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Monday, January 28, 2013

Valentine's Day treat!


Hi folks,

If you are looking for the Cricut Is Close To My Heart post, click HERE!
If you are looking for the Exploring Cricut challenge, click HERE!

I'm designing for She's A Sassy Lady today, and have a nice little treat for you!  Today, I have a quick an easy treat from Close To My Heart.  I ordered the Whooo's Your Valentine kit, and was able to create this fun little treat tube with holder.  The kit had everything that I needed to make it and I didn't need to use anything (besides a clear acrylix block and ink).  So fun!  Oh, I also had to buy the candy, but there's always enough money in the budget for candy, right?




Here's my project!  It turned out really cute, if I do say so myself.  Haha.  I hope you all like it as well.  If you haven't gotten your kit yet, head to your local Close To My Heart consultant and order it right away!  Supplies are very limited.

Enjoy!

Craft on,
Ian

Happy Valentine's Day (early)!


Hi folks!

If you are looking for the Exploring Cricut post, click HERE!
If you are looking for the She's A Sassy Lady post, click HERE!

Today's post is for the Cricut Is Close To My Heart blog today.  I have a fun little card using the Whooo's Your Valentine kit from Close To My Heart for you all.


Isn't this card cute?  I used a white card base cut at 4.25"x5.5".  I then used the patterned paper from Authentique cut at 4"x5.25".  The hollyhock cardstock was cut at 3"x2.75".  I cut the hearts out at 1.5" from Cricut Artiste and used the Whooo's Your Valentine kit to stamp the XO pattern and heart pattern on them.  I used a pop dot on the middle heart to give it some oomph.  I used some ribbon and a white gel pen to add stitching to the hollyhock card base.


On the inside, I stamped the Happy Valentine's Day sentiment from the Whooo's Your Valentine kit.  I think it turned out really well!


I hope you enjoyed the card as much as I did making it!  Here's hoping it also inspires you to start creating your Valentine's Day cards too!

Craft on,
Ian

Exploring Cricut Challenge

Hi folks!

If you are looking for the She's A Sassy Lady post, click HERE!
If you are looking for the Cricut is Close To My Heart, click HERE!

Today over at Exploring Cricut, we were challenged with coming up with a card, scrapbook layout, or papercrafting project using 1 embellishment, 2 patterned papers, and 3 cricut cuts.  What I thought would be quite the challenge, actually turned out to be not that bad!

For my card, I used the Just Because cartridge.  I decided to make the Thank Ewe card from it.  I think it turned out really well!




Both of my patterned papers came from Authentique, and the embellishment is green twine from a twine share I was a part of.  I cut the card at 5"x7".  The nice thing about the Just Because cards, is that you cut it the size you want, and then every other item you wish to cut fits perfectly in it with your pre-recorded sizes.  Love it!  I also thought the yellow for the bell was extremely too small so I used Liquid Pearls to add the bell to it.  :)



I hope you like this card as much as I do.  Now to figure out who to give it to!  :)

Craft on,
Ian

Friday, January 25, 2013

Last set of Thank You Cards (from Christmas!) EEK!

Hi folks!

I hope you are all well and staying warm.  We have hit some arctic temperatures here in the capital district of NY.  It isn't pretty, and sure isn't warm either.  Ack!

Today I have my last set of Thank You cards for my Christmas gifts I received.  Would it surprise you if I said I have only sent out 3 of the 9 I had to do?  ACK!  What a mess.  I really need to work on pre-creating these so I can send them out on time.  My family must think I'm nuts!  I'd rather hand-make a card though, than purchase because I'm a crafter.  Here's hoping they understand.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.  I created my last set of 3 Thank You cards.  This cut came from the From My Kitchen Cricut Cartridge.  It cuts out a gingerbread man and a cookie in the same cut, but I just tossed my cookies.  Hahaha.  Seriously though, I threw them away because I don't think I would ever use them.


The card base is 4.25" by 5.5".  The next layer (red) was 4"x5.25" and the snowflake layer was 3.75" x 5".  I cut the gingerbread man out at 4.5".  I then took my swirls embossing folder and ran him through that after putting the eyes, mouth and buttons on.  I looked at him when he was all done and thought that he needed something else, so after I had embossed him, I put "stitching" with a white gel pen around his body.  this would have been much easier had I done this prior to him being embossed.  Oh well, next time.  I did find my inspiration for this card from a video I found on YouTube.  I thought it would be perfect to re-create and came out a bit different than what they did in the video. It's fun to put your own spin on things.

Anyway, here's the card.  Hope you like it!


I'll be back on Monday with 3 different projects for you.  Stay tuned!

Craft on,
Ian

Monday, January 21, 2013

Life as I know it...

Hi folks,

I hope you are all doing well!  Many of you might have some severe cold weather coming your way.  I hope you stay warm and only go outside if necessary.  I wanted to give you a head's up on something, in case you don't see me posting all the time.

As some of you know, I am in my 3rd year at my current job.  My job calls for a 3 year maximum term and then I must move on to another position.  I am excited, nervous, and sad to be job searching.  I'm excited to potentially move closer to friends and family in the Midwest.  This would mean the most to me as I'm ready to be within driving distance to them.  I'm nervous because in the past, I have applied to several positions and received "no", each time.  This is something that anyone would be nervous about, but with the amount of jobs I've applied to, I'm not as confident as I could be.  Lastly, I'm sad to leave the people that I have helped and those that have helped me.  I've become close to some of the students and my coworkers and will forever be grateful to them for shaping me into the person that is writing this to you today.  More on that to come, as it's only January and I have until May with many of these individuals before they leave for summer break (the students that is).  I'm officially done with my job on June 30.

