Christmas card made by my son!

Last night my son asked if he could make a card using my Cricut. Well, I just about fell off my chair!  lol  He has a "girlfriend" in 6th grade and wanted to make her a special card for Christmas. 

If I may boast for a moment, my son, Michael, is 11 1/2 and he has the kindest heart.  It just warms MY heart that he wanted to do something for this girl that he likes.  Just so you know, I'm not big on the dating thing in elementary school and do not encourage it, as my son knows, but I do encourage him to have "girl" friends just as much as having "boy" friends because I believe it balances a person to have friends of both genders.  :) 

On to the card - He designed this card himself using my Gypsy.  Kids these days just pick up on electronics so easy!  I showed him a few technical things using the Gypsy and he picked the images and the paper and I help him cut everything out. 

The card is very simple, which is probably what I love most about it.  He added stickles on the snow flakes (Star Dust) and Glossy Accents on the "merry" part of the sentiment.  He also added a couple snow flakes on the inside of the card, which I didn't photograph since he had already written his friend a little note, and also added one snow flake on the outside of the envelope.  It just "tickled" my insides to craft with him and watch him be creative.  I am SO proud of him.

The sentiment is from the Cricut cartridge Celebrate With Flourish and the snow flakes are from Christmas (free with Gypsy update).

This will likely be my last post until the new year, so if you are reading this blog, have a very Merry Christmas and may you be blessed with love, peace and joy throughout the New Year.

Toodles,
Jude

12 Days of Christmas Color Challenge by MPS ~ Christmas Bell Card

Can you believe this is my third post today???  I can't believe it either!  ha ha!  The earlier projects I made this past weekend and last week and then today, My Pink Stamper challenged us to make something with the following colors: black, two shades of blue and two shades of pink. 

So, I wanted to make a Christmas thank you card for someone special and came up with the idea of a Christmas Bell Card.  I used my Gypsy to create the card. 

Goodies Used:

• The Bell is from the Gypsy update using the "Christmas" cartridge.  The bell is a shadow image, cut on black PTI cardstock.
• I duplicated the bell, only smaller, and used it on the inside of the card, which the picture doesn't show.  I used PTI Raspberry Fizz cardstock.
• The outside layer of the bell (same size as inside bell image) is cut on Basic Grey collection pack called "Perhaps".  I added some Enamel Accents to the dots on the paper to give it some dimension.
• The pink piece on the bell is cut from Raspberry Fizz, and then I stamped it with PTI Background Basics polka dots and then added Enamel Accents to the dots.
• The ribbon is cut on PTI Enchanted Evening (shadow) and the top layer is PTI Bitty Dot Basics paper and is mounted on foam tape.  I inked the edges of the ribbon with white ink and then added some doodling.
• The Sentiment is from PTI Signature Christmas.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Toodles,  Jude

PS  If you like, leave a comment and your blog address if you have one so I can come visit you!  Thanks again for stopping by.

FC Barcelona Soccer Jersey Card using Cricut

Oh My Gosh!  I have SO much making these cards.  In early November I made a Brasil soccer jersey birthday card for my son's friend birthday,  http://judestersworld.blogspot.com/2010/11/brasil-soccer-jersey-card-with-cricut.html (he's a soccer teammate) and now another teammate's birthday party was last weekend and his favorite professional soccer team is FC Barcelona so I had to make him a card too! 

The jersey is from Cricut Sports Mania - I have a template for the card using my Gypsy so it was super easy to make the second time around.  The only tricky part was cutting the smaller jersey in two colors and then cutting each color to make the dark red and blue strips for the jersey.   The number on the back (the actual boy's jersey number) is from Varsity Letter.  I just hand-cut the Nike logo and the FC Barcelona Crest and colored it with markers to simulate the real crest of the professional team. The birthday boy LOVED his card!

