She Art ~ Teen Style

I warned you that this She Art is addicting! It didn't take long to head back to my craft room to create another project. This time the creative driver was my soon to be 16 year old daughter. She loved my canvas and immediately started thinking of a quote she wanted. We decided on a sketch for the girl that we found through Pinterest. I printed it out then my daughter cut all the individual pieces. She also chose her own papers which came from my stash as well as a DCWV stack. It really fit her style of colors, floral, whimsy and a bit of sparkle!

My First "She Art"

I have seen various "She Art" projects floating around the internet. I saw them posted on Pinterest and some Blogs which made me curious and even found some You Tube videos showing how to create them. I was pleasantly surprised to find some Julie Nutting stamps at Hobby Lobby and purchased some canvas and Mod Podge along with them. Even with the materials at hand and lots of researching I was still nervous to try my hand at this type of art project! So everything sat there in my craft room for a couple of weeks.

Then, last Friday I said, "What the heck, just try it, it's only paper and glue!" I had so much fun just 'building' the girl and piecing together an assortment of patterned papers. In the end it may not have been perfect, but it was freeing, and fun, and sort of addicting!

So here is my very first "She Art" or should I say She Heart!

 
My papers are from new & old collections like For always, Heartstrings, Frosted and La Bel Vie.

I love the idea of choosing a quote or sentiment that really means something to you. This is the one I chose for this first project, it just kept ringing in my head and my heart that day.

At first I was super nervous to free hand all of the outline, not sure if it would just look messy. After a few strokes it became relaxing and even a bit meditative! I even squiggled some curls in her hair!

Besides piecing paper and doodling an outline, I also stamped a sentiment of love and left a flower popped up off the canvas. I simply sealed some mod podge on the surface, but as you can see in the photo it is not completely glued down to the canvas. I love that there are no strict or confining rules. What a great way to use left over pieces of paper too. I have so many ideas for more She Art!

Thanks for stopping by!

Think Pink Bicycle

The challenge this week on Heart 2 Heart Challenges is to think pink!! What is your favorite Close To My Heart pink? This could certainly be a tough choice. CTMH offers a wonderful variety of pink hues, but my favorite has to be Cotton Candy.

I choose this color in my clothing too, even down to my saucony running shoes. My beach cruiser is even this color. I think that is why I love this card so much! This pop up bicycle card is made from the Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge. I added in some banners and clouds to the inside of the card. On the outside I used some polka dot Washi tape and glitter paper.

For the outside of the card I cut a PML card on the cartridge to fit the 5x7 base. I layered some glitter paper behind the image to make the bike pop! Just a few banners and embellishments finished the front.

As you open the card the bicycle pops out in the center. I also popped the little cloud and the bike and banners were cut on fundamentals paper giving them a little bit of a shiny texture.

Too much pink you think?!! Yeah....I don't think so either!

Peek~a~Boo Washi Tape

This card contains lots of on-trend products, especially the Washi tape! I made it in response to a creative challenge from the CTMH team to use Washi tape in a creative way. I liked the idea of cutting out a sentiment and having patterned paper and Washi tape peeking through from behind.

To make the banner I simply chose the shape on my Cricut and then in Design Space I chose my font for the hello and cut it out on the center of the pennant shape. For the background I chose random papers from various collections and grouped them with some gold dotted, lagoon heart and arrow Washi tape. Include the twine, gold shimmer trim and mini clothespin, this card is absolutely trendy!!

Confetti Cake

This is my first time playing with the Confetti Wishes paper. What a fun, vibrant collection of patterns and colors! I used the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches this week. It was a simple design that lent itself to making the Birthday cake the center of attention!

Get EnTWINEd with H2H

The challenge this week on Heart 2 Heart Blog is to be enTWINEd. This can be interpreted in so many ways, however I liked the idea of birds entwined in love. That thought led me to feathers and the older Free to Be Me paper collection.

