I did the same background as I did with Bug's invites, just on a larger scale. 


The invitations were 8.5 x 5.5", so the brown paper was cut to 8 x 3", and the blue was cut to 8 x 2". I cut the road to 8 x 2" as well, and trimmed a little off the top side to angle it. I then used my American Crafts White Galaxy Marker (with a ruler, of course!) to draw the center lines.

I used the Cricut Cars cartridge to cut Mater at 3.5". The white (well, it's not really white, it's more of a beige or ecru) of his eyes and side window were cut out of white and colored with Copics, mostly to save paper! I embossed the tires with Zing! embossing powder after I put all the pieces through the Xyron (that was definitely a lot easier than holding each individual piece with tweezers while using the heat gun!). I used Plantin SchoolBook to cut the one and three, and some mini clear stamps to stamp the boys' names on the numbers. To attach them to the twine, I just used my smallest hole punch and threaded the twine through them and knotted it behind the numbers. I used glue dots to adhere the numbers to the page and the twine behind the hook on Mater's tow cable.

The back of the invite is very simple, just a stamp and "Off road Mayhem" cut from the Cars cartridge at 2". 


I hope you enjoyed the invitations! I apologize for the quality of the pictures - I used my phone to take the pictures and didn't get a chance to use my good camera before I delivered the invites! 

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great evening!

Monday, July 22, 2013

Cars Party Decorations

For Bug's party, I made a couple of banners, a centerpiece, and several signs that I printed and laminated and hung around the house.

I had trouble finding black and white checkered paper, so I found some digital paper online and printed several sheets. I cut several flags from Party Picks and Pennants, and then seven large pennants by hand to put his name on. The "Happy Birthday" banner is cut from Cars and Alphalicious. I cut the route sign in black (I think) at 3.5" and the checkered pattern at 3.25"


For the centerpiece, I cut several of the Cars characters at about 2 inches and glued them on to wooden skewers. I do not recommend cutting the characters this small, because they have many tiny pieces that are easy to lose and difficult to piece together! I used Cricut Craft Room to weld together Bug's name (using Plantin SchoolBook), but ended up needing to reinforce the "a" and the "m" with a toothpick because the area where they were joined was very thin and didn't stay upright like the rest of the letters. If I had more time to re-do the welding and cut his name out again, I would push the letters much closer together! Lesson learned!


Cameron's cake was INCREDIBLE, but I can't take credit for it! One of my good friends made and decorated the cake for him, and I just placed several of the flags (that had been glued on toothpicks) and a banner on which I hand-wrote "Happy Birthday, Cameron!" and glued to wooden skewers.


I also purchased Cars characters to place on the road shaped like a "3." Bug was excited to have new cars!


Thanks for stopping by! Stay tuned for Mater birthday party invitations that were made for my nephews! Have a great day!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Bug's 3rd Birthday

My son just had his third birthday a few weeks ago, and we had a Cars birthday party, since that is his all-time favorite movie. I made Lightening McQueen invitations using the Cricut Cars and Alphalicious cartridges.

I started by cutting some 4.5 x 3.5" rectangles out of a light brown paper (for the dirt), 4.5 x 3" rectangles out of light blue (for the sky), and some 4 x 3.5" rectangles out of black (the road). To make the road more dimensional, I used a pencil and marked the edge of each sheet .5" in from either side of the top edge. I then used my paper trimmer to cut from the pencil mark on the top to the bottom corner. To make the center lines, I used a ruler and my American Crafts White Galaxy Marker.


I cut McQueen at 2", and since I used the image that was facing straight forward, it wasn't too terrible to put together. I embossed his wheels with black metallic embossing powder to give them a shine (plus it shows up better against the black background!). "It's a Party" was cut from the Alphalicious cartridge at about 2.5".


For the inside, I used my Hobby Lobby "You're Invited" stamp for the details of the party. This is where the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig comes in really handy, because with this particular stamp, I have trouble stamping it straight! To use the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, you take the plastic sheet that came with it, line it up in the corner of the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, ink your stamp, and slide the top corner of the stamp down the corner of the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig. The cool thing about this tool is that you can use it right OR left handed!


After you've stamped the plastic sheet (smooth side for water-based inks, textured side for pigment and dye inks), lay it over your paper where you want to stamp. Holding down the plastic sheet, put your Stamp-A-Ma-Jig back at the top left-hand corner (or right if you're a lefty). Once it's lined up, remove the plastic sheet while holding down the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig - you don't want it to move!


While holding your Stamp-A-Ma-Jig still, take your stamp (re-ink it if necessary) and slide it down the corner and side of the tool, and viola! you've stamped it straight (providing it was lined up straight! That's hard to do sometimes!)!


