I hope everyone has had a chance to stop by the Official Cricut Blog and checked out the Cricut Craft Room and Cricut Mini this week!  I have been crafting away with it and it is wonderful to work with! There are so many cool things going on in Cricut land!  Seriously cool!!!  If you want you can check out more, see my post below.

Now on to today's share!  This project is also up on the Bo Bunny blog as we feature Father Christmas today.  I love the vintage feel of this collection and found it perfect to create a little Christmas decor project.


INSPIRATION: Wooden Spool Tree


WHY: This first project was inspired by a spool tree I saw in a recent issue of Paper Crafts Holiday Cards.  I knew I wanted to create one the moment I saw it, but I wanted mine to be a bit different.  I wanted to dress it up a bit more. Ornaments!  It needed ornaments and the Bo Bunny Trinkets were the perfect fit!  And so from this my Father Christmas Spool Tree was born.




I found the wooden spools and flower pot at Ben Franklin Crafts. And I found the dowel rods for the branches, the 1" wood strip for the trunk and the 5" round piece for the base at Hobby Lobby.




I created the tree and the branches and placed them in the pot before realizing that it was going to be too heavy to stand alone.  DH came to the rescue by suggesting that I attach it to a round wooden piece.  He then used some wood screws and counter sunk them so that it would be flat on the bottom.  It worked perfectly!




I covered each spool with patterned paper from the Father Christmas 6x6 paper pad.  Once everything was assembled, I hot glued the Trinkets to the front of the spools and embellished them a bit more with some jewels.


After I put it all together, and took the photos, I kind of think that I should have painted the spools a dark green.  What do you think? I just may end up painting them anyway...but very carefully! LOL!
Thank you for your visit!

Have you heard the news?  The Cricut Mini is here!!!  The Cricut Mini is here!!!
It debuted on HSN today!  Hopefully you had time to check it out and add it to your Christmas gift list!  LOL!!!  The Mini works in conjunction with the Cricut Craft Room and will seriously open up a whole new crafting experience for all levels of crafters!!!

I was lucky enough to get to work with it and the exclusive cartridge included with the HSN bundle called Cricut Font & Basic Shapes!  It has a wonderful font that comes in both a regular and stretch version, wonderful titles and a huge array of funky and geometric shapes.  I promise you that you are sure to find something that you can create with for just about any type of project on this cartridge!  Here is a layout and a card that I created using it that were shared earlier today on the Cricut Blog.  Make sure you stop by the Cricut Blog to check out some gorgeous 3D ornaments created by Jana Eubank using the Cricut Craft Room exclusive cartridge called 3D Ornaments.

Now look closely!  Yes, the Cricut Mini even cuts felt.  The felt I used is called Friendly Felt and is stiffened and even more cool...it is glittered!!!  I used masking tape to hold the it in place around the edge and it cut like a dream through the felt!









I hope you enjoyed seeing these projects and thanks for stopping by!

There are so many fabulous new things going on in the Cricut world that have gotten me super excited and I wanted to share the news with you!


First of all the Cricut Craft Room is live!  Have you checked it out yet?  I am loving being able to create with all the fabulous features! Here is a brief run down of what it has in store for you!

CRICUT CRAFT ROOM FEATURES:

• Free to use
• Access online from anywhere, anytime 
• Easy-to-use program 
• Design on a big screen 
• View and design with all Cricut cartridges
• Search to easily find the right image 
• Digitally store all your cartridges and projects
• Windows and Mac-compatible 
• Explore exclusive online content
• Works with all Cricut Machines

You can learn even more about this fantastic new online design tool HERE!  And you can see some awesome projects created by Jana Eubank on the Cricut Blog using the FREE online cartridge called Cricut Craft Room Basics.

The next bit of information I have to share with you is about a brand new creative machine from Provo Craft, called the Cricut Mini!


Provo Craft will be demonstrating all of the great features and the fun of owning your own Cricut Mini.
Make sure you join them on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/OfficialCricut) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/OfficialCricut) during the HSN airings for inspiration and giveaways! Use #CricutMini on Twitter to get in on all the fun!

Make sure you take some time to check it out on the HSN.  Until then, you can find out more HERE!

I hope you all are as excited about all the wonderful new happenings as I am and I can't wait to see what you all create with them!

I can't believe it, I am still getting it done!  Blogging at least once a week that is, and giving you all a little share of things.  I was not so sure about getting this one put together in time, but thanks to some help from my DH, I made it!!!  He took all the photos you will see in the video below!  Thank you baby cakes!!!


