Weekly Challenge #33 over at the Cricut Circle Blog is called the Sweet Summertime Challenge.  You have to incorporate the shape of your favorite summertime treat and use a stamp somewhere on your project.

My summertime treat is easy — it’s the same treat I love all year long — ice cream!!  That being said, I knew right away what my card was going to have on it.  But I decided that I would not only include an ice cream cone but also the ice cream shop.

The lastest exclusive cartridge for Cricut Circle members is Pop-Up Neighborhood.  I was looking through the handbook and really liked some of the buildings.  While I didn’t use the pop-up feature on this card, I did take the bakery and turned it into an ice cream shop. 

In Design Studio, I laid out two of the bakery shadow shapes and welded them together at the top.   I remembered the cute little hippo from Birthday Bash, who is blissfully running with her ice cream cone, and knew I wanted her on my card too.  So I laid out the hippo shape onto my base and welded that also.

I cut the shapes from the Sweet Stack by Die Cuts With A View.  The solid color cardstock is from Bazzill.  I used just the two cartridges — Birthday Bash and Pop-Up Neighborhood.   Oops, I just remembered a third cartridge that I used — the Lite cartridge Twinkle Toes.  I cut the banner for the shop name from it.

For the windows on my ice cream shop, I used graphics from Provo Craft — from their pccrafter.com site.  I thought they were perfect with my design.  I used a stamp to do the name of the shop.  I found a clear stamp in a set that I bought from K & Company that said “The Scoop” and when I saw it I knew that would be the name. 

I used the Cuttlebug on the front door, the Distressed Stripes folder, and also on the ice cream cone, the Mesh Texture folder.  I needed something with a small pattern because the ice cream cone on the front of the card is quite small and this folder was great.  It gives the look of a waffle cone.  I used coarse glitter on the ice cream itself and red Stickles for the cherry on top.

This is a happy and fun creation and when I look at my card I can’t help but think of a book Erin had as a child.  It was called Yummers! and featured Miss Emily (a pig) and Eugene (a turtle).  When I look at the pink hippo, she just looks like she is running along thinking, yummers!!

The patterned paper on the inside of the card is from daisyd’s.  I made another ice cream cone, this time a little larger, to adhere to a corner.

• Cricut Design Studio
• Cricut cartridges:  Birthday Bash, Pop-Up Neighborhood, Twinkle Toes
• Cuttlebug folders:  Distressed Stripes and Mesh Texture
• DCWV — Sweet Stack
• Bazzill solid cardstock
• Coarse glitter
• Red Stickles

Here I am, getting another project submitted with just a few hours to spare.  I guess I work better with deadlines closing in on me, although I do not care for the stress.  But who can I blame for procrastinating?  Yep, no one but me!

I decided to make a birthday card for my niece and this is my first time trying to make something that looks vintage.  I love the look of vintage but didn’t know how well I would do trying to create it.  I am happy with how it turned out, especially for a first try.

The paper I chose is the reason I went for the vintage look.  I picked up a pad of paper by Bo Bunny when I was shopping last week.  It is the Gabrielle Collection and there are some beautiful designs in it. 

The monthly challenge for May at the Cricut Circle is the Tic Tac Toe Challenge.  The object is to pick three prompts in a row from a tic tac toe grid and to include at least two Cricut cuts.

I chose a diagnoal row, going from the bottom left to the right top — which consisted of:  use a cut of a flower shape, use a ruffle, and use some buttons.

Because the paper is so pretty, I decided to use a frame around one of the designs.  I cut the frame from the Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge.  I made my ruffle from a piece of seam binding and laid down a piece of lace on the paper before adding the ruffle.  The pearls on the ruffle are actually white buttons that I colored with my Copics.  I cut the shanks off the button before gluing them on the ruffle.

The flowers were the most time-consuming part of my card.  I cut them out of plain off-white cardstock using my Accent Essentials cartridge.  I inked all the edges and then formed the cuts into roses.  I sprayed them with Glimmer Mist — sure wish the sparkle showed up in the pictures. 

I cut the leaves from the same off-white cardstock using the Picturesque cartridge, inked them green and then ran them through my Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder.  The butterfly is from the Martha Stewart Elegant Cake Art cartridge.  I found a button in my stash that matched the butterfly beautifully.  I added some Memory Thread to the button and glued it on the body of the butterfly.  On the lacy layer of the butterfly, I added some sparkle using Glossy Accents and Diamond Dust.  I also used Distress Stickles on its body.

