Paints and Glitter © custom cards and art

I cannot believe my oldest son is 12!! This doesn't leave much room for cutesy little things anymore, so for his birthday I was in a crunch. How to make a card using the cricut and still have him like it? Well, I do work best under pressure and in about an hour (with many interruptions), I was able to come up with this card. It's called a tri-fold card, and the ladies at www.splitcoaststampers.com have a wonderful tutorial on it. The right paper can make all the difference! I used Plantin Schoolbook for the cityscape, My community for the clock (striking 12!!) and Home Décor for the star. He liked it, and I was happy :)

Ok, so I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but who doesn't LOVE these mailboxes? I'm thinking it can preclude a conversation with my kids about how silly people used to actually write down their feelings and mail them to others! And in complete sentences!! Who knew?? On to the box...I rarely measure so I eyeballed the necessary paper to wrap and punched a hole where the little flag would stick out. I used Tombo power bond for the ribbon (it's the red one). This stuff really sticks!! The half circle is embossed and the heart on the cover is from Doodlebugs, with glitter on the edges and stamps from Inkadinkadoo.

I made this clipboard with the Home Décor cart. I first painted the clipboard with acrylic paints and then adhered the diecuts . The eyelet on top has a pretty flower pattern on it. I put this on with the Cropadile. The little flowers are from a paper punch, and the whole thing was sealed to keep it from peeling.

This is a little card I made for my Niece's 12th birthday. I just happened to have this cute ribbon to work with and the most beautiful butterfly from the Home Décor cartridge an voilá! The background is embossed with the cuttlebug and the bottom and top light pink strips were cut with scallop-edge scissors. The envelope was from a different cartridge. (sorry can't remember) I added stickles to give it some flair, and the whole butterfly is "popped". The sentiment "happy everything" and "birthday" tag were stamped, hand-cut and stickled for a little bling. I entered this for the Cricut design challenge @ cricut.com. Wish me luck!

I am trying to learn the steps to creating a blog worth sharing, and I hope to have some renovations soon. Till then this might be a place to post pics, since it's hard to take pictures of myself for tutorials. Thanks to anyone who happens to drop in!