Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Pink Stamper Challenge Entry.

At The Pink Stamper Blog, she's giving away Cricut Expression to one random winner on Tuesday!!! One just needed to make a project relating to Father's day and link it to her blog. So - here is my entry.


This is a two 12 X 12 page layout of my son and my husband doing similar poses together. I think that it captures "Like Father, Like Son." I didn't use Cricut for this layout, but I embellished the page using ribbons, eyelets, stitching and tags. I also folded a paper to make a shirt with brads for buttons for both daddy and son.

Wish me luck - looks like I have about one in a few hundred chances of winning...

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Every boy loves trains.

For every birthday occasion for my kids, I try to do some craft of some sort - either involving the guests to make it, or having the guest add message/pictures to something I made.

Here is a train that I created with My Community Cricut cartridge. Inside each of the trains, I put a picture of each guest. I also added some of my son's favorite characters into the trains as well (Mickey Mouse, Thomas, Vancouver 2010 mascots...) I cut out the shapes big enough for all the guests to write a birthday message on the back of their train. Of course, the train driver was the birthday boy.

I attached all the trains together to look like this:


This not only makes a great birthday party decor, but a great memory keepsake!
(The lettering was done with SCAL)

Thursday, May 27, 2010

It's chaos here.

Life is getting pretty crazy with our upcoming reno to our house coming up. We have 3 kids, but with only 2 bedrooms for the kids, it was tough for us. Each one would keep the other up, and if one slept in my room, I would have to entertain them in the middle of the night. Our temporary solution resulted in us losing our master bedroom to our little girl. So sadly, yet I'm actually getting really used to it - I currently sleep in the hallway! However, we needed a solution and we've finally decided to extend over the garage to put another bedroom upstairs.

With this reno, we've also decided to change our main and upstairs flooring while we are at it, and thus, we are packing up everything in our home, including my craft supplies! We (including my Cricut) are moving out into my parent's house for 4 months. It's a huge chaos here right now, but also getting really excited at the same time.

SO - if you are wondering what does this have anything to do with this? Forgive me if I don't put up a post on a daily basis.

Here's a card I made with Sweet Treats:

I'm sorry... I got a virus.

Okay, I didn't get a virus on my computer. You are all safe to open up my blog.

Today, I explored a little bit more on Robotz cartridge, and just fell in love with this robot that looked "guilty." I knew I wanted to make an "I'm sorry" card with this guy.


To make the card more interesting, and robot-like, I used metallic papers in copper, silver white. (It's hard to tell in the picture, this gave it a sci-fi look) I embossed the background of the card with Cuttlebug traffic jam and spots&dots folders. I then wanted an apology line that would be fitting to the card, and my clever husband came up with "I'm sorry I forgot... I got a virus."

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Just what the doctor ordered.


I found the cutest stamp from Maya Road "Prescription" stamp. I knew immediately that this would be so cute make cards to sell them at my husband's pharmacy. I wanted the buyers to be able to personalize the prescription, so I had to think of a way to place this prescription on a card, but to be able to take it out.

Then I came across a doctor's bag from Wild Cards Cartridge. I cut it just enough to fit the width of the prescription, and then adhered the bag on the sides and the bottom to the card base, leaving the top open. I wanted to make sure that the buyers knew that it was "get well soon" cards, so I also attached various sayings to each cards.

I think that they turned out pretty darn cute!

Monday, May 24, 2010

Dinner crackers.

This was a project I did a while back, for last year's Christmas Eve party. A little out of season? Well, yes, but one could personalize these crackers to spice up any dinner occasion.

Using the free Christmas cracker file on SVGcuts.com, I decided to make my own Christmas crackers for my Christmas Eve party. To make things a little more unique, using SCAL, I welded the ribbon strip from Rosie's Ribbon Strips (9th strip - also a file from SVGcuts.com), embossed the middle section with Cuttlebug snowflakes folder and used white pearl stamp to bring out the images.


I also made snowflake napkin holders to match the crackers. The snowflakes were from various Cricut carts, and I added Martha Stewart cystal coarse glitter, embellished the center with a rhinestone and adhered them to a round cut-out base with pop-dots.


Inside the crackers, I put in 3 Lindt chocolates, a different question in each to spice up the conversation, and had one grand prize of $50 gift certificate to a fancy steak house. This was a highlight of our party!

I submitted this in for SVG cuts December challenge (had to use a Christmas/winter related files from that site), and I was chosen as a grand prize winner :)

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Something I just can't live without...

STICKLES! I love them, and I can't believe I only started using this about a month ago. It just makes my things so pretty! I wanted to share few cards I made, with the help of my stickles.


This border was from Storybook (I cut the backing to the frame by hiding the centre cut-out with Design Studio), stamped and heat embossed "celebrate", and I used Stickles that matched the colors of the stripes and dotted along the lines.


Here, the border was also from Storybook (I love this cart!), and champagne flutes were from Tie the Knot. Again, I went Stickle crazy and accentuated the ends of the frames (dotted them), and also used to create a 3-D effect to the glasses and the bubbles.

My recent fun purchase.


Recently I just purchased Pebbles Inc Chalk Sets from another one of my daily steals sites, scrapbooksteals.com. I never realized how versatile these things are - I can chalk the edges, just like you do with stamps. You can also go over your embossing to accentuate the patterns. You may color your stamp images as well.

I admit that I initially purchased this because it had such beautiful and modern packaging (and how many other things do I purchase because of this reason????), but this tool has proven to me how much it can add to my projects. It comes with 3 sizes of pom poms, and you use applicator to apply chalk to your crafts. They apply very well, and stays on better than regular chalks.


My two cards here - I have chalked the edges of all the words and I also chalked the border of the cards. Look how much difference it makes to a card!

(In case you wanted to know, "candles/presents/cake/party" was made from SCAL, "may all your wishes come true" came from Sweet Treats, and the border is from Storybook (I welded the edges together to make a card.)

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Welcome board.


In Japan, it is part of the wedding decor to have a "welcome board" placed near the entrance or the reception. This is used to welcome the guests, and typically is made from a board/picture inside the frame/engaving on a mirror that has the groom and the bride's names, and the date of the wedding.

One of my close cousin in Japan asked me to make a "welcome board" for her big day. I was so thrilled to have this opportunity to do something special for her. I didn't want to do anything that had been done - I wanted mine to be different. I decided to make a wedding cake from round nesting cardboard boxes and satin fabric and ribbons.

I gathered some info about her wedding, like the colors and the style. I covered the round nesting boxes with ivory or espresso satin fabric, and decorated each layer of cake with yellow, ivory and tea green satin ribbons. I then used a rope-like ribbon to accentuate the bottom edges of each layer. The wedding info and "welcome" was printed onto a pearlized ivory cardstock and placed "welcome" in a heart tag using Making Memories tag maker. I also used the rope-like ribbon to give it a border. It still needed something... something to fluorish it with...

I hit Michael's the next day, and picked up some silk flowers and berries. I came home, decorated it, and I was really happy with the outcome. I purposely didn't attach each layer and was just stacked on top of each other, so it would be easy for me to nest those boxes inside each other to bring it to Japan. I also purchased a cake stand as well.

Here's how it looked at the wedding:



She loved it, and it was a beautiful wedding.

Bubble Bath.




I just dressed up my bathroom with various-sized bubbles from bubble dingbat (dafont.com). The best thing about this was that I was able to cut these bubbles using SCAL from the same sheet that I used to cut dinosaurs to decorate my son's room. So, I decorated two rooms using only 2 of 12 X 24 white vinyl sheets. Bubbles were so easy to put on the wall as it didn't require any precision measurements - I just tried to put the smaller bubbles more on top.

A simple bubble, but it just added so much to my plain bathroom.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Just touched.

It's been a full week since I started my blog. It's been really fun, and I've learned a lot about blogging. I enjoy putting up my work in one place - it's just like making my own portfolio!

What's the best thing about blogging? Well, I have made a lot of online friends. I never realized how neat it is to receive e-mails and feedback from once strangers. I'm now friends with someone that actually lives not too far away from me, friends with someone that I followed because they do amazing work, and friends I've met through Facebook and Cricut members board from me putting up my work on various sites.

It sure has been a neat experience, and it's because of my family, friends, and followers. I hope to put up many more projects, and I look forward to long lasting friendships :)

Thank you.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Birth Announcements after Cricut.

Our youngest child was born after Cricut was in my possession. I was able to design my card before the baby was born. Although I was told at my ultrasound that I was having a girl, I didn't want to take any chance, so I stayed away from actually cutting them since I wanted to have gender specific colors. However, as soon as she arrived, I was ready to click the "cut" button, and assemble it together. Stress-free, unlike the last set I made.

In these announcement cards, I used New Arrivals cart diaper bag. I made the bag, and cut out the insert layer to hold the baby's information. I cut the bear and the bottle and adhered them on the bag insert and embellished the bear with a pink ribbon. I also cut out a rattle to place in the front pocket of the bag.