I cut some tickets using Wall Decor & More and inked them a light coral color.  I cut the tickets at 2″ and they fit the stamp set perfectly.  I then stamped them with a stamp set from Autumn Leaves called Ticketed. 

The inside of the card features a different piece of the Bo Bunny paper and another ticket.

I used lots of foam dots on this card.  Here is a photo showing a side view so you can get an idea of the dimension that this card has.

Since I can’t put this card into a normal envelope, I made a box to hold it.  But I need to take a picture of the box.  I will post the picture once I take it. 

I’m back with some pics of the box.  I ended up adding my niece’s name to the top of the box, which I cut from Storybook.

• Bo Bunny – Gabrielle Collection
• Cricut cartridges used:  Accent Essentials, Elegant Edges, Martha Stewart Elegant Cake Art, Picturesque, Wall Decor & More
• Cuttlebug folder – Swiss Dots
• Glimmer Mist
• Seam binding
• Stickles
• Autumn Leaves stamps – Ticketed
• DMC Memory Thread
• Glossy Accents
• Diamond Dust
• Buttons from stash

The above chorus is the inspiration for this card.  I haven’t made a card in so long that I finally took a little time and came up with this card for this week’s challenge at Jitterbuggin.  Now I have to put all the papercrafting supplies away and get back to embroidering. 

I don’t know why, but this card seemed to take forever to make.  I’m glad I didn’t keep track of the hours I have in it — it would probably be embarrassing to admit I took that long.  

The challenge was fairly easy — no sketch to follow or any requirements other than to use a Santa on your card.  I sure hope Santa Paws counts because he is certainly busy up on the wooftop with his little kitty helper.

I laid the card out in Design Studio and used a house from the Cricut Lite cartridge Jolly Holidays for the roof.  The house is over 10″, but I laid it on the mat so that the house part was off the mat and the only part that cut was the roof.  I wanted the roof to fill the entire front of my card, which is 5.5″ square.  The house design I used has Santa’s feet hanging out of the chimney, but I trimmed them off for this card.  I also used the hide contour feature of Design Studio to hide the footprints in the snow that are on this particular house. 

The patterned paper is all from various DCWV paper stacks and the solid white cardstock on the front is Pearls from Core’dinations. 

Santa Paws is cut from Paper Pups.  The cat is from ZooBalloo and his hat is from Jolly Holidays.  I printed the sentiment directly on the Pearls cardstock, leaving an extra space between the words so I could add a small rhinestone.  The strands of lights are from Create a Critter and I glittered the bulbs.  The snow on the roof is from Martha Stewart.  I added bows from 1/8″ ribbon to give a festive look to the lights.

I cut Santa’s sack from Paper Pups and put it on the inside of the card.  The sentiment is a $1 stamp that I got at Michaels. 

• Cricut Design Studio
• Cricut cartridges:  Create a Critter, Jolly Holidays, Paper Pups, Zooballoo
• DCWV — various paper stacks
• Core’dinations Pearl cardstock
• Martha Stewart Snow
• Glitter, rhinestones, rubber stamp — all from Michaels $1 bins
• Ribbon from stash

We went to the “mall” on Easter Sunday to see the Alice in Wonderland movie and as we wandered through the stores, my husband spotted a rubber stamp store and tried to convince me to head the other way.  Figuring out what was going on, I made my way around the corner and spotted it!  Sadly, stamps here are more expensive than in the States (along with many other supplies – especially from USA companies).  I’ve decided to collect unique stamps and supplies while I am living here as they are so different than much of what is available in the States.

Here are a couple photos of my latest purchases here.  I finally got a multi pack of the colored mini stamp pads for shading, but they are certainly much more expensive (nearly $30 for the set).  To give an example of how expensive things can be compared to the US, even with the bulk discount they give here – all this totaled nearly $200 US.

The multi stamp set was over $100 normally and on sale for slightly less.  Normally I would’ve probably passed right by this, but there were some adorable Chinese New Year cards made up with these.  I need to have my husband take the word ones into work and have them translated so we know what we are stamping now!

You can see the heads and bodies are separate so there are some fun things you can do with these stamps.  Much of the designs I saw appeared embossed and the individual small stamps glued onto the cards!  I would’ve taken photos, but no cameras are allowed in the malls here and they are quick to stop you if you try to take photos.

The last picture is three of my favorite ones I got.  The facial expressions and designs on these guys are hilarious – I cannot wait to start making some cards with them!  I have signed up for the Suzanne Dean Copic class and hope to start working on that soon!

-Posted by: Erin