A little Cricut Kitchen Decor'

This is something I created using some 8x8 Canvas, Acrylic Paint, Cricut Stencil Material, My Cricut, and the Preserves Cartridge. Once you have these materials you can follow these simple steps to create your very own kitchen wall art. It really has an art deco feel that will just make your kitchen pop with some color!

For the Pear, you will need to turn to page 26 in your preserves cartridge. From that page you can make the following cuts using your Cricut Stencil Material.
cut at 7"h
cut at 7"h
Layer cut at 7"h

Once you have these images cut you then start by painting the background of your canvas first! ( I learned that the hard way) LOL. Then you simply start to paint each part of the pear in sections. For the first layer (being the main base of the pear) you want to use the negative part of your cut so that you are painting the actual shape of the pear and the whole inside versus just tracing the actual pear cut and not being able to paint the inside with a stencil.
Side Tip- Make sure to remove the clear film on your stencil material so that the stencil sticks nicely to your canvas insuring that your stencil does not move while painting and gives you a much cleaner look. Also, use a dry brush with light coats of paint and then do 2 to 3 coats before you move on to your next pear layer. This is a little more tedious but makes your art turn out nice and clean! One more thing!- use a heating tool to dry each layer of paint to tons of time and get your project done in a jiff!
Now you can move on to painting the cream colored inside of your pear with one of your pear layers and then use the main pear cut out to paint in your brown or black seeds. You might find that certain cuts are easier for you to paint each of your layers so play around with it. :)

The steps are the same for the apple and cherries but here are the dimensions to get the correct sizing on an 8x8 canvas.

Apple- pg. 27
cut at 6 1/2" h
cut at 6 1/2"h
Layer cut at 6 1/2"h & Layer+shift key

Cherries- pg. 48
cut at 6 1/2"h
cut at 6 1/2"h
Layer + Shift key cut at 6 1/2"h
Layer cut at 6 1/2"h

A little bit more Summer!

This is a layout of my son Evan. I couldn't resist doing one on him at the water park this summer. We were there every week and he learned how to swim during the first month! He is only 3 so I was soooo proud when we got it down!! As soon as he figured it out he was off to the "big boy" slides; where he just went down them over and over until it was time to go home.

To get this layout I used the Bo Bunny Sun kissed line. The only paper that is from a different line is the main base that you see in brown. That is from Echo Parks- A walk in the park. I also used some Jillibean corrugated Alphas. They come in your basic cardboard color so I jazzed them up with come acrylic paint to match my color scheme. Next, I embellished up the page with some tiny Artisan Elements from Pink Paislee (those are fun too cause you can paint, spray, or ink them to match) in this case I inked mine purple. Last, I added some pop dots for dimension, a red button from Jillibean, and did some journaling with the oh so wonderful Uni-ball white Signo pen. Hope you like it!

Halloween is on the way!

Lately I have been so busy with my move and getting Evan settled in Pre-school! So far everything is working out great and we couldn't be happier with all the changes! However, I am packing up for our family trip to Texas and have not had the crafting time I so desperately need.
I still wanted to post some Halloween projects since it is one of my FAVORITE times of the year; so here are my latest Halloween projects that I made during the spring/summer. This first one is a Halloween Invitation... I have to make a new one every year! It is all done with the Cricut but I added a few twists to the cuts. You will notice that the front of the card is a fence that I cut using the Heritage Cartridge. I love it because I would have never expected to find a cut for Halloween on this cartridge but with a few added touches it really has a new spooky feel to it. I simply cut the fence in half to have it open like a gate and then covered it with Rangers black embossing powder. The embossing powder really brings it to life with the shinny look and texture. For the main base I used the Cricut to cut two basic rectangles with rounded edges. I kept the back piece intact (which is used for the inside info) and cut the top rectangle in half so that it could act as the back drop for the gate. I then used my sewing machine to attach the back base to the top front pieces by sewing the outer edges. This really made the card open and close perfectly without the worry of it coming undone like it might have with glue. Once the invite is opened... your guests will find all of the party details! Hope you like this one. :)







This next project is just a little counter top sign to bring in some Halloween Decor'. I really love this sign because it is double sided giving you the option to change it up a bit! This was done mainly on the Cricut as well and was super easy! Just a small tip... I cut the main base (rectangles) out with the decorative card-stock for the front and back as well as some chipboard to give it more sturdiness. I just covered the chipboard with the decorative paper so you never even see it! For the most part the cuts where just basic designs found on the cartridges but for the black spooky tree found on the Happy Halloween side I used a cool technique. I cut the tree from card-stock and then used the negative piece left over. (so I tossed the actual tree that was cut and saved it for another project, then used the piece that is left over that is just the outline of the tree). Once you have the outer cut you then spray the back side with repostionable glue to make it tacky. This keeps the paper from moving around while you are working with it. I then placed the sticky side down onto the cream colored oval and then brought out my Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress Ink and Ink Blending tool. Once you have this, cover your tool with ink and color inside your negative space. Once good and covered the repostionable glue then allows you to remove the cut out of the tree without messing up or tearing your paper underneath. Now you have an image that looks like its a part of the card-stock giving a totally different look! Put some pop dots under the sparrow and you will really have some dimension.