Artfully Sent Monthly Challenge, Day Three

Yesterday I shared the first of two baby cards I made using the new Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge from Close to My Heart. Today, I'm going to share the second one.

This cartridge makes it so simple to make a beautiful card quickly. But it also features envelopes, PML cards and much more. I used a PML card to decorate the front of this card, added a few embellishments and voila!

This card is preset to cut at 4" x 6" so I changed the dial size to 5" so it would better fit a 5" x 7" card. As you can see, it's not exactly 5" x 7" but it does fit the 7" height of the card base.

I added a bow of the new Thistle ribbon and some silver Glitz (retired) to highlight the heart shape.

The drying time of the Glitz was the longest part of making the card, but tying that bow was a close second! :)

The inside sentiment was from the stamp set that came with the cartridge. There are lots of phrases to choose from and it's easy to mix and match. There are sentiments for every card occasion I could think of - all on one stamp set!

Yes, this cartridge is an investment BUT there is so much in this purchase to make it a wise investment. There are three D sized stamp sets that come with it plus a bundle of White Daisy cardstock. I'll be using another of the stamp sets on tomorrow's project.

See you tomorrow!

Artfully Sent Monthly Challenge, Day Two

Welcome back to the second day of my self-imposed monthly challenge with the Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge!

Browsing through the booklet that came with the cartridge, I noticed this 5x7 card and thought it would make a beautiful baby card.

I cut the first two "drafts" out of cardstock (doesn't work well with a dull blade) so I used Desert Sand cardstock and it went much smoother. I backed the inside cover with White Daisy cardstock  and colored in the negative space with the Shin Han alcohol makers to make the card pop. I then lined the whole inside of the card with another layer of White Daisy cardstock to hide the bleed-through of the makers. Because the alcohol markers layer so well, I colored the tree in then let it dry and colored it in again with the same color (Clay, I think) to give it a little dimension, skipping parts of the branches where there would be some highlights.

Since this is going to a friend who just had a little boy, I used blue on the bunting.

Come back again tomorrow when I;ll share a card I made for a friend who just had a baby girl.

Artfully Sent Monthly Challenge, Day One

Today is the first day of my month-long, self-imposed challenge to share with you one project a day that I made using the new CTMH Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge.

Yesterday, I shared with you a beautiful swing card I made using the Scaredy Cat paper pack but today I'm going to share with you a super simple card made with cardstock that came together in less than 10 minutes.

I made this card using Sweet Leaf, Chocolate & White Daisy cardstock, and the ShinHan alcohol markers. Each of the three cuts were made from the same key on the cartridge and they coordinate so beautifully, it's super simple to load up three mats with a cardstock sheet, and feed it through the machine without changing any of the settings (and no, I don't have the new Cricut Explore). It's all programed into the cartridge!

Once I assembled everything, I laid it out flat so that the front card was over some scrap paper and I colored in the tree branch and bird using the ShinHan alcohol markers (the scrap paper was to protect from any bleed through from the markers). I outlined the animals with a marker to provide a little definition.

Using the fun alphabet stamp set included in the cartridge kit, I stamped "Miss you Dear" in black archival ink since I will be tucking this into my hubby's go bag for deer camp in the fall.

Come back again tomorrow when I'll share another card I made for my hubby using this fun new cartridge!

Scaredy Cat meets Artfully Sent

Please forgive me, I got a little distracted this month. After a few months of waiting (for us consultants, it's been since July) the Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge is finally available!

To celebrate the release of the cartridge, I'm undertaking a self-imposed challenge: 31 days of projects using the Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge! (*breathe!*)

I found it so easy to work with this weekend that I made a few more cards than I really needed to make which is how this challenge started - what am I going to do with all these cards?!?

So, I will share them with you over the next few days plus all the new projects I am anxiously awaiting to make. But first... a sneak peek using the Scaredy Cat paper pack (because this month's challenge was using that one paper pack, ahem, oops!)

