Christmas in July - July 27, 2014

 Something NEW!   Some time ago I bought another Cuttlebug Quilled flower - this time from Amazon.  They are not difficult to make by any means - you just need some equipment.  Since I use longer dies, and have 2 other quilled flower pieces, I had what I needed.  You need the long A, B, and C plates.  This technique will also work easily in a Big Shot with the same long plates for the die cuts.

Ok... enough about the supplies.

Here are two of the quilling flowers - Poinsettias.  Instead of using yellow for the centers, I used a scrap of vanilla cs I had, and added yellow stickles to the stamens.

This card has quite a bit of dimension, and will either be delivered in person, or sent in a small box.

Commissioned Project - Signature Book

A little over a month ago, one of my colleagues came to me about putting together a signature book for one of our very special teachers who was chosen as our Teacher of the Year!

I work with some of her students, have been in some meetings with her and know exactly how fantastic she is!  SO.....  after my normal amount of 'thinking time' for a big project like this, and one false start, this is what I came up with.

The main theme is Spring and along the way  incorporated some of her personal likes/activities.   My Cricut got a good work-out on this project.  Almost every page has Cricut cuts, lettering, and lots of goodies.

 On the front cover I used my Cuttlebug quilled flowers with some lettering from the Plantin Schoolbook cart and lots of inking and Stickles!  If you look closely, you should see the 'fade' inking with 3 shads of pinks.

 I discovered that she is crazy for OSU, and you'll see it incorporated around the book.  The inside cover will be used as a dedication page from the staff.

 Here's another variation on the spring theme with Stampin' Up flower trim, Cricut cuts, and a flower border I found at HL.
*As I was working on the project, I sent out an email to my colleagues looking for some words they would use to describe her and incorporated them into the pages, either cut with different Cricut fonts or stamped and added to the pages.

 These two pages include Stampin' Up doilies I inked and a stamp set with the framelits dies to cut the words.  The Iris stamp comes from another company using the tole technique of layering.  I stamped 5 of these, colored and layered them.

 Here you see another one of the descriptive words from colleagues, a flower border, and a Cottage Cutz die I bought in Tennessee when we were traveling.  I also layered this one, inked, and used the Stickles!

 This page was originally going to be butterflies, bees, and ladybugs, but it seemed WAY too busy, so this is what I came up with.  LOVE these bees!  So pretty!

 Just an OSU page!

 Here we have yellow daisies with blingy centers, white doilies, one of those adjectives, and a fork bow!

 Our campus has a sister school in China with which we have visit exchanges!  Every year they bring students here in October, and we take a group of students in early May.  She's been lucky enough to go to China with this project and will go again, I'm sure!!

This is the last page of the book....  she and her husband are travelers!   Found that out at one of the meetings, and I just had to include it since we are big travelers as well.  AND of course, some more OSU.

I hope you've enjoyed my take on a signature book.... a very specialized signature book!

Cricut Cartridges used:  1.  Walk in My Garden, 2.  Plantin Schoolbook, 3.  Lyrical Letters, 4. Calligraphy Collection, 5.  Pagoda, 6.  Sentimentals
All ink:  Stampin' Up.

Cuttlebug Quilling - Daisies

My first sojourn into using the new Cuttlebug Quilling dies! I ordered all three:
Daisy
Rose/Carnation and
Chrysanthemum, but received only the Daisy set because the other two were backordered.... SO, I decided to see what I could come up with playing with the Daisies!

Each daisy is inked twice... a light color to coordinate with the cardstock, and a darker color to accent the edges of the petals. I've started doing that just this past week, and really like the effect. On the leaves, I just used the Garden Green ink, and the bone folder to give them some 'lift'.

I like this blue flower because the leaves look so good... at first I thought there were too many, but it really seems to work.

For adhesive, I used my chisel point Zig pen. I found out that if you run the Zig pen along the entire length of the strip, you get a much neater flower in the long-run. I made some that I only glued up the very ends, and they were tough to handle.








I took this picture so you could see how big they actually get once you're done making the flowers. They're not too large, but are way too thick for mailed cards - unless you use a flat rate box. $4.95 to send a card is a little excessive, in my opinion, but for something VERY special, I would make an exception. :)


~*~ ~*~ ~*~ *~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing.