A whale of a post!

I was perusing through my meager stash of stamps – thanks to my recent de-cluttering – to find some inspiration for my next card. Can you believe it? I found none. None as in zero. Zot. On the contrary it created in me a desire to buy some new stamps. After all I didn’t have ANY masculine stamp…or a text background stamp…or floral silhouettes…and so on. I’m sure most of you can relate to this feeling! I didn’t want to give in to that feeling because lately I’ve been buying a lot of fabric to feed my other addiction – sewing :-). Given all these constraints I figured Cricut and SCAL were my best buds here.

I’d bought the Create-a-critter cartridge because, of course the cuts looked sooo cute, and then lot of people had been praising it; but I hadn’t had a chance to make something out of it. That my dear friends was the inspiration for my next card. Flipping through the handbook, there were so many critters I wanted to go along with but just couldn’t think of an appropriate sentiment. Finally after scratching my head, pulling my hair and searching the internet ( a LOT of that!) I found nice little sentiments for the whale. So whale it was.

It took me a tremendous amount of time to make this card – right from designing to assembling it – so I made two of them. To make myself feel better. That all that time was not spent in making not one but TWO cards. Yep they’re quite similar but hey I tried my best to make changes here and there without investing MORE time!

At the end of it all – I’m SO happy!! So proud of these cards :-)

• The following was cut in Cricut:
  1. Cut the whale at 2.5” and assemble it.
  2. Using SCAL, cut the clouds at 1.5” and 1.75”.
  3. Using SCAL, cut 3 wave borders (downloaded it from internet somewhere).
• Cut a white CS 4” X 5.25”. Die cut an oval in the center of the white panel using the largest of oval nestabilities.
• Sponge the clouds with Broken China Distress Ink.
• Sponge the wave with white pigment ink.
• Adhere one wave border to the white panel with the oval die cut. Adhere the other two to the card base. Stick the clouds to the cloud base. Glue the bottom of the whale and pop the top of the whale on dimensions. Pop the white panel on top of the card base using dimensionals.
• Print the sentiment using Microsoft Publisher. I used to print my sentiments using Word but I read about somebody on SCS who did it in publisher and realized how easy it was! The placement and everything is so much better! Pop the sentiment using dimensionals.

I recently bought a pack of assorted cardstock from Joann for cutting with Cricut. I must tell you that it has made my life so much easier and made me love my Cricut so much more! I agree that the cardstock is quite thin but since most of the shapes are layered it doesn’t really make a difference. In fact the thinness make it easy to layer. It cuts in one pass (unlike PTI which cuts in two passes) and the cuts are very clean! There are 25 shades so there’s a light and dark for almost every color – love that. Again that’s very useful for layering. I would highly recommend this cardstock pack for use with Cricut!

Looks like the title is just apt for this post! I came up with the title because of the whales involved and had no intention of making this truly a whale of post!!

Romantic night

Somehow reading that title gives me no indication that I’m going to bore you with a card…good for me and bad for you :-).

I love that romantic windows cut file from Heather! And I must say that the card turned out way beyond what I’d in mind! Doesn’t it look gorgeous?!?!? I know I know I’m trumpeting my own horn…but what can I do…I just can’t help admiring it :-)

Cut the romantic window at approximately 3” in width in black. Then cut a “blackout” of it, in a slightly smaller size (around 2.5-2.75” in width) from a white CS panel 4.25” X 5.5”. So that I now had a “window”. Adhered the black window to the white CS panel. On the card base, masked a circle and sponged with distress inks. Popped the window panel on the card base using pop dots.

• Paper: PTI White, The Paper Studio Black
• Inks: Distress Inks Broken China and Faded Jeans
• Cricut, SCAL.

I’m back…with some kitchen towels!

I’ve been on a long vacation. If you don’t want to read the details jump over to the next paragraph! First it was good long complete vacation which consisted of going to India and then a a short mental vacation. I wanted to give myself time and not just start crafting/blogging because I had to; because I didn’t *have* to. I felt in some corner of my heart at that times I did either/both because I felt I must – even though life was busy I would think I must take out time do these. However after my vacation I truly realized that do both because I like to do them. I should enjoy and savor every moment; and not jump from one task to another. So I gave myself a good break and decided I’ll make things as and when I feel like and same for blogging. With blogging many a times it’s not that I don’t feel like blogging, it’s just the thought of taking a picture, importing it…the whole nine yards puts me off! I wish it was a little easier – like I could take a picture from my phone and simply share it! Maybe somebody will make an app like that for me! Anyhoo let me show you what I made before you get tired of my monotone and close the browser window!

These used to be hand towels in their previous life! I was cleaning my linen closet when I realized that they were no longer being used and lately my mom, with her creations, had really inspired me to up-cycle something. When I saw these towels I couldn’t help but grin! There I had my guinea pigs! This transformation is inspired from a kitchen towel that I bought from one of my craft fairs last year. I like that they used snap fasteners so I didn’t have to worry about buttonholes – seriously they really scare me! I read this tutorial on make-it and love-it on how to attach snap fasteners. I’m not great at doing sewing tutorials otherwise I would’ve done one on how to make these. However if you have any questions or would like to know how to them, feel free to shoot me an e-mail!

I’m absolutely loving them! Ah what satisfaction they give me that they cost $0 (ok I did buy the snap fasteners…)!