A Fun Father's Day Card

Hi, crafting friends! Grace Baxter here of Grace Notes for Today and I'm excited to share my June card for the Sassy Lady's blog. This one is especially for the dads out there.

In planning a card for a young dad (my son), I thought about his favourite sports. Golfing is one that he really enjoys.  

The card started out looking proper and dignified with its gray pinstripe base. And while it's sharp, I knew I couldn't let it get stuffy. That isn't my Son, so ... to make it youthful, I designed a frame from golf ball paper in the shape that resembles a truck tire. I've had this paper for years, expecting to use it for scrapbooking which never happened. Can anyone relate? LOL!

The Front

As usual (being a stickler for detail) I wanted the golf ball, tee and grass to look REAL! As it turns out, the grass looks as though it is growing right through the centre of that ring of balls.

Ball on tee:  The golf ball cut already had the markings for the bumps and divets. Love that.

Tee in the grass:  To make the tee sit IN the grass and not appear to be stuck in front of it, I cut an extra layer of grass and snipped it to look real.

TEE-rific sentiment:  Prepared this on the computer, framed with a grass green CS. I like a little hardware on men's cards, so I attached the sentiment frame with metal eyelets and twine. The back is also popped with dimensionals. In fact, the entire white frame is popped!

Inside

For the verse inside, I wrote a poem that uses a play on words having to do with golfing. "Punny" or what!

I printed the verse onto white cardstock, punched the corners, and inked all the edges in pale green first, then gray over top (narrower).

I really like this technique for added dimension. Another frame of grass behind ties it all together.

Cartridges Used

Elegant Edges - golf ball frame Everyday Paper Dolls - tee, golf ball and flag.

I'm sure I've hit a hole-in-one with this card for my Son. (Hee-hee, couldn't resist.)

What do you think?

I'd love for you to drop by my blog at

Grace Notes for Today.

Take a look around and say 'hello' in a comment while you're there.

Gyspy Made Simple - Challenged By The Sassy Dude To Duplicate This Awesome Shape Card

Well, I sure hope you are having a good day and are ready to tackle a BIG project! Bobby Hardgraves of The Cricut Couple designed an adorable little Scarecrow card and emailed me and said 'it would make a GREAT Gypsy Made Simple project Sheila'! Well I took on the challenge and let me tell you even with all the information that Bobby provided, this is not a simple project. But, don't worry I am sharing my file with you so even if you get lost trying to duplicate you have the actual file to fall back on so you can make a card! I warn you this is a LONG post with lots of videos, 4 to be exact. Trust me this will be the hardest project of the summer! So let's get to work. Grab a large cup of coffee and turn those Gypsy's on on lets get right to work.

Position all your pieces as shown on Bobby's photo.

 I followed Bobby's instructions to the letter as follows:
To start with, you have to cut shapes that are going to be the layers you add on the front of the card. The following are the cuts you will need.

The hat is from Paper Dolls for Everyday. Cut 2 at a height of 8.50 (this is an accessory layer, so you really have to blow it up big). You will need one for the hat (denim paper) and one for the hat ribbon (leather look paper). For the hat ribbon, cut the hat and then use a craft knife or scissors to remove this piece from the overall cut.
The circle is from CTMH AP and cut at a height of 4.00. I used cream colored card stock.
The bandanna is from Old West and cut at a height of 4.30. I used bandanna card stock.
The hay is from Pop Up Neighborhood. This is a circle exclusive cart, so if you don't have it, there is a grassy type piece on Pooh and Friends that would work too. For the P.U.N. cuts, you need two at a height of 3.90 and one at a height of 4.60. These are cut from a golden card stock (dark yellow).
Note the photos are of Bobby's Gypsy also.

After I had that done then it was time to get different parts in the right position. Add a layer with your Gypsy and copy one of all shapes over to the next page. Then you need to contour out the inner cuts on the bandanna and hat. Place them all together and then weld them. Please follow along in this video as it will be easier to understand.
It will look like this when completed:

Bobby did such a good job of explaining this on his Gypsy that I am using his photos.

Now let's start putting all our piece together.... You will see very quickly that there is a lot of prep work. All edges need to be inked, the flower needs to be coloring and cut out, the face made and the straw colored to look like straw. You will see that I am in trouble here and don't know it yet.

This is where I discover I am in trouble and go back to the drawing board.

Fortunately my Gypsy was right there and I was able to make a few adjustments to the base of the card.  See how high that hat sits on his little head. Everything else is perfect but I just didn't like that look. Yes I will still use the card, but I just can't leave this design as is. It is not perfect here and I don't feel like I lived up to the challenge unless it was just right.

In no time at all I had it re-cut and re-prepped. I think I am finally ready to put this card together and I know it is perfect this time and can't wait to share my card with you.

 

Here area few close-ups of the card. I colored using my copic markers and really enjoyed that. I have to admit making the little face terrified me.... I just copied Bobby's and it worked.

Now isn't he handsome? I just love this little card. I don't think I will give him away though... I worked too hard to let him go! teehee  You know I say that but he will be going to someone I love I am sure.

 This is a close up of his little face. I love the freckles.

Bobby's Card is on the left, mine on the right.

And the card in all it's glory. Now here is the challenge this week... I challenge you to make your own Scarecrow card! I would like you to try to make it on you own but HERE is the file if you need it. (NOTE THE FIRST FILE I DID WAS EMPTY, AFTER UPDATING MY GYPSY THIS FILE WORKS, SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE!) I will be giving away this adorable little stamp set to 2 lucky winners chose by Random.org. All you need to do is link your card by Friday 4PM on the 15th and the winner will be announced Saturday morning. I hope we see many many scarecrows.
I hope you enjoyed today's post, I know it was a challenge for me to complete and I am thrilled to be able to share it with you.
Thanks for your sweet sweet words of encouragement and please give a few wonderful words to Bobby too, our very own Sassy Dude from the Cricut Couple. Your comments inspire me to continue sharing with you. Have a blessed week and let's see those scarecrows.

Sassy Dude... Create your own shape card...

Hey Ya'll,

Sassy Dude here from Cricut Couple.  Today, I had really great intentions, but for some reason, I can't get a correct answer from Provocraft on how to be able to update my machines or pull files from my Gypsy, so let's do a little lesson in welding, since I can't share the simple file with you.  Hee! Hee!  This is a really fun scarecrow card that I created with the Gypsy and it's actually really simple.  The hard part is having a design in your head and knowing your cartridge library enough to find shapes to pull it off.  Hee! Hee!  Fortunately, I kind of knew what I needed.  The hardest part was finding the hat.

 Here is what the finished card looks like from the front.

 I used these four cartridges for the card and all shapes.

 To start with, you have to cut shapes that are going to be the layers you add on the front of the card.  The following are the cuts you will need.

The hat is from Paper Dolls for Everyday.  Cut 2 at a height of 8.50 (this is an accessory layer, so you really have to blow it up big).  You will need one for the hat (denim paper) and one for the hat ribbon (leather look paper).  For the hat ribbon, cut the hat and then use a craft knife or scissors to remove this piece from the overall cut.

The circle is from CTMH AP and cut at a height of 4.00.  I used cream colored card stock.

The bandana is from Old West and cut at a height of 4.30.  I used bandana card stock.

The hay is from Pop Up Neighborhood.  This is a circle exclusive cart, so if you don't have it, there is a grassy type piece on Pooh and Friends that would work too.  For the P.U.N. cuts, you need two at a height of 3.90 and one at a height of 4.60.  These are cut from a golden card stock (dark yellow).

 Add a layer with your Gypsy and copy one of all shapes over to the next page.  Then you need to contour out the inner cuts on the bandana and hat.  Place them all together and then weld them.

 This is what the welded piece looks like.  Basically, this is giving you, not only the shape of the card, but also giving you a base layer for assembling your card.

 Finally, add a 3rd layer to your Gypsy file and pick a card base to use for your inside sentiment.  For this one, I used Close to my Heart Art Philosophy for this oval card shape.  You can use it as the file is, but I like to contour the score cuts out and score with a bone folder.

 You can see here how the card will open up.  You can also add to the Gypsy file and cut an extra oval, slightly smaller, out of he cream card stock for a sentiment mat.

 I inked everything for this with cocoa ink.  I also used colored pencils to give the hay a little more color and detail.  For the face of the scarecrow, I hand did the face with black sharpie.  I then used markers for the nose and freckles.  I also used a little tomato colored chalk to add a little blush.  I used the beautiful May 2012 CTMH Stamp of the Month set for the sunflower.  I simply stamped it with black archival ink and then colored it in with my colored pencils.  You can see in this angled picture how I used liquid glass on the eyes and center of the sunflower.

