Red, White and Blue!

Good Morning!

This is Jen, from 3 Cats and a Bug! 
This week over at SweetSassyDiva's; our theme is Red, White and Blue or a Flag.

I went with the Red, White and Blue theme and am counting on pictures of my Grandson this 4th of July. With him in mind, I went with A Child's Year cartridge and the Stand and Salute cartridge. I only used MS Birthday cartridge for the grass, which I cut @ 1 and welded 4 pieces together for each 12 x 12 page.  I did that for each layer of the grass.  I glued the bottom half of the grass together, leaving the blades free to be curled and lifted to put things under.  (This will make sense when you see the picture!)

From A Child's Year, I cut out the boy & car, boy & rocket and boy pulling wagon all @ 4.

I added stickles to all the images. On the rocket, I used a white gel pen and glossy accents on just the rocket.

From the Stand and Salute cartridge I cut out the fireworks @ 4. I had also cut out a banner, but afterwards decided it was just too much.

When I put the 3 layers together, I offset them each just a bit. I added stickles to the centers of each and on one of them I added stickles trailing down.  I also added glossy accents to the center of each.

The two page layout

The left side...

The right side...

Thanks for looking!

Chicks dig me!

Good Morning!
 This is Jen from 3 Cats and a Bug!  This week at SweetSaddyDiva's  the design team is doing anything that uses 3 or more Cricut cartridges. I went with the "or more" part and used 5 cartridges.

For Easter, my daughter bought my Grandson the cutest lil outfit! The shirt says "Chicks dig me" and he was so adorable in it. I had to buy him a huge bunny for Easter since he's too little for an Easter basket.   So, on to my layout.

 I cut out two different chicks, one from Easter 2010, cut @ 3 and one from A Child's Year, cut @ 4. I embossed the chick from ACY and debossed the other one and then colored it in.

I cut the bunny from Easter 2010, cut @ 6 and embossed that one also.

I added stickles to his ear, white enamel accents on his tail and black enamel accents for his eye.

Also from the Easter 2010 cartridge I cut out two eggs, cut @ 2.5.  I added stickles, gems and used my viva decor pen to decorate them.

I cut the words "Dig Me" from Cindy Loo, cut at 3.5. I embossed the D and M, added stickles and a gem to decorate them. I also cut out a bow for the chick, cut @ 1 from Easter 2010 and added a matching gem to that.

I cut out the word Chicks from Straight From The Next, cut @ 3.5. I embossed the heart and used my white gel pen to decorate the letter.

For the grass I used MS Birthday Cakes Cartridge. I welded two pieces together, each cut @ 2 twice for both layers. I only wanted each piece to go 12 inches.

On the light green grass I used my thumb nails to curl up the tips. When I glued the two pieces together, I just ran a strip of glue on the bottom half so that the grass would still stick up. I did it the same way when I glued it to my background paper.

Thanks for looking!

Happy Mother's Day!

Good Morning! This is Jen from 3 Cats and a Bug. This week at SweetSassyDiva's; the theme is All about Mom's. I decided to make a two page layout for my Grandson's Mom for her first Mother's Day. I used several different cartridges for this layout. I wanted to use the floral circle from Mother's Day 2010 cartridge, so I started with that cut @ 11.5. I cut it in 3 different layers using my gypsy. The bottom layer was in green and I used the hide contour to hide the small flowers around the edge. The second layer was blue, which I left alone. The top layer I hid all the lines except for the flowers, which I cut from yellow, green and blue patterned paper. I wanted the circle on both pages, so once I figured out where, I cut it in two.

I saved the leftover from those cuts.

I used my Viva Decor Pearl Pen and added purple dots around the edge. I added some flower gems to the larger flower cut outs and smaller pearl dots to the small flowers.

The next thing I needed was a frame for the picture. I used a frame from Mother's Day 2010, cut @ 6.8 and hid the inside cut. From lacy labels I took the butterfly oval, cut @ 4 and welded it into the MD frame. I also cut the same oval to layer on the frame in a darker blue.

I added the picture to the frame, adjusting it how I wanted it to sit, and then flipped it over and taped the picture down. (The picture is of the three of them when Bentlee was about 1 hour old. Such an awesome day!!)

I love decorating my cuts. To the layer on the frame I added "stitching" with a white gel pen. I used some Stickles to the butterfly and when that dried I added glossy accents, although it really doesn't show up well in the picture. I used 4 of the bigger flowers from the circle leftovers and added green brads to it. I inked the edges of the frame in blue chaulk.

I cut out "Happy Mother's Day" from Mother's Day 2010 @ 5.

I used my white gel pen to decorate it.

I cut out an image of Mom and child from A Child's Year @ 6. I will admit I messed them up when laying everything out to cut. I had meant for the dark blue to be the shadow. When I realized what I did, I put them together anyways and actually liked how they looked, so I didn't fix it. :)

I cut out the purple swirls from Lovely Floral @ 3. I added pink liquid pearls to the flowers.

This is the first page,

and the second page,

and the two of them together.

Thanks for looking!

You're Invited to a Blog Hop!

That's right, you're invited to a blog hop!  March 10 & 11 SweetSassyDiva is having a blog hop to celebrate her birthday so this week the theme is to make an invitation for any event. As you can see my invite is for all of you to come to this exciting blog hop!

The details: Cricut Birthday Bash - You're Invited - 1.5" Cricut A Child's Year - to, a  .75" Cricut Gypsy Font - Blog Hop - 1" The when, where and rsvp were done on the computer. The ribbon is from my stash. I hope you will put the date for the hop in your calendar and come and join the fun ! As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Two Simple Christmas Cards!

Good Morning! This is Jen from 3 Cats and a Bug!

This week at SweetSassyDiva's; the Design Team is working on Christmas Cards!



This year when I was getting ready to make my Christmas cards for the craft fair I decided to do something different! The last few years the things that sold the most were the simple cards. While the easel cards that I had given away had gotten great comments, they didn’t sell at all. So I decided to do everything rather simple this year. I also decided to cut out my paper first and figure out what to put on it later. :)

I didn’t use all the papers, but there’s always next year! I used last years DCWV Christmas stacks. I also cut out the 2 pages of borders and cut them down to size.

I love the child building the snowman cut from A Child’s Year! I lost count, but I cut out roughly 75 of them at 3.5. I used glitter paper and Coredinations Gem paper for the top pieces....

For the bottom pieces I cut out red, blue, purple and green.

While watching Monday night football, I put them all together. (This whole project took me several days!)

I also cut out the snowflake from Sophie, the cricut circle cartridge, at 3.5 in white and blue.

Normally, I use my Pink ATG to put everything together, but I was running low on tape, so I decided to try my Tombo glue. I used the wide end and spread it on the outside of the paper to attach it to the card base. It worked great, even doing 6 cards at a time!

I also spent two days cut out cards from different colored paper and then scoring and folding them. I filled a 8 x13 plastic container plus some. Another half day to cut out the Christmas paper, roughly 120 card fronts. Two days of cutting shapes, one evening of gluing them together in front of the tv and another full morning of glueing card fronts to the bases. I spent another day and a half of putting everything together! I’m tired of looking at Christmas cards for right now, but I haven’t even started on my own personal Christmas cards yet! Lol

(note: this one above is SSD's favorite)

Thanks for looking!