I hope you've enjoyed my little tutorial. I regret that I couldn't post earlier than this, but we have been busy with his birthday, family visiting, and other activities! I hope you have a great day!

Friday, June 14, 2013

Bon Voyage!

Hi all! I'm sorry I've been so slow in posting this week. It has been a hectic week at church with Vacation Bible School! We just wrapped it up today, and I'm exhausted! I did want to share this with you before I hit the hay, though :)

We recently attended a farewell party for one of our Bible study leaders from college, and even though the group was going in together on a gift, I wanted to make a card for him just from me and Nate. I grabbed my Everyday Pop-up Cards cartridge and got to work.


I used a pastel blue card base, then grabbed my Pebbles chalk to color some clouds on the card. I also accidentally cut some clouds from the phrase function that were too small, so I just kept them and attached them to the card as well.


I used a couple of red gemstones on the banner edges, and stamped the basket with a Bo Bunny Stained Texture stamp, using the American Crafts chestnut pigment ink. I put all the pieces together using my Xyron.

For the inside of the card, I used a stamp from the Stampin' Up Heard from the Heart set, again with the AC chestnut ink. I also used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to help me stamp the image straight! I know I've mentioned it before, but this tool is a must-have for all stampers!


Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a relaxing weekend! 

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Fisherman Birthday Card

My husband's birthday was last week, and I wanted to make something that represented part of who he is. He loves fishing, so I grabbed my Everyday Paper Dolls Cricut cartridge, a scrap of Bo Bunny Knight in Shining Armor paper, and the paper I needed to make the cuts, and got to work.

I cut a cattail border in dark green at 1.5". Since the borders on this cartridge are single color borders, I used my Burnt Umber Copic Ciao marker (E29) to color the tops of the cattails. I then cut the man out at 4". I decided I wanted the big smiley face rather than the one that comes on the body, so I cut the head off the body and put the big smiley face in its place.


I then cut out all the clothes (<Fisher>), the fishing basket (select Accessories 1, then Shift, then <Fisher>), and the fishing pole (select Accessories 2, then <Fisher>). I decided to put some fishing line on the pole using Sew Easy's bakers twine, and used my Zig Two-Way glue pen to glue it down. To give the man freckles, I used my Brick Beige Copic Ciao marker (E31).


When I was at the National Scrapbook Day crop, I won a couple of stamps in a door prize, and one of them was a little stamp that said "Give me the simple life." I felt that was appropriate for this card, so I stamped it using American Crafts Chestnut ink. For the inside, I used Tim Holtz's Way With Words stamp, and then used a "Happy Birthday" stamp that I had from another collection.


I used a really neat tool called a Stamp-A-Ma-Jig by Inkadinkado to help me stamp straight. If you are a stamper, I highly recommend getting one of these tools, especially for those stamps that just aren't mounted right! I won this at a crop, and now I wish I had been using one all along! 

My husband really liked his birthday card, and had a great birthday all around. Thank you for joining me today, and happy crafting!

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Thank You Card

Earlier this month, I spent the majority of a weekend at my local scrapbook store for the National Scrapbook month crop. Spending ten hours a day there + hubby still on outage hours = needing a babysitter for the toddler! We are blessed to have family in town that are willing to watch him for us, and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law spent the weekend chasing after him AND their two little ones! My son and their oldest are three weeks apart, and they are best buds.

I wanted to make a special card for them, because I know this was a huge sacrifice of time for them to add a third (very active, might I add!) child into the mix for two days straight. I had a hard time getting started on the card, but knew I wanted to use one of my new mini embossing folders from Cricut. I chose a green card from my K&Company Color Basics, and used one of Bazzill's dark brown textured cardstocks layer on top of the card base. I used my Cuttlebug "thank you" embossing folder in the lower right hand corner, and inked over that and around the edges with a brown Prima chalk ink.


I then took a scrap of Bo Bunny pink Double Dot paper, trimmed it to 1.5" x 3.5", and cut a triangle out of the end to make a pennant. I used a white Prima chalk ink to ink the edges, and used my glue dots roller to attach it to the brown paper. The blue paper is from Out of Print, and is embossed with the cherry blossom folder from Cuttlebug's Asian bundle. I then wrapped some Tim Holtz white elastic ribbon at the bottom of the blue paper, then layered that with the brown Bo Bunny Ribbon. The flowers are by Bazzill and are attached using glue dots.


Before I placed the card in the envelope, I embossed the flap with the cherry blossom folder. This card was particularly difficult to get in the envelope because it is so bulky. I hand delivered it, so I'm sure they didn't mind that it wasn't sealed!


