An Altered Journal

This was the project I posted yesterday on Pam's blog TheBugBytes.  I haven't had a chance to get the cut file yet.  Been really really busy! 

I have been making a lot of cards lately and wanted to do something different. I had several composition journals sitting around and my daughter wanted to know if she could have one, so I decided to make her a journal. The cartridges I used for this project were Home Accents and Home Decor. Here's what I started with:

Paper/Cardstock (I used a combination of cardstock from My Mind's Eye, DCWV, and The Paper Studio.

a Composition Book
Scor Tape
Trimmer
Mono Adhesive
ATG Gun
(and of course my Gypsy and Cricut!)

I started by cutting down the paper I was going to use for the cover and binding. The front and back cover pieces were trimmed to 9.75" x 7" and the piece for the binding was 9.75" x 3". I put Scor Tape on the pieces. I then stuck them to the book and trimmed the corners. And this is the result:

After that it was time for the fun part! I started in my Gypsy with 12x12 mat and got a rectangle from the Plantin Schoolbook cart. This was simply so that I could see how everything out fit on my notebook. My daughter is a huge fan of butterflies so when I saw the butterfly on the Home Accents cart I knew I wanted to use that. I also liked the corner flourishes. Since she is a daydreamer, I also picked out the words "dream" and "imagine". On the Home Decor cart she wanted to use the star and also the words explore. I then separated the images so I could cut them. The main images were on one page and the shadows on another. (I was having lighting problems so one of the pictures is a screenshot from DS)

And here is what my mats looked like.

After I had cut them out, i noticed a few cutting problems. I had to go back and recut the "dream" and "imagine" shadow and image. I ended up putting in the cartridge in my cricut and cutting them so that I could adjust the speed because the paper kept tearing. But I finally got it. Then, when I finally was ready to assemble the book, I decided the butterfly was too big and that the journal was looking to cluttered. So....I ended up only using the corner flourishes, butterfly, and "dream". And here is the end result:

I was pretty happy with it and my daughter was ecstatic (which is all that really matters).


I hope you enjoyed my project! I will have it up on my blog later today along with the gypsy file. Have a good day everyone and happy crafting!

~Amanda

National Scrapbook Day!

That's right!  It's National Scrapbook Day!  And what better way to celebrate than with a challenge? :)

My challenge for you today is to make a layout and incorporate a mosaic.  It doesn't matter what sketch you use for the layout.  And post a link in the comments to your layout.  I'd LOVE to see it!!

You can also participate in other challenges and games being done by other design team members on Scrappers Delight.

Here is my layout :)  Sorry its a little blurry.  It's close to midnight, I'm exhausted and I dont' have good light in here :)

Happy Crafting!!

Gate fold butterfly card

I tried something new with this card.  There was a challenge on the Scrapper's Delight site for creating a card that was NOT a square or rectangle.  So here's mine :)  It is the card I made for my daughter's 11th birthday (boy am I getting old).  It was really hard to photograph, but it is sized to fit in an A2 envelope.  If I had to do it over, I'd do it bigger for sure.  This butterfly was the one from the Create a critter cricut cartridge and the stamps inside are from Fiskars.  The paper is all DCWV.  I used the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder on the inside of the wings and also decided to add some stickles and white stitching.  The ribbon was not what I had intended to use by my bigger hole punch broke, I only had the tiny one so I just used a tiny ribbon.  I also made her a coordinating envelope to go with it.  The wings are actually super sparkly even though you can't tell in the picture :)

A birthday card and exciting announcement!

This Saturday, in addition to it being Derby Day, I am celebrating Breezy and Joey's birthdays with my family.  I made cards for both kids and they turned out so cute.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to make boy themed stuff??  It seems that craft things in general are catered to girls so I did the best I could.  I used the Paisley cartridge to get the zebra in the car and the flame on it came from the Graphically Speaking cartridge.  The numbers are the Roly Poly font on the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.  Cardstock was from DCWV.  The stamp is a Fiskars stamp.  The inside of the card says "let the good times roll!" although I didn't get a picture of that.

