Pur-fect Day Cricut Card by Andrea Amu

Pur-fect Day Card
Curtsey Boutique Designer
Andrea Amu

I have long been a fan of Andrea's work with the Cricut. Her die cutting skills are top notch and I couldn't be more tickled to see her embellishing her wonderful cards with Curtsey Boutique fabric bows and doilies.

Other Products Used

Cricut Expression and Kate's ABCs cartridge.

Cardstock: Core'dinations

Patterned paper: My Mind's Eye.

Bling embellishments: Queen & Co.

Rub-on alphas: American Crafts.

Green stickers: Prima.

Ink: SEI.

Marker: Sharpie.

Curtsey Boutique Supplies

InLinkz.com

Welcome to our New Designer Andrea Amu and a St. Patrick's Day Card Tutorial

The shop has continued to grow due to the blessings of having wonderful customers and fantastic design team members. We've decided to expand our design team and are delighted to be welcoming Andrea Amu to our family!

Lucky in Love Card and Tutorial
Curtsey Boutique Designer
Andrea Amu

     

Andrea's starting things off with a bit of luck - a St. Patrick's Day themed card with an easy to follow tutorial.

Lucky In Love Card Tutorial

1.  Fold a section of yellow cardstock to create the card and then using the Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge, cut a decorative frame from green patterned paper to anchor onto the card front.  

2. Ink the edges of the decorative frame and added faux-stitching around the card with a pounce wheel tool. 

3. Layer one of the hand dyed yellow doilies from the Curtsey Boutique onto the bottom left corner.

4. Cut 3 heart shapes with the Paper Lace Cricut cartridge and piece them together to form a clover shape and mount onto the card.

5. Spray-dye crinkled white seam binding from the Curtsey Boutique with Glimmer Mist to make the binding green to match back to the clover.  

6. To create the dainty flower embellishment for the clover design, use 3 more of the yellow dyed doilies and fold them several times to create an almost triangular element. Layer the three doily triangles together and tie with the green dyed seam binding.

7.  Secure with a decorative brad in the bow's center. 

 8. Embellish with a pearlized heart pin from the shop and a banner design created with the Sophisticated Cricut cartridge. 

9. Hand stamp the sentiment onto the banner using tiny alpha stamps.

Curtsey Boutique Supplies 

Other Supplies

Cricut Expression and cartridges

Core'dinations cardstock

My Mind's Eye Patterned Paper and decorative brad

Glimmer Mist

Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Vintage Photo)

Studio g alpha stamps

To see more of Andrea's Amazing work, visit her blog, I'm Living on Scaps or click on her image below.

Curtsey Boutique Grand Opening and 3 Cricut Cartridge Giveaway

So its official - I've caught the Etsy bug and opened my very own shop. For the past 5 weeks I've been working hard on beginning my inventory and learning all things Etsy. It is the reason for my blog silence. I appreciate the kind inquires and concerns of my blog followers and fellow crafters. I'm fine, just creating like mad.

My shop's name is the Curtsey Boutique - doesn't that just sound fun? I love the idea of having an occasion you have to curtsey for and want my crafts to celebrate the whimsy, wonder and excitement such a time would involve.

I thought it would be fun to do a giveaway to celebrate the Curtsey Boutique's grand opening.

Giveaway Prizes:

 $15 Gift Certificate to the Curtsey Boutique - store can be found here 

Cricut Cartridge: Christmas Village

Cricut Cartridge: Thanksgiving

Cricut Cartridge: Christmas Cards

Rules:
1. Follow and leave a comment on the Curtsey Boutique blog found here.

2. Like us on Facebook here

3. Refer  friends for additional chances to win (just have them post on facebook or the blog as to who refered them) - 1 entry per friend who enters the contest


4. The Giveaway is open to all in the US and Canada, and American Military addresses anywhere

5. International participants are welcome if they pay for their shipping

6. One winner to be chosen on 19 December! 

I'd love to hear what you think about the shop and any things you would like to see me stock. I've got lots in the works, but had to start somewhere!

Curtseying to all of  you,

CarrieAnne

Rounding Out the Cowboy Party Fun

These are the rest of the pictures from our Cowboy Party this Past weekend.

We had lots of fun activities including:

Panning for Gold

Hobby Horse Races ( I made 20 of these horses - they were the souvenirs for the kids to take home)

The kids roped and rode horses and cattle












We also had a photo booth where the kids could use disguises I put on sticks and props from the local thrift shop and dollar stores.

There was a great train chase jello eating contest (I used a William Sonoma train cake pan and the kids had to gobble up the trains before the law arrived)

What party could be complete without table decorations, a birthday banner and lots and lots of food?

Birthday Banner I made with my Cricut (the gorgeous lady is my Mother-In-Law who made the fantastic cake being cut)

I decorated the water bottles by making Belly Bands with My Cricut and Big Shot

The adults used mason jars for drinking the rootbeer and lemondae. I put striped straws with little pennants that said "Let's Party" in each one.