Thanks for stopping by, and happy crafting!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Cars Birthday Card

My son loves the movie Cars. There isn't a week that goes by that we don't watch both movies! I decided several months ago that it would be a good idea to invest in the Cars Cricut cartridge. To be honest, it hasn't gotten much use yet, so I took advantage of the fact that we were going to the birthday party of one of his little buddies and made a Lightening McQueen card.

I began with a solid blue sheet, and used one of the embossing folders from Cuttlebug's Oriental Weave set. I then took one of my Prima Cold Ice chalk edger and lightly ran it over the top of the page. I had a few uneven spots. Okay, maybe more than a few spots! I need some practice.


I then set out to cutting all the pieces to Lightening McQueen. Now, if you've never made a cut from the Disney or Pixar carts, let me warn you: there are a LOT of pieces, and many of them are very small. Because of the size of some of these pieces, I wouldn't recommend cutting the Cars characters at a very small size. I believe I cut McQueen at 3 3/4", and I even ended loosing one of my pieces because they were so small. Look at all those pieces!


Before I started putting him together, I took the wheels and stamped them with my VersaMark embossing ink pad (I have a tiny one that is really useful for this!), and used my Zing! black glitter finish embossing powder to add some texture to them. The brown mat you see in the picture is a great tool to have if you do a lot of stamping and embossing. It's the Ranger Non-Stick Craft Sheet, and not even embossing ink or powder sticks to it. I still had some flakes of embossing powder on the sheet when I heat embossed the tires, and they still came right off the sheet with a baby wipe!

I used my Xyrons to make the pieces sticky. I have the 5" and the 1 1/2" machines, and used both for this project. The 1 1/2" Xyron is really useful for those tiny pieces.


I felt the card wasn't quite complete, so I used some Inkadinkado clear stamp letters to stamp the name in the upper left hand corner. The ink I used was Memento's Tuxedo Black. 


On the inside of the card, I put the "Start Your Engines" cut, and stamped "for a happy birthday," again with the Tuxedo Black ink. The stamps came from Stampabilities "Everyday Expressions" clear stamp set. This is a neat set because all the words are separate, so you can make your own phrases!


Thank you for visiting with me today! I hope you like Cars as much as my son does, because he is having a Cars birthday party next month, so I will have some posts about his invitations and party decorations!

Hope you have a blessed day!

Monday, May 13, 2013

National Scrapbook Month

Happy National Scrapbook Month! On the 3rd and 4th, I got to go crop at my local scrapbook store with my amazing mom. She's new to scrapbooking, but is a very crafty and creative woman.



Here are a few of the layouts I did while at the crop.



These were fun to make, but also made me a little teary to see how much my baby has grown since these were taken! He's almost three now, and these were taken right around his first birthday. He was just learning how to climb when I took these.



I used Tie the Knot to cut the pendants, and stamped and embossed the letters on them. The "sunny days" and Sun with the cloud were cut using Celebrate with Flourish. "Let's play" is one of the phrases on Create a Critter, and the tree is from Pooh and Friends.

Isn't my boy adorable?

This next one I absolutely love. We had gone to a splash park and had a picnic, and he leaned into his daddy, and it was a picture perfect moment!



I cut a card layer from Damask Decor, and embossed a sweet sentiment - "There's no place like a spot in someone's heart."

The circles are cut from Accent Essentials, and I cut the banners with my trusty paper trimmer and scissors. The paper is from Bo Bunny's Knight in Shining Armor.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Bo Bunny Mini Edgy Album


A few months ago, I picked up a Bo Bunny Et Cetera Mini Edgy Album at my local scrapbook store. When I saw it, I thought it would be the perfect album to put some of my grad school pictures in because it had music printed on some of the pages. This week I finally got to start working on it, and here's the end result. 


I began by stamping the letters. The capital letters are Inkadinkado stamps, and the lower case are American Crafts (or AC). I then decided to glitter the letters, so I used my Zig two way glue pen to go over the letters and used AC Wow glitter on them. After placing the flowers and Pebbles stones on the cover, I decided to ink the edges in dark brown. In hindsight, I should have made that decision before I placed embellishments that close to the edge. It made things rather difficult. Live and learn, right?


I used Cricut's Quarter Note cartridge for every cut in this album. I cut the word "solo" because oddly enough, this cartridge doesn't have "recital" anywhere on it! I used Paper Studio self adhesive pearls, but used my ColorBox dark brown chalk to tint them. The stamped flowers are from Stampin Up's Delight in Life set. The larger flower is a 2-step stamp, and I used the AC brown sugar ink for the background of the flower, and AC chestnut ink for the outline and the smaller flower.


