Theme Thrusday at My Cricut Craft Room

It is Theme Day Thursday over at My Cricut Craft Room. This week's theme is teacher appreciation.I had to pick today. I am a teacher. Actually I had two fun teacher appreciation projects to share with you. The first uses Word Collage. You can find it here in Erica's store and it is on sale for $20. This is a great price for this cart and I keep finding uses for it. Our high school mascot is the Buccaneers. Our band is known as the Big Red Buccaneer Band. I used the layer option and took Buccaneer off of the layer I was cutting in black vinyl.I added the letters to the layer I was cutting in red vinyl. I cut each layer separate and used transfer tape. The base is a scrap piece of 1/4 plywood that I painted white. The easel to hold it was from the Dollar Tree. The band director loved it and it is proudly displayed in his office. He told me, :This is so much better than a tie with music notes on it". It made me laugh. I have also made these for the art teacher using the collage with artist and two English teachers using the Shakespeare one and the Jane Austin Collage. It you don't have scrap plywood, you can buy 12x12 ceramic tiles at your local home improvement store for under $1.

The kids refer to the band director as "The Williams." We made this bouquet using Don Juan letters and the music notes from Hannah Montana. The die cuts were hot glued to kebob sticks and stuck in floral foam. I tucked red tissue paper between them. The basket is a paper treat holder that came in a six pack at Dollar Tree. These were fun easy goodies that will be enjoyed for a long time.

Hope you enjoyed these goodies. Now head on over to My Cricut Craft Room and see what my design team sisters have created for you.
Happy Crafting!
KathyJo

Day Two 100 Cart Blog Hop

June's 100 Cricut cartridge blog hop Day ONE

You should have started at

http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/

if not please start at the beginning

Also make sure to follow Erica's blog so you will know when

she has contests, prizes, challenges, swaps & special online coupons.

 

CONTEST TIME!

This month Erica is doing CUTTLEBUG giveaways!

Everyday this month she will be giving away

Cuttlebug folders.  She will even be

giving away a Cuttlebug!!

So make sure you visit

http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/

everyday during the month of June and leave a comment!

 

Don't forget to comment along the way on

all of the blogs today to

be entered to win the BoBunny Prize package that

Erica is giving away this weekend.

Winners will be announced on her blog on Tuesday!

You should have come from:

Christina

Make sure that you commented on ALL of today's blog to win the Big Bo Bunny prize pack!

I have three projects to share with you today. I signed up for three carts for the hop: Cursive 101, Independence Day, and Superman. I ended up using those and three more: Mother's Day Bouquet, Street Sign, and Stand and Salute. I really enjoyed all three of my projects for this hop.

We will start with the project for Stand and Salute and Independence Day. I applied vinyl to a galvanized tub for holiday entertaining. It can be used to hold bags of chips like I show in the pic or filled with ice to hold drinks or condiments you want to keep chilled during the cookout.

 This was not easy to photograph. The surface is so reflective that outside it was blinding me and inside my reflection is in it. I picked the tub up for $3.50 and all of the vinyl was scraps from other projects, so this was a great frugal project.

 The stars were cut from Stand and Salute. The larger stars were cut at two inches. I layered many of them with the shadow feature. The solid stars are simply the negative space from inside the stars.

 The smaller stars were cut at 3/4 inch. I did not use transfer tape on these since I was just placing them randomly.

I cut the 4th of July at 4 inches in both red and blue. I hand cut the "th" and of from the blue and layered it on the red. I love the way it came out and am thinking about going back and getting a few more tubs to decorate for other holidays.

My second project was a set of baseball jerseys and coach's shirts. I used the Superman cartridge and Street Sign. Because these were done on dry-fit shirts, I used Gorilla Grip II. This means I had to use a heat press, but if I had been doing regular t-shirts I could have used vinyl that can be applied with a regular iron.

 I used the font and font shadow feature to cut out the word Havoc. The shirt was designed in Cricut Craft Room. The key to success with vinyl is kiss cutting and reversing the image.

The back has their name and number.I also cut layered vinyl for their batting helmets.The boys wore the jerseys for a tournament last weekend and they love these jerseys. The number are so different. They aren't the same block letters most of the teams are wearing. We looked great out there.

