You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

Happy BBTB2 Monday!  I feel like dancing today, how about you?  This week the challenge cut at BBTB2 is the flamingo from Cricut's Life's a Beach cartridge.  I chose to use the triple flamingo cut on my card.  After all, if one flamingo is good, three must be even better, right?  And three dancing flamingos just take the prize!

I used two cartridges to create this card:  Life's a Beach and Happy Hauntings.  I am loving the frames on Happy Hauntings!  I also used long nestabilities, plain and scalloped edge, as well as my I-Rock.  I added silver beads to the flamingos and to the sentiment statement.  I finished the card with a black and white striped ribbon, keeping with the formal feel of the card.

I wanted the background to be white, but not just flat white.  I used a herringbone embossing folder and created a background insert for the frame.  I am so happy that I remembered to emboss.  I am not sure why, but I almost never remember to use embossing folders with my BBTB2 projects.  I believe I get so involved in using the Cricut that I forget about embossing.  I remembered today AFTER I used the nesties.

If you have not already done so, please stop by BBTB2 and check out the FABULOUS projects.  My design team sisters WOW me every single week!

Sugar & Spice - Really?

This week's BBTB2 challenge cut is the Gecko/Lizard from the Life's A Beach cartridge.  The design team could use the cut in any way we wanted so I decided to make a layout.  I found these two fun photos of a a sweet little girl playing with the lizard she found at the beach.  I remembered that girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice; boys are snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.  I had a difficult time visualizing sugar and spice for this little cutie with the lizard on her nose!

I used five cartridges to create this layout:  Designer Calendar for the grid (with some hide contour action), Life's A Beach, Plantin Schoolbook for the photo mats, Graphically Speaking for the second half of the phrase, and Once Upon a Princess for the Sugar & Spice title.

I used Amy Chomas' pen holder and mini pens to create the top half of the title.  I used a pink glitter pen in the holder and selected cut.  By replacing the blade housing on my cricut with the mini pen holder housing, the cricut wrote the words instead of cutting them.  I love Amy's products. You can purchase your own products by clicking here.  I will tell you that I also use Amy's embossing set on one of the DVD projects!

I used a large prima flower over the sun, which photographed dark.  It is not as "mustardy" as the photo implies.  I also used my trusty white pen to add dashes on the layout.

The lizards/geckos were cut in three different papers.  I placed them in four different positions inside the grids on the page.

BBTB2 - Peggy Loves Vintage Sponsored TBBM Challenge

Good Monday morning bloggers!!  I am finally back in the groove (!) and have several projects to share with you this week.  The first project is, of course, the weekly Bitten by the Bug 2 challenge.  This week Peggy Loves Vintage is sponsoring the challenge.  We were provided with several of Peggy's fabulous vintage images from which to choose to create our project.  We also had to use a specific tag from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More on our projects. 

As you can see I took the road less traveled (note all of the blue projects at BBTB2 this week) and chose this cute hula girl.  She looks so happy with her little ukalie and her fabulous tropical flowers; I thought she was a perfect canidate for an easel fold card.  I began by cutting a frame for my image by using a tag from Just Because Cards and adding an oval cut out to the middle.  I then mounted the framed on image on the required tag, using the tag as a matting.

I used fun and bright papers and added three additional layers of mattings... Because, let's be honest, you cannot have enough color when you plan to add "aloha" to the front of your card. I'm just saying....

As you all know, I missed last week's BBTB2 challenge which used the Life's a Beach cartridge.  What you do not know is that I purchased LAB *just* for that challenge... seriously.  So I had to make up for that by using LAB this week!  As I said above, I planned to use the Aloha cut. I liked the flower on the Aloha cut so well that I cut another for the front of the card, then I cut the flower border for the inside.  I think this more than makes up for missing last week's LAB challenge.

I hope that you will all check back through the week.  I have a few more cards to share with you AND on Saturday I will be back at Everyday Cricut for my monthly project!!  Also, you will want to check Everyday Cricut daily because my design team sister and all around wonderful person, Donna Mundinger is Ms. May.  I promise you that you will not want to miss Donna's work.  WARNING - my jaw usually falls open while looking at Donna's paper art so be warned and do not take food or beverage to the computer with you!!

Life's A Beach Gecko In the Sun

Guess what I FINALLY purchased??  The Life's A Beach cartridge!  I don't know why I had not purchased this little cutie sooner because it is loaded with adorable cuts!  My first Life's A Beach card features this adorable print Gecko heading off to the beach. 

I love the paper that I used to cut the gecko, but sadly now it is all gone. It is from the same set as the orange background paper and the light blue paper on which the gecko is crawling.  The phrase "fun in the sun" was cut with Bazzill cardstock, and it is on the matching phrase function with the Gecko.

Life's a beach also had some super-cute multi cuts for borders and such.  I just couldn't resist adding these four little geckos as an inside border.  I matted them on rust Bazzill cardstock which is flanked by the orange print from the front.

I finished the card by adding green and orange flowers and a double layer of ribbon.  I used my favorite pens to do a bit of doodling and voila - a cute Gecko in the sun card!!