Greetings from the Seashore

Happy July 4th - American Independence Day!  And, a bit late, happy Canada day to our neighbors to the north!  I am back with another Bitten by the Bug 2 weekly challenge.  Our design team leader, Heather, chose the cut of the week, the STARFISH from the Life's a Beach cartridge. 

Before I discuss today's BBTB2 layout I want to share my "vacation" week with you.  As I previously shared, Doug, Ian and I were planning a few days in Chattanooga to visit with Doug's family.  His sister  and brother-in-law were in from NM and we were excited to see them.  Well, the day before we planned to leave I woke up early in the morning ill.  I had a yucky tummy, headache, fever, body aches, etc.  At first I thought that I had one of those 24 hour viral deals that we have all had.  But no.... My virus turned out to be a three day ordeal...  In the meantime I had sent Doug and Ian on their way, promising to go the doctor is I did not feel better by the third day.  Thankfully the afternoon of the third day I realized that I was on the road to wellness!

I missed seeing everyone, and as heavenly as being home alone can be, this was not one of those times.  I was bored and was missing my family!  So I had a bit of pity party and then I got over it!!  Oh, and I did read three books last week so that was good!

As I stated above, today's BBTB2  challenge cut is the starfish from Life's a Beach.  I decided to create a girlie beach layout because I have TONS of photos from Bethany's years at the College of Charleston - I think she spent a lot of time on the beach!!!  I normally use blues and sand colors for the beach, but this time I went with topical pinks, salmon, etc.

I used five cartridges to create this layout - Life's a Beach for the sea life, Kate's ABC's for the title cut - Seashore, Billionaire for the cursive phrase, George for the rectangles and French Manor for the stamp shaped cuts.

I used Cricut Design Studio to design my layered title and multi-layered bottom edge border. 

Please stop by Bitten by the Bug 2 and check out all of the great Starfish projects.  Also, please consider playing along with us this week - you could be our weekly winner!!!

I have a three day project to share with you Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - a Patriotic picnic enhanced with Cricut!!!

Sunny Days with Celebrate with Flourish and BBTB2

Happy Monday and happy (HOT) summer!  This is my week to host the challenge cut at Bitten by the Bug 2.  In honor of the Summer Solstice, I selected a fun, summery cut - the phrase "Sunny Days" from the Celebrate with Floursh Lite cartridge! 

I designed this layout a month ago when I first selected my challenge cut.  The timing was perfect as my husband and I had just booked out first cruise!  Our 30th anniversary is in November so we decided to take a 6 night cruise to the Bahamas and Key West to celebrate.  We thought this cruise sounded like a perfect opportunity to introduce us to cruising - to get our feet wet, so to speak!

So, with "cruising on the brain" I combined cuts from Celebrate with Flourish and Life's a Beach cartridges to create this fun layout.  I used Celebrate with Flourish (CWF) to cut the Sunny Days phrase and the sun with clouds layered cut.  I love the layered look of the word phrases on CWF.  I confess that I have been utilizing a similar layering technique long before CWF was released. But using CWF makes the layering of letters MUCH easier.   I also really like the swirl cutouts - or flourishes - that are part of every CWF cut.  Such a fun cartridge.

I uses Life's a Beach (LIB) to cut the elements on the lower half of the page.  I cut the ship in multiple layers and had cut an additional bottom piece to make the ship taller.  I trimmed the ship out with ribbon, dashes and a cute little anchor. 

The double layer waves and the dolphines were also cut from LIB.  I had never cut the dolphines so I was a bit nervous about the tiny outline pieces.  But as you can see it all went very well.   The waves were cut in two layers - after welding two of each of the wave cuts together.  I thought the dolphins looked cut jumping out of the water between the waves.

I used this great beach photo on the layout, though truthfully I will probably make a matching page and save the layout for our fall cruice.  The photo mats will hold up to a 5 x7.  Sadly I was out of 5 x7 photo paper and had to print this photo at 4 x 6. 

If you have not already done so, please go by Bitten by the Bug 2 and check out the design team projects. I had a sneak peek and was WOWed by some of the great projects.  Also, please consider playing along with us on the weekly challenge.  Complete a new project this week using the "Sunny Days" phrase cut and post your project in the link area at BBTB2.  We provide a blog blinkie to the best project of the week, selected from those who chose to join us in the challenge.

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!!