The third project was a layout and I used lots of fun goodies while working on this. The papers are from BoBunny's Timepiece collection..

 Overall I like the feel of this layout. It was fun playing with some of my favorite new products.

 The flowers were cut from Mother's Day Bouquet. It was flower #15 amd I cut them at 2", 1 1/2", and 1". I then layered them. I didn't have a brad that matched well. These little flower brads were pastels colored. I help them with tweezers and heated it until it was good and hot. Once it was hot, I dipped it in the GlobeCraft Memories Copper Kettle embossing enamel. I heat set it for a nice smooth finish. The flower needed just a bit more, so I spritzed it with copper glimmer mist.

  I cut the title from Cursive 101 using craft cardstock and the fit to page button which made it cut at 3". I then worked a couple of letters at a time and covered it with enamel adhesive and temple stone embossing enamel.

 I took this photo to show the different stages of melting this embossing enamel. You can leave it as rough or make it as smooth as you would like.

I melted it until it was shiny and smooth like my granite countertop. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this stuff.

The little stem/vine is a Picollo lasercut piece of chipboard. I used the CopperKettle enamel powder on that too.

I little handwritten journaling. A few flourishes for that added touch. They are also Picollo pieces.

I hope you enjoyed my projects as much as I enjoyed making them. Now head on over to

 Candice

I am sure she has something fabulous to share with you. Here is the whole lineup in case you get lost along the way.

Start http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/
Amber - http://pixiperfectcreations.blogspot.com/
Heather F. www.papercrafteranonymous.com
Christina - http://cema1cema.blogspot.com/
Kathy Jo- http://skrappindiva.blogspot.com/
Candice- http://stampinpearls.blogspot.com/
Heather M. http://digipage-blog.everything-digital-scrapbooking.com/
Ashley - http://especiallymade.blogspot.com/
Erica's Project http://ericasprojects.blogspot.com/
Yvette http://gammascreativecorner.blogspot.com/
Shelley http://shelley-scrapbookingforfun.blogspot.com/
Sheila - http://2pawprints.blogspot.com/
Raquel- http://kraftykaboose.blogspot.com/
Blog Candy http://ericasblogcandy.blogspot.com/

Happy Crafting and hope to see you soon!
KathyJo

Scrapbook Friday

It is Scrapbook Friday over at My Cricut Craft Room and we are making scrapbook pages. I signed up to do the sketch thinking there were two sketches each month, but there was only one this month. I have already posted one layout with this sketch. The great thing though is that this sketch is so versatile and easy to use that it was fun to make another page with this sketch. This is really a fun easy sketch to use. This layout literally took me ten minutes to make. This is also the 25th which mean......

I chose to make a quick easy Christmas page. Now I used this sketch at its most basic level. It was meant to be a simple page. Scrapbooks need balance. I have some pages that take hours to create and others that need to be finished in ten to fifteen minutes.Here is the sketch....

I pulled some old Christmas pictures since I am several years behind in my scrapbooking. My Nicky was just so cute in these pictures.

This is just a fun simple layout. You can tell we live in the south. Nick is wearing shorts and a t-shirt on Christmas morning. One of the things that made making this layout so easy was laying out the elements in Cricut Craft Room. If you have been afraid to use this, get over your fears and start playing. I just used a square in the free digital basic shapes in CCR. I made it large enough to be my big square. It already had the rounded corners. The rectangle mats are from Fabulous Finds. I just eyeballed it. I knew they needed to be about 4x6.

 The Christmas and the tree were pulled from Designers Calendar. Again, this was done in CCR, so I just sized it to what looked pleasing to the eye. The Christmas was cut out of kraft cardstock and covered with Holly Stickles which is a mix of red and green. The star is covered in Gold Stickles and the ornaments are Christmas Red Stickles .

All of the edges are inked with Jumbo Java Chalk Ink . It gives depth and definition to the edges. These inks are so smooth going on and they last an incredibly long time. The one I used on this layout is at least two years old.

