Well, I finally managed to get another couple of cards made with my trusty steed today. I think I might call him Colin. A good, hearty name! These mega little birds were made with the same leaf cut from Accent Essentials as the Owl card I posted below. I cut the stalks to make a tiny beak and then added eyes and wings. The legs are just thin strips of card with ends frayed into 3 pieces and separated.

The flower is actually one of my Stackies - if you love

these you can win some of my BLOG CANDY here...

The card is a 5 x 7" and the border stamp is actually

from Blonde Moments which I've had for absolutely

ages and ages and ages....

This next one I didn't like at all but after a bit of tweaking and my trusty waterbrush pen I think I managed to rescue it! The lovely bootiful Owl is from Penny Black but here I've used a swirl from Accent Essentials again for the tree branches. I cut loads of these swirls all from white card and then whilst they were still stuck in the card and still on my mat I coloured them with my inkpads, let them dry and then peeled them off the mat - easier than putting different coloured card in and out of your machine, plus at the time I didnt have loads of coloured card with me. The flowers are a stamp which I got free from Stampin Up (mutter mutter)....

Here again I've used the same swirls
from Accent Essentials as flower fronds (love that word, LOL!) and this time I've gone for a more grungie distressed feel. Again my Stackies are the main feature and you can't really tell from the pic but the round green discs are Bazzill Boshers which I've doodled on. Then I overstamped the Best Wishes down the side, just in case the recipient can't read!!!!

LOL!

...well it's been a bit of a while as I've been soooo busy lately and just haven't had time or space to crack open my mosheeen and boy, am I missing my trusty steed.

I'm really massively into birds and owls at the moment and as I was playing around with my own range of papers the other day I was suddenly inspired and thought of a great way of making owls.

I actually don't own many carts for Cricut as I find that with a little bit of thought and effort I can usually make most things myself with the original carts which come with the machine, ie George & Basic Shapes and Plantin Schoolbook and Accent Essentials. I think most people really underestimate what they can do with these 3 carts and don't understand how to really get the most out of the carts and their machine. All it takes is to look at shapes in a different light.

Anyway, back on track, I have to excuse the roughness of the card as I was in a bit of a rush and managed to get blathered in ink...

Using Accent Essentials I cut 2 leaves at 3" and then glued them together to make the basic owl shape, cutting off the stalks with scissors. I then cut lots of flourishes from the same cart and decorated both the front of the owl and then placed the flourishes together on the front of the card to make a tree. The scallop edge on the front is from Plantin Schoolbook.

Beee happy

This cute exploding box was made using WIMG. The little beehive in the middle was 2 yellow circles each cut at the same size, going down in 1/4" increments and a black circle in between at the same size. 3D them up to create the height. We made this at our swarm last year. The bees are on wire springs which are attached to the base of the hive.

Fan book

I love these fan books! I made this one by cutting 3 circles at 11.5" on GBS then adding all the other elements which are random cuts from all over the place!

Baby mobile

This photo doesnt do this justice! I love this baby mobile but it's hard to show. Basically there are little elephants, rabbits, sheep, ducks and hearts, plus the name Lily all hanging on elastic from the spiral.

I made this by cutting a circle on GBS at 11.5", then cutting into it to make the spiral. The elephants are from Zooballoo and the rabbits, sheep and ducks are on New arrival with the "Little one" words and hearts I think.

Giant altered paperclip

Ok, a cute little project from our craft day in 2008. 2 flowers cut from AE, a circle added and the N is from GBS.

The infamous Vase of Flowers

Ok, so here it is, my infamous Vase of Flowers.

I posted this little creation back in September 2007 on cricut.com and it was one of the first really creative things I made with my trusty steed. Don't ask me where the inspiration came from, I can't remember. The reason it's infamous is it seems to have inspired 100's of you to make your own little bouquets of 3D flowers in all shapes and sizes which is just fabulous, I'm really humbled to think it's inspired you so much. The original cricut post just keeps getting posted and reposted every couple of months, I think the old members are posting it again for the new members, which is so cool. If you have read me waxing lyrical about plaguerism at the bottom of my blog this is one of the reasons why, as many people have tried to pinch the glory for this project and I'm just not having it, ok!!! Most of the time I don't care if someone claims an idea but on this occasion I do! If you've seen this vase or these flowers anywhere else it's copied from this pic!!! (hahaha I will get off the ol' soapbox now!). For those of you who live in York, you can now see this original in my shop window.

So once again, and this is the final time I'm going to do this, here are the instructions...

Apologies if you've seen this before way back last year, but for those of you who've been PM'ing me here you are and I created this in approx 3 hours with the Expression. It stands approx 12" tall.
The vase is the round handbag from the Plantin Schoolbook and all the flowers/leaves are from Accent Essentials. OK, I hope you're going to have a go cos this is so easy, the only time consuming bit is the 3D foam! To make the flowers you need to start with the finished size you want then cut the same flower in all the different size increments available on your machine. ie 5", 4.75", 4.5" etc. Layer each one with 3D foam in the middle and then make a stalk by rolling paper into a straw (or use a straw if you have them) then snip the ends so you can bend them back and attach to the underside of the flower. To make a whole flower instead of a flat one you need to make the flower twice, then stick them together with 3D foam to give you a full round flower. Then insert the stalk through the centre using a strong wet glue to hold it or silicon glue works really well. I used my Expression, but you can do this in a smaller size on Baby Bug too. I used white linen cardstock throughout and used 12 x 24" cutting mat, or you can do it on 12 x 12 also:
Using Plantin Schoolbook, cut the BAG on TALL BALL feature and fit to page or do it as large as you can. This cuts a round train style bag. Glue the bag & cut off the handles to make the vase.
Take your Accent Essentials cart and select loads of different flowers & snowflakes, cutting them at 3.5". Then REPEAT LAST and cut at 3.25", and repeat each time, reducing each cut by 0.25". This gives you the graduation for the flowers. Take each size of the same flower and layer them with 3D foam, mking some smaller than others for variety. Once I'd layered some of the flowers I decided I could double them up to make a complete 3D flower (this works brilliantly with ACCENT10). So this time do exactly the same, but cut each size twice, and layer them back to back so you get a complete flowerhead.
Once you're happy with your flowers take some white paper and roll into a straw shape and glue. Snip the top appox 1" and splay out so you can glue to the undersides of the flowers for the stalks. You can also use straws for this if you have some.
Finally, cut scrolls in various sizes for the leaf fronds, and cut some leaves in different sizes. Weight the bottom of the vase with sand/pebbles etc, whatever you have, and arrange the flowers, leaves and fronds into the vase. If necessary secure where possible to avoid everything falling over making sure you hide the glue.

And that's it! If you use the Repeat Last function it's really quick, the time was mainly in doing the 3D foam! I hope some of you will have a go at this, believe me it is not difficult, you just need to be patient and the result will be worth it. If you also go for white cardstock, think about chalking or inking the edges, although I felt that there was greater impact because it was all in white. I think this would make a fantastic gift for someone special. Enjoy! x

(p.s - those of you that don't have Accent Essentials can do this with any other flowers you have on any cart, so don't think you can't do it if you don't have AE! And you can do it on either the big or baby bug too!)