Sunday, March 31, 2013

April Stamp of the Month & Blog Hop

Hello everyone! 
Can you believe it’s time for April?  March blew through too fast in my opinion!  Welcome to this month’s Stamp of the Month blog hop!  A hop goes in a big loop so once you see our 60+ participants, you’ll be right back here.  If you’ve come from Michelle’s blog welcome!
This month’s stamp of the month is “My Sunshine.”  It features 8 stamps, of which 6 are compatible with the Artiste Cricut Collection.  Yes, I’m counting the circle as Cricut Compatible even though there’s no line around it.  I did create two cards. One is a swing card and the other is based on one of the card sketches in the Make It From Your Heart book. I’m now loving that book and use it as often as I can to base my cards on.
The first card came to me as soon as I started playing with the stamp set. The sun looked like it could fit right around the circle on a 5 1/2” swing card. And it does! Then I had to add some cute little clouds. I love this Artiste bundle. One button has a theme. In this case, the sun, hot air balloon and the clouds happen to be on the same button! That is so helpful. A sign of a great stamp set is one that compliments the other sets in your collection. I couldn't resist grabbing my Card Chatter Sympathy set and adding the sentiment, “Just a note to brighten your day… and chase the clouds away.”

card April SOTM note to brighten your day exterior
I cut the sun in Buttercup cardstock two times, inked the stamp fully with Honey ink and rock and rolled the edges of the stamp through Sunset. It’s a bit tricky since we don’t have a block that just fits this stamp. Instead of lining up the stamp with the edge of the block, I used the edge of the inkpad so I wouldn't get too much Sunset ink.
card made using Swing Card Feature on Artiste Cartridge & CTMH April SOTM
My favorite part of this set is the “You’re tweet” sentiment.  I’m not a big Twitter fan, I just like it when birdies tweet! So I had to make a second card using that sentiment. 
S1304-MySunshine


My second card is based on a pattern from the Make It From Your Heart.  I wanted clean and simple and it worked!  Using the For Always black and white, I simply used black ink and stamped away.  I have to say that I didn’t like the bird until I added an eye.  He looked a little odd without it. 
Card April SOTM You're Tweet
HELPFUL TIP OF THE DAY: when making a nice clean card like this.  Stamp the images.  Go WASH your hands.  THEN assemble the card.  The ink will be dry and your hands will be smudge free!  I test-dove the layout of this card on a different card base.  One that wasn’t as fortunate because I didn’t wash up between stamping and assembling.  (And yeah, my hands look like I dyed Easter Eggs right now.  No, I’ve just been stamping.  LOL.)
Next up on the blog hop is Hayley Dyer.

This stamp set is available for $5 with a $50 purchase!  Or if you sign up to be a consultant in the month of April, you’ll receive it and the May, June, & July stamp of the month in your starter kit!  It’s only available 4/1-30.  That’s a fabulous deal and a wonderful way to kick-start your business!

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Inside the Easter Treat Box

Good morning! 

 

I can say that because it’s still morning here and I’m hoping that it’s still morning when I get my blog post up too!

box happy easter sentiment from Artiste Cricut cartridge from CTMH

On Thursday I blogged about my cute little Easter box but only showed you the exterior. Today, I’ll show you the inside!

I saw these cute little chocolates at the store one evening and realized they’d be so much simpler than paper piecing any more bunnies.  Also, this is a TREAT box, so on with the treats!  I adhered them to the eggs with a couple of glue dots. 

Created by Lalia Harris  CraftyLalia.blogspot.com

The center bowl is a cupcake wrapper from the Artiste Cricut Collection.  There’s 20 to choose from.  I picked the grass one because it matched the outside border.  There’s much fancier ones too. 

I anchored it down with some “L brackets” made of Pear cardstock.  I adhered them to the inside of the cupcake wrapper and to the doily on the base of the box.  It’s quite sturdy.  I haven’t had any problem with the pieces shifting, just the jelly beans falling out. 

spot.

My 6 year old son is working on his own hexagon treat box today using my left over scraps.  If he gets it completed, he’ll be my guest blogger again the next few days. 

May you know the everlasting sweetness of Easter:  The love of Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross.  Have a wonderful Easter.

Blessings to you. 

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Easter Treat Box

I have a little treat for you today!  I created this gorgeous Easter treat box using the hexagon box on page 48 of the CTMH Artiste Cricut Cartridge.

