Operation Write Home Card #2

Operation Write Home Cards
Curtsey Boutique

This is the second card I will be teaching Thursday night at my church for our Operation Write Home service project.  Once more I did two versions of the card to figure out what I liked best. I ended up choosing the card on the left with the white card stock base.

Operation Write Home Card #2
Curtsey Boutique

As most of these cards will make it into the hands of guys, I wanted to do something that a guy might actually pick out in the store and I love that the gray in these pattern papers "boys" up the cards a bit. I also wanted something that would appeal to soldiers of a variety of denominations without offending anyone - hopefully I hit the mark.

The card is pretty simple by necessity as we have to make so many on a budget. I think the baker's twine wrapped in these vintage buttons I found at the Thrift Store is a nice dressy touch for just a few pennies. I got over 500 of the red buttons for $5.00 - a super find as buttons can be pricy.  I've once again used my Swiss Dots embossing folder and pulled out the details with a bit of inking.

If you are interested in learning more about Operation Write Home click here.

Have a lovely day,

CarrieAnne

Monogrammed Mini Kraft Matchbooks

Mini Monogrammed Kraft Matchbooks

I know there will be audible gasps, but I actually made something without my Cricut! It doesn't happen often, but like Blue Moons and hunky men picking up my dinner tab it does happen (okay, maybe my hubbie is the only man who has ever picked up my dinner tab - but you get the idea).

These matchbooks are eensy weensy and so cute - about an 1 x 2 inches. I used an OLD (like back in the day when the red Sizzix was the thing) Large red Sizzix die for them. They have been distressed with my favorite ink - VersaMark, dry embossed and the inside pages are held in with stitches through the button on the cover. I had a set of Technique Tuesday stamps with lots of fun phrases on them and did a few with monograms and a few with stamps.

My daughter is begging to take a few to hand out to her friends so they can pass notes to each other (during recess, of course she swears). I haven't decided if I want to give her teacher that kind of headache or not. They would be fun to write a phone number or shopping list on and a super inexpensive gift.

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Thanks for Note-cing my posts,

CarrieAnne

Recipe:
Die: Sizzix
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug: Swiss Dots
Ink: VersaMark, Stampin' UP!
Paper: Couture Cardstock
Floss: DMC (Ecru)
Stamps: Technique Tuesday

April My Pink Stamper Design Team Post - Cowboy Birthday Favors

Welcome to April's My Pink Stamper Design Team post. If you haven't visited Robyn's My Pink Stamper website to see the entire team's artwork be sure to click on this link HERE to do so. Our challenge was to create a favor (any kind) using our Cricut and My Pink Stamper Stamps (of course!) If you are interested in purchasing any of My Pink Stamper's fabulous sets click HERE to find all of Robyn's products and retailers.

After 8 years and three daughter's worth of pretty princess parties and high teas I am beyond excited about my son's first birthday this summer. I was torn between a train, fireman or cowboy theme, but the picture of my son on the wanted poster in an old fashioned rocking chair cast the deciding vote in favor of a cowboy party.

I made four favors and the cuts for each are below as well as the whole recipe!

1. Wanted Sign 
 I plan on taking pictures of the party attendees in cowboy hats and bandanas and then attaching them to Wanted signs, and placing a magnet on the back so moms can put them on the fridge if they like. I used a variety of words from the Sweet Baby and Everyday Sentiments My Pink Stamper Sets to spell out the text.

Cuts: 
The Sign: Page 44 of the Old West cartridge. Select "q" and the "icon function". Cut at 9.5 inches from off-white cardstock.

"Wanted": Used individual letters from the Old West Cartridge cut at 1.5 inches from Cosmo Cricket Paper. I cut the letters twice and layered them so they would really stand out.

2. Hobby Horse Lollipop Treat

A dum dum lollipop is attached to the horse with glue dots. The "thank you" sentiment is from the My Pink Stamper Sweet Baby stamp set.


Cuts:
The "Horse" cut on page 59 of Create a Critter. I cut him from tan cardstock at 3 inches. I then cut him with the "Layer 1" function from white and brown cardstock. I used a paper punch on the brown layer  to create the circles around his eye and bandanna. I cut his mouth using the layer 2 function from brown cardstock and his bandanna from Cosmo Cricket paper with the Layer 3 function. His "bangs" are DMC floss bunched together in loops and held down by glue dots. His mane is a scrap of looped ribbon trim from my scrap bin. The original horse was full body so I cut the rest of him away with scissors so that the hobby horse stick would show.


3. Loot Bag
 Because I wanted this loot bag (which holds animal crackers and other small treats) to really look like rumpled fabric I sprayed the die cut with paper and then crumpled it up. I allowed it to dry from about 15 minutes and then carefully uncurled the cut bag. Be VERY careful as score lines will rip when wet if you aren't delicate.  After the paper completely dried  I cut off the handles to the bag and assembled it. Hemp was then used to close the top. I inked all the edges and added the dollar sign with dimensional adhesive.


The Bag: 
"Robot" cut on page 40 of Wrap it Up with the "Box" function selected. I cut the bag out at 9.5 inches from Cosmo Cricket paper.

The "$":
I cut the "$" from page 57 of the Old West cartridge, by selecting the "4" and the "shift" function. Because I wanted it to really pop off the bag and stand up to wear, I cut it 4 times at 1 3/4 inches and adhered them together.They were added to the bag with dimensional adhesive.



4. Birthday Boy Sherrif's Badge


The other little boy guests will have badges with their names handwritten on them, but Reid needed one with his birthday title on it! I used the "Sweet Baby" Stamp Set for the "Birthday Boy" sentiment. The paper is shimmery and 110 pounds so it looks very "official" (in the words' of my girls) and will stand up to little hands messing with it. I added a self adhesive pin back so it could be worn on a shirt. Be sure to use a Stazon ink so the glossy finish on the paper does not smear your stamped sentiment.


Badge Cuts:


The star badge was cut by selecting the "6" on page 59 of the Old West cartridge and using the "Icon" function. It was cut from shimmery silver cardstock at 3 inches. The inner star was cut using the same cut with the "shift" and "icon" functions keyed. I also used a sizzix folder to emboss the inner star and I added half pack silver pearls for fun.


Recipe:

Stamp Sets: Sweet Baby and Everyday Sentiments
Cricut Cartridges: Old West, Create a Critter, Wrap It UP
Embossing Folder: Sizzix
Patterned Paper: Cosmo Cricket
Pearls: Reminisce
Ink: Tsukineko (blue, black and brown), Stazon (black)
Miscellaneous Ribbon
Lollipop (dum dum)

Thanks for looking,

CarrieAnne

Parlez Vous Francais

So, I finally get to share some great news that I have had to keep under my hat for a bit. Robyn over at My Pink Stamper asked me to serve on her 2011 My Pink Designer Team and I am super thrilled about it!

I encourage you to head over to her site and check out her amazing Cricut tutorials, rubber stamps and videos. Whether you are a new or veteran Cricut user you will find lots of inspiration and a friendly community of fellow Cricut addicts for enabling and support!

Also this Friday, My Pink Stamper is hosting a Blog Hop to introduce you to all the great new designers so be sure to stop by and meet this great group of talented crafters.

Today I am sharing with you the second mini Eiffel Tower I made for a trade show.

The tower is about three feet tall and was really fun to make.

The cross hatch pattern is hand embossed with a stylus and Sizzix texture plate. Individual half back pearls were than glued on at every point where the embossed lines intersected.

Pearls use to be my absolute favorite type of jewelery, but 500+ mini pearls later I am somewhat cured of wearing Audrey Hepburn's favorite gem for awhile.

The tower looks a bit off-kelter as it was adhered to a large stabilizing board in the booth that was removed to ship it back to me.

Thanks for looking,

CarrieAnne

A tiny bit of Paris ...

One of the trade show booths I worked on this year showcased a Parisian Boutique theme and I made two mini Eiffel Towers for it (I shared the other one earlier in the month). The towers stand at about 3 feet. Remember my swooning over Cuttlebug embossing folders in a previous post. This project is a big reason why I shout their merits from the hill tops. Because the pieces to this tower were so large, they could not be run through a Big Shot. So after trying everything I could think of from using a rolling pin to smacking an embossing folder with a meat tenderizer I went old school and used a stylus and a Sizzix texture plate to do the embossing by hand. It took forever and was much like shooting in the dark as I could not see the texture plate and was primarily embossing by feel on very thick metallic cardstock.

The butterflies were cut from metallic vellum with a Stampin' UP! die and the bling is from Michael's Reminisce line.

Thanks for looking,

CarrieAnne

Box on top of Box on top of Box

Today and tomorrow I will be sharing with you the last of my trade show projects for this year. This is the first of two stacks of hat boxes that I made. The boxes were your run of the mill paper mache containers from Michaels. Because the larger containers could not be covered in 12x12 sheets I used parent sheet cuts to prevent myself from having to deal with messy seams. Parent sheets are extra large cuts of paper (the size the mills cut before chopping it down to 12x12 for retail) and they are super fun to work with as they expand your options considerably.
The top white box is really a combination of punches that I cut and pieced to make the art deco flourish. I used a scallop punch for the lid border strip and then used the same punch again to get the tiny circles in tan for the flourish embellishment.

The middle mettallic blue box is covered in 3/4 inch ovals I cut with my Cricut and a paper bow I made using two strips of paper.

The bottom pink box is my favorite. I actually used the spiral ornament die from Sizzix to make the rolled flowers. It was a super quick method for making so many and making them somewhat uniform in size. I ran the spirals through the Cuttlebug in a flourish embossing folder and then inked them for a bit of interest. I punched a number of five petal flowers out and cut them apart for the green leaves. The pattern on the pink portion of the box was created by crossing 1/8 pink strips. I used the canvas textured side of the cardstock for the base of the bottom box and the smooth side of the paper for the strips for added contrast. I then glued the pearls on by hand.

On all of the hatboxes I used a combination of red line tape and Beacon Adhesives to get everything to stay together.

Now that the boxes are done their trade show duties I think I will fill them with something yummy and give them to the girls' teachers for holiday gifts with a nice ribbon and bow on top.

Thanks for looking,

CarrieAnne