Progressing on in the Challenge ;- )

     Today's card used the colored digital image provided by Happi Scrappin Doddles for the Progressive Challenge (#12) at Creative Digital Art Center (CDAR) here. This is the last challenge in this round so you can join the next group of challenges for free, so head on over.

     Correction, this is only #11 and it will cost $1 to get in the next round because there is 1 round left before the next group of challenges, but the images are so wonderful, $1 is nothing, for such amazing images. So come and check them out ;- )

     I used the large scalloped oval nestie to cut the image and matted it on blue card stock embossed with Styalized Flowers by Sizzix. The pearlized orange card stock is by Crafter's Companion. The butterfly, flower and leafy element is an SVG from  Images by Heather M. She has many great freebies and you can find her here. I cut it twice to get the butterfly and flowers separate and then added stickles, Pearl Pen and gel ink to the butterfly as well as Me and My Big Ideas gems to the flowers. I also inked the image with Spiced Marmalade distress ink. I plan on sending this card to my aunt in order to just send her a little
cheer ;- )

     I also finished the inside of this card. You may remember, that I was sending it to my friend's daughter and you can find the details on the front here (it's only 2 posts below), but I wanted to share the inside with you.

     I used Print Shop and the border is from that program. The main font is Frazzle and the font in the signature is Black Jack. The doodles are a font called Wendy Doodles which is a freebie and you can find it here. You can check dafont.com for the other two. I've shared a link for Black Jack in a previous post, but dafont should have them both for free. I then colored in the doodles with glitter and gel pens and matted them all and inked with Dusty Concord.

     Thanks for floating by yourselves ;- ) Have a great day and please leave a comment before you go!

My first step card and a second grandchild for a friend ;- )

     Today's card is my very first step card. I made it for my friend's son and daughter-in law. They just had a new baby girl ;- ) This is their second child and her big brother is very excited too! I've known my friend since second grade and she is the Godmother of my son, so I thought I do something a little extra for her granddaughter. I used an SVG freebie file from Cheryl First at Cafexpressions and Sure Cuts A Lot to cut the base of the card and the trim around the steps on my Expression.  She no longer offers it free, but has it for $1.50 and you can find it here. Her original also has stars and a rocking horse that I didn't use.

      I used my Cricut Imagine to print and cut the scene with the lamb (printed and cut in layers) from the Nursery Tales cartridge. I popped up most of the layers. I also  printed the paper I used for the base from that same cartridge on the Imagine, before cutting it with the Expression and Sure Cuts A Lot. (I only cut it at the size of 6 inches by 9 inches, not a full size sheet, because that was all I'd need.) The paper used for the edging on the steps is from Nursery Tales as well. That's one of the nice things about the Imagine. You can print the coordinating paper you need to go with the images you are using.

     The sentiment is from Hallmark Cards and was given to me by my neighbor. I thought it went well with the card. The rose is by Prima. Now I'd like your help. Do you like the turtle here? Here's a larger one from the lamb scene. I'm having trouble deciding (probably the slight headache I have), so I can use your opinion. Let, me know what you think. He's only attached with re-positional adhesive, so I can take him off ;- ) It could be his size or that I changed the ink cartridge and he's darker than the lamb.

     So there you go. My first step card ;- ) Have a great early weekend. Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

A Second Penguin Waddles Out.

     A friend of mine came over t make a card for her niece's 2nd birthday and her niece likes penguins. I had already used the gypsy to make the file for a shaped card of a penguin using the Create a Critter cartridge. She said she thought the penguin would look cute with a hat, so we added a hat from the Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge. It is the headwear for the winter girl. We cut the hat twice in both pink and white and paper pieced it and added Martha Stewart glitter. My friend had brought the paper, so I'm not sure what we used. We added wiggle eyes to the face. We hid all contours on the cuts on the Gypsy.

     By the time we got to the inside, we were really pressed for time if we were going to go to lunch and she was going to make it to school on time to pick up her son (ok we were pressed for time throughout it all ;- ) We had some Church website things to work on before we were able to work on the card to begin with.   Sooo, we cut out the body again as a mat for the sentiment. We used Printshop to create a sentiment using  Calibri and NewWGL4 as the fonts. Then, I test cut another body piece in order to get the placement and lined up the piece with the sentiment on it and put it on the mat and by a wondrous act of God, my sentiment was cut in the cent of the body ;- ) We also cut a balloon from Create a Critter (it's the shift of the snake) and the number 2, because she's advanced and can recognize her numbers according to her dotting Auntie (from Birthday Bash.) 

     I thought of a few things I might change or enhance as we went, but we didn't have time, so I might have to CASE myself soon, ha ha. I think a know a young boy who likes penguins, at least he did last year. You may be seeing the updated version of this card in a month or so ;- ) If you'd like the Gypsy file for this, just let me know (with a way to get in touch with you) and I'd be happy to send it to you.


     Thanks for stopping by. Your comments mean so much to me, so if you have time, please leave me one. Have a great weekend!

2nd Challenge in one day ;- )

     The freebie challenge is from The Outlawz and you can find us here. It looks like I goofed up though. I thought both challenges had given us extra time due to the holidays, but it appears the deadline was Jan. 1st for this image and I missed it. Oh well, here is my card anyway. I used one of the cupcake images that Anne Fenton created and colored it in Photoshop. I paired it with 2 patterned papers from Paper Studio and added ribbon from Michaels. I underlined the Happy Birthday on the one paper with a white gel pen and added an embellishment from Creative Charms (added - It's called Groovy Petals) that Diane from Capedia Designs sent to me. You can find a link to her wonderful blog here or on my side bar. I cut out Judy's name using my Gypsy and the Opposites Attract cartridge. Now, Judy does read my blog and I'm kind of bummed that she is going to see her card, so I'm not going to show the inside. We're not going to question whether or not the inside got finished in time. We are just not going to go there. Let's just say, her birthday is still a ways away and I don't want to spoil the surprise. 'nuf said OK!

     Thanks for dropping by and please leave me some feedback or a kind word ;- ) Have a wonderful weekend!

Two posts in one day ;- )

     Ha! bet you thought I wouldn't be back, well here I am and I will be posting twice because I have 2 challenge deadlines today (did I hear someone say, ahhh, that's why... hmmm.) Well, I've been busy playing scrabble and monopoly and going to the movies and just spending time with my family and friends, while my son was home. Then, there is always a let down after he returns to college. I'm suppose to use this blog and the card making to help me get past that, but I didn't fee like it, so there! I actually have been busy editing photos in Photoshop and I do have another card and a gift holder I made to show you, but I will keep those for maybe tomorrow. We don't want to overload you all in one day ;- )

     The first challenge is CDAC (Creative Digital Art Center). You'll find us here. I used the snow globe image from Crafty Ann's (only, wait, you can't see that yet.) They had provided a number of other nice images that you could pair with it, but since I have a friend whose birthday is coming up and she loves penguins (her name is Gwyn and that is how she explains to people how to pronounce her name correctly, not Gwen), I figured I'd use Meljen's Penguin's Little Letter image to go with it. This will fit her challenge "Anything Goes" so I'll enter it there too ;- ) The images were colored in Photoshop. The black card stock is Core'dinations Black Magic and is embossed with Sizzix's snowflakes. I cut the hole with Martha's circle cutter. I set up the words and the heart on the Gypsy. The letters, except for birthday, are from the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and "birthday" is an element from the Cricut Sweet Treats cartridge. The heart was cut from card stock from the Peppermint Forest pack.

front

     I wanted the inside of the card to have a surprise, so that is where the snow globe image can be seen. The sentiment is my own, done in Print Shop. The fonts are LD dabble from Lettering Delights,  Kauffman (the script) and wm Christmas3 for the  skating penguin. You can get it as a freebie here. I added glitter pen to the base of the snow globe and Martha Stewart fine crystal glitter to the snow at the base of the penguin.

 inside card

close-up of image inside card

     This would also make a nice Valentine card. Please leave a comment, because I love to hear from you.  I'm also entering this into the challenge at Going Buggy here for grey (black)/ red/ white. Read the next post for the challenge from The Outlawz.

We're off the Hook

     Today's card is for my friend's, whose birthday card was posted the post before last, her middle daughter's birthday, who was 27 on Sunday. Due to the Veteran's Day holiday there was no mail and the card was going to be late, rats! I decided to go with the telephone card from the Cricut cartridge, Wild Card called Hello ' cuz phones just seemed appropriate (it's so hard for me to stop thinking of her girls as teens, Yikes! though I know they aren't any more.)   All of the cuts are from the the cartridge. except for the little piece that stops the dial, when you are dialing. I free hand cut that from a metallic scrap. The phone itself was cut twice (I used the gypsy so I could position the second image with the card part of the cut hanging off of the mat, so it would just cut the handset - you could have just placed you paper that way basically.) I popped up the handset of the second cut and also the dial. I used a clear glitter pen to write all of the numbers except for the 2 and 7 which I wrote in red glitter pen, since that is her age. There is a sentiment cut that says "Talk of the Town," so I adapted that by writing it in white gel pen on the handset. There is a hole in the center of the dial when it cuts, that goes through to the inside. I lined up my sentiment to have a stamped heart show through (lining this up  in the sentiment was the hardest part.) I used ribbon wrapped around a pencil and stiffened with Mod Podge for the telephone cord.

     The paper on the inside is fro Paper Studio. The shape of the sentiment had to accommodate the shape of the phone. The fonts are LD Typeset and LD Wedding from Lettering Delights. I have an affiliate link on the side bar of my blog that will take you to their site.

     For those of us who are older and curious, the phrase "off the hook" means fresh, new.  I like to be educational ;- ) I'm not sure how I knew that, but it's some of the trivia that fills up my limited brain capacity and keeps me from knowing important things, like what I did last week and important words that I need when I speak.

I also threw together (and that's pretty literally the truth) a few thank-you, for the people that covered for us, with the teens and brought meals, after my husband came home from the hospital. They're so not works of art, but I will show them because I think they will inspire your creativity, in that, you just need scraps and you can do "quickie" Thank-yous, though, you might want to make them a bit nicer than mine. They are about 3 by 3 1/2 or so, though it depended on the scraps I worked with.

This used a piece of punched border that mis-punched, but I kept and trimmed the good part.

This was for our friend first, Pastor second (it's a second career for him and our sons went to school together.) He covered the last hour of my teens (his twin girls are 2 of them) and of course visited at the hospital.

This was the inside. The stamps are from Clear Dollar stamps, Church Chatter.

Again, just simple with tone on tone background stamps, an accent stamp, sentiment and scraps.

Wonderful sentiments from Clear Dollar Stamps. They are having a sale (40% off until the 19th.) I get nothing for this ad ;- ) And why was I rushing so? because I had to get ready for my 11 hours of cookie baking at a friends. Whew! That's a lot of baking. Here's a few photos to make you hungry.

     Hope your week and your creativity is really off the hook ;- ) Thanks for coming by and please leave a comment. They really do make my day or night.

     Phew, all 14 cards for my college students are done ;- ) My sofa is covered in glitter and snippets of paper, ha ha, but 5 made the mail and the others are stamped (1 awaiting a mailbox number.) I believe last year when I originally CASEed the one from Creating in Carolina I did them one at a time on the Expression. This year, I decided to move her SVG file onto separate layers so I could cut multiple of each item at 1 time. Here is the link to Cely's original post with her file. I made the card an A2 which makes the mouthes kind of small, so I thought I'd gotten rid of them all, but it still did the cut outs on the pumpkin. (Last year the pumpkin face was drawn in, no time for correcting mistakes this year. I'm down to the wire!)  I used Diamond Lace sickles on the moon, gel pens on the eyes, Crayola Pip Squeak glitter for the pumpkin mouth and Divine Swirls to emboss the background.

     The poem (which I showed on an earlier post) was one I found and modified. These are mostly students (trying not to call them kids ;- ) from my Church, who also had attended our K-8 Lutheran School, so I took the witch out of the poem. Yes, I know there is a ghost on the card, but he isn't doing sacrifices in the local forest preserves! You have to draw a line somewhere. Fonts are Lucinda Blackletter and LD Typset (the latter from Lettering Delights.)

     The card for my group that got this one last year, is the one that I teased you with. It is from... the Wild Card cartridge. It is cut at 3.75 inches on the Expression. I used my Gypsy, because the way Cricut designed it, the orange layer is the same as the black layer and you cut the square off and just use the pumpkin part of the cut. Too wasteful for me, so I used the Gypsy to overlay the cut, putting the next pumpkin on top of where the square would cut, continually overlapping the cards until the mat was full. This way I didn't waste so much paper. What was I going to do with a bunch of 3 3/4 inch squares of black paper anyway? I used spray glue on the "Boo" elements and then sprinkled Martha Stewart glitter on them. I colored in the eyes and mouth with yellow glitter gel pen.

     On the inside, I wrote with white gel pen. Font, debbie scribble, hee hee.

    
     There was also and envelope available with a liner. At first, not knowing the mailing code I thought I could use it. I made my son's in black however, because it's Family Weekend and I thought I'd just sneak his onto his desk. Later realizing my error (somewhere along the way, when my better judgement kicked in about mail codes) I decided that I would put the cute, small, decorative envelope into a normal A2 size envelope for mailing everyone's cards. On the white ones, I just went over the pumpkin with Marmalade Distress Ink.

     Here is the whole bunch, done, just before I noticed I only had 6 A2 envelopes left in the house and still had to call and get updated addresses for the students from last year and addresses for some of them for this year :- 0

Should have set them up better, would have if there was TIME! ;- )

     Thanks for stopping by and listening to my tale of woe. Hope you have a great weekend. Still so much to do before my husband's surgery and he's out of commission for at least 4 weeks. Please leave a comment, because they mean so much to me. It will be a great weekend, because I'll be seeing my son!

Finishing in the past and beginning the new.

     Well, I have a couple of things to cover today. Who'd of thought ;- ) First, you'll recognize this card. It was made for my sister-in-law and the progressive challenge at Crafter's Digital Art Center. You'll find the info on it here.

     However, at the time I hadn't finished the inside.  I thought you'd like it. I found an image by googling woman screaming and vintage.  If you can't find it and are interested, drop me a line and I'll send it to you. I only used a part of it and I used a black gel pen to make a frame. The font is a freebie called Greenfuz and the line element is from Print Shop.

Kind of a fun surprise ;- )

     The next card is for some friends, who have been trying, unsuccessfully for a number of years, to have a baby. Recently, they were out of town at a family wedding when they got a call that they needed to get to the hospital immediately, there was a baby waiting for them. The attended the wedding and drove through the night and are happily, now a family ;- ) This is the card I made for them. I used my Cricut Imagine and the Nursery Tales cart to make the background paper and the layered images. However, I used my Gypsy to make the shaped card from a shape from the Storybook cart with my Expression. I then cut the same shape using the paper I had made with the Imagine, on the Expression 1/4 smaller, to use as the background paper.  (Got all that ? Good! or are you yelling Equipment Overload!) I used glitter pen on the dragonfly wings and gel pens on the frog and grasses. What are the chances of sticking you hand in wet gel pen? In my case 100% I added Martha Stewart Brown Flockingto the cattail and wiggle eyes to the frog, as well. The sentiment is my own. The font is SNF Classy Charm from Scrap N Fonts cut with oval nestabilities.

You can sort of see the details. Will be getting my camera back soon, thankfully.

     In order to do the sentiment, I printed a coordinating 3 in. by 3 in. square of pattern paper. I attached that to a piece of printer paper. Before running it through, I did a test run, to make sure I knew where my sentiment would print and which way to put the paper in. Now, I accept no liability for your printer, if you try this ;- ) I try not to let my husband know that I'm doing this >.< I set it up so it would print in the upper corner and taped the paper in the upper corner so the tape was on the back (securely.)

      I cut a second shape for the inside and using the same SNF Classy Charm font, on plain printer paper,  I added the inside sentiment. I also used DB Frilly Words from Lettering Delights to add the words near the center and the element in the center is from Print Shop. I embellished it with more layer images from the Imagine Nursery Tales cart. On this card, I've obscured the name to protect the innocent ;- )

    

     I also always sign the back of my cards with a matching ink and on some I also add an embellishment.

     I thought I'd give you a sneak peak at the beginning of the cards I'm making for the college students. Do you know what Cricut cartridge I'm using? I'm working on the Gypsy to move the multiple images around to save paper.

     Thanks for stopping by and spending some time with me. It means so much to me ;- ) Hope your week is filled with creative time, new inspirations, and blessings. Please take a moment to leave a comment. Thanks!

Celebration card for an Anniversary!

     Today's card is for my neighbor's anniversary. I had picked up Cricut's Wild Card cart from Menard's when they had them for $4 after a mail-in rebate. Great deal! On this cart they have a tri-fold card and envelope that was meant for New Year's Eve called Celebrate, but I thought it would make a great anniversary card. On the internet I found a few places where people had listed the largest sizes you could cut the envelopes on a 12x12 piece of paper and the corresponding size card to cut. You can find a list here at Obsessed With Scrapbooking. So for this card, I cut it at 5 1/2 inches from black Core'dinations cardstock. I cut the liner items with gold metallic cardstock and the icon (cork) from kraft cardstock and stamped it with Hero Arts Designer Woodgrain stamp then clear embossed it.  I attached the cork with pop dots. The pattern paper is Confetti from Paper Pizzaz. I found a label shape I liked on the Storybook cart (the Thank You image page) and cut it out in red and a slightly smaller  one from printer paper ( I used the Gypsy to get the sizes I wanted) that I had already printed their names on. The font I used is Tango. I attached this with pop dots. In order to keep the card from popping open, I made a band to slip over the card and attached the sentiment on it. I cut the sentiment from Lyrical Letters. Cutting it at this size makes it very delicate and prone to tearing, so it had to be pieced a bit and I used the LetraTac I had mentioned back on this post to attach it. You can find it online at Dick Blicks here. I get nothing for this, I just think it's cool.

     This card wasn't meant to be a gift card holder, but since I was going to cover the front and giving them a gift card, I decided to cut slits in it to hold the gift card. I cut a piece of the pattern paper to cover that at the bottom and used a piece of the same paper as a mat for the sentiment. I created the sentiment digitally and the font is SNF Infinity from Scrap N Fonts. Currently Scrap N Fonts is having a Dollar Sale. You can find their sale here.

     Since I added the band, the envelope won't close right, but I thought I'd show it here anyway.  Cool envelope, huh ; - )Sorry, I hadn't realized it was out of focus or I would have retaken the photo during the day >.<

     Well, thanks for stopping by and spending some time with me today. Please leave a comment, so that I know you were here. They always brighten my day ;- ) Have a wonder-filled week!

Purple Wishes for a birthday

    Well, if it didn't happen again, sheeesh, but after the headache and the holiday, I now have a card to share. So, without any ado, here is a birthday card for a friend I've known since 2nd grade (I won't say how many years that is ;- ) She is also my son's Godmother. You might be able to guess, her favorite color is purple.  I loved the papers from Basic Grey's Wisteria stack for her from the minute I saw the stack and then I ran across some dimensional stickers from K & Company, that went well with some of the papers and also were purple and sparkly (Botanical.) So I took these and cut the sentiment from Cricut's Lyrical Letters cart to make the front.

     In order to attach the sentiment, I used a great product that I first learned about from Diane at Capadiadesigns who does a lot of wonderful creative cards. It's called LetraTac and it's sheets of adhesive dots. The dots are very small and I use them the same way Diane did here, by just putting the item I wish to glue on the sheet, burnishing it, then removing it from the sheet and attaching to the card. The item will pick up the very small dots of glue and the rest of the sheet will retain it's glue and can be used again. I got mine from Dick Blick's Art Supplies. I'm lucky and have one locally, but you can also get it online. I do have a Xyron, but find it works best on solid images. Here is a photo of the sheet showing how little I used for this card (I also used a bit to do the straps of the flip-flops, 5 posts ago.)

You can put the letters where you want to use the paper efficiently. The shiny white parts are the remaining glue dots that I can use next time. The "B" is right side up, the other pieces were done sideways. 

The smallest pack came with 10 sheets. It will last me forever, ha ha.

     The inside of the card was matted with Core'dinations and done digitally in PrintShop. The font used is Chaucer, which is a free font and the closest I could had to the style of the sentiment on the front. I added more of the K & Company embellishments and a strip of the wisteria paper.

     The next card will be for her son. Yikes, he's going to be 30! Can't be. We were babies 30 years ago. 

     Remember, if you haven't checked out http://cutterfreebies.creativebusyhands.com you should. She has freebies from around the web each week and there are some really cute SVG's there this week. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my card. Please leave me a comment. They really mean so much to me - just knowing you were here : - >

A day at the beach!

     Today's card is for a friend's daughter, who went to school with my son from Kindergarten through 8th grade. She turned 19 on Friday and my son turned 20 on Saturday. Us moms have become great friends, we are very much alike, and they have also remained friends. I knew she had plans to go with friends to spend the weekend at the beach, so that was how I themed, my card. The weather forecast may have other plans however, so I began to hope my card wouldn't make her sad >.<

     I used Cricut's Life's a Beach cart and cut the card option for the lifeguard chair image.  Knowing I'd see, at least her parents for my son's birthday, I made a large card 7 x 11.75 (before folding). I then used the Gypsy to make a layer from the lifeguard chair image. The proportion weren't correct, so I used a separate layer and de-selected the keep proportions key. I then sized the height and width separately through trial and error until it matched up with the one from the card option (6.10 width and 6.5 height). I used Scattered Straw Distress Stickles to simulate sand and tried to make the lifeguard chair look a bit realistic, with some sand on it as well. I edged the brown part of the chair with copics.  I embossed the red layer of the umbrella with swiss dots and popped it up in the center, gluing down the sides and top edges. I added red and white twine from My Mind's Eye. The pattern background paper is Neptunes Wrath by Reminisce that I picked up at Archiver (it's 2-sided as you will see from the inside photo. ) The label was cut from Just Because Cards. It's the Shift key of the main key for the "Corny" card, believe it or not, but I liked the shape and thought it would make a good label. It's used as a vertical panel on the card, so I just turned it and cut it, at I believe, 2.5 inches. It's stamped with Clear Stamps in Mementos and I added two red brads.

     The sentiment on the inside was done digitally and the fonts are Beach and Handwriting- Dakota. I cut the beach ball and the sandals both from Life's a Beach. The red on the beach ball was embossed using Tim Holts's Fades Folder Regal Flourishes. The pattern paper was a scrap and I'm afraid I don't know what it is. I almost didn't have enough and was worried, because I loved it for the base of the sandals.

     I like how this card turned out. I'm not sure about the sand on the chair steps or not, but I didn't like the starkness of it either. I love the look of the pattern paper and the sandals. So, all in all I'm happy with it.

     I hope you got a chance to snap up some deals at Menards this weekend. I meant to post about them (with the rebate, which is a store credit, basically you could get Cricut mats and carts for under $5), but with my son's birthday, I'm sorry I just didn't get it posted ;- ( I did get 2 sets of mats and 3 carts though. I figured we would use the store checks to buy driveway and deck sealant. I thought the sale was only for 2 days, but the coupon says it was for a whole 3 days.

     Thanks for stopping by and I'll try to better better about posting info like the sale, when I know it. Please, leave a comment so that I know you stopped by. It really means a lot to know you were here. Have a creativity filled week.

An Adventure Birthday Card

     Today's card is for a friend's husband. Don't I ever get to make cards for women? He bought kayaks this summer, so I thought I'd use that as a focal point for his card. I went through the Life's a Beach cart and found a photo card with waves on it (page 45). I decided to use the Gypsy to weld a sun, from the page before, to the upper left corner of the frame and give it more of a scenic look. I then cut it out on my Expression. The sun was 2 inches, so I also cut out a 2 inch sun in yellow from Core'dinations paper and enhanced it with yellow gel pen (the circle outline) and Copic markers (the nose and lips) and added it with pop dots. I added small black pearls for eyes. I backed the frame with a lighter blue paper to make a sky. I edged the waves with Puffy Appliqué Markers that puff up when you heat them. The heat and humidity made them a bit runny, but they still worked ok. I attached the kayak, which was from Jolee. The sentiment is from Hero Arts' Big Hugs and was stamped with Tsukineko Rocket Red Gold.

  Click to enlarge to see details.

     I cut the inside papers with a wavy blade, on my paper cutter and the sentiment was made digitally in Print Shop. The fonts are Aloe,  Carlisle and LDJ Jilligraphy ( the first two are free fonts and the last is from Lettering Delights - see link in my side bar.) The lifejacket came on the sticker sheet with the kayak and the balloon is from Jolee's All That Bling, available at my Walmart.

     What would I do differently? Well, the light blue background could be embossed, maybe with divine swirls? I'd have to try it, to see if I'd like it or not. Fairly simple, but I think it's a nice card all of the same. A friend of mine wondered, if guys really appreciated a hand-made card and all of the time that goes in to it. I think it might depend on the guy. Some, I'd put a lot more work into it, and they would.  I don't think he'd appreciate the time it would take me to do a lot of hand coloring though. 

This card came together pretty easily. I learned that if you have some tearing, while you are cutting with your Cricut, it might not be your blade. It might be time for a new mat. The places where my mat was less sticky, was where the waves were tearing, everything else cut fine. Using a new mat, caused it to cut perfectly, all with the same settings. 

     Thanks for coming by. Please leave me a few words in the comments, so that I know you were here and that I'm not writing to myself ;- ) Have a super week.