I made over 60 of them with Martha Stewart playground paper pack:


This is the bag insert with baby's information:


These announcement cards were in mail 2 weeks after I gave birth!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Cricut for kids.

My kids love Cricut. They are just as excited as I am when I get a new cartridge. They love to make puppets, posters, cards, basically anything. They even like the box, and they study the images on the back. They've learned to load and unload the mat, and to set to cut the images! Simple Cricut projects make a great weekend or after school activity. (They are so lucky when they ever have to make a school poster - in our days, we had to use stencils to cut letters, and had to enlarge images on the copier. Technology has come a long way!)

Last weekend, my son and I explored the Robotz cartridge (my 7 year old son contributed his $10 of his savings so that I could get this cart!) and wow, they are adorable! He loved the 3-D robots, and that's what we decided to make. I let him choose the colors and this is what we made:



I used Scor-Pal to score the folding lines, and that made it easy for the kids to assemble. Stickles are great way to add metallic feel to the robot, as well as aluminum foil.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Banner Greeting.

I just love the banner pennant on the Celebrations cartridge. A plain-looking cut, and not so cute or exciting like other ones, but there's so much you can do. The simpler the cut, the more embellishments you can add, and you can get away with using wild patterned papers. You can join the pennants with brads, eyelets, or ribbons. The best thing about banners is that as long as you use brads or ribbons, the pennant folds up on top of each other making it easy to fit into mail envelope.

Here, I made a birthday pennant card for my sister's birthday, in her favorite pink tones:



Saturday, May 15, 2010

My paper doll family.

Two of my favorite (okay, I admit, I have many favorites) Cricut cartridges are Paper Doll Dress Up and Everyday Paper dolls. The little dolls are so cute, and each cartridge have so many extra files that are so versatile.

I thought, how cute would this be to make my family out of it! So, that's exactly what I did. I cut 5 dolls, ranging in sizes from 2.5" to 4.25", and I personalized them with clothes that they are likely to wear, added bottle to my girl, blanket and truck to my three year old, put glasses on for daddy, and added my diaper bag over my shoulders. I find that using beads and brads are great for "buttons." These dolls were then adhered inside a shadow box frame.

Here's my completed work:



Judging from how many comments I received on this, I would think that this would make a great gift for a family!

Mod Paperie Greetings.


My dream has always been to sell my own handmade cards and crafts. My husband owns a pharmacy and suggested to me recently that I start out by trying to sell some there. This is a little pharmacy in the professional building, so it really isn't a destination for card shopping. Nevertheless, from time to time, there are occasional people that come in looking for last minute cards.

He brought home for me a pamphlet clear plastic holder from work thinking that I could put my cards in them to sell. This was too plain, and I decided to jazz it up a bit. After pondering for few days, I came up with "mod paperie" as my business name. It had a modern feel and paper has always been my best friend. Of course, adding "ie" to the end made it feel like a shop (like chocolaterie), and I loved it.

My first set of cards that I decided to create were "celebrate" cards. I figured that by "celebrate", it would be good for birthdays, weddings, or any happy occasion.

I used the birthday cake from Stretch Your Imagination cartrige, and welded the blackout and the flip silhouette image to make a card. I also cut another blackout by itself, and embossed that with Divine Swirl Cuttlebug folder. I adhered that piece behind the silhouette, and added pearls or dewdrops to the cake. "Celebrate" stamp was stamped onto a cardstock and attached onto the cake.

Here it is:



I hope that one day, when I actually have time to make more cards, I can sell them in other stores and online. Wish me luck :)

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Birth Annoucement before Cricut

Can anyone remember the time there was no such thing as a Cricut? I can't imagine my life without it right now. Everything that I do, everything that I think of doing revolves around Cricut. I will never attempt to cut everything by hand, and I will definitely never consider making a stencil, tracing onto the paper, and then cutting it out.

I know Cricut has been around for sometime now, but I never jumped onto the bandwagon until November 2008. That has changed my life. Since then, I have been able to create more things - faster, with less stress, and professionally.

However, before Cricut came into my life, I did cut everything out by hand to make cards and that never stopped me then. I love personalizing everything and I get so much satisfaction out from making them.

One that I will show you today is my birth announcement cards that I made for my son, now three. Yes, I made a bib stencil, traced them onto double-sided patterned paper, and cut them out one by one. I made over 60 of them.



I was extremely happy with the way it turned out, and got great feedbacks. I fit 3 things into the bib pocket - birth information, picture of my baby, and a form letter. The ribbon at the top also completed it.

All I can think of now is how easy that would be with Cricut...

My little princess.

On one of the many daily deal sites that I visit, Crop Chocolate (https://www.cropchocolate.com) was looking for chocolatiers (designers) to design with their products. Their idea was to attach a picture of a project along with the product that they are selling, so that the scrapbooker would get inspired and would want to purchase that item. I sent my name in and I was picked! So what they sent me were these items:



I had two weeks to design and create something. Looking at those paper patterns, two images came to my mind - spring and princess. I also had recently purchase Once Upon A Princess Cricut Cartridge and I have not had time to play with it, so I decided to do the princess theme. Another decision maker was our recent trip to Tokyo Disneyland (in Japan) and we purchased a Minnie princess headband for our girl.

I was sent:
Making Memories Scrapbook Page kit (brooke)
- strawberries & cream textured cardstock for background
- brooke floral paper for the vine
- peapod velvet letters
- brooke gem stickers
Making Memories (note)worthy pastel paper pink flowers
pink and white ribbon

My additions:
more rhinestones and little glitter star embellishment
Cricut to cut princess (Once Upon A Princess) and oval, tiara (Storybook)
pop-dots
gold ink pad
corner punch

1. Printed my picture, cut it into oval through Cricut
2. Cut vine throught Cricut to surround my picture
3. Cut tiara on cricut big enough to place 'princess' letters, decorated with gem stickers
4. Cut princess on cricut, decorated with rhinestones
5. Corner punched my background cardstock and inked the edges
6. Ink-edged other pieces
7. Adhered my picture to the center of the page
8. Pop-dots to place vine around it, and princess on it (used glitter star for the wand)
9. Put the ribbon across the page, and used pop-dots to place the "princess" tiara
10. Placed flowers on some vines, and placed rhinestones in the middle.

Here's my final picture of what it looked like:























Close up (I love the 3-D effect):



Then I decided to enter my layout to the Cricut Customer Project Spotlight - and I won!!!!
I was featured in their Cricut Chirp Newletter on April 27, 2010. http://www.cricut.com/newsletters/volume.aspx?ID=250

I won a Cricut cartridge and I chose Create a Critter. Let's see what I can make now.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

My son's dinosaur room.



My son is 7, and we recently bought him a stitched dinosaurs duvet cover. The duvet cover is beautiful, and very simple. I knew that the wall decor had to have the clean, modern look to bring out this duvet cover.

Using the Cricut and SCAL once again, I used the Ding-O-Saurs font to cut white vinyl. I was happy with all the details on these dinosaurs. I also cut small dinosaurs out from 6 different shades of green cardstock and using pop-dots, aligned them in a shadow box frame. Voila!

My son loved how his room looked!

3-D Flower Topiary



This project was made a few months ago, and I created this to enter for the 3-D Flower Challenge over at SVG CUTS(http://svgcuts.com). The rule was to use their 3-D flower files that you can purchase (Leo and Mary makes gorgeous SVG files to use with your SCAL and Cricut)and create anything that you can think of. I used the 3-D Flowers SVG kit 2 and 3-D Mums and Fall Flowers SVG Kit, and decided to create a flower topiary.

Although I have seen flower topiaries, they were all made from real flowers, and I have never seen this done with paper. I looked for many hours online to study what flowers and what colors go together. I decided to use light colors - pinks, creams, browns, and light greens. I was very excited to get to this point!

I worked on this for days - and created 61 flowers measuring between 1" to 2"(windflower, gerber daisy, spider mum, and dublin mum and using few extras from these files to create some flowers of my own). Each flower is made up of about 5 layers of paper, and each layer is curled to give it a natural look. These layers were then glued together. I then glued these onto the styrofoam ball (6" in diameter) and used bamboo stick for the stem, put into a pot and trimmed it with a ribbon.

I love the way this turned out - so springy and cheerful.

I ended up receiving the Grand Prize from them (here's the link: http://svgcuts.com/forum/index.php?topic=1597.0). This just made my day :)

My first blog post.

I am so excited to finally start my own blog. I have been inspired very much from many creative people, and that is my dream - to hope that one day, my blog can be somewhere people come to, to look for ideas and be inspired.

I have created all sorts of beautiful things, and I would like to share with you one at a time. Until I can post everything, these projects are not in the order created.

Thank you for looking at my blog, and I hope to get to know you :)

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