The lines of glitter were made using Provo Craft's Terrifically Tacky tape, and AC's chocolate and copper glitter. The stickers were some I had on hand, and I think they're Paper Studio brand, but don't quote me on that. The tag and envelope are Maya Road, and the stamps are the other two stamps in the Delight in Life set. On the tag I wrote a couple of details about the trip to New York with the Wind Ensemble.


The picture on the left is of me standing outside of Carnegie Hall! It was an amazing experience, and like I wrote on the envelope on this page, a dream come true! Above the tag is a verse that says "With God, all things are possible." I stamped that on this page because going to Carnegie had been a dream of mine since high school, and God orchestrated everything in such a way that I was able to do just that during grad school. 

On the next page I used the Fleur de Lis Cuttlebug embossing folder to emboss the dark red paper. The flowers are embellished using cinnamon and pink Stickles.


The Quarter Note cartridge has a few fonts on it, and I used Font 1 to cut out "Wind Ensemble" and "lovely flutists." I used my cinnamon, frosted lace, and icicle Stickles to glitter the words and flowers.


The cute little flowers on the left page are from the Doodlebug Tidbits lily white collection, and I tied them with a little bit of We R Memory Keepers black and white twine. Aren't they cute? The journaling tag is from Maya Road. I will probably go back and add a note that I was about 6.5 months pregnant during that recital, though I am unlikely to forget that fact! On the last page, the embossing folder I used on the red paper was Cuttlebug's Divine Swirls, and I used the dark brown ColorBox chalk to ink the edges. I again used the AC letter stamps to stamp "graduation" and completed the project with more tinted pearls.

I hope you've enjoyed getting a glimpse into some of my past. I enjoyed putting this album together, and can't wait to make more mini albums with my Cricut Mini Books cartridge!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Bundle of Joy

A few days ago, I received the Tiny Bubbles embossing folder and couldn't wait to try it out. I had a hard time deciding exactly what to do with it, but I finally decided on a Pooh card.


Using the Pooh and Friends Cricut cartridge, I cut Pooh at 2" and the moon at 1.5". I inked the edges of the moon with the Bisque ColorBox chalk ink, then ran it along with the Pooh cuts through the Xyron. Before I put Pooh together, I used my Pebbles chalk to add some shading. 

The bundle of joy stamp is part of the Nursery Icons clear stamp set from Stampabilities. I used sky blue ink from Inkadinkado's Cool Pastels pigment ink stackable multi-pads. The neat thing about this ink is that you can use it as a regular stamp pad or you can use it for embossing, as it is a slow-drying ink. I dusted it with clear embossing powder, then used the heat gun to emboss it. 

I finished the card with a couple of blue eyelets (using the Crop-A-Dile), and We R Memory Keepers Lemonade twine. 

I can't wait to give this card to a new or expectant momma!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy cropping!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Train Party Invitation

Good evening! I hope you're having a great Saturday! This week I've been working on invitations for a friend for her son's third birthday party. She has been planning on a train birthday party, but couldn't find invitations with a train. I told her that I could make what she wanted and got to work!

I used three Cricut cartridges to make this card. To start, I made my own embossing plate using cut up cereal boxes. I wanted to emboss clouds on the background paper, but didn't have an embossing folder with clouds. I used Create a Critter to cut a couple of clouds (it's the accessory to the sun and rainbow), and used my tape runner to glue the chipboard clouds to a 5x7" piece of chipboard. (Just a note: if you've never cut chipboard on your Cricut before, you must have the deep cut blade and housing, and tape all sides down. It also helps to use a new mat.)

To emboss the blue background, I had to use a Spellbinders embossing mat along with my A plate and both B plates for my Cuttlebug. After I embossed my blue background (which was cut 4x6"), I used my Pebbles Basic Brights Chalk to color the edges of the clouds white.


For the train, I used B is for Boy. I love that my Expression has a quantity function so I can cut multiples of the same item without hitting "cut" over and over. I then ran all the train pieces through my Xyron and ended up with a train of.... trains. (The trains are three inches, in case you were wondering!)


For my last cuts, I needed puffs of steam, so I cut three different sizes of clouds from Everyday Paper Dolls (Accessory 3 for the rain coat). I cut them at .75, 1, and 1.25 inches. I then stamped them with my Ranger Big & Bossy embossing ink pad, dusted them with Zing black embossing powder, and got busy with the heat gun. I used foam adhesive squares to adhere them to the card to give it some more dimension.


I used pre-made 5x7" cards from The Paper Studio, but cut them down to 4 1/4 x 6 1/4" so they didn't dwarf the blue cardstock. 

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you again!