2nd Butterfly ATC

This is the ATC for my butterfly group B on the cricut MB. I did the butterflies like I did the chili peppers on the christmas card below. But this time the colors I used were raspberry, pool, stream, and wild plum. Each ATC is unique but the same, but I didn't want to show all of them so here is an example. You can't really tell from the picture but these are really like a mini framed picture. There is the butterflies on acetate and framing the acetate is light pink and dark purple cardstock. I used foam dimensional adhesive to give the appearance of a true frame. I thought they needed something more so I added colored and shaped rhinesones. 2 diagonal corners have 3 different flower rhinestones in matching shades, I varied the color on the ATCS, this was is lavendar and clear. Then to tie the rhinestones with the butterflies I added two mini rhinestone butterflies, again the colors are varied on the ATCs but in the example they are pink and blue. The background cardstock behind the acetate is a soft raspberry pink. Hope you guys like this, it took me a lot of work to make the frames. I used my gypsy but I'm still not very good with it, although I've had it for a while. I used gypsy wanderings and just used a basic postage stamp cut and put in a rectangle in the center to produce the frame, it was an interesting experiment! Oh, and by the way I've decided to call this ATC "Kaleidoscope Butterflies"!

Wildlife ATC

This ATC is for the wildlife group in my cricut MB ATC swap. I love owls and knew right away that I wanted to do an owl for my wildlife ATC. This pic is one I found browsing the internet, I couldn't believe how gorgeous he looked! I layered the pic on light yellow cardstock which is then layered onto dark brown cardstock. I have these beautiful leaf shaped yellow rhinestones and adhered one to the top middle. Then there are 2 buttons on top, adhered and covered the middles with Ranger's Glossy Accents. I then poured copper microbeads onto the buttons. If you look closely, especially when its right in front of you, there are actually 2 owls on the ATC. The owl in the pic and the owl I inadverently made with the buttons and leaf rhinestone (yes, you do have to use your imagination!). I've titled this ATC "Silent Sentry". For me, titling is an important part of the process and it actually took me a long time to come up with one I liked!

LSS Card Swap

Ok,so for this card swap we had to make 6 cards any size, any style but they had to have a vellum or acetate overlay. I like vellum don't get me wrong but it can be a pain to work with so I went with acetate. I've had this set of stamps from Deadbeat Designs since last year and have never used them, they are some I bought to make Christmas cards with this year.

The first stamp is a chili pepper bunch with a bow. I stamped the peppers onto acetate with black Stazon. Then I flipped the acetate over and used Ranger alcohol inks to color it in. I'm don't have a lot of experience using alcohol inks on acetate, I couldn't keep the colors from blending into one shade but it still looks pretty. I used Red pepper, butterscotch, terra cota, eggplant and cranberry on the peppers. I used meadow, lettuce and bottle on the bow.

I then cut out some corners using my corner punch, it cuts 2 differnt types of corners per punch. Cut them out in 2 different but coordinating shades of green and applied the layered corners with a red brad to opposite corners. Not only did the corners "spice" up the card but it helped me anchor the acetate to the craft paper. I then stamped the greeting stamp that goes with the pepper stamp, "Seasoned Greetings" on the inside. The inside of the card is a soft tan color.

I know its too soon for Christmas cards but I've really been wanting to use these stamps and this card swap seemed like a good way to start! I'll post the cards I receive when I get them back.

Butterfly ATC

This is the ATC for group 1A of my animal/insect themed ATC swap on the cricut MB. I call it "Primary Butterfly" and if you know anything about color theory you should be able to figure out why!

I adhered a blue butterfly from the floral dept onto a 5 layer red flower (cut from Accent Essentials cartridge)with yellow flowersoft in the middle. The grass is from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge. Everything is layered onto a bright yellow background, which is then layered onto black. This was a lot of fun to create and I've already started designing the butterfly ATC for group 1B!

Cricut MB Tag Swap

Well, I've finished my tags for the tag swap on the cricut MB. I signed up for 2 christmas and 1 vintage spot. The first image is the vintage, I took a page from a dictionary, inked around the edges with vintage linen from Tim Holtz's Distress inks and adhered it to thin chipboard. Then I stamped the dress form onto cream colored cardstock and cut out the image and adhered it to the dictionary page with foam dots. I then added metal corners (they are antique brass and have a vintage look) and adhered the whole thing to a shipping tag from Office Depot.

The second image is for my Christmas 1 group. I sprayed then entire tag with Olive Green Glimmer Mist from Tattered Angels and then used their winter trees glimmer screen and sprayed the entire tag again with Candy Apple Red. To help emphasize the tree shape I then traced around it with gold stickles.

The last image is for my second Christmas group. For this I sprayed the entire tag with Electric Blue Smooch Spritz. I then cut out some snowflakes on my cricut from Graphically Speaking. Each snowflake was then covered in silver stickles. Once the stickles dried I applied Ranger Glossy Accents and then adhered them to the tag. Hopefully everyone likes them, these were either completely new or almost new techniques that I used!