This is a fun swing card cut on B&T paper. Then I added a Slate gray cardstock to the right inside that was cut with "BOO".

I backed the letters with some scrap Kraft paper to give a little color difference and used the "Frightfully Fun" Stamp Set B1453 in Black Archival ink for the cute little ghost and sentiment.

See you tomorrow when I share another project from the new Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge!

What I'm working on this weekend

Since I was working over our anniversary a few weeks ago, my husband stole me away this weekend to this beach sans kids. Of course I brought some scrapbooking goodies along!

I brought the new Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge from CTMH so I'll have some fun projects to share with you next week!

Stay tuned!

Joyful Stars September Blog Hop: Scaredy Cat

Hi!

Welcome the September edition of the Joyful Stars Blog Hop. If you're coming here from Krista's blog then you're on the right track. It's a circular hop so just keep going till you come back to where you started. If you get lost along the way, stop over at Joyce's blog for a complete list. 

While at Convention in DisneyLand this past summer, I heard it mentioned that the Annual Inspirations book was set up in a way to encourage us consultants to go through it in order, one paper pack per month. If we do, it will line up in an appropriate time frame for sales to happen in time for our customers to be using the Thanksgiving paper pack (Pathfinding) at the Thanksgiving season, for example. Since I can always use a little structure in my creativity, I am following that advice. 

Last month, I explored the Chalk It Up paper pack and this month, I am exploring the Scaredy Cat paper pack. Since it does seem obvious for Halloween, I made two layouts for the Halloween season that I know I will use - the first one is for our costume/trick-or-treating photos and the second layout is for the pictures from my sister's (awesome) annual Halloween party that she hosts for the kids. 

I really wanted to try to push myself creatively (I've been in a slump lately) so I forced myself to use the Cricut cartridges exclusively on each page. I didn't make it to "exclusive" but I used the Artbooking cartridge for both layouts. 

Artbooking is a fun cartridge to work with even if you don't use one (or more) keys to do the entire layout. I cut the B&T paper to use a mats for the photos but let the Cricut do the fun stuff. 

One the first layout, I cut the "Trick or Treat" three times, once each on White Daisy, Sunset and Honey cardstocks. I carefully cut the Honey and Sunset cuts apart and glued them together on the White Daisy cardstock to mimic the look of a candy corn. 

I then cut out the candies and the candy borders on White Daisy and used our Glitz gels (retired) to make them shine. 

One the second layout, I went to Pinterest for inspiration. A lot of Halloween photos came up using this awesome haunted house cut from the Artbooking cartridge so I decided to give it a try.

 I cut the house and some bats out of black cardstock, the moon out of yellow (exact color is unknown but I know it's retired), the fences are from Gray Wool (retired) and the Halloween is from Sunset cardstock. I used the Stickease to embellish a bit and used my black journaling pen to highlight and embellish the Halloween. 

Now you're off to Nickie's blog. See you again soon! I'll be showing you other ways to use the Scaredy Cat paper pack for more than just Halloween.

Create 4 Him Team Striving & Thriving Crop Day Recap

Last week, my upline "grandma", Krista Hershberger, gathered all her team to celebrate her win in the Striving and Thriving contest sponsored by CTMH Corp last year. The contest was open to any Director in the company worldwide and each team had to qualify in 5 areas. After the contest ended, all 18 teams who qualified won a free team meeting from Corp - complete with projects and a business class just for them. And Krista's team won!!!!

It was a nice day just to get away from the family for a bit to be creative but it was super nice to be able to get away with a wonderful group of gals to spend the day creating together - followed by a wonderful party with Kristine Widtfelt and her partner in crime, Tiffany. They gave a great business class then showed us how to use the Picture My Life cards in two scrapbook layouts. Here are a few of the photos from the day.

Being a consultant is really super special, I wouldn't give it up if I had to. If you'd like to know more about the perks of being a consultant, please email me!