A layout for a Change

It's been a while since I posted and I had planned on posting a card that I made for my friend Molly's birthday, but it seems I can't find the pictures I took of it.  Oh well, you will just have to trust me, it was pretty cute.  Lol!

This is a layout I did with a picture of my girls from a few years ago.  I have a wonderful book of inspiration written by Elsie Flanagan that inspired this layout.  I love her work, she is a free spirit and pretty artsy, which can be a little tough for some but she helped me cut loose and try some new things.

The papers are from a variety of sources, I am not good about remembering brands unless I take notes as I create and that is not always going to happen.  I can say I THINK the font is from cricut cartridge "All Mixed Up"  It was fun mixing patterned papers, borders and ribbons for this fun layout.  I actually had this hung on my wall for a long time just to look at because it made me smile!  I hope it makes you smile and inspires you to create.

blessings,

Jana

BTW!!!  I am off to my yearly scrapbooking retreat this weekend with 20 of my besties.  I hope I have some fun and inspiring Imagine projects to share with you when I return.  Later!!

Blog candy give away

OK, for those of you that have no idea what blog candy is...I was in the same boat. It seems that fun loving crafters from all over love have blog visitors so they offer up a fun and crafty gift if you go to their blog and leave a comment about their projects. I have not yet done this ( not willing to part with any of my goodies :). Anyway, here is the link to a give away from a brand new blogger. She has a cute blog with neat projects. Stop by and become a follower!

Raina's Favorite Crafty Things

Later!
Jana

Imagine Butterfly Card

Here is another card I created after looking through my Cricut Magazines.  This one came from the April/May 2011 issue.  It was designed by Carol Bloomberg and is on page 55.  I changed mine up considerably to reflect my style a little more.  I hope you like it.

 My card is 8 1/2" x 5 1/2".  I like to make them big so I have plenty of room to design!  The side bar is cut 2 1/2" x 5 1/2" and all the butterflies are cut at 1 1/2".  I sure wish I could remember which cartridge I cut them from.  I looked at a ton of butterflies before deciding on this one because of it's simplicity.  I wanted to show off the papers.

I filled all the butterflies and the sidebar with patterns from Imagine cartridge Lori's Garden.  It is just too prety.  I find myself going to it all the time.  I haven't used one image from it yet but I use the colors and patterns all the time! 

I scored each butterfly on each side of the body and gently folded each wing up.  I used a glue dot to stick the body down but then put pop dots under each wing so even after I mail it, it will still have some dimension.  I used my copic E37 to color the anntenae and head on each one.  It creates a neat pattern, I think.  Before placing all the butterflies on the card, I also inked around their wings with brown ink and did some stitching with brown thread all around the edges and zigzagged (that spelling looks weird :)  I didn't add a sentiment yet, waiting for the perfect occasion to send this one!

Blessings,

Jana

Singing Bird Card

Oh, have I enjoyed my issues of the Cricut magazine!  I have been inspired by many of the cards and layouts that I can't find the time to make them all!  I finally sat down the other day and put little post-it notes on the pages of the cards and layouts that I wanted to use for inspiration.  When I got to this cute card, I found myself liking it exactly as it was designed by Cindy Royal of Royal Things so I only changed the papers that I used.  This card was made 100% on my Imagine using the Hopscotch Imagine cartridge and the regular cartridges listed below.

I am not going to list all the cuts and sizes because the instructions are in the April/May 2011 issue of Cricut Magazine on page 21.  Cindy designed her card as a 5" x 6" card and I made mine 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" so all of my cuts are slightly larger than hers.

The cartridges used for the cuts are Give a Hoot (tree), Everyday Paper Dolls (grasses), Robotz (sun), Straight from the Nest (bird), and the musical notes came from 3 Brids on Parade. The magazine version used Graphically Speaking for a cloud but I used the cloud paper from Hopscotch. 

Thank goodness the latest issue will tell you exactly which cartridge the shapes came from because this one did not and I had a heck of a time figuring it out.

 Here I am showing a detail of the brown cut for the tree.  To give it a little added dimension, I just used my dental tool from my Cricut tool kit to curl the branches out slightly. 

One of the things I love about  the imagine machine is that it will scale the patterns of the papers to fit the size of the cut, so the clouds turned out to be the perfect size for the sky.  I thought if you wanted a little more dimension you could cut two rectangles the same size, flood fill with the cloud pattern and hand cut a cloud or two to layer in the sky with pop dots if you wanted.  That was and after thought.

There are three different grasses used and it was fun layering them to get the dimension.  I also inked and curled the ends of the grasses for more dimension and added pop dots behind the cat tails.

I also used my polka dots embossing folder for the tallest grass, it looks more like hills.  I chose a solid color to flood that cut with so the embossing gives it more interest and texture, I think.

I hope if you are a new visitor, you will come back after I get my blog fixed and become a follower.  Right now all my sidebar gadgets are hidden and I can't figure out how to unhide them. 

I'm a bit of a techno dummy!

Have a blessed week and thank you Cindy Royal and Cricut Magazine for the fun inspiration!

Jana

Getting Closer to Normal!

Well, I tweaked around in the HTML and at least got my posts lined up with the white background, but as you may notice, my sidebar gadgets are GONE!  Thanks goodness the blogware designer emailed me today and is going to try to help me out.  As soon as this is fixed I will post a few of the projects I have completed over the last few days.

I will be back! :)