I was digging through my stash and found this gorgeous MME paper which has the "you are special" and cut that out to be the saying for the card.
The flowers are created from Flower Shoppe Cricut cartridge and the bird and branch are from French Manor. The paper leaves are a Stampin' Up!/Sizzix die. If you don't have a Cricut machine, you can make the flowers with other cutters, dies or even using a circle and cutting into it in a continuous spiral. There are many bird stamps and dies for the birds. There are also papers with birds on them you can cut out. Don't feel limited!!!
I embossed the bird with copper embossing powder. Pearls, lace and washi tape for a little extra touch.
I decided it was time to try my hand at the Cricut Craft Room. When I got there, to my delight, there was a "use it free" cartridge called Southwest. There is also a contest for the cartridge as well that ends on the 21st of March. All I can say is, "Thank you PC! Your timing is impeccable!
My aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary is coming up. My aunt loves everything Native so the release of this, plus free usage, couldn't have happened at a better time! Her favorite colors are red and blue. Her favorite animal: the bald eagle.
I had originally wanted to get this done for the CricutFANatics blog, but life did not allow for that. Do stop by there and check out the great ideas going on over there!
Here is a better look at the chunky charm I made to go onto the book.
I made the heart, the eagle and 50 from Southwest using Poly Shrink. I cut them out with my Cricut and then colored them and then melted them with my heat gun. To the 50 I added some Judikins glaze and then sprinkled some glitter to match the 50 I made on the album. I learned how to make chunky charms from the girls at the Cricut message board trades. (I completed a full year of swaps! So fun!)
The Oh Happy Day, the eagle and the border were cut from SW cartridge. The book shapes were cut from Elegant Edges. (One of my all time favs!) The 50 was cut from the Gypsy Font, which is another free cart available on the Cricut Craft Room site. The flowers were sprayed with copic markers to make them a better match.
These are the first two pages. The heart vase and the love label were cut from SW cartridge. I took one of the little hearts that were cut out from the border image and added it to the top button.
The next two pages. The arrows were cut from SW cartridge. I added some hearts to them and also along the borders of the tag. I covered a tag I didn't like with washi tape that matched the theme I was doing the mini in.
The next two pages. The one on the left is my favorite one in the mini. I love the motion of the page with the bling and the man's motion looking like he is playing a song for them!
The next two pages. The butterfly is from SW cart also. The tags were cut from Gypsy Wanderings. I found the little pockets on the right hand page in my stash while I was looking for something else. I thought they went really well. She can put little treasures/notes in them. Happy find! The flowers and black pearls are Prima.
The next two pages. I cut the Mr & Mrs and the feather from SW. The little hearts are the left overs from the first couple pages with the heart border. I love the feather! It is so sweet!
The next two pages. I used Gypsy Wanderings for the mat on the left and SW for the border on the right. The butterfly is from Recollections.
The last two pages. I added the rest of the left over arrows to the right page and another border from SW. There were so many nice borders! The mat on the left is from Gypsy Wanderings.
I am super pleased with how the album turned out. It is definitely in my aunt's style. She is a hard working woman, but not a frilly one. She will like it because it is beautiful, but not in that girly-girl look. She had 5 boys, so she didn't get much use for girly-girl things. My uncle will like it because she likes it. (He's good like that!)
The book was bound with my Cinch.
All of the papers were: cardstock - Bazzill, DCWV for all the designer papers, except the orange swirl and the black swirl - they are 7Gypsies papers.
I didn't buy anything new to build this with. MamaC (aka Carol) will be so proud!
I really enjoyed this project!
Thanks for stopping by!
My first attempt at putting a video on my blog! Only my second video ever!
This is my first attempt at a CAS card. (Clean and Simple)
What I didn't know was how much stress it would cause me! I tend to make fancier cards, or at least those with more embellishments. I literally was shaking when I did this! Good grief! I originally put the three flags on just the white background, like I see in so many CAS forums. I got so nervous, I had to put some purple on there before I could walk away! The idea is to keep the cards simple with the focus on the design. I
did mange to do that. It's tough looking at it and not "embellishing"
it!
I really wanted to go beyond my comfort zone and try these CAS cards. I love the way they look, but have not felt comfortable enough doing them. I found this new(to me) site CAS-ual Fridays which has a challenge each week on Fridays. I also found out they do these cards each week in SCS in a forum challenge each Monday. Also on Monday, there is a "try a new technique" at Splitcoast as well. The challenges were: CAS-ual Fridays - blocks of color. SCS: sketch challenge. I also used their new technique challenge which was a graduated color challenge. They worked well together.
My card may not be a winner in any category, but I made it through my first card! Yippee!