I hope you enjoyed my fun layout. If you are in need of the materials used click the links and they will take you straight to Erica's store. Now head on over to My Cricut Craft Room and see what my design team sisters have created for you to see.
Happy Crafting!
KathyJo

April Showers, Full of Flowers Day 2

Welcome to My Cricut Craft Room's April SHowers, Full of Flowers blog hop

  

If you arrived here from Ashley's blog, then you are in the right spot. If you just happened upon my post, you will want to start at My Cricut Craft Room as she is giving away a Cricut Mini.

On the first day we will show you a project with the theme, April Showers, then on Sunday we will either transform our project into a "Full of Flowers" project, or we made a matching item with the theme of Flowers....

Erica's Craft Room is sponsoring this blog hop with ONE of the prizes being a Cricut Mini machine. Be sure to comment on ALL of the blogs both days to be entered to win the Cricut Mini Machine! 

Yes, you read that right Erica's Craft Room is giving away an actual Cricut Mini Machine. This isn't small candy you guys. This is super generous of her, so spread the word and invite your friends to the hop.

Here is my project for today. I made a card featuring the same inks and cartridge I used yesterday, but with a very different end feel.

 I wanted the card to feel springy and to show the spunk of this little girl who knows what she wants. I started with a plain white piece of cardstock. I used Tim Holtz Wild Honey distress ink with a foam pad, because I wanted a heavy color. I have a lighter touch with the felt, so I used a felt pad to add just a touch of the Stormy sky distress ink. The kids were cut from A Child's Year using Cricut Craft room. I simply dropped them on the mat and then enlarged them until I felt like they would fit well on my standard sized card. They ended up with a height of 4.014 and a width of 4.208. On a side note, if you are cutting silhouetted figures like these you want to make sure you have smooth edges, so keep some extra blades on hand. I hate when I need a new blade and don't have one of hand. Add an extra pack of blades to your cart while you are shopping with Erica this weekend

 I took the same Stormy sky I inked with and used a Tim Holtz stamps to stamp the flowery vine there in the corner.

 The plain black card stock looked too flat, so I smeared Glossy Accent on them to give them a nice sheen that would pop off the background. SPECIAL TIP...When spreading glossy accents, stickles, or liquid pearls with your finger you don't want to leave fingerprints in the surface. Avoid the prints by coating your fingertip with a thin layer of the product you are using. It will fill in the ridges on your finger tip and keep you from leaving prints in it. I actually glued them down with glossy accents too. It makes a great adhesive too. You can also get your Glossy Accents from Erica's Store

 I stamped the sentiment with a Tim Holtz stamp and Ranger Archival ink in coffee.

 I accented the flowery vines with two types of stickles. I used Star Duston the vines and made the flowers using Ice Stickles. The ice stickles are a little different from the regular stickles. I used the Artic Ice Stickles which you can order from Erica's store HERE.The flowers were created by pressing white roses into the Wild Honey distress ink pad. I then squirted it with a mini minster to make the color spread. Once it was dry I sprayed them with Frost glimmer mist. It still needed a little something, so I squirted a little ice stickles on my finger and rubbed it across the edges of the flowers.

I really like the way the card turned out and hope you enjoy it too. Remember to visit all the blogs in the hop and comment on each one to be eligible for the Cricut Mini.

Next you should head over to see Haidee. You will love her blog  created2bunique.

Just in case you get lost along the way, here is the complete line up. 

Erica's Room Erica- http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/
Claire- http://www.scrapmyway.blogspot.com/
Tanya-http://litle/-scrapper.blogspot.com
Janet- http://janetscreativeworld.blogspot.com/
Lisa Peters http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/
Jessica Bashaw - http://thecrafterscottage.blogspot.com/
Doris Parker - http://mybugandmecreate.blogspot.com/
Ashley http://especiallymade.blogspot.com/
Kathy Jo Page Ritchie http://skrappindiva.blogspot.com/
Haidee Shableau http://created2bunique.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by and I will see you tomorrow.
KathyJo
My Cricut Craft Room Design Team Member

April Showers, Full of Flowers Blog Hop

Welcome to My Cricut Craft Room's April SHowers, Full of Flowers blog hop

  

If you arrived here from Ashley's blog, then you are in the right spot. If you just happened upon my post, you will want to start at My Cricut Craft Room as she is giving away a Cricut Mini.

