Christmas in July Series - Part 1

Usually this is about the time people that handmake their cards start to think about Christmas cards. For me, I start to think and stress about the next year's one as soon as the current year's batch is done. I do the designing of the card and my husband is always the writer. Every year we try to do something different, and I thought that I would share our past 4 years worth of creations.

This card was way back, before I got this crazy into crafting. I think the only "real" scrapbooking tool that I had was the eyelet setter. I can't even imagine doing all these with the hammer and the setter - "bang, bang" 120 times. (yes, that is about how many we make each set of cards). Now, thanks to Crop-a-dile, my life has gotten quite a bit easier, and with 3 kids, it's more realistic to be able to use the eyelets late at night.


I made this card through the Scrapbook Factory software, and created a "frosted" effect by using different layers. First layer was the transparency (we printed snowflakes and outline of the snowman), the second was the vellum sheet, the third layer was the photo paper layer with the rest of the graphics printed on it. We wanted to have the "ornamental" theme to the holiday season, and we used digital embellishments and added "magic" "spirited" "believe" to the card.

Inside the card, we printed our letter on a vellum to give it the "frosted" look, and but also printed the turquoise color and the border to the vellum as well.

On the back layer, we stayed with the "ornamental" effect, but added our faces to each of the ornaments. All of these were sent out in the clear envelope, and we also made matching return address labels.

All our friends loved it! and this was the beginning of the "I can't wait for your next year's card", "You have to out-do your last year's one" - something that we never knew we'd be getting ourselves into, something that we'll stress over each holiday season, but something that we'd get so much joy and pride from doing them.

My mom's takes an interest in card making!

Because I have moved all my craft things to my parent's place, my mom can't help but to be surrounded by all my supplies everyday. Thus, she took interest in my tools and my paper, and my Cricut, and after browsing through many scrapbook magazine, she got inspired and decided to make some cards.

I think that she did an amazing job - check it out!
She would appreciate any feedback. Thanks for looking :)

Sweet Treats cartridge is sure a treat!

Sorry, I haven't posted a project in a while - with kids out of school, family visiting, me staying at my parent's, and so on - I find it very hard to find time to craft. I've also started to make something for SVG Cuts, but in the meantime - here's a card I made for my daughter's first birthday. The cake and the sentiment was from Sweet Treats cartridge. I love this cartridge. SO cute and I find myself using this one quite a bit. I welded the cake together to make a card, and I embossed the card with Divine Swirls Cuttlebug folder. I added Martha Stewart glitter to the sentiment. I love these glitters - great colors and quality! I also embellished it with rhinestones, and the candle pattern is from Heidi Swapp decorative tape.


Here is another pic from the birthday - here, I made cut-outs with Sweet Treats cartridge just to give that "birthday" feel to the room.

Do you know about SVG Cuts?

If you haven't heard about SVG Cuts, you don't know what you are missing! Check out their promo video and head on over to their store today!

SVG Cuts design team member!

About a week ago, I posted my "All about me" layout for SVG Cuts June Challenge. Today, they announced the winners and I received the first place! I was so excited, but that was not all! The owners of the site, Leo and Mary, contacted me and asked me to become the first member of their design team!

I'm so thrilled - so overwhelmed - I did not expect anything like this to come about considering I only seriously got into scrapbooking/crafting about 18 months ago. What a great opportunity! They are still working on the perks :), but I get free SVG file collections to work with, and all I have to do is to use their files to create something unique and beautiful. I'm all up for that :)

So, in order for you to qualify, you need to place 1st place in 3 challenges in a calendar year. Their contests usually run for about a month, and you can see it in their forum.

I know there's a lot of creative people out there, so I'm waiting for someone to become my design team member friend! Hope it's you!

Looking for THE perfect paper?

Do you ever wish that you had purchased that special pattern print paper that you saw in the scrapbook store to use for your layout you're working on now? Do you ever look at your stacks and stacks of paper, still not feeling like you've got the perfect one?

Well, for those that feel that way (I totally do!), you can have the option of using digital papers that you find online. There's whole bunch of places that I can name, but my favorite is The Lettering Delights. They've got clip arts, doodlebats and fonts (which you can use on your SCAL), graphics, templates, cards, and paper packs. I absolutely LOVE their paper packs! They are organized by themes, so you get about 5 different paper files in one purchase. Most, if not all, comes with matching alphabets and clip arts should you be interested in them, too! They are modern, funky, colorful, and great quality!

So, here, I printed Cupcake Icing Paper pack onto a vellum, and look what I got! I can't wait to use these along with my Sweet Treats cartridge and make a card! I don't know for sure, but it must be the same designers working for some of these clip arts and paper packs, because a lot of them match the Cricut cartridge images, which is perfect.

I've also tried printing out on photo paper, on transparency... oh, the possibilities! Now, your funky paper supply is all of a sudden endless!

Wordle - my new card making must-have tool.

A couple of days ago, I introduced to a cool website wordle and I've been playing around with it. Here, I've created a wedding card for a friend (I even created a color palette that would match their wedding colors). I've inserted in all the words that I associate with wedding and their names, and this is what came up. It took me awhile to get the print size right as it kept printing me 8.5 X 11 page. I somehow managed to get it right using the credit card print size. I printed this onto a pearly white cardstock and it turned out so pretty. I backed it with matching purple cardstock.

I also made a gift card envelope using the Tags, Bags, Boxes and more and Tie the Knot cartridge. The envelope color matches the card, and I cut out a wedding cake with vellum and that same pearly white cardstock. I love how it's so simple, yet so elegant!

Also, Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends!