Friendship Garden's First Challenge: New Beginnings

YOU'RE LEAVING
BUT I'LL ALWAYS BE JUST A PHONE CALL AWAY

Happy Wednesday!  Welcome to my first post as a Garden Girl for Friendship Garden's Challenge Blog.  You should have came directly from there.  If not, please go back and start there in order to be eligible to win.   The grand prize is a $20 gift certificate to Designs on Cloud 9.  Please check out their site for some wonderful cut files and digi stamps!  There is also a $10 prize from our ongoing sponsor, Altered Angel. We are so thankful to have such wonderful sponsors!  Instructions on how to enter (earn up to FIVE entries!!!) are at the bottom of this post.  Now, on to my first Garden Girl project:

I wanted to take a somewhat different approach to the challenge.  Sometimes, my brain just looks at things differently.  LOL  I've had a lot of "new beginnings", and I know they sometimes mean separating from or leaving close friends or family.  Sometimes, it's us leaving to start a new chapter in our lives.  Other times, it's people close to us that move on.  It could be one of our kids going off to college, a co-worker moving on to a new job opportunity, or a friend moving away.  There are a number of  "new beginnings" one might experience in life.

Often, these events bring not just excitement but also a little sadness.  My goal with this card was to convey not only the emotion one feels when someone leaves us to embark on a new journey, but also the PEACE that comes with knowing that a simple phone call can bridge the distance!

The cute phone print paper is by My Mind's Eye (Call Me) and goes perfectly with the theme of my card!  Given the message of this card, I wanted to be sure to keep the colors bright and fun as I didn't want the overall mood of the card being too heavy (sad).  Having a window is one of the requirements for our first challenge, so I used Make-the-Cut to do that for me.

I also used MTC to cut out the woman symbol.  I almost always have some sort of dimensional element on my cards.  I like to sometimes cut images twice and pop-dot one on the other.  You can see that in the third picture above (side view).

I hand-cut the little heart into two pieces, symbolizing the sadness one might feel in a situation like this.  It's difficult to see in the photo, but I used one of my favorite things on the heart:  Glossy Accents.  The pink, felt hearts were cut from a Sizzix Sizzlits die.  I then tied some pretty twine from The Twinery around the hearts.  The sentiment was done with a word processing program using a typewriter style font.  I love the versatility of using my own fonts to create sentiments!

I hope you enjoyed viewing my first project as a Garden Girl for Friendship's Garden.  Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you take the time to enter our first challenge for a chance to win!   There are several ways to earn an entry with up to FIVE possible entries.

1)  Visit each of the DT members' blogs and then return to Friendship's Garden Challenge Blog and comment, letting us know you visited each DT member!

2)  Visit both Designs on Cloud 9 and Altered Angel .  When you comment on the Friendship's Garden blog, leave a second comment, letting us know you visited both sponsors and earn a second entry.

3)  Like our page on FACEBOOK and comment on our blog to let us know you are a new follower.  If you are already a follower, let us know you already follow us.

4)  Become a follower of the Friendship's Garden Challenge Blog.  Leave another comment telling us you are now a follower and get a fourth entry.  If you already follow our blog, just let us know you already are!

5)  For a fifth entry, submit a project in our first challenge!

As you can see, it's easy to get at least several entries to win! How easy is that?!?! YAYYY!!!  Thanks again for visiting.  Please hop on over to Ciska's blog next to see what she created for this challenge!  ALOHA!

Super Mario Mushrooms!!!

Hi, everyone!  As I mentioned previously, my baby turned one this past Saturday, and we threw a birthday party for her.  We went with a superhero theme.  I'll be posting tons of pics later, but for now, I wanted to share some felt mushrooms I made for my nephew to put on his cape for the party.  

My nephew is almost three years old and loves Super Mario!  While Super Mario isn't exactly a superhero, I knew that my nephew would love to decorate his cape with something from the videogame.  While searching the internet for a digital cut file, I came across this Super Mario Mushroom SVG file.  I used the MTC software and a cut file I downloaded here.  

I first cut a mushroom with my Cricut and then traced the images on felt to be handcut after.  If you look closely, each mushroom consists of only two pieces.  The base was pretty easy to cut.  The top piece wasn't so bad.  If I remember correctly, these mushrooms are about 3 inches high.  For the eyes, instead of cutting and gluing those small pieces, I used the negative as a stencil and colored in the eyes with a black Sharpie pen.  Easy peasy!  My nephew lined up all five mushrooms -- or "toads" as he called them -- at the bottom of his cape.  It was so cute, and I wish I had taken a picture! Darn!  He did LOVE his cape, though!!!

Anyway, if you have a son or daughter that is in to Super Mario, he or she will probably love these.  I'm thinking of even using them on cards.  They are just too cute!  Thanks for looking and have a great Friday!

Baby Shower Card and Diaper Cake

Hello, Friends! Hope you are all enjoying the weekend. I had a nice Saturday with friends. We threw a surprise baby shower for a girlfriend expecting her second baby. I was excited because most of my friends are done having kids, and I didn't think I'd have an opportunity to help plan one for a long time.

The first thing I want to share is the card that I made for my girlfriend. I used the Kate's Silhouettes set from svgcuts.com. I love how girly the images in this set are! The color scheme we went with for the shower was brown and pink, so I chose to use some pink patterned paper for the woman's dress. I really wanted to coordinate the diaper cake and the card. The background paper on the card is by Imaginesce. When I first saw it, I knew immediately that it was the paper I wanted to use for the card and diaper cake.



This is a close-up of the cake topper. I used a cut file from Lettering Delights to cut the flower. I used the Elliot the Elephant freebie cut file from svgcuts.com. I thought Elliot was the perfect choice since the patterned paper I used included images of an elephant. I really did want to add more to this diaper cake such as flowers on the sides of the cake, and maybe some baby blocks behind the elephant on top of the cake. Unfortunately, I just didn't have enough time. :(



Here is another picture of the top layer of the diaper cake. I really like the spiral type of diaper cake vs. the type where you roll each diaper and secure with a rubber band. This version is way quicker!



Full view of the diaper cake



This is a cake bunting that I made for the baby shower cake. All images were cut with my Cricut using MTC and cut files from Lettering Delights. The hearts on the onesies were from the MTC software. I have to say that I really dislike how the Cricut fails miserably at cutting intricate items. The hearts were crooked! :(
Other than that, the bunting was pretty easy to put together. The trickiest part was securing the twine to the skewers.

At the start of the party, I actually put the cake bunting on the top layer of the diaper cake. Later, I put it on the actual baby shower cake. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that.

I enjoyed creating these items for the baby shower. I highly recommend using the same patterned papers for everything in as much as possible. It's just nice to see everything all tied in together. I'm happy to say that I got a lot of nice compliments on everything.

Well, I hope you all have a fun and safe Fourth of July weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Superhero Father's Day Card

Hi, Bloggers! Hope you all had a nice weekend. Father's Day Sunday was pretty low-key because it was a work day for my boyfriend. We did have pancakes from the Koa Pancake House at his request, though. He is off Tuesday, so we are going to have a nice family dinner in town. Looking forward to it! For his gift, I surprised him with a tabletop gas grill that he wanted. I also made a Superhero Father's Day card for him.

My boyfriend likes Batman, but I didn't have a Batman SVG or the Batman cartridge. I decided to do things a little "old school" and downloaded a superhero image that I thought was perfect for the card. It's an image of the Batman and Superman logos merged together. I typed and printed the wording on the front which says "Daddy, you may not be Superman or Batman".

The inside of the card continues with "But you're still MY HERO". I included a picture of my boyfriend with our daughter printed on cardstock. I wish I had printed it on photo paper, but I didn't have time to go hunting through my boxes for some. =(

I used a white gel pen on the "MY HERO" diecut and also added some sheer ribbon to the front of the card with some red ribbon with stars on it that I had been dying to use. I'm always my own worst critic, so I always feel that there's room for improvement. But overall, I was satisifed with how the card came out. If you're interested in the "MY HERO" SVG file, here is where I got it from: http://bgladpapercrafts.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-hero.html (sorry, links aren't working properly here right now). I used MTC and my Cricut to cut the image. Thanks for visiting. Have a happy Monday!