On the first day we will show you a project with the theme, April Showers, then on Sunday we will either transform our project into a "Full of Flowers" project, or we made a matching item with the theme of Flowers....

Erica's Craft Room is sponsoring this blog hop with ONE of the prizes being a Cricut Mini machine. Be sure to comment on ALL of the blogs both days to be entered to win the Cricut Mini Machine! 

Yes, you read that right Erica's Craft Room is giving away an actual Cricut Mini Machine. This isn't small candy you guys. This is super generous of her, so spread the word and invite your friends to the hop.

Here is my project for today. I made a card featuring rain.

 I wanted the card to have that rainy day blues feeling. That is how I feel when I miss my sister, so I think this is going to her. I started with a plain white piece of cardstock. I used Tim Holtz Stormy Sky distress ink with a felt pad. I used felt instead of a foam pad, because I didn't want the color too dark. I have a lighter touch with the felt. Once I had the blue down, I came back in with wild Honey distress ink on a foam blending pad. The little girl with the umbrella was cut from A Child's Year using Cricut Craft room. I simply dropped her on the mat and then enlarged her until I felt like she would fit well on my standard sized card. She ended up with a height of 3.944 and a width of 2.292. On a side note, if you are cutting silhouetted figures like these you want to make sure you have smooth edges, so keep some extra blades on hand. I hate when I need a new blade and don't have one of hand. Add an extra pack of blades to your cart while you are shopping with Erica this weekend

 I wanted a rainy finish on the umbrella, so I used my glossy accents to make rain drops above the umbrella and splatters on the umbrella. I actually glued the little girls down with glossy accents too. It makes a great adhesive too. You can also get your Glossy Accents from Erica's Store

 To carry the rainy feel through the card, I wanted a splattered feel to the background too. Tim Holtz's distress inks are formulated to react with water. Once I had the inks on the paper, I dipped my fingers in water and flicked the water at the card front. You can see where the ink reacted and the splatter marks it left.

 Although I wanted rainy day blues, I didn't want depressing, so I added a playful splash of the puddles. I know I tend to stomp my feet or kick at puddles when I am not getting my way, so I created the splashy puddles using Ice Stickles. The ice stickles are a little different from the regular stickles. I used the Artic Ice Stickles which you can order from Erica's store HERE.

I used the Artic Ice stickles again to create a rain cloud feel at the top of the card. I really like the way the card turned out and hope you enjoy it too.  Come back tomorrow to see the companion project. Remember to visit all the blogs in the hop and comment on each one to be eligible for the Cricut Mini.

Next you should head over to see Haidee. You will love her blog  created2bunique.

Just in case you get lost along the way, here is the complete line up. 

Erica's Room Erica- http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/
Claire- http://www.scrapmyway.blogspot.com/
Tanya-http://litle/-scrapper.blogspot.com
Janet- http://janetscreativeworld.blogspot.com/
Lisa Peters http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/
Jessica Bashaw - http://thecrafterscottage.blogspot.com/
Doris Parker - http://mybugandmecreate.blogspot.com/
Ashley http://especiallymade.blogspot.com/
Kathy Jo Page Ritchie http://skrappindiva.blogspot.com/
Haidee Shableau http://created2bunique.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by and I will see you tomorrow.
KathyJo
My Cricut Craft Room Design Team Member

Would You Ever Guess Wednesday

It is Would You Ever Guess Wednesday over at Erica's Craft Room. On Wednesdays we feature projects using the Feature keys on the cartridges. I will admit these are keys I often forget about when using my carts. It is too much of a hassle to pull out the book and flip through the pages. Yes, I admit to being lazy. Anyway Cricut Craft Room has changed that for me. I didn't think is would make a difference for me since I have a Gypsy, but being able to see the mat and the images to choose from make it so much easier to use. It is also nice to look at it on my big laptop screen. Anyway... I am getting sidetracked. The carts I used the feature keys on were Twinkle Toes and Lyrical Letters, but I hope when people look at this project they aren't thinking Independence Day either.

