Word Bubble Cards

I just love watching YouTube and craft-lifting ideas from my hero's.  Last week I watched a YouTube video by Jennifer McGuire where she used a word bubble die set to create a card.  Since I'm totally in love with my Cricut I took her card design and tried to replicate her idea in Design Space using the Close To My Heart Flower Market cartridge.

I made a card panel from black cardstock 11" X 4 1/4".  Then I made a white card front using watercolor paper that was 5 1/2" X 4 1/4".  I inserted, from the Flower Market Collection, a monster, a pumpkin and a word bubble.  I sized the monster, pumpkin and word bubble to fit the page, changed the colors of the monster and pumpkin then duplicated the pumpkin and flipped it and resized one of the pumpkins to make it a bit smaller.

To make the word bubble cut out, I lined up the top panel and the back panel, aligning the bottoms and aligning them horizontally for a perfect fit.  Then I placed the word bubble on top where I wanted it.  I selected the word bubble and the top panel and sliced it.  Being very careful not to move anything else but the top panel, I moved it to the side.  I selected the word bubble again and the back panel and sliced the back panel.  I removed all of the leftover pieces from slicing the images. 

I attached a fold line horizontally to the center of the back panel.

I placed the score tool in the pen holder of the Cricut and cut out the pieces following the color guides in the cutting screen of Design Space.

Using watercolors I made a sunset effect by starting at the bottom of the white panel and brushing on yellow paint with my water barrel brush.  Next I brushed on orange watercolor above the yellow and blended the two together.  Cleaning off my brush between layers I added red above the orange.  Then I added blue above the red and blended to make purple and painted black above the blue.  While I had black loaded in my brush I brushed some black along the bottom of the page to make a ground for the pumpkins and monster.

I cut apart the flat part of a clear plastic egg carton to use in between my card layers to fill in the word bubble.  You could use transparency sheets or other clear plastic packaging.  I used tape runner to adhere the plastic to the front card panel and more adhesive to the back of the card front to adhere it to the front of the black card panel.  Be careful not to get adhesive on the transparent piece.

I glued the pumpkin pieces together as well as the monster pieces and added some googly eyes to the monster.  I affixed them to the front of the card panel at the bottom

On the inside of the card I used VersaMark ink to emboss my sentiment with Ranger White Super Fine embossing powder.

Then I cut out Boo for the pumpkin card and Hey for the monster card using the Block Alphabet Thin Cuts and my Cuttlebug die cutting machine.  I cut a set out of paper and one out of fun foam.  By gluing the paper to the fun foam it will add dimension to the letters for a fun look.

I glued each word inside of a word bubble using the Dual Action Glue Pen.

My card looks nothing like Jennifer McGuire's card but I thank her for the great idea adding the plastic inside the cut outs between two card panels.  It was a fun project and whimsical.  I will be using this technique again.

You can purchase supplies at my Close To My Heart website https://laurahenry.closetomyheart.com/
or follow the links below:

CTMH Flower Market Cricut Cartridge Bundle 
Watercolor Paper
Black Cardstock
Goldrush Cardstock
Pansy Cardstock
Thistle Cardstock
Tombow Permanent Adhesive
Watercolor Paints
Watercolorbrush - Medium Flat
Dual Action Glue Pen
3-D Foam Tape
Block Alphabet Thin Cuts
VersaMark embossing ink
Ranger White Embossing Powder

To watch my video on YouTube follow this link:

https://youtu.be/jQb3DdIpv0U

To watch Jennifer McGuire's video that inspired me follow this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V17XccPDvV0&index=44&list=WL

I picked up some cardboard coasters at a local craft store for a dollar a while back and found a great fall use for them.  I covered them with patterned paper, distressed the edges and glued the word "fall", flowers and leaves to them and attached them to each other with ribbon.

Using Close To My Heart's Cricut Flower Market Collection I was able to closely recreate the flower in the pattern paper as well as the leaves using the Leaf Thin Cut die.

You can watch a detailed video of how I made the swag at my YouTube channel.  Just follow the link:

Fall Swag

I'll list links to the supplies but you can shop for Close To My Heart Supplies at my CTMH web page:

https://laurahenry.closetomyheart.com/

Falling For You Paper Pack
Falling For You Coordinating Cardstock
Bonding Memories Broad Tip Glue Pen
Non Stick Micro-Tip Scissors
Toffee Ink
Espresso Ink
Bonding Memories Dual Action Glue Pen
Thin Cuts - Leaf
Metallic Markers
White Burlap Ribbon
Canary Cardstock
Zen Coasters

I've had the Cricut Artbooking Collection from Close To My Heart for quite some time and have used bits from it but recently I took a good look at it.  There are scrapbook layouts included on the cartridge.

