Three Flower Challenge!

Good morning and happy Monday! :) Today I'd like to show you the card I made for this week's challenge here at Made Especially For You - create a card featuring three flowers of any kind.

I'm just in love with this card, which doesn't happen too often since I'm usually really nitpicky about my work, but this card actually almost turned out the way I envisioned it. :) The zebra is cut at 2.5" from the Create a Critter cartridge. Even though it was already a floral card because of the patterened paper and embossing I did with my Cuttlebug, the three flowers I used for the challenge are the two by the zebra and the teeny tiny flower in the zebra's hair. :)

(This card is also being entered into this week's Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge) 

To enter this week's challenge, stop by the Weekly Challenge page and link up your card to the linky gadget at the bottom of the page. There's lots of great inspiration from the design team to get you started! This week's sponsor, 3 Girl Jam, will be providing the winner with a two-piece bundle of crinkle ribbon.

Don't forget about this month's lucky link-up! Throughout the month of April, you have unlimited opportunities to win the Wild Card cartridge being given away by one of our wonderful design team members, Pam from Scrappin Fab Pam. Here are the guidelines for the giveaway:

- You will receive one entry for every card you enter in our weekly challenges (you can enter as many cards as you want for each challenge as long as they each have their own post on your blog)

- You will receive one entry for liking the Made Especially For You Facebook page

- You will receive one entry for every friend you get to link up to one of our challenges (your friend must let us know in their post that they have linked up because of you, otherwise we can't count it)

The winner of the cartridge will be randomly chosen and announced on Monday April 30th.

Sorry this post was so brief! It's about to storm here and I wanted to make sure this got posted just in case the power goes out. Have a great day! :)

Ashley

April Showers Full of Flowers Blog Hop - Day 2

If you're looking for the Rockin' Robin blog hop, click HERE. 

Welcome to My Cricut Craftroom's April Showers Full of Flowers blog hop!

On the first day we will show you a project with the 'April Showers' theme, and on the second day we will either transform our original project into a "Full of Flowers" project, or make a matching item with the "Full of Flowers" theme. 

The lovely Erica's Craftroom is sponsoring this blog hop with a Cricut Mini Machine! Be sure to comment on ALL of the blogs both days to be entered to win the Cricut Mini!

For my project using the 'Full of Flowers' theme, I made this cute and cheery card as a companion to the rainy day card I made for the first day of the hop. Like yesterday's card, I used a combination of 3 Birds on Parade, April Showers, and Create a Critter cartridges.

The bird with the flowers is cut at 2.5" from the 3 Birds on Parade Cartridge. 'Brings May Flowers' is cut at 1.5" from the April Showers cartridge. The sun is from the Create A Critter cartridge, I don't remember the exact size, but probably somewhere around 2" and the flowers were added for spring touch.

You're next stop is Kathy's blog! :)

In case you get lost along the way, here is the entire lineup for you:

Erica - http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/
Claire- http://www.scrapmyway.blogspot.com/
Janet - http://janetscreativeworld.blogspot.com/
Lisa Peters - http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/
Jessica Bashaw - http://thecrafterscottage.blogspot.com/
Doris Parker - http://mybugandmecreate.blogspot.com/
Ashley - http://especiallymade.blogspot.com/
Kathy Jo Page Ritchie - http://skrappindiva.blogspot.com/
Haidee Shableau - http://created2bunique.blogspot.com/

Make sure to come back tomorrow to see my project as well as the projects made by the others in the hop! :)

April Showers Full of Flowers Blog Hop - Day 1

If you're looking for the Rockin' Robin blog hop, click HERE. 

Welcome to My Cricut Craftroom's April Showers Full of Flowers blog hop!

On the first day we will show you a project with the 'April Showers' theme, and on the second day we will either transform our original project into a "Full of Flowers" project, or make a matching item with the "Full of Flowers" theme. 

The lovely Erica's Craftroom is sponsoring this blog hop with a Cricut Mini Machine! Be sure to comment on ALL of the blogs both days to be entered to win the Cricut Mini!

For my project using the 'April Showers' theme, I made this cute and simple rainy day card using a combination of the 3 Birds on Parade, April Showers, and Create a Critter cartridges.

The bird with the umbrella is cut at 3.5" from the 3 Birds on Parade Cartridge. 'April Showers' is cut at 1.5" from the April Showers cartridge. The cloud is from the Create A Critter cartridge, I don't remember the exact size, but probably somewhere around 2" and the buttons on the bottom were added for a raincoat effect.

You're next stop is Kathy's blog! :)

In case you get lost along the way, here is the entire lineup for you:

Erica - http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/
Claire- http://www.scrapmyway.blogspot.com/
Janet - http://janetscreativeworld.blogspot.com/
Lisa Peters - http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/
Jessica Bashaw - http://thecrafterscottage.blogspot.com/
Doris Parker - http://mybugandmecreate.blogspot.com/
Ashley - http://especiallymade.blogspot.com/
Kathy Jo Page Ritchie - http://skrappindiva.blogspot.com/
Haidee Shableau - http://created2bunique.blogspot.com/

Make sure to come back tomorrow to see my project as well as the projects made by the others in the hop! :)

Do You Speak Cricut Saturday - Art Nouveau

Hey Everyone..it's Abby from ScrappinAbby. Today I am doing a Cricut Cartridge review over on the Made Especially For You blog. My hubby bought the Expression for my birthday last November and the Art Nouveau cartridge was one of the carts that came with the machine. Here's what I created using this cart...

This is the Art Nouveau cartridge & the image I used for this tag....

There are so many beautiful designs on this cart that I had a hard time deciding which one I wanted to use for my project..but I decided on the peacock feather..I just love those. I decided on the papers I wanted to use and cut out the images...

The images on the keypad that comes with this cart does a great job of walking you through which key sequences to push to make the different cuts and layers. The booklet also lists the features to use but it's nice to have it on the keypad as well so you aren't always looking for your booklet if you don't have it handy.

When I put the layers together..I only put adhesive down the middle of the purple feather. I wanted the edges to stand up a bit to mimick motion and what a real feather would look like. You could of course run this through a Xyron machine or use a glue pen if you wanted the whole feather to lay flat on your project. 

I really like the detail with this image. I haven't used the feather cut before so I was pretty pleased with how well it turned out. 

The next two photos will give you a better look at the layers with this image...

This is probably my favorite thing about using a Cricut and the many carts out there... I love the layers you can create with the images. I have to admit that I really don't use the alphas that much on my carts... but the letters on the Art Nouveau are just gorgeous... the different fonts are something I haven't seen before. So I just may have to come up with another scrappy project featuring the letters this time.

I've only used the Art Nouveau cartridge a few times but I have to say that I really do love this one. I would say that if you are new at using a Cricut you may not want to use this cart as your first one since there are so many layers and features to get the images you see listed in the booklet..this isn't too discourage you from trying it though. This is a great cart and has lots of beautiful images that you can use on many different types of projects. You do want to be careful when you are removing them from your cutting mat since there is so much detail on the images. I also found that slowing down your speed helps with having nice clean & sharp cuts. Which is important when you have such thin & fine images like the feather.

I hope this Art Nouveau Cart review was informational, helpful & shows you that you can use a fancy pants cart & images on small simple projects such as the tag I shared with you today. I do recommend this cartridge & I'm glad it came with my Expression..I am looking forward to creating more scrappy projects with this.

Thanks so much for letting me share another scrappy creation with you : )

Abby

Products used:

Coredinations CS-Wisteria, Purple Majesty, Sage

Kraft Tag-I tea stained this for the distressed/aged look

Tim Holtz Distress Ink-Frayed Burlap & Dusty Concord

Want 2 Scrap pearls

May Arts Striped Grossgrain ribbon, RG67

Studio112 Summer mini clear stamps 

Rockin' Robin Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Monthly Combined DT Hop hosted by Made Especially For You!

The outstanding talent of the Creative Cutter Room and Made Especially For You have joined together to bring you projects with a Rockin' Robin Theme.

The spotlight goes first to our Grand-Prize Sponsors...

A $25 Gift Certificate to Paper Piecings by Nikki online store.

A $10 Gift Certificate to the NEW Ginger Snap Scraps online store.

3 Birds on Parade Cartridge

 Rules for Grand-Prizes 

1. You MUST comment on every stop of the hop.

2. You will have until Sunday, April 15th to hop & comment.

3. Check Made Especially For You on Tuesday, April 17th to see who Mr. Random Number Generator chooses as winners!

For my project, I used the adorable 3 Birds on Parade cartridge to create this cute little birdie who is literally rockin'. :)

The card itself is 4.5" by 6" and all cuts were cut from the same icon on the 3 Birds on Parade cartridge. I used both of the layer features, the shadow feature, and also the phrase feature. The background paper is from the All Dressed Up DCWV stack (one of my favorites) and the colored cardstock is by Recollections. Sorry about the glare on the bling in the corners, I wanted to give the card a little extra flare. :)

It's time to get hopping! Remember the Grand Prize rules! :)

Ashley – http://especiallymade.blogspot.com <--- YOU ARE HERE

Elaine – http://expressionsbyelaine.blogspot.com <--- NEXT STOP

Jessica – http://www.craftinandstampin.blogspot.com

Gaby –  http://www.gabyspapery.blogspot.com

Tracy –  http://www.owlbecraftin.blogspot.com

Pam –  http://scrappinfabpam.blogspot.com

Tonya – http://ittybittyladybugs.blogspot.com

Georgiana – http://carsonscricutcreations.blogspot.com

Beckie – http://justbcreativecrazy.blogspot.com
Cathie - http://www.creativecutterroom.com/

Thursday Craft 'n Chat - Cricut Cake Carts for Papercrafting

Hey Everyone..welcome back for another Thursday Craft 'n Chat with Made Especially For You. I'm Abby from ScrappinAbby and I'm really excited to share with you some scrappy projects I created using my Cricut Cake cartridge...yup that's right..these carts aren't just for your Cricut Cake machine : )

Along with papercrafting I love to bake & decorate cakes. My hubby bought me the Cricut Cake machine for Christmas one year and I really loved the designs on the Cake carts and wanted to use them on my papercrafts as well. I will put a complete list of the supplies I used at the end of this post.

Here are the two Cricut Cake cartridges I used for my projects to share with you today...

The Cake Basics came with the machine & Santa brought me the Elegant Cakes cartridge ; ) 

The first project I am going to share with you is from the Cake Basics cartridge. Here's the image I used...

I made these simple greeting cards using the flower image I showed you above. This is such an easy way to dress up cards, invitations or announcements, especially if you want your invites to match your party decor & cake or cupcakes when you use the same cartridge on your Cricut Cake machine.

Here's a closer look at the cut images...

Cute huh?

Now for my second project using the Elegant Cakes cartridge. Here's the image I used for this project...

I love how intricate this one is. I decided to make a really cool shabby chic tag...

Ok..I don't mean to sound conceited when I say this but I LOVE how this tag turned out. I sat down last night to work on a project from this cartridge and I had no idea what I was going to make and then this just popped into my head.

Here's a closer look at the detail from this cut....

This image looks great on cakes & I really love how it looks when you use paper.

The Cricut Cake carts are interchangeable with your Cricut paper machines so it makes it really easy to use these for papercrafing & it opens up so many more options for your scrappy projects. You use these carts the same way you do your regular cartridges so that part is easy...the hard part is deciding which image you want to use since there are so many to choose from : )

If you have access to a Cricut Cake cartridge or if you see one online for sale or even if you know someone who has one you can borrow..I would encourage you to give it a try. Be sure to try out the border patterns as well..they work great for page layouts and banners.

Thanks for letting me share my projects using my Cricut Cake cartridges...hopefully I have encouraged you to reach out and try these for your papercrafting projects.

Happy Scrappin!

Abby

http://scrappin-abby.blogspot.com/

Products used:

Cake Basics Cartridge project-

Coredinations CS

White CS

Want 2 Scrap Pearls

Colorbox Rouge

Elegant Cakes project-

DCWV Coral Couture & Cardstock Stacks

Kraft Tag-I tea stained this

Stampin Up sentiment

Really Reasonable Ribbon-March Club assortment

Vintage lace

Maya Road floral stick pins

Tim Holtz Idea-ology staple

Tim Holtz Distress Ink-Walnut Stain

Colorbox-Prussian Blue

The Girls Paperie-floral brad