Here is the completed project, but be sure to read on to see what I did and get a few easy tips to make using your Cricut even more enjoyable.

The wreath came for The Dollar Tree. My Dollar Tree normally has these wicker wreaths and for a buck they make a great base. I knew I wanted some flowers and a little banner, so I started flipping through papers. I came across these gorgeous papers I purchased from Erica's Craft Room Store. They are Kaisercraft papers from the Bonjour Collection.

The papers are double sided and these are the backs. Both sides are just gorgeous.

I already have a saved file in CCR that I use to make my crumpled flowers that I want to lie relatively flat. I used a flowers off the Mother's Day Bouquet cartridge, but you could use any scalloped circle from any of the carts. A friend asked why I would do this in CCR and not just use the cart alone. Well I positioned the scallops so that 2 each of four different sizes would fit in a 6x6 area of the mat. This allows me to use the papers out of the 6x6 stacks. Since I am not much of a card maker, I don't really use my 6x6 stacks and I have been given several and this has me using them. I then cut the paper for the flowers and went ahead and made them. Now it was time to start making the banner. I do not own the banner cart or any of the carts that have the cute little banners, but I was sure I could find a way to make one. I opened CCR and started searching through the images. I found a banner in Independence Day, but it didn't have a top layer. I just resized it in CCR. It was very simple to do. Erica is going to have a CCR tutorial on Ustream very soon, but in the meantime if you can't figure out CCR go through the tutorials in the program. There is a tutorial tab in the upper right corner once you are logged into CCR. I wanted a little scallop across the top of my banner pieces and thought I had seen something in Twinkle Toes that would work. I used the layer of the stage curtain and used the hide and contour option to hide the actual drape panels. I then lined it up to resize it on the mat. I ended up with three layers on my mat, but in CCR you can see all of them at the same time. Here is what my screen looked like.

I then just glued the pieces together using Scotch Quick dry Adhesive. I love how it works on projects like this. I needed letter and needed them small. I used to hate cutting small letters because they would rip or not cut well. I finally found a font that is my go to font for itty bitty letters. Lyrical Letters has a feature called Jumbo and it is perfect for really small letters. These were cut at 1/2 an inch and they cut beautifully.
Now is was time to attach to the wreath. I pulled out some bakers twine and hot glued the pennants to it. I simply made a line of glue on the top part of the pennant and then pressed onto the twine laying on my nonstick mat, so I didn't burn my fingers. Then I hot glued the twine and the flowers to the wreath. I used a sheer ribbon to hang it. Here are a couple of close ups.

I hope you enjoyed my project. Feel free to follow me as I will have a new DT project every week. I love comments, so don't be shy. Have a super Wednesday!

To see more projects like mine head over to Erica's Craft Room and check out all of today's projects.

A Card, Yes you read that right... a card!

Okay, I don't consider myself a card maker. I have decided it would be beneficial to become a card maker and keep some cards on hand. I was doing some blog surfing this weekend and came across one of the best blogs I have visited in a while. It is My Cricut Craft Room: Erica's Craft Room . There is so much going on at this blog. Daily postings, Challenges, Swaps, and more... I decided to create the card for their current card challenge. I used two cartridges to make this card: Forever Young, Twinkle Toes, and Cricut Craft Room Basics. The two actual carts had never been used. They were still wrapped in the plastic shell. They probably still would not have been used it it were not for the free Cricut Craft Room. I went into CCR and started designing the card. It is really an easy program to use. Anyway... I laid out the card and then did the cutting. When I was looking for a rectangle with rounded corners, I found one on Twinkle Toes. I was looking for a person or animal to put on the card and found one in Forever Young. I was excited, because I was going to use not one but two carts I hadn't used before. It is one of my goals to use my cricut more.

Those of you that know me know I LOVE Echo Park papers. I wanted to use the Be Mine collection again they are great papers even though it is not Valentine's Day. I cut out the individual layers. I made the base out of Recollections black paper, as well as the lady and the word. Once I had it all layered, I added some black diamond and diamond dust stickles. What do you think? Head on over the Erica's blog and join the challenge yourself.

Have a super week and check back soon. I will be posting things more often.