Christmas in July # 7 - charger plate

Hello!!  Sorry I missed yesterday, I was so busy with work and then it was so nice and cool I decided to bake muffins last night to stock my freezer.  Then when it gets hot again I have a quick breakfast ready to go, especially when school starts back up!  Only 18 days!!

So, here is the last project for my Christmas in July week - and although I say it's my last project I still have a couple more cards to share this week :)  Once I started with Christmas it seems I couldn't stop!

 Last year after Christmas, Walmart had these charger plates in red, green and gold marked down to 25 cents!!  I totally stocked up and have an entire tote full ready to be altered!  And I know most people use vinyl when altering the charger plates, but I am either out or I just can't find it in my mess, so I used cardstock.

I started with the center image.  I knew I wanted to use an angel and I knew I wanted to use A Quilted Christmas.  It's the cartridge I chose when I signed up for Cricut Circle and I never got around to using it yet.

I started by measuring the inner circle of my charger (8.25") and made a circle in CCR using Cricut Craft Room Basics.  This way I could layer the angel over the top to get a better sizing instead of having to imagine it - because I am ALWAYS wrong when I try to do that  LOL.  Then I went to A Quilted Christmas and using the silhouette feature, I chose the angel located on button 24.  I started with 7 1/2" and adjusted the size on my circle till I was happy.  I ended up with the angel sized at 6.833" and cut it out of black cardstock.

Then I started on the words to go around the edge of the charger.

I started by measuring the space from the edge to where it starts to dip down - 2".  Based on this, I knew I wanted my letters to be 1 1/2 inches, and I knew what I wanted it to say, I just didn't know what font to use.

Recently, I discovered the text feature in CCR.  OMG this makes finding a font on my cartridges SO MUCH EASIER!!! It used to be that I would type a letter into the image search and just go through them all - what a pain in the hiney!   If you click on text, then add a new text box, a box will pop up on your virtual mat.  You type in the phrase you want to cut out and then just click on the cartridges in the drop down menu.  It will change your font as you click on them so you can see exactly what your phrase will look like!  I love it!!

So by doing this, I came across this wonderful font on the Nursery Rhyme cartridge.  Honestly, I didn't even know this cart had a font!  I thought it was perfect for what I wanted and cut my words out with black cardstock.

I glued all of my cuts/words down with a liquid quick dry glue and I thought I was done.  But my husband said it was too plain and it "needed something, maybe some color or something".  So back I went to CCR looking through my Christmas themed cartridges.  I stumbled on the Christmas flower and the holly berry on the Joys of the Season cartridge.  I played with the sizes until they would fit the space I needed and cut them out.  I added some chunky gold glitter to the center of the flower and added some spots of red glitter in between each of the words.

I was pretty happy with the end result and got a thumbs up from the hubs  :-)

BTW - Christmas is only 150 days away!!!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!!

Linking to:  Little Scrap Pieces

Beach - altered picture frame

Welcome friends!  I have a fun altered picture frame to share today!

I started with one of those dollar frames from Michaels, painted it blue and you can't see it in the pic, but I added a layer of glitter paint as well.  Then I tore some strips of kraft cardstock and layered it on the bottom for sand.  I only glued down the bottom part of the strips so I could distress the edges a bit and then went over it with Tim Holtz tea dye distress ink.

I cut the chair from the Life's a Beach cartridge at 3" and sponged it with a bit of indian corn blue ink.  It's adhered with foam tape to pop it up a bit. The pail and shovel were also cut from Life's a Beach at 1.153".  The flip flops were cut from the Best of 2010 cartridge at 1.361".  I used scrap paper for all my pieces.

The umbrella was cut from Life's a Beach at 3".  The sun was also cut from Life's a Beach at 3".  I inked the edges with tea dye distress ink and raised the center on foam tape.  The bird was cut from Indie Art at 1.5".  This bird doesn't have a solid layer and I wanted the white underneath so I used CCR hide option to erase the lines and cut the piece solid.

I think it turned out pretty cute!  What do you think??

Linking to: BBTB2, Little Scrap Pieces, Jo's Scrap Shack and KraftyGirls

Altered Purse Box

So a few months ago I found these absolutely hideous purse boxes on clearance at Hobby Lobby.  I wish, wish, wish I had a before pic!  They were only $1.79 and I saw potential.  I worked on this over the course of a few days.

I so love how this turned out!!

Inside

The first thing I did was spray paint the boxes with Rustoleum Hammered Brown spray paint.

Once that was dry I started adding paper.  All paper used was from the Avonlea collection from Close to my Heart - Unfortunately this paper is sold out, but just wait!  There's some great new collections coming out Aug 1st!

Back view

Sides with faux stitching using a white gel pen - the ribbon handle is ribbon from the Close to my Heart green collection

I hot glued some layered flowers with brad centers to the top.

I used multiple Cricut carts on this project.  The green flourishes are from Cindy Loo and the brown flourishes are from Home Decor.  The small butterfly is from Martha Stewart Elegant Cake Art and the large butterfly is from Best Images of 2010.  And finally, the birdcage and the bird are from Bloom.

I hope you enjoyed today's project!  Have a great day!