The following are the images, numbers and cartridges I added to my design canvass.
   

• Dog - #M2F8D6 - A Child's Year
• Heart Banner Border - #3EF31- Close To My Heart Artbooking
• Rectangular Frames - #M40CE5 - Close To My Heart Artbooking
• Square and Circle Frame - #M40D2C - Close To My Heart Artbooking
• Buddies - #M58139 - Close To My Heart Artbooking
• Heart Paw Print - #M4130AD - Close To My Heart Artistry
• Woof - #M2F3AB - Animal Kingdom
• Bird Dog Circle - #M32A1E - Paper Pups
• Bone - #M3B5AC - Disney Mickey Font

Following the guide in the Artbooking cartridge book, I sized the two scrapbook layouts at 11".  To keep the photo sizes standard you must keep to the specified dimensions.  I adjusted all of the other elements to fit on the page to make it aesthetically pleasing.  I layered the scrapbook layouts and embellishments onto white cardstock.  

I embossed the words "Faithful Friend" from the Faithful Friend stamp set with Ranger White Super Fine Embossing Powder and my heat gun.  On the right layout the large photo didn't fit in the space so I used a piece of Almond cardstock to fill in the gap.  Then I stamped a sentiment from the Faithful Friend stamp set on the Almond space.  I used one of the leftover hearts that were cut out of the banner to embellish that space as well.  I also stamped a sentiment from the Faithful Friend stamp set onto the dog bone.  I used 3D Foam Tape to raise up the bone and the two Woof's.  I had to cut the tape down the middle to be narrow enough to fit on the Woof's.  I put both of the dogs together and cut the tails down to look more like my dogs' tails.  I used the Dual Action Glue Pen to adhere the dogs, the buddies embellishment, the Bird dog embellishment and the banner.  

I used Tombow Permanent Adhesive to adhere the layouts to the white cardstock and the photos to the back of the layout.  The 4" X 6" photos were much bigger than the spaces for them so I lined each photo up behind the layout, placed the cutout from the layout back in the space and carefully removed the photo and the cutout.  I took large scissors and cut the photo about 1/4" around the cutout.  This allowed the photo to be cut down but gave 1/4" to put the tape to adhere it to the back of the layout. 

My preference in scrapbooks is a D ring album.  It's easier to add photos to it than the strap hinge or post bound albums.  

It took less than 2 hours from start to finish to make this two page layout.  That might seem like a lot of time to someone but I like all of my embellishments to match or accentuate my photos.  I feel like it makes the page more meaningful.  

To watch a video follow the link below:

https://youtu.be/Qce0vuM0_Rw

To purchase products click on the links below:

Cricut Artbooking Collection

Faithful Friend Stamp Set

Black Cardstock

White Cardstock

Ruby Cardstock

Almond Cardstock

Ruby Ink

Versa Mark Ink Pad

Ranger White Super Fine Embossing Powder

3D Foam Tape

Dual Action Glue Pen

Tombow Permanent Adhesive

12" X 12" D Ring Album - Black

Top Load Protectors

Paper Flower Sconces

I've had these sconces laying around for several years since my daughter got married.  They held fresh flowers and we hung them in the sanctuary of the church.  Recently I painted my living room a creamy yellow color and my husband hung our large TV on the wall.  I had nothing else to adorn the wall with but thought these sconces would be just the thing.
Using my Cricut, Design Space and the Flower Market Cartridge, I made beautiful paper flowers to fill the sconces.
After logging into Cricut Design Space I selected New Project then Images.  In the right corner I selected Cartridges and typed in Flower Market.  The flowers I needed were at the top.  They were the Daisy (#MFADCF2) and the Chrysanthemum (#MFADEB0).  Then I found a leaf (#MD43189) and a branch (#MD72D3B).   Once I made my selections and brought them onto the Design Space mat, I needed to resize them and change their colors.  I left the flowers the size they were which was a little over 3".  I resized the leaf to be 2" X 2.5" and the branch to be 5.5" X 3".  For each sconce I needed 6 branches for a total of 12 and I made a total of 12 leaves as well.  The flowers were not in order from largest to smallest and the colors were so close, that I had trouble differentiating between them.  In my video I struggled to re color them.  In hind sight I would ungroup all of the flowers and put each kind of flower in order from largest to smallest and change the colors in Design Space to really represent the colors of paper I actually used.  I cut corners to save time and left the flowers the color they were in Flower Market and it was probably a little confusing.  But you know about hind sight.  So if you're trying to make these flowers using CTMH paper, remember that the back side is now a different hue than the front.  So you can cut flowers from the same card stock but flip one over to get a different shade of the same color.  It's terrific!!!  I ended up using 4 different red card stocks and 3 different yellows and was able to flip most of them over to get more dimension in my colors. One of my card stock's was from the old line that was the same color, front and back.  In the end it didn't matter much.  You don't see the individual colors but you do see the highlights and shadows from the different papers I used.
So when you're in Design Space and you put the flowers in order from largest to smallest, make the largest two mum layers the lightest red to cut from Smoothie, then the next two mum layers that are smaller, a darker red for the Poppy flowers, then the next two flowers that are smaller, a darker red for the Cranberry Flowers and the last flower in the darkest red for the Ruby flowers.  Do the same for the yellow flowers: put them in order from largest to smallest and make the largest two flowers a light yellow for the Canary flowers, the next two smaller flowers, a little darker yellow for the Saffron flowers and the last two smallest flowers, a dark yellow for the Goldrush flowers.  Then when you go to cut them out you will just flip every other flower over so you will have the variation in color.  Again, I think I did this in reverse order by making the largest flowers the darkest but really if you look at a real flower, the inside of the flower would be the darkest part because it is in the flower and would be shaded by the outer petals.
Once you cut out the flowers, lay them out in order.  Being organized will take away any doubts you have when you start gluing them together,  I made rows for each flower and arranged them from largest to smallest and flipped flowers over to alternate colors.
Next I took a paper scoring stylus and curled the leaves toward me to make little flower cups.  I went down the line and curled the flowers largest to smallest.  You could also use a bone folder to curl the flowers.
Next I glued the layers together using Liquid Glass.  You could use hot glue.  The liquid glass dried very quickly and was easy to use.
I placed a Gold Glitter Gem in each of the Daisies and I put a white Enamel Gem in the Mums.
I punched out 1" circles of coordinating card stock from the scraps of the flowers for each flower for the back.  Then I took a floral wire and dabbed some Liquid Glass on the back of each flower and placed the floral wire in it and placed the punched circle over it.  I held it in place for 30 seconds or so and it held beautifully.
I glued three branches together on top of each other to make a sturdier branch.  I used the Dual Action Glue Pen to do this because when it dries it is not shiny so if I got a little messy it would not be a big deal.  I like the texture of this glue.  It goes on very thin but has a very good hold.
I folded about 1/8" on the long edge of each leaf and ran some liquid glass glue in the fold and wrapped the folded part of the leaf around the floral wire stem.  Since I used double sided paper I alternated the side of the leaf I used and also alternated putting the leaf on the left and right side of the stem, making sure the fold was to the back.
I cut some floral foam and wedged it down into the sconce.  It was such a tight fit so I didn't bother to hot glue it in.
To arrange my flowers I made a a triangle with the yellow flowers placing one straight in and the other two on the left and right forming a visual triangle.  Then I placed the red flowers in a triangle as well with one at the bottom of the arrangement just above the lip of the sconce and the other two to the left and right of the yellow flower in the center and slightly lower.  The thing I strive for is balance and visual appeal.
I poked two of the branches that I had glued together on the left and the right in the center but spraying outward, again in a visually pleasing way, filling in the gap.
I had a bunch of yellow, fall flowers that I had bought years ago and never had a purpose for them and I thought they would add some fullness to the arrangement.  When making a flower arrangement I will cut apart or pull apart the bunches to utilize individual stems of flowers.  This is what I did.  I was able to use 3 small bunches of the filler flowers to fill in gaps in the arrangement and a couple of tall sprays to give the arrangement some added height.
This project took several hours to complete but was worth it as the arrangements are beautiful and when I look at it I am filled with pride as I made it myself.  And that feels good.
You can purchase the Cartridge and papers from my website.  I will list links to the supplies below.

Cricut Flower Market Collection
Ruby Card Stock
Cranberry Card Stock
Poppy Card Stock
Smoothie Card Stock
Goldrush Card Stock
Saffron Card Stock
Canary Card Stock
Fern Card Stock
Canary Ink
Liquid Glass
Dual Action Glue Pen
Gold Glitter Gems
Enamel Gems - Gray