Another Graduation Card

Happy Monday, Bloggers! Hope you all had a good weekend. I was able to do a little shopping for some craft goodies, but I didn't have a chance to tackle my craft room and organize everything. I REALLY need to finally get rid of some of the old stuff I have -- stuff that I know I will never use like some of the really old Making Memories embellishments and some of the older lines of paper from miscellaneous manufacturers. I PROMISED myself I'd make a huge dent this week. No more putting it off. Wish me luck! :)

Today, I want to share another graduation card I made. Not sure why the picture looks blurry when it is clear on my computer when I view it before uploading? Oh, well ... This card was really diffcult for me to put together because it's for a guy. I really struggle when it comes to designing things for men because I can't really do cutesie or blingy -- two of my most favorite things!

I decided to work with red and white which are the school colors. The star pp is a Prom-themed pp from Reminisce. I didn't have any Prom pictures to scrap, but I liked the stars and knew I could use them on something eventually since stars are so versatile. I used MTC to design and cut '2011'. The graduation cap was an svg file I got as a free download. I will have to look that up and post that later tonight or tomorrow. The twine is from Etsy. The saying at the top of the card is the school motto which I printed out and finished off with some red brads. Thanks for looking!

Mini Hand Sanitizer Holder Party Favors (inspired by "Despicable Me")

Do you ever feel like you have a million things to do? It seems that I always feel that way! I always seem to have several half-done projects laying around. Well, one project I needed to finish this week was a set of party favors for a birthday party my older daughter is going to on Saturday. It's for one of her good friends at school who happens to love the movie "Despicable Me". I was inspired by the Minions when choosing the colors for the favors. I used yellow, gray, and blue. I added a girlish touch by including some pink also.

Hawaii FINALLY has a Bath & Body Works store (YAYYYY!!!!), so I thought this would be a great party favor. So did my daughter's friend. I first saw this idea on Dawn's Stamping Thoughts I tend to be a bit anal as far as how I want things, so I did alter the measurements a little. In the video, she uses an oval punch for the opening, but I didn't have one. Because of that and because I also wanted an easier way to cut the holder, I created a simple digital cut file using MTC.

Here is an up-close view of the two different color combos. I used a rhinestone on each for a little touch of bling and also to resemble the snap on a purse flap.

Here is a view of the holder when opened. The front flap is held closed with velcro.

Here is a side view showing how the hand gel sits inside. You can also see that I used pop dots for the blue heart to add dimension.

I like how these turned out, but I am glad I can cross another project off my list. This weekend, I have a few cards to work on. Just hope I can finish them! Thanks for looking!

Cricut Hello Kitty Graduation Card

Happy Tuesday everyone! Last night, I was determined to finish this card and refused to go to bed until it was done. Sometimes, I get so focused on a project that I can't stop and lose all track of time. I'm so glad this one is finished though, as I have a lot of other projects to work on this week.

I'm happy to say that I finally found a good spot to take my pictures. At least, I think the lighting is better than before. I really need to get a new battery for my DRebel, though! Oh, how I miss taking pictures with that camera! For now, I'm relying on my Samsung p & s camera. It will have to do for now.

On to today's share. This is a graduation card I made for a relative. She's graduating from Moanalua High School, so I designed the card with the school colors in mind. This was one of those projects that turned out completely different from what I originally envisioned. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though, as a lot of my projects seem to take that route! It took me a while to play around with the different color combinations and placement. I tend to keep fiddling with the different design elements until I finally feel it's good enough. I'm sure a lot of you can relate!

Hello Kitty was cut from the Cricut Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge. I really LOVE that cartridge. I mean, who doesn't love Hello Kitty, right??? I used red Doodlebug pp for her bow and then went over with Glossy Accents. The 'congrats' sentiment is from a Hero Arts set. I used MTC to design and cut '2011'. I used a varsity letter type font which I downloaded off the internet. It just seemed so appropriate given the theme of the card. The silver pp behind it was embossed with the D Vine Swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder. Ribbon by Offray, twine from Etsy, and heart charm from The Charming Place.

I'm working on a sympathy card next and then some party favors. I also have two birthday cards to work on. Hopefully, I'll be back tonight with another project to share. Thanks for looking!