I'll post the card I made for my daughter tomorrow.  It too came out so cute! 

Now, my exciting announcement!  I need to say a big THANK YOU to Pam @ The Bug Bytes for letting me be a designer on her blog!  The other ladies selected are so talented so be sure to head over to her blog and follow it.  My project will be posted there on Monday.  When I first got my gypsy I learned so much from her site.  There are so many great tips and tricks and I am so excited to be on the design team!

April DT projects for Scrappers Delight

This has been a whirlwind of a month.  I had every intention of doing projects every week that would be Mother's Day themed....well, it just hasn't worked out that way.  It took me this long just to finish my DT projects and I still have a few things I need to get together.  I'm totally excited to be a part of a circle journal!  Can't wait to be able to send that off.  And this week is also busy with party planning as we are celebrating both my older two childrens' birthdays on Saturday....which also happens to be the Kentucky Derby (and that's a big deal around here in KY).  And of course there is also National Scrapbook Day...busy busy.  So anyway, on with the projects :)  I decided to make 2 cards again.  AiFactory is an awesome sponsor and  provided us with some really cute images!  If I get time this week, I'm going to use the ballerina to make an altered journal for my daughter.  I think she'd really like it.  But for now, I made a circle card and matching envelope.  I will have to admit that when it comes to boxes and envelopes, I really don't like the DCWV cardstock.  it just does not fold well.  But I wanted it to match the card so.....

Image is from AiFactory

Sentiment stamps from Papertrey Ink

Cardstock from DCWV and Papertrey Ink

Copic markers

Wild Card cricut cartridge

This card is a window card:

Image is from AiFactory

Sentiment Stamp from See D's

Gypsy Wanderings cricut cartridge

Fiskars border punch

Copic markers

stickles

ribbon from cheapribbons.com

I have been busy designing away today and can't wait to share the projects I'm working on.

Happy crafting!

Gypsy update!

Ok now that the site has finally let me update my Gypsy it is absolutely fabulous!!!  I linked all the cartridges I have (only 30....not the over 100 many people have) and I started designing.  The thing i would have to say I like the best so far is that when using some of the cartridges with cards on them (Stretch Your Imagination for example), even though the main image was not designed to be layered onto it, the software on the gypsy makes it so easy to tweek the main image exactly to fit on top of the card.  I may have to do my first video showing that....I've done it on several designs already and its so super simple.

I have decided to theme all of my projects for this month for Mother's Day.  It's coming up in a month and I've already done Spring (BTW it feels more like summer in KY) so Mother's Day it is!  I need to try out some new techniques so I will have at least one new project a week.  This week is a little tight because my husband and I are doing some extensive remodelling while the kids are away for Spring break but by this weekend I will definitely have something up!  I hope everyone's having a great day!!

New Gypsy owner here!

I was so excited to come back from my Easter weekend with my family to find a package on my porch.  My new GYPSY!!!  Of course I immediately opened it.  I haven't had too much time to play around with it yet as I have all the laundry to do from when we took our trip but it is definitely in the plan for today!  So far, I LOVE IT!

On a side note, when I was trying to decide what Cricut Cartridges I wanted for my birthday I learned something interesting from the Creative Critters Cricut Club blog.  Did anyone else know that ProvoCraft now has the handbooks digitally online??  How awesome is that?!  So now when I wanted to know what I wanted, a cartridge that I thought might be just a font on the outside, I can see actually has all kinds of stuff on it making it worth it to buy!   YAY!  Yes, I am completely excited about this....partly because I have a few cartridges that I really don't use much because they weren't what I thought they were.  On the other hand, there are cartridges that I now want that I didn't know were so versatile.  And I have finally racked up enough reward points to get two free cartridges...so what am I doing?  Looking at the handbooks of the free ones to see which ones I want.  I'm thinking Paper Pups may be one....any thoughts out there?