I recently came across Stamping At Tiffany's blog via Pinterest.  Her hexagon birthday box and  Jayma's TREAT-FILLED Starbucks Christmas box inspired me to make a creation of my own.
Easter Exploding box with Artiste and art philosophy Cricut
A zip strip border from Chantilly was added along the top of the box lid.  Other than that, it is all cardstock!  In other words, this project is timeless.  Recreating this next year will be a snap;  the cardstock will be available! 
The rolled rose is from the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge.  It was cut in Cotton Candy cardstock.  After it was assembled and the edges rolled down, it was inked with Cotton Candy ink to give it more dimension. 
Created by Lalia Harris  CraftyLalia.blogspot.com
Every side is different!  The bunny is cut from Art Philosophy.  It’s just created from ovals, the leaf shape and a circle. 
box birds
The birdies and vines as well as the grass border are from Artiste. 
box happy easter sentiment from Artiste Cricut cartridge from CTMH
Happy and Easter are from Artiste.  The butterflies & eggs are from Art Philosophy.
box bunny bum
Here’s my favorite!  The bunny bum on a spring.  We have these great adhesive springs.  The base is only 3/4” wide, so you can mount pretty small items and give them a bit of bounce.  It’s all simple shapes from Art Philosophy.  The springs are Z1725.
box spring
Here’s a close up of the spring.  They also collapse very flat so you can embellish cards and they’ll spring to life when pulled from their envelope!
Created by Lalia Harris  CraftyLalia.blogspot.com
The eggs are from Art Philosophy.  I almost always at high speed.  But cutting the detailed layer of this egg, I slowed my old machine down to medium speed and it cut very nicely. 
Created by Lalia Harris  CraftyLalia.blogspot.com
The last side has butterflies and flowers from Art Philosophy.  I love these two cartridges!  They’re so versatile and between the two, they cover nearly all of the holidays! 
You’ll have to come back and see what’s inside!  I’ll be posting the inside which is just as amazing in a day or so!  Remember, I am calling this a treat box.  You’ll want to come back to see the treats!

Want these cartridges?  
Shop with me to earn discounts or rewards!  You can select one of these three great deals.
  • Free shipping and a complimentary Idea Book!  You can purchase the Artiste by PayPal here.
  • Or shop online now and JOIN MY GATHERING  {{Free Gift w/ Purchase  ~ Lalia Harris}} and receive a free paper pack or B Sized stamp set of your choice with a Cricut Bundle purchase or any $99+ order.  I'll be sending you the paper pack or stamps.  Just email me your selection.  
  • If you want BOTH cartridges, you quality for $25 in Hostess Rewards!  Contact me and we'll set up your order together so you can receive your free product.  
At this time, I haven’t created a tutorial, Cricut Craft Room file or instructions on how to create this.  Sorry, life has been a little cRaZy around here lately…  I will say that to make some of my itty bitty items, I changed the settings on my Cricut to cut at .3, .4, .6, 7” increments instead of the 1/4” that it is defaulted to.  You’ll do this by pushing the settings button twice and then using the arrow keys to select “1/10 inch increments.”

I’m linking this up with two challenges:
Color My Heart 
Heart 2 Heart:  We’re so egg-cited for Easter

Don’t forget to come back and see the inside!  Thanks for hopping by!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

It’s an Easter hop!

Happy spring my friends!  To celebrate spring and upcoming Easter the Evergreen Memories Team have joined together to feature an Easter Blog Hop!  What’s a blog hop?  We’re linking our blogs together so you can hop from one to the next without any difficulty at all.  So if you’ve already been hopping, you’ve come from Tracie’s blog
Last month we had a wonderful Studio J promotion.  I scrapped almost all of my 2012 pictures in a couple of weeks!  Here’s my Easter layout with last year’s pictures.  I used the Chantilly paper pack in StudioJ to make a beautiful spring layout.  As I’m the only girl in my house, I try to make my layouts not too frilly all while being bright and beautiful.  Chantilly does that.  Do you realize it includes Twlight and Outdoor Denim in its color pallet?  This helps make some very balanced layouts!
2012_-_easter
The title Easter Blessings is the alphabet stickers that are part of the Chantilly My Stickease in Studio J.  Those cute little flowers were already a part of the font!  It was so simple!  I was also so pleased that I could rotate my journaling box on the diagonal so that it matched the direction of the box.  I did by adding a NEW text box.  Don’t try to do this with one of the text boxes that came in the pre-designed template; they are fixed and can’t be resized or rotated. 
Stay tuned for more Easter projects on my blog in the next week!  I have a super cute 3D project that I’ve been working on. 
Please hop on over to Carla’s Blog to see her delightful project!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Happy Birthday with Later Sk8r papers

Hello friends!  Here’s a very simple card for the boys!  I used the new Later Sk8r paper pack which is full of paint, stains and fun. 

I had started with the sketch featuring the card that says Hugs by Lisa Stenz (click this pic to see the card). This card design is from the new Make It From Your Heart Vol I how-to guide.  (It’s a Volume 1 guide, which means more will come and this one will be discontinued so get it now).  I had this card in mind for a workshop so I wanted it simple as possible with lots of fun. And it worked!  Instead of stamping a round or square element that’s to top each of the bars of paper, with the Perfect Fit—Birthday stamp set B1417 on pg 95 of the Idea Book,  I used the Artiste Cricut Cartridge to make this gear border on pg 39 of the Artiste handbook.   I cut it at 1.75” tall and it makes enough for exactly two cards!  (That’s a workshop planner’s dream come true!)  The happy birthday sentiment that I ended up using down below does come that same set “Perfect Fit—Birthday”

So here you have it.  I love the fun, shiny, new epoxy bubbles give a beautiful non-girly sparkle to any card.  And one that you can make in just a few minutes! 

card-later SK8R happy birthday card

 

It just so happens that this week’s color challenge is Lagoon, Outdoor Denim and Pear over at the Color My Heart Blog so I’m entering it in Dare # 32