I still get excited when the postman delivers a parcel (even when I already know what's inside!) and today was no exception.
I had been waiting for my new Cricut Damask Decor cartridge to arrive since the beginning of last week and so when it dropped on the mat this morning I couldn't wait to have a play.
It is a fabulous cartridge packed with elegant & intricate designs, however, it also allows you to also cut cards, tags and envelopes. The options and possibilities are endless! I would recommend investing in the Cricut toolset (or similar) though, as some of the designs are so intricate it can be a bit tricky to get them off the mat without tearing them. I will definitely be adding this to my wish list!
I created this lovely card in just over 30 minutes (as I am still finding my way around my Expression machine otherwise I am sure it would have been even quicker!), with the card, overlay and envelope all being cut from the same cartridge. I then added a touch of white organza ribbon and a few jewels .... et voila!
After while-ing away a very pleasant few hours devouring the latest crafting blogs (now that I have the time!), I decided to have a go at this month's Simple Recipe challenge from UK Scrappers.
The challenge was to create a scrapbook page based on the colours below, adding additional ingredients in the form of buttons, paints and mist (or a variation adapted from your existing stash).
This immediately appealed to me as I love pink and orange together (yes really!) and would not have thought of using the turquoise as a highlight but it works really well.
These are the ingredients I gathered together for my recipe:
- Solid colour card stock in red, orange and turquoise
- a gorgeous patterned paper from Anna Griffin that I had been waiting to use on the right project
- some buttons, ribbons and beads
- fabric flowers
- I don't have any paints or inks at the moment but whilst creating my layout remembered some glimmer chalks that have lain unused for an age and so adopted some artistic licence and used these as a finishing touch to my page!
Now to choose some photos ... I pulled out the packs of holiday photos still waiting to be scrapped and was amazed to find that the majority of last years summer holiday to Cornwall featured those very colour combinations - who knew!
The Anna Griffin paper lent itself very well to cutting around some of the flowers and so I used this as a background on plain white card stock. I then selected my photos, mounting two of them on the solid card and punching a decorative border on each. I decided not to use the fabric flowers as they werent quite the right shade and so cut out spare flowers from the remainder of the decorative paper and used buttons as centres. I added strips of turquoise and pink ribbon, letter stickers for the title and finally after remembering the chalk, some shading as a finishing touch.
Here is the end result ...
So, now that I find myself 'between contracts' on the work front (and not planning to look for a new one for a while!), I have promised myself I will catch up with some crafting and get to grips with my new Cricut Expression 2 machine.
I thought I would share some of my designs (and other ramblings!) on a Blog, so here is my first attempt ...
Valentines Card created for my DH.
I am so far restricted to the two pre-loaded cartridges that came with the CE2 (Cricut Alphabet & Cricut Essentials) and so cut one of the heart & swirl designs from the Cricut Alphabet in hot pink cardstock using pink mirri card for the overlay. I chose a plain white scalloped edged card and used patterned paper and grosgrain ribbon from Anna Griffin. I finished it off by adding some heart shaped bling to the bottom of the heart and pink diamonte initials in the centre.
Hope you like it!
