Attitude, Gratitude, Fortitude

This is my entry for the Circut Circle Blog Friday Challenge.  Must use French Manor Cartridge and at least 2 cuts from the cricut machine and pearls or rhinestones.

 

An Attitude of Gratitude is Fortitude!

My New Motto!

Made using French Manor

Bird Cage cut at 5"

There is no shadow cut for this feature so in DS I hid the countour  (or you could glue the pieces back in) to create the back of the cage.

Bird cut at 2" and 2.5" in red, then again in black.

Lyrical Letters for the sentiments cut at 1.5"

Home Decor for the Flourishes cut at 3"

George to cut the mats, sized to my canvas and to cut the red pieces I used to highlight the inside of the cage, Oval and rectangle cut at 4.5" each.

Papers are Cricut Papers and 

Me&My Big Ideas Color Basics

Rhinestone Jewels for the bird cage accents and the bird's eye.

 

If I'm grateful for my experiences, only then do I have the strength to endure.

Being grateful for my life experiences makes me stronger.  Sometimes though, it is so hard to be grateful for things like... being in a cage.... but during that time, there is gratefulness for security, gratefulness for routine, gratefulness for food.  Being freed from the cage by things such as learning a new language or exploring the world I am in.....lots of things to be grateful for.  Getting to view the cage from inside and out, that's strength.  I am preaching to no one but myself. This trio of pictures, I created to remind me of the wonderful things that can be experienced with attitudes of gratitude!

Envelope Wedding Gift

Happy Wednesday all.  Today I have designed a wedding gift card holder out of an envelope that was in my kitchen junk drawer.  Practical Scrappers June challenge is to use something you found in your kitchen to repurpose. I have these envelopes in my kitchen to hold coupons.   Let me know what you think.

 

This started as an envelope measuring 6 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches.  This is a standard size envelope in Italy.  You can make yours any size you want.

 

I folded the envelope into a gate fold, meeting the two sides in the middle.

  

Then I cut the envelope flap where the folds were marked.  Sealing the two side flaps and leaving the center flap open to make the pocket.

 

Decorate as you want.  I made two panels for the inside flaps to cover where I had sealed the envelope flap and to give me a place to stamp my sentiments.

The Big Day and Congrats are on the cartridge Beyond Birthdays.  Stampalicious stamps.

Home Decor Swirl. Stampin' Up Papers.  Flower Quicklet from Eyelet Outlet

Challenge

Practical Scrappers June Challenge~ Kitchen Re-purpose
Craftalicious Challenge - New

Sketch - A Crafty Little Place

The New Home of Die Cuts R Us challenge is a sketch this week.

So I made this little welcome home card for a friend who is coming back from helping in Haiti.

George Cricut Cartridge, Puddle Jumpers Stamp, Welcome Home charm and ribbon.

Challenges:

A Crafty Little Place - Debut Blog Challenge  Sketch

Puddle Jumpers-In The Swing

I didn't use my computer at all yesterday, which meant using the Cricut the old fashioned way and using some stamps. I had a lot of fun with a couple of these kids and I thought I would share them. First Emma. She's a Get-Well Card. "Hope you're back in the swing of things soon." 

Entered in the Cricut Cardz Challenge - Get Well Card 

 

I used George to create the opening in the card with the 4" rectangle. The tree is from Stretch My Imagination, the branch is from Home Decor.  Emma PJ normally has a rabbit, but I decided to use the puppy from Noah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next is PJ Davey

Davey on the Rocks

For Davey, I just hand cut the rocks and popped them, used my Copics to color both PJ's, Cut him out close to the line and perched him on the rocks.  Used George to cut the rectangles.  These PJ's just make me smile!

There is nothing exceptional about the next PJ's they are just stamped, colored and placed, but like I said, how can you help but smile at them?

 

 

Lucas & Clucky Wishes

Pile It On Blog Hop -Six in One and MORE!

Pile it on had a blog hop of Practical Scrappers, The Cuttlebug Spot. Sketchy Thursday, Scrap that Poetry, 365 Cards and themselves.  When I woke up this morning and saw their blog hop, I said, "Yippee" and hopped along. There was a challenge on each blog and I decided I would do them all.... so here we go.

1.  Challenges

Pile It On - Say It With Words

Cuttlebug Spot - Glitter and Bling

Practical Scrappers - Glitter and Bling
SophistiCats - So Distressing

 

2.  An Easter Flower Gift #13 - Scrap That Poetry

  

3.  365 Cards - Day 43 White Space (follow the sketch)

 

4.  Sketchy Thursday - Hop Sketch

Charisma Cardz Challenge #14 - Thank You

 

Well that covered all the challenges on the hop and it was a lot of fun!  Plus I got two scrap pages done and it made me get started on a few more.  If you don't participate in challenges you should.  It does just what it proclaims.  Challenges you to get moving on something.  