Thanks for looking!
Toodles,   Jude

Tinkerbell Cake, attempting to use the Cricut Cake Machine

Well, I don't think I've ever been so frustrated in all my life!  I bought the Cricut Cake Mini on Black Friday at Jo-Ann's for $99 and offered to bake a birthday cake for my neighbor's 3 year old granddaughter's birthday party.  It was very easy making the marshmallow fondant, but the hard part was getting the right consistency so that it would cut with the machine.  I designed everything I wanted on to go on the cake but I think maybe my border and some of the design elements were too intricate for the machine.  I also don't think it helped that I baked a double layer 9" x 13" rectangle cake for my first fondant cake - it was very hard to get the fondant to fit the size of the cake; the fondant needed to be at least 17" x 21" to cover the cake!  I can't help but wonder if it would have been easier to start with a round cake?!?!?!  That wasn't the only frustrating part though.

It took me four tries before I decided my fondant wasn't working, so I scrapped the fondant as I thought it might have been worked just a little too much and made a new batch.  I did see improvements with all the practice and then it finally took me 3 more times before I was able to cover the cake.  Whew!   I finally gave up on using the machine for the details that I designed.   I even tried buying Wilton's gum paste, which did work a little better with my machine but I couldn't stand the smell of that stuff so I threw it out!  It's down-right nasty smelling!  There is no way I would eat a cake that smelt that bad, so I couldn't possibly put it on a cake for someone else!

Finally, I gave up using the Cake Machine AND using fondant, and then added my design elements (albeit not as fancy) by decorating the cake the "old-fashioned" way - using royal icing!

Overall, I was happy with the end result of the Tinkerbell cake, but very frustrated with my machine.  It will be awhile before I tackle using it again.  :(

There were numerous youtube videos I watched with people using the Cake Machine and the making of marshmallow fondant, but it didn't seem to help me!  If anyone has any helpful hints, PLEASE let me know!  I love the concept of the Cake Machine but have not been lucky enough to have it work for me.

Below are a two pictures of the cake - (isn't the Tinkerbell candle adorable??)

Thanks for looking.  Have an awesome day.
Toodles,  Jude

Three Birthday Cards

Hey! Hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday.  It snowed in the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin yesterday and we got about 4" of snow.  It's SO pretty with all the trees covered in snow.  The only part that isn't fun is driving in it, but the roads were cleared pretty quickly.

My son had a friend over yesterday and they played in the snow all afternoon.  I loved seeing them come in with their rosy cheeks.  I made hot chocolate for them.  :)  One of the many things I love about winter.

Yesterday we walked through our back property and cut down our own Christmas tree.  We live on 8.5 acres and it's mostly wooded.  The trees in the back are a little scrawny, kinda like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, ha ha!  My husband insists our tree has character :) 

Now, on to crafting - I made a few cards in the last couple weeks so thought I would post for you to share in the fun I've been having.

The first card, the race car driver, was lifted from Mary at Cardz TV http://www.cardztv.blogspot.com/.  She did this card a long time ago and I thought it was perfect for my nephew who turned 8 and loves NASCAR.  The die cuts are from Everyday Paper Dolls and the sentiment was printed on white cardstock and then matted.

The second card below I did was also scrap-lifted from Jennifer McGuire. She is VERY talented and I'm a huge fan of hers. Here is her website ~ http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/  My version of the card was slightly tweaked with different colors etc. I LOVE how it turned out. My sister's birthday is next week so I'm mailing the card to her.  Hopefully she'll like it!

The card is all stamping and then I cut out the butterfly (which I used my Copics to color) to give it dimension and also sprayed it with "pearl" Glimmer Mist, then also added pearls.

Finally, the last card I did was for a birthday party my son was going to today (he's actually there now as I am typing!).  It's a very simple layout. The die cuts are from Stretch your Imagination (present), sentiment (Beyond Birthdays) and then I used Plantin SchoolBook for Will's name.

Sorry this is such a long post, but I wanted to share these pics before they got lost in cyberspace!  Thanks for stopping by to visit.

Toodles,  Jude

PS  Don't forget to leave a comment and leave your blog address if you have one so I can come visit you too!