INSPIRATION: a card sketch (from the Bo Bunny blog and created by the super talented Gabi!)
WHY:  Sketches are always inspiring to me.  In fact,  I almost always use a sketch.  I usually draw one for every layout or card I make.  It just helps me figure out where I want things to go before I start cutting and gluing.

I had fun playing with this sketch and mixing up two different collections by Bo Bunny...Welcome Home and Enchanted.  I added some brown ink to the black and white pattern of the Enchanted paper to allow it to fit right in the with the Welcome Home color palette.  Besides sharing this great sketch, I also wanted to share how I created the flower on my card.  I used my Cricut and the Flower Shoppe cartridge to create it.  If you want to see how I made my flower, please check out the video below.  And if you have any questions, just ask!


I used a bunch of photos and created a slide show/movie.  Maybe some day I will have a way to make a real video!  Hope you enjoy and please feel free to leave me some feedback on what you think of it. I am still trying to figure out the best way to do these!




  Thanks for stopping by!HAPPY HUGS!
Juliana

Just wanted to share that my first sketch for Creative Scrappers is live!  YAY!!!  I was inspired to create this sketch after seeing so many chevrons and zigzags everywhere! I wasn't able to play along myself this time, but I am hoping to do so in the future!


Now go check out what the fabulous CS designers did with it!  I am positive that you will be blown away!  Creative Scrappers has a monthly prize giveaway.  This month the sponsor is C'est Magnifique! All you have to do is play along with one sketch (#180-181-182-183-184) for a chance to win a prize from them!  Have fun and I hope you enjoy the sketch!!!

Today is a bit of a double dipper, but it "WORKS" out well!  The layout I have to share with you is also being featured over on the Bo Bunny blog as well. We have a blog hop going on with Scor-Pal!  This week, on the Bo Bunny and Scor-Pal blogs, we have been featuring creations using these products together and it has been a great match.  Make sure you stop by each blog (starting November 1st  through the 4th) for a chance to win some awesome prizes!!!  And lucky me, Scor-Pal was awesome enough to send each of the Bo Bunny designers one of their Scor-Buddy's to work with!  It is a smaller version of their Scor-Pal and is specifically designed to use for smaller projects such as cards. I had never used a tool like this and I will attest to the fact that it is way easier than what I used to do and I am sold on how awesome this tool is!  I will be sharing a few tips on how I used the Scor-Buddy on my project as well as some other tidbits you might find interesting.



INSPIRATION: hand sewing/stitching

WHY: So anyway, my project this week was inspired by our Bo Bunny challenge to incorporate sewing or stitching on our layout.  I love the home spun feel and texture that thread adds to a project, but I don't often HAND sew/stitch on my layouts because it is so time consuming.  Well for this project I challenged myself to do some HAND stitching.  I used the We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy to create my stitching guide holes around the outside edge of the Bo Bunny Et Cetera Die Cut paper.  I then did my stitching while watching the World Series games ---Yay Cardinals!!!



I then folded the strip, alternating the folds to create a fan shape.


I overlapped the edges of the punched strip so that the patterns matched up and glued the edge together.  Trim off the excess paper.


Then hold the piece together and apply hot glue to the center.  Continue to keep the center pushed together until the glue dries.  Adhere a center of your choosing and your are done.  I used a large pearl/jewel for mine.


Now, as you look a bit more at the layout, you may wonder what I did to create that large postage stamped paper.  I am going to share the how to for that with you today too!  It starts off by using a 0.50" circle punch.


What I did to the back side of the punch though is what makes this work so well.  I drew a grid on it to help me line up the center of the punch on my paper using a permanent marker.  See...


I then used a ruler to draw tic marks on my patterned paper at 1" increments all around the outside edge.  This works perfect for a 12 x 12" piece of paper.  But if you want a border around it, like on my layout, trim your paper down to 11.5 x 11.5" and then start at the center on each side of the paper and start your 1" increments from there.  Hopefully that makes sense.


Then line up the back side of your punch, centering the grid on the tic marks you just made, and punch away.


So that's it!  Simple and easy ways to dress up your layout using stitching, punches and the awesome Scor-Pal!  I hope you enjoyed today's post!  And thank you all so much for stopping by and leaving your comments! I really enjoyed having some many of you stop by this past week.