Birthday Goodies

I can't believe that it has been over a month since I last posted. The sad thing is that before this past weekend, I had only made one card since then. (I'll post that one later. First, I want to remake it with some ideas I have for improvements

I just celebrated my birthday and my mom and husband were kind enough to add to my stamping addiction. This afternoon I sat down to use my new SU stamp set, Branch Out. I had seen some beautiful flowering crab apple or cherry blossom trees made with this set so that is what I set out to do. After I stamped the tree I cut it out with my Big Shot using my second largest Nestie oval. I framed that with the largest oval in Certainly Celery and then added the largest scallop oval in Regal Rose. After I made that, I was at a loss as to what to do next...
I did an Internet search and came up with Mary Fish's card for inspiration. The interesting thing is that Mary Fish's blog is on my blog reader, but I hadn't saved this card in my Inspiration folder because I didn't own the stamp set when I first saw it!

I liked the card when I finished it, but there were changes that I wanted to make. I thought the word window should be wrapped around the left side of the Whisper White oval and the brads needed to be closer to the ticket punch corner. So after dinner I decided to make another card, this time following Mary's a little more closely:

I finally broke down and bought the Sure Cuts A Lot program in March and I am SO glad that I did! The program allows me to cut pretty well any shape with my Cricut. I used the image of the SU Bigz Die Oval Scallop Frame from the Spring/Summer catalogue for the second card. I just loaded an image of the die into Inkscape to make a SVG file and then imported that into SCAL. Not only can I cut any image that I want without buying dies or cartridges, but I also can change the size to whatever I want! Let me know if you would like the SCUT file or more information about how to make your own files.

I cut the frame from two pieces of box board (cereal box) - cutting each piece separately and using the cut 3x feature. I glued those together and then cut a piece of Old Olive card stock and glued that on top.

I think the only thing that I would change about this card is make the Whisper White oval just slightly bigger than the frame so I wouldn't have to worry about the designer paper peeking through.

Well, thanks for looking and I hope I'll be back to making cards a little more regularly.

Kim

First Card
SU Card Stock - Regal Rose, Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink
SU Designer Paper - Certainly Celery
SU Ink - Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Chocolate Chip
Stamps - SU - Branch Out, Papertry Ink - Faux Ribbon
Accessories - SU Organdy Ribbon - Certainly Celery, Pretty In Pink Satin Ribbon (from my stash). Pretty in Pink Brads from Pink Hedge Hog Paper Crafts, Ticket Corner Punch, Word Window Punch, Oval and Scalloped Oval Nesties, Stampin' Dimensionals

Second Card
SU Card Stock - Whisper White, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink
SU Designer Paper - Regal Rose
SU Ink - Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Chocolate Chip
Stamps - SU - Branch Out, Papertry Ink - Faux Ribbon
Accessories - Regal Rose Brads from Pink Hedge Hog Paper Crafts, Ticket Corner Punch, Word Window Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals. Cricut, Sure Cuts A Lot