Kirigami Cards

I am super excited to show yo one of the projects I've been working on this week! 

As some of you know, I recently got a Cricut for Christmas and it's my very first electronic cutter. Goodbye, sore fingers and Mr. Exacto blade!! Well, ok, not goodbye really because I will use you for other things but you can sit quietly in my tool drawer until I need you for something else. Anyway, as I was saying, my lovely sister gave me this Cricut with one stipulation attached. Yes, she put a condition on my present but hey, that's her for ya. ;) 

Her one requirement? I had to make her a card using it. Not bad, right? It's not like she wanted me to cut out a billion damask patterns and stitch them together for her to wear as a necklace or anything. 

So that is precisely what I did. Now, bear in mind that this is my first ever time of making my own card like this so I know it's not as fancy as some but I like them. I had some pretty papers that I cut down to fit in an envelope and then I used the Cricut pack Grow My Garden to cut out a few flower shapes and a butterfly. While I was making my sister's card, I decided to just make one for my aunt in Germany too.

I folded the pattern to the inside of the card and then used the strip with the blank cutouts to embellish the bottom. Then I layered and played with various other flower patterns on the front. 

Never content to leave well enough alone, I went hunting around on-line and found THIS:

Is this not cool or what? It's a 3-D orchid that pops out of the card when you open it. The site I found it on is called Easy Cut Pop-Up and they sell the patterns for these for pretty cheap. I decided to buy their whole flowers and butterflies set because it came with a ton of designs for about $12 and it ended up around $.50 a design. Not bad if I say so myself. I pulled out some parchment and used it to print the design on. The directions were really easy to follow and in no time, I had two pretty orchids popping out of my little home-made cards!

I used a little watered down ink to brush some color on the one for my aunt. I don't know if I like it yet or not. I also cut out a small square of the same parchment to write my little message on. 

And then, because I can't leave well enough alone and I wanted the recipients of these to really feel special when they opened them, I made two pendants that matched the colors of the cards. The one in my aunt's has a touch of red and that soft parchment shade in it while my sister's had some pretty blue-green shades that went well with the inside of the card. 

I used some copper elastic cord to loop through the pendants and then punched two holes in the card to wind the cording through. Then I just tied the cards shut with it. 

So what do you think? ^___^


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Home made stationary

YAY! My first craft post! WOOO!

Ok, so in this little quick tutorial I just wanted to share a fast and easy way to make your own interesting and fun stationary. I have a friend in Marine Corps basic training right now and I thought I'd try to brighten up my friend's world a little by sending her some letters made on fun stationary. I looked around for some store brand stuff but my ADD knows no bounds and in the end I didn't want to just send her the same stationary every day. Why can't someone make stationary that's NEVER the same letter twice? Is that so much to ask?? 

SO, of course, since I couldn't find any I like, this left me doing what I usually do in such situations. I made my own. ^__^  I had a great booklet of scrapbook paper that my sister had given me on one of my trips up to see her. She had gotten it on sale (high five to her in thinking thrifty! I always respect that) and when she'd used what she'd needed for her own project, she passed the rest to me. This paper is beautiful and has lots of fun little cut-outs that I can play with. I didn't know what to do with it at first because I don't really make scrapbooks but then I thought about making my own stationary and this pad of scrap paper just seemed perfect! 

Ok, so enough rambling. Hit the link to see what you'll need to make your own!