Oo-la-la, Paris'

Late - and I mean late - last night my darling daughter mentioned that she had to turn in a project for her French class and that she wanted to use my Cricut to decorate.

So, praying a thankful prayer that I had French Manor, off we went to my scrap room. Her project was to make a menu for her French Cafe'. Everything had to be written in French with prices in Euros.

She went through my book and made all the cuts herself, I helped her assemble the menu (because she isn't good with glue - lol) and wrote up the offerings for her (she hasn't learned Calligraphy yet).

I think she did a great job - and once again I am thankful for my Cricuts. My printer has been on the fritz for about 2-3 months now, so we can't print anything at home and if I had one of the machines where you design with your computer and cut it out (Silhouette, Pazzles, etc) she wouldn't have been able to do most of the work. I do have my Gypsy loaded with this cartridge, but she does not know how to use it.

~ProvoCraft, this is a perfect example of why you should not discontinue cartridges and should always make the physical cartridges - so that the young ones can still use the wonderful machines without touching mommy's Precious Gypsy!!~

Front of the Menu:

Back of the Menu:

The Cricut is just perfect for these types of (last-minute) projects - and so kid-friendly. My daughter is a teen, but she has been playing with my baby bug since I first purchased it. I think that I shall finally give her the baby bug so that she can use it for anything she wants - school or otherwise. Of course, I do need two machines so I shall have to save up for another Expression!

Bird Challenge

I created this card to submit to My Pink Stamper Blog Challenge. The Challenge was to use a Bird.

The interior sentiment reads: Just Swooping In to Say "HI!"

I went a little Stickle-happy. I alway say though "Glitter makes everything brighter!"

A second picture to show the dimension

Carts Used:

French Manor

Storybook

Paper Used:

Black Card base

Cream cardstock

Green cardstock

White cardstock

Printed paperstack

Misc:

Stickles

popdots

I cut the framed trellis from French Manor, turned the trellis part and trimmed it to fit inside the outer frame. I cut the vine border from Storybook and snipped it in places and wove it through the trellis for a dimensional look. Adding small popdots beneath the trellis to pull it from the wall and large popdots to the birds add extra depth. The wing of the upper bird has small popdots to make it appear behind the bird as natural.

Then I stickled. I started with just the birds to make them pop some more, then I went to the vine, then it needed something else so I did the trellis. After deciding between a white card base and a black card base, I touched the sides of the base to frame it all in just a little more.

Too much? Maybe, but I love it and the person I made it for will as well.

French Manor cartridge project

This "French Vase and Flowers" are what I designed with my French Manor exclusive cartridge. Yes, I did submit it for the contest, but no I didn't win anything. I really liked this project and surprised myself with discovering how versatile the cartridge is. It was not my favorite cartridge, but I didn't hate it. I challenged myself to come up with something that was not "obviously" on the cartridge

Everything except the stems are made from cuts from the French Manor cartridge. See if you can guess which cut I used for the vase. Without my Gypsy, I couldn't have made part of this project. Love my Gypsy!

The handbook for the French Manor cartridge is here



The flowers were made using the tag feature and a similar process to the flowers you can find on youtube. I had to modify it so they would look more natural. I used the same cut in green to make the leaves, jut cut the petals apart. I used floral tape and wire for the stems and to attach the leaves.

The vase is three-sided with Close To My Heart Liquid Glass covering the surfaces. The fleur de lis and scrollwork also have the Liquid glass.

I cut the three pieces for the vase and hot glued them together, painted them and curled the ends to meet my vision.

I also made a second vase in pink - without the Liquid Glass.


All the papers are from Close To My Heart.

After rushing through the initial project, I took some of the vase apart and redid it and some of the flowers so they would look more like I had planned.

These projects have also been entered at a few other Challenge blogs: Tuesday Morning Sketches