Come play at Fantabulous Cricut with me or any of these challenges.  You're sure to have a blast and maybe win something too!

 

New Wings

This card inspired by a picture in my Son's house drawn by Bobby Chiu of a baby fairy looking at ants marching along a limb.   I thought of a baby fairy learning how to fly and hanging on.  I figured it would make a sweet get-well or thinking of you card.

 

 

Fairy - Baby from New Arrival, Butterfly from New Arrival for wings cut on vellum and embossed with Devine Swirls folder.

Limb from Home Decor, Cut 5 times and layered.

Fairy skirt, flower from Home Decor cut 3 times and layered, Pop Dotted

Hair - cylinder from George cut twice, cut in half and fringed for bangs

Cricut and Cosmo Cricket Papers

Butterfly stickers, Ribbon, Beads, Stickles,Tulle and Hang In There Tag.

CHALLENGES

Crafty Creations Challenge #60 Babies

Cuttlebug Spot - If I Had Wings

Get Twittering

Long before Twitter was a tweeting thing. Birds did it. In Bambi, at this time of the year, animals got twitterpated.

 A quote from that movie:
Flower: [about two birds fluttering around] Well! What's the matter with them?
Thumper: Why are they acting that way?
Friend Owl: Why, don't you know? They're twitterpated.
Flower, Bambi, Thumper: Twitterpated?
Friend Owl: Yes. Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime. For example: You're walking along, minding your own business. You're looking neither to the left, nor to the right, when all of a sudden you run smack into a pretty face. Woo-woo! You begin to get weak in the knees. Your head's in a whirl. And then you feel light as a feather, and before you know it, you're walking on air. And then you know what? You're knocked for a loop, and you completely lose your head!
Thumper: Gosh, that's awful.

So, I thought of this card.  It's nothing special but it gave me a giggle:

 

This pedastal card is made using Pooh & Friends Font, Home Decor, Lyrical Letters, Stretch Your Imagination and George.  The papers are Bo Bunny and Allison Pennington.  One bird brad.  There is a good tutorial for making a pedestal card at Obsessed with Scrapbooking.

Have a great day!

Entered at Craft Garden Challenge: Spring Inspiration

My First Easel Card - Whimsical Trees

Sticking to my new year's resolution to try new things, I have done my first easel card.  I loved the look of them, just didn't have an interest I guess.  But, I've done one and it's really fun and I can see the appeal for doing them and receiving them.  This card I dreamed about, whimsical trees.  I used four cartridges for this one.  George, Home Decor, Lyrical Letters and Joys of the Season.  The tree trunks are the letter I from Lyrical letters. I made about a dozen trees before I settled on these three.  I liked them all, but they wouldn't fit. :0)

Sage, Onion and Cream - CPS-145

This card is made from Home Decor, Storybook and Beyond Birthdays. A few brads, a little embossing and some love and hope. :0)  I didn't put any sentiment inside yet, it could be an anniversary, a get well or something I haven't thought of yet.  This is the first time I've ever developed a card from a sketch.

Saturday Sooner than it should be...........

My life has been a series of Tom saying hello and goodbye.  From the very beginning of our relationship Tom was saying hello and goodbye.  Twenty years in the Navy of Tom saying hello and goodbye and now more than five years of Tetra-Pak and Tom is still saying hello and goodbye.  Today was goodbye.  I always know it is coming and dread the day it arrives.  The time when he will emotionally separate from me and go into the other room to do the ritual packing and mental departure, while I sit in the other room trying not to be any kind of emotional mess that makes it more difficult for either of us.  There are lots of rituals we go through as he prepares to leave, lots of little routines.... years and years of these.

This Saturday came sooner than it should. I didn't want it to come. He's off traveling the world again. I'm alone again. Just me, my little apartment decorated with the paper chain from all my crafting scraps, the blinking solar Christmas lights that twinkle until they have used up the days supply of sun and my cricut.  I dream about my cricut at night and design cards that never really look like what I actually create in real life.  I've discovered this week that I am not very good, I'm okay at my craft but not great.  I want to be great. So, I'm not going to put up another card onto any of the competition sites or the cricut messageboards until I have one that I think is great.

Like all these years of coming and going, hello and goodbye, if you practice at something long enough, you become accustomed to just what it is, a routine in your life, for good or bad, it is a routine. I want excellence to be a routine. 

So, these are the last of the cards that I have made for my Cricut Card Fairy Army today after Tom left and I went through my normal ritual of his leaving:

 

 

 

 

Routines are good things in life even when we don't want them to be.  They let us set up a pattern for whatever it is we need to accomplish. I'm working on my accomplishments.

 

Onward and Upward,