So... Looking straight on, this is the finished project.  I really love the way he turned out and had so much fun seeing the original thought come together.  I have to admit, I am pretty proud of this one.  Hee! Hee!  I hope you all will fire up that Gypsy and play with some shape card ideas.  This really does sound complicated, but the entire card took about 15 minutes to layout on the gypsy, probably 15 minutes to cut and about 15 to assemble.  I think I am going to make several of these this fall.

The finished card is pretty large, so if you like smaller cards, you will probably want to lay everything out with the measurements provided first to get the feel of it and then shrink things down a little bit to get the size that you want.

Again, I am so sorry that I don't have a gypsy file to share with you.  If I can get these machines to start getting along again, I will repost and share the file.  I will also e-mail it to Sheila so that she has a copy to share with you too.

So... think about something fun where you can really manipulate other shapes into a fun design!  It's really worth the work and lots and lots of fun!  I would love to know what you think about this card today and thanks so much for my friend Sheila for letting me play over in Sassy Land today!  If you have time, we would love for you to hop over to our blog for a visit!  Cricut Couple Blog

Father's Day Cards

This year I made a very simple design for some of the men in my life. This is the year that I decided I am no longer buying any cards so I have really been busy making my cards. I am finding it is very difficult to do when you have a full time job away from the home along with the full time job of keeping a home to find the time to keep up. Because of that I am finding that my cards are becoming... shall I say... less ornate!!! LOL

I have 1 son, 2 son in laws, a father and my hubby to make cards for. I still need to make one for hubby but kept it simple for the other four.

I started with this yummy paper stack called the Guys Stack from DCWV. All it took was four sheets of paper and it made 4 5x5 cards with a few strips left over that I can use on another card!

I cut all the pieces and scored each of the cards.

I inked the edges of all the pieces.

I cut the twine to the right length for all four cards and got ready to assemble the cards. I really felt like I had an assembly line going.

I then glued the Sentiment onto the inside of each card as it would allow enough drying time. This glue has a wonderful dauber on one end and it makes it easy to apply. I then assembled the rest of the card.

This is the inside of the card. Wow what an intricate cut! It is from Wrap It Up.

Such a wonderfully simple card that is just perfect for the manly men in our family. All love to boat and fish so I used a boat on the front as last year I used a fish and wanted a different look with their love of all to do with boating and fishing.

Well all done and not to bad on the time either. I started at 8 am and picked out paper, cut, inked and assembled all 4 cards by 9:30 am. Not too shabby! It really makes you feel good when they are done! Now all I have to do is come up with one for my handsome hubby.... maybe I will just take him out to dinner! LOL

I sure hope you like today's post. Thank you for your sweet sweet words of encouragement. Your comments continue to inspire me.

Big Boy Aiden

Well hello, Sheila here from Shes A Sassy Lady and it seems like such a long time since I was here at Tuesday Treats. It's just been a busy, busy month, imagine that! You know we all lead such busy lives that it feels so good to just close the door and let your imagination go crazy and just have fun with a layout. So once again I didn't follow Pam's guide lines and went outside of the box. You see, I was just in Chicago for my little Carissa's 6th birthday and in the midst of the party and all the goings on was our little1 year old Aiden. He was so happy and ever so busy with his little toys that I just had to do this page - his way. I didn't know what I was going to do until Friday came along and the wonderful ladies at Stuck On U Sketches challenged us with this wonderful sketch... and once again I was out side the box. You see flowers, I see toys.

After designing the page on My Gypsy Woman I went hunting for just the right papers. I choose My Minds Eye, Twinkle Twinkle little boys stack and I love the sparkle it added. I then got out the scrap box and just used scraps for the toys.

Here is a close up of the background paper. The little brown squares made it possible for me to sent the rhinestones on this pastle paper.

I then turned to all the little toys and got them ready. First I chalked.

Then I inked and put together.

Until I had all my little toys together. I didn't get complex on the little toys becasue they weren't complex, they were just simple little plain line toys for a 1 year old boy.

I then added my rhinestones.

And placed my little toys around the photos.

After I had the toys on I used the glossy accents on the tires of the truck as I couldn't handle and postion while wet so I waited until it was all together.

Isn't that just too cool? Aiden't little world is one filled with joy and imagination and wonder. What a great place to visit.

This is a close up with all the little toys.

And the completed page. How much fun is that? See sometimes you just got to go the fun route. I would like to add that this sketch is perfect for Home Decor, Home Accents and Accent Essentials, but the toys were a better choice for my little Aiden. I sure hope you enjoyed today's project.

Thank you for your sweet words of incouragement, as they continue to inspire me to keep sharing with you.