In addition to his amazing 3 tier cake, Reid had this super cool personal cowboy cake all to himself to eat. My Mother-In-Law made this one too!

I made the following fun treats to eat:

Personal Star Shaped Apple Pies

Smores on  a Stick

Chocolate Cacti (pretzels covered with green chocolate and coconut)

Chocolate dipped rice krispie treats shaped like stars, hats, and cowboy boots

Veggies with dips in indiviual containers (I love the sentiment on top - Every cowboy needs a little Ranch!)

Chips served in clear cups with coordinating cupcake liners on the inside.I also made the stand from various dollar store finds and some cowboy themed scrapbooking paper.

I also made fun place settings for each child at the table - with a wanted poster coloring sheet, gingham plates, cut paper bags for placemats, jean pocket silverware holders, and cow spotted cups. I couldn't find cups like this for a decent price so I just colored them with a Sharpie Marker myself.

The party was a bunch of work, but so worth it!! This little cowgirl needs a vacation from the ranch :)

Thanks for stopping by,

CarrieAnne

AMAZING Cricut Deals

Instead of posting a project with you today, I thought I would share two amazing Cricut Deals that I have found in hopes you too can enjoy them.

1. Kroger

Many Kroger grocery stores had the Cricut Personal Cutter and 3 exclusive cartridges for the holiday season. 2 weeks ago I was able to purchase the following cartridges for $11 each:

Christmas Cards
Thanksgiving
Christmas Village

and on Saturday a friend found Thanksgiving in their clearance bin for $1.00!

UPDATE: These cartridges were all available in my Kroger last night (1/19) for $7.00!

Run over to your Kroger and look in their Christmas clearance (we found them in the area where the ornaments and decor were hung up) or their big bins of really marked down clearance stuff.

2. Michaels/Walmart

As many of you know in last week and this weeks' Michaels ad they have been advertising Clearance cartridges for $9.99. My Michaels had been completely picked over so I took my ad to Walmart and they price matched both Cricut Lite Cartridges and regular Cricut Cartridges.

What an AMAZING deal!

What you need to do to get Walmart to price match:

1. Take your Michael's ad with you (you MUST have the ad) for this week. If you don't get a paper go to Michael's and ask for an ad. Be sure to say you don't need the coupon, just the ad. Mine had plenty of ads behind the counter.

2. Print and take with you the Walmart Price matching policy which can be found here.

Here is the text of that policy:

Our goal is always to be the low price leader in every community where we operate. Our customers trust us to have every day low prices ... there's no need for "special sales."

Our unbeatable promise:

Store managers make the final decision in always taking care of our customers, but we do have guidelines for matching our competition.

• We do honor "Preferred Shopping Card" advertised prices. Must be like items, be advertised and require a competitor's shopping card, for the discount to apply.
• We do not honor advertisements that require a purchase in order to receive the advertised price or free product.
• We do not honor "Buy One / Get One Free" advertisements.
• We do not honor double or triple coupons or percent off advertisements.
• We do not honor other retailers' "Misprinted" advertised prices.
• We do not honor Internet Pricing.
• We do not honor competitor advertisements from outside of the store's or Club's local trade territory.

It is important to note that store managers make the call on whether to price match or not, but their is no Walmart corporate policy against matching "clearance" items. I went to two Walmarts, one matched and one didn't based on this "clearance" issue. I was just sure to be very polite talk to the overall store manager (the CSM) and to show him/her the corporate policy to be sure he/she know they were making that "clearance" decision and not corporate. One was more than happy to match, the other said it was his personal store policy not to.

3. Get your cartridges first and then head to the register. Ask for a CSM and let the cashier know that due to the significant amount of the difference between the regular price match and the sale price the CSM will need to use their key and their employee number for each cartridge you buy. Each cartridge will have to be rung in separately and the key used, and code entered.

Be sure to come back here and report where you had success and where you didn't so we can all share in the Cricuty goodness!!

I had success in Marietta, GA at the Kroger at Shallowford and Sandy Springs, and the Barrett Parkway Walmart.

Have fun shopping and thanks for stopping by,

CarrieAnne

A Balancing Act ...

Here is the second set of hat boxes I mentioned in my last post. I actually have these out in my home as Christmas decorations now. I like the incorporation of the pink, as a not so traditional Christmas color.

The top green box is embellished with Quickutz flourish die cuts and a few highlighting bits of bling. The red cardstock on the lid is heavy weight 110lb that comes embossed with columns on it.

The middle pink box incorporates a variety of heart punches in several sizes and shapes. The rows of white pearls and the individual pink pearls are from Michael's Reminisce line.

As in the previous set of stacking boxes the bottom box is my favorite. I once again used the red column embossed cardstock for the lid, but this time added a strip of smooth red embossed with the Cuttlebug Pin dot folder. The flowers were cut with the Cricut and I added different sized red bling bits for the centers. I really liked the contrast of the pink on the red for the flowers.

I am torn as to whether or not to gift these little guys or hang on to them with the rationalization that they could be used for Valentine's Day decor. Choices, choices!

Thanks for looking,

CarrieAnne