I have a little over a month until my job placement conference.  What's that?  The job placement conference is set up where over 150 schools set up interviews with potential candidates.  This year I will be flying to the conference in my home state, however it's a "business weekend" and I won't have time to make any personal visits with friends and family.  Although the odds are not favorable (last years stats had roughly 250 positions and 500 applicants), I am hopeful that my experience will speak for me and this will allow for me to get my next full-time position.  Currently, I am in extreme job-search mode.  I look at my craft room and feel that I can't afford to lose time, when I could be sending cover letters and resumes.  Once I am comfortable with the amount of interviews I have lined up, I have to work on cheat sheets for each interview so I can quiz myself on the school before the interview.  There is so much to do, and although it's over a month away, not enough time.

As most of you know, I am on 3 different design teams.  I will continue to post for those design teams during my pre-scheduled dates, but will not be able to post more than that, as I would love to.  Please know this is not to mean that I'm neglecting the blog, my crafts, and all of you, it simply means I have to focus my attention on something that could affect my future.  Stay tuned for a couple posts coming up including one post on Friday and three posts next Monday, the 28th.

In the meantime, if you could keep me in your thoughts, that would be spectacular!  On March 3rd, the conference will be over and I'll fly back to New York.  From there, I wait for potential on-campus interviews.  Consider it the hurry up and wait period.  I have bouts of self-doubt, but am confident someone out there will see my potential and take me on for the upcoming school year and beyond.  II'll be crafting again soon - so stay tuned!

Craft on,
Ian

Monday, January 14, 2013

Baby It's Cold Outside

Hi folks!

I'm sorry I've been so quiet lately.  This past week we had January RA Training which always means, long days, and short nights.  I was finally able to craft something Saturday evening after my staff left because I wanted to spend as much time with them before the rest of the campus returned on Sunday.  I decided to do a thank you card, since I STILL need to send these out to friends and families.

Over at Exploring Cricut, we were tasked with the challenge of making a card, layout, or papercraft under the theme of Baby It's Cold Outside.  It had to be wintery/snow related.

Every year around Christmas, my mother puts out a glittery laying reindeer.  I didn't see it this year, but reindeer will always remind me of winter.  When I saw this card in the A Quilted Christmas cartridge, I knew I wanted to make a thank you card out of it.  So, these are my next set of 3 Christmas thank you cards.  Still have another set of 3 to do - so stay tuned for those.


Anyway, I cut this card at 4.25"x5.5".  The Cricut did all the work for me, and I just scored the card, placed the gold background on it, and added the stamp sentiment and "stitching".  Not sure what else to do with it, but sometimes less is more.  The stamp set is from Close To My Heart - A Little Thanks.


Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the card!  If you don't have this cartridge yet, go out and get it!  It's a must!  :)

Craft on,
Ian

Friday, January 11, 2013

1st Doortags of the Semester!

Hi folks,

I hope you are all doing well!  We are in the middle of January RA Training so I am busy busy busy.  Oyy!  I created my RAs doortags for them and got to use my Cricut.  :)  Always a good time.  For this project, I used the Create a Critter 2 cartridge and Art Philosophy cartridge.


The box of chocolates came from Create A Critter 2 and the tag came from Art Philosophy.  I thought they turned out cute!  I also inked the edges of the box of chocolates "cover" as well as the tag.


I gave my RAs their doortags Wednesday night and one of the RAs commented "Uhh, you're early..."  If only he knew that crafters NEED to be one step ahead of the curve!  :D

More to come soon.  Here's hoping the start of the semester is a good one.

Craft on,
Ian

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Christmas Thank You card


Hi folks!

I've just returned from a 19 day vacation home to Wisconsin.  What a whirlwind vacation and I loved it!  So happy I got the chance to go home for so long.  I felt like I was back in college (as a student, not an employee like I currently am, again).  Anyway, as you can imagine, during that time I spent Christmas with friends and family.  I have 9 thank you cards to make, and decided to do it in design sets of 3 to save myself some sanity.  Haha.


Here's the 1st set of 3 cards that I made.  This was made with my Cameo and the design was purchased from the Silhouette store.  I decided to go with Lori Whitlocks "#3 Thank You Card".  I opted not to use the text that was cut as it was too small and was hard to work with.  So I went to my Close To My Heart stamps and stamped "thank you" from the Trinity Alphabet.  Not how I originally intended it to go but I like it.

The paper stack I used was from Die Cuts With A View's Merry Christmas stack from last year.  I have some complaints about this stack, but there's nothing I can do about it.  It is supposed to be 12x12 but it's more like 11.98"x11.90".  Oh well - just need to use it up and all will be well.  :)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this card and it inspired you to create one similar.  I feel like it's missing something but with all the pieces already glued down, I am not sure what else I can do.  I may go back with a red gel pen and put some dots in the scalloped part of the white cardstock.  That should give it a little extra oomph.  Hopefully you can bling it up some if you decide to do it yourself!  Now I need to go back to the drawing board to find 2 other designs to use for the remainders.  :)

Craft on,
Ian