Graduation Cards

I had to make a few "quick" graduation cards.  (Quick for most people; hours for me.)  I have learned cardmaking is not my thing, but sometimes it is necessary.  At least for these I had already decided to make them just black and white so that saved me at least an hour.  ;-)

 

 

I always feel I need to put a little something on the back of a card.  I was too lazy to use my Silhouette just for one small thing, so I looked around for a sticker, punch or some other quick addition.  I ended up coloring blue number stickers black and jamming them on this punched shape.  I should have just cut something on my Silhouette.  LOL!

 

I made this one a pop-up.

 

 

 

 

I like to add a little fun to cards when I can, so even though you can't tell from this picture, I added and homemade action wobble to make this girl dance.

 

 

 

I made these last two on another day and remembered to cut images for the back.  :-)

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Teepees

I host Thanksgiving each year and I like to have a fun activity available to anyone who would like to participate.  Last year I found a teepee printable on the Made With Happy blog.  I thought the kids and some of the adults would enjoy it.  I was pleasantly surprised at the participation, especially from one of the newest members of the family, my youngest sister's husband.  He is very creative and seems to be good at everything!  He took the teepee to new levels (literally).  Here are some of the creations:

 

My creative granddaughter's teepee

 

 

This one was done by one of my crazy nephews.

 

 

Not sure who did this one, but I like it.

 

 

My sister's family compound/reservation, including the royal palace complete with a hot tub and an outhouse.

 

 

Here's a close up.

 

 

Somebody burned the turkey!

 

 

My patriotic nephew's version

 

Not sure what we'll do this year.  I'm still trying to decide.  Hope we have as much fun as last year!

Mr. Bones - My Crazy Skeleton

We like to have fun at our house and tend to get a bit silly at times.  A few years ago Cricut had a Halloween contest using images from A Frightful Affair/Movable Monsters.  For my contest entry I made the shower curtain featured HERE.  Before cutting the vinyl skeleton for the shower curtain, I made a practice skeleton out of poster board to plan sizing and posing.  Not wanting it to go to waste, I dressed it up a bit and hung it on a wall (which just happened to suit my need as a backdrop).  Little did I know how much fun we would later have with Mr. Bones.  I hope to post more about that in the near future.

 

Pray for Our Students Bulletin Board

This bulletin board was inspired by one I had seen on Pinterest found  here.  Sometimes we need to be reminded to pray for our young people.  The challenges they face on a daily basis would probably surprise most of us.  Satan is attacking them from every direction.

 

The school building was cut on my Cricut using the Locker Talk cartridge.  I had a really difficult time with it.  I designed it in Cricut Craft Room and made it as large as I could using the 12x24 mat.  I cut the base from white posterboard.  I had separated out all the layer pieces by using the Hide Contour feature.  However, when I went to cut the layers, the machine just wouldn't cut.  After much frustration, I finally realized it was because some of the hidden images were hanging off the mat.  Even though I didn't want to cut those pieces, the Cricut still recognized them as all one cut.  Lots of wasted time and stress.  At that point I could have started over using my Silhouette Cameo (which will allow things to hang off the page, but wouldn't have been necessary for this project) and another schoolhouse cut file I have.  I decided instead to just color, cut, paste, and whatever else needed to be done to make this cut work.  Lesson learned.

 

The cute little students are from the Lettering Delights collection "Baby Got Backpack".  I was going to cut the layers, but by this time I just wanted it done.  So instead I just did a simple print and cut on my Silhouette Cameo.

 

The school bus was cut from the Everyday Paper Dolls Cricut cartridge.  The kids inside the bus are cut on my Sizzix using the Bitty Body die.  Their faces are stamped using the Peachy Keen Everyday Character Face Assortment.  The driver is the Sizzix original doll body.  I made him to resemble my husband who drives our church bus (although I was probably a little generous with the hair). 

I thought a chalkboard look would be appropriate for my title.  I used black cardstock and framed it out using faux woodgrain contact paper.  I wrote the title with actual chalk.

Ouch!

This one I did two years ago, but I liked it and I had fun with it.  I made it for my crafty sister who fell down the stairs and broke her ankle in three places.  I probably wouldn't have put this much time into a card for just anyone, but I knew she would appreciate it (and she's worth it).  The doll and clothes are Sizzix, as are the cell phone and glasses (I think).  The magazine was cut from an ad.  The chair and ottoman were drawn by my daughter.

This is rather morbid, but I thought it was funny.  I had to cut the doll apart to get the pose I wanted.  My daughter's boyfriend at the time saw the pieces and put them together like this.  I'm sure my sister felt like this during her recovery time.

G is Driving! Yikes!

I made this card for my nephew's birthday -- you know ... the one every mother dreads! I think I got the map off Google maps. The car is a Sizzix die cut from a shiny plastic scrap of paper from junk mail. The headlights are cut from Crayola Stardust Paper I bought years ago at the Dollar Tree. I think I bought all they had. I don't know what I'll do when I run out of this stuff; I use it all the time. It's great for making faux lights. The boy is from Sizzix also. The license plate and "Happy 16th" are printed from Hot Rod Alphabet from Lettering Delights.