I was in need of more 3x3 mini card sets for my customers and one of them in particular loves feathers on projects! I bundled the set of 4 cards with some Olive twine, adding to the theme. Look close and you will see the cute feathers I cut out on the Cricut with some special shiny paper that was included in the paper collection. The simple sentiment "hello" is one of the stamp sets included in the Artfully Sent Cricut collection.

Be sure to visit H2H Blog to see how the design team members got enTWINEd!

February Crate Card Club

This past weekend I held my Crate Card Club. As always the participants are free to make any themed card {or special project} as they wish. The only thing I ask is that they use mostly Close To My Heart products on their creation, especially the stamps! There is always a great variety and seeing how others create is so much fun. We all inspire each other with our techniques and choice of papers, colors or stamp sets. Take a look at our art this month!

Here are all the projects displayed on a shelf just above our work table. We had a few that were Valentine inspired, but we also had, Birthday, Thank You and an everyday sentiment too.

As you can see they are all beautiful cards and even a darling, humorous candy wrapped "You're the Bomb" treat.....which has me thinking of dropping the "card" word in the name of my club. What do you think about just "Crate Club"? These ladies are so crafty and talented I'm sure they would surprise me with their creations each month!

Artfully Sent Getting Lots of Love!

On Heart 2 Heart Challenges blog this week, we are asked to show our CTMH love! There are so many things I love about Close To My Heart and their amazing products. How do I choose a favorite? I don't, instead I am sharing the product that has been getting the most love from me lately. That would definitely be the Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge! I hosted a class last week and we all had a blast playing with this newest cartridge. Here is one of the bonus cards that I shared with the ladies.

Loving that Heartstrings paper too right now!


Here is a swing card for Mom using some Brushed paper.

Finally, while the ladies were playing on their machines, I was trying out this cute deer & rabbit scene card. I just continued cutting the card in different colors of cardstock, then pieced them together.

I'm loving that cartridge and can't imagine getting through all the cards within the year. There are just so many possibilities! What are you loving right now? Do you have a favorite CTMH product?

Please click on the Cricut collections tab at the top of my blog for more information on this newest cartridge. You can order yours here.

Fall in Love With Ice Cream

With all of this warm weather right now I have cravings for Ice Cream! That was my inspiration for this clean and simple card for the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches this week.

I did a colorful chevron stamp and a zip strip from the For Always paper as the belly band. I thought the sentiment was pretty funny, "every time I see you, I fall in love all over again"! Yeah, it's like that!! How adorable is that ice cream truck? Finally some little heart puffies finishes off the card perfectly!

Artfully Sent Spring Card Class

Yesterday I held a class to teach some of the fun Spring themed cards on the Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge. This class helped the ladies get more familiar with this cartridge, it's features and the endless possibilities it holds. One of the participants was also getting to know her machine for the first time, as was I since I never worked with an Expression 2 before! We had a ball and everyone went home a little bit more confident and ready to play!

Here are the 3 cards I had for examples, but as the day went on I would surprise them with another variation of it or a different style!

Here are more variations of the adorable birdcage cards.

A simple flower pot swing card.

For the bicycle card I had pre-cut several little bicycles and banners in an assortment of colors. Here are some detail pictures of the sample card.

As I mentioned before, throughout the class I continued to surprise them with another card. I was having a little bit of fun revealing each card as I pulled it out of my Lagoon Chevron shoulder bag! After receiving instructions to make a card they would start experimenting on their own. During this time I was also playing on my machine and would reveal a completely different card that I just cut and assembled. I will show these cards in upcoming posts so stay tuned....You want to know what I had in my bag don't you?!!

Home is Where {love} is!

I was asked to be the guest designer this month at Heart 2 Heart Challenges. I love to play along with their challenges week after week, so being their guest is an honor!

The first challenge this month~ Home is where the heart is! My first thought immediately went to an Artfully Sent swing card that I saw in the booklet. {page 19} With an upcoming Cricut class this week it would be perfect to display giving the ladies more ideas and inspiration!

This card cuts out beautifully, is simple to decorate, but not so easy to photograph! I took a few pictures so that you can see it from all angles.

Be sure to visit the H2H Blog to see the other wonderful creations from this challenge!