The Whimsy Side of Easter

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Christ's resurrection is certainly the real Easter celebration but I am in the mood for spring and all that it brings along with the renewal of life that Christ's resurrection brings.  It was 84 degrees here yesterday and all the birds (and bugs) came out to see what was going on.  The chirping and scurrying about of critters is giving me a bad case of spring fever!  So I decided I wanted to do a little decorating in anticipation of Easter.
Thanks to the amazing talents of Mary at SVG Cuts.com I was able to create this adorable little Easter village.  It is from the set "Cottontail Village."  I have really been in the mood to "build" so this really caught my eye.  You can find the cutting files and a video on how to assemble each little house at SVGCuts.com.  They even have a special going on this week, purchase at least 9.98 of other cuts, add the Cottontail Village and then add FREEGIFT to your shopping cart and you get 6.99 discount!  It was not hard to purchase another $9.98, I got some other Easter things as well.
So, enough babbling, here is the cute little village:

I am no photographer so forgive the bad lighting and blurry images :)  Each of these is not only a cute little house, but a box as well.  It could be filled with Easter goodies and given to a child or even one of your trues! (that would be a bestie, if you don't know what a true is)  I will be using mine as decoration on my dining room table, I think. 

The Mushroom House.  I am pretty sure a darling little field mouse lives here and it stores food for winter up in the cap of the mushroom to help get it through winter so it doesn't have to come into my pantry :)

I was trying to think of another critter to build this one for then I realized, I live in the country...there needs to be plenty of housing for mice to keep them out of mine :)

The Egg House. It is obvious, (isn't it) who lives here.  The Easter Bunny!  Can't you see the little bunny over the door? If not it's because of my blurry picture, sorry)  This bunny has been spiffing up it's house in preparation for the big day.  It will be dropping by your house giving you eggs and chocolates. What a small gesture considering all that Jesus has given us.
Blessings,
Jana

Simply Sunday Challenge at Getting Cricky

Well Hello everyone!
Long time no see.  Do you ever lose your mojo??  Well, I kind of lost mine for a while so I took a bit of a break to do some other creative things (which I will share with you another day).  I woke up this morning craving paper crafting!  I mean I really wanted to dive in and make something nice.  Good timing because it is the Simply Sunday Challenge at Getting Cricky.  The challenge was to make an Easter project.  Not a tough one, Easter is my second favorite holiday after Christmas so I was excited about this one.
Not only was I hopping (Easter pun :) hehehe!) to make a project, I was even willing to once again try to tackle a project using the Cricut Craftroom.  I have a Cricut Imagine and the craftroom has had a LOT of bugs when it comes to the colors, patterns and printing using the Imagine and it became really frustrating so I decided to just back off and let them work on it for a while before I tried it again.  Well...I had GREAT success for the first time ever!  I was able to weld, design my own shape, fill with patterns, print and cut!  Woohoo!!!!

Here is what my computer screen looked like as I was designing the card.

I made the cross by welding two rectangles together and then filling it with brown.  Look how well you can layout the shapes, nice and close together so you don't waste paper!!  It was wonderful.  I did this entire project using only one piece of paper in my Cricut and one folded card for the base.

Here is what it looked like right after printing and cutting...

I used many cartridges, let me see if I can remember what they were...the eggs are from Doodlecharms, the flowers and leaves are from A Walk in My Garden, the rectangle, wonderfully resized to exactly the dimensions I wanted for the blue background and all the long strips (which I have been wanting to be able to do for a LONG time with my Imagine), they were cut from the Storybook cartridge.  I used patterns and colors from the Blossom, Lori's Garden, and Nursery Tails cartridges.  Oh my, do you know how long that would have taken if I hadn't used Cricut Craftroom!

Ok,OK, here is the final product...

 So, what do you think????  I am really proud of it.  Now I must confess, the design is not my own (gasp!).  I am the ultimate scraplifter on the planet but I like to give credit where credit is due.  This idea came from Kiwi Lane Designs blog.  I changed a few things to make it my own.  They had a chick and I replaced it with a cross which I feel is THE most important aspect of Easter.  Which is also why I chose the stamp that I did.  With out the sacrifice that our Lord and Savior made on the cross, and then rising again on the third day...we would not have an eternal home in heaven.  Trust me, the Easter bunny is cute and so is Santa but with out Jesus neither holiday would exist.
The awesome stamp is from my wonderful friend K. Andrew at K. Andrew Designs.  You can see the entire set below.

I really enjoyed the basket weaving, it gave the card some dimension and texture and it was oh so nice to print and cut these strips instead of printing out a bigger rectangle and then cutting it down only to have leftover scraps I might never use.

Here is the Scripture Sayings set I used.  Feel free to click on the image to purchase it or to see more wonderful stamps from Kristal.  She has just released several new sets that are ADORABLE!!!! And best of all, a portion of each and every purchase is donated to very worthy charities.

Now, I hope you will head on over to the Getting Cricky and link up your Easter project for all to see!  There just might be a prize in it for a lucky linker :)

Blessings to all,

Jana