First craft project post

I used to make cards for friends but they were pretty ordinary things.  Then I made the best decision of my crafting life, I bought a Cricut electronic die cutter.  The capabilities of the Cricut, although great, are not what made buying it the best decision of my life, it was the fact the manufacturer, Provo Craft, host a message board for people who have their products.

From the Cricut MB I discovered I needed a Cuttlebug embossing machine, I discovered Stickles and Liquid Pearls, Tim Holtz, Smooch, flock and an assortment of amazing things you could do with these and other products I'd never heard of before.  I learned that stamps could be coloured with markers called Copics and didn't have to be boring outlines.  I also learned about sketches and using these has allowed me to take my cards to a whole new level.

But mostly, I discovered a group of people who actually like doing what I like doing.  For often I am a lone crafter, with friends who dabble around the edges at times but don't understand my paper hording tendencies or my various tools and talk of dutch gate folds.

So here is a card I made, the very first one I was brave enough to post up on the MB on a thread where lots of people would see it.  It was for a friend who was turning 40.  The Chinese characters in the bottom box are her name.

I stamped the background and used my Cricut and the Pagoda cart to cut the bamboo and Chinese symbol which means happiness.  The happy birthday was cut using the Jasmine cart.  The piece of gold foil is literally kitchen foil, Aldis had some in gold and purple for Christmas.

There is an amazingly talented group of card makers who take turns to post sketches each week on the Cricut MB with a set of colours and an extra credit challenge.  Check them out here RAQ's Card Challenge, Raq posts the link to the current challenge here.

Thanks for stopping by!