Monday Cricut Cartridge Showcase

Welcome to our first 

Monday Cricut Cartridge Showcase at 

Cooking With Cricut

Hi! This is Chef Madison.  I am here today to kick off the Monday Cricut Cartridge Showcase.  Every Monday for the rest of July and for the month of August, one member of the Cooking With Cricut Design Team will be showcasing their favorite Cricut cartridge by designing and creating a new project to share here with you:)


I currently own about 20 Cricut cartridges and my favorite for the moment is Kate's ABCs. I wanted to share with you today how you could use a cut out from this Cricut cartridge to create a home decor project.  For those of you who follow my blog, you know that I love to paint.  Many of you claim that you don't know how to paint.  Well no more excuses!  Here is an easy way to paint!

Start with a blank canvas.  Mine was 11" by 14."

Using white card stock, I cut an image from Kate's ACBs at 6 1/2" and traced it onto the blank canvas.

Now it is a matter of choosing paint colors.  You have transfered this adorable cut out onto a canvas to hang in a little girl's room or anywhere you would like.  You can do this with any Cricut cartridge so you can see the opportunities are limitless.  I added "Love Life" and two butterflies to fill in  space on the canvas.  I freehanded these but you can use Cricut cuts and fonts!

I hope you have been inspired. Time to get out the paints and the Cricut and see what you can cook up:)


Thanks for stopping by!
~Madison

July Club Q Kit Project-FREE File

Good morning Crafty Friends,
Hope you’re having a wonderful Sunday!  Today I am sharing a project I made using the Fabulous Club Q July Kit from Quick Quotes. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Quick Quotes designs and sells monthly kits. They are a fantastic alternative to “dreaming up” you own works of h(art)!

The kits come with all the product, pictures and instructions for completing the kits as shown. BUT you can always add a little of this or a little of that and create your own project as well.

Here is a picture of July’s Club Q Kits.

This is a picture of the additional Canvas Project Available.

This kit features their new Designer Paper, Miss Morgan. It features some beautiful double sided cardstock-weight paper and some precious quotes.

So here is the project I came up with using some of the product from this collection.

Here is a photo of the layout. I created the flowers, border and flourishes. I inked the edges of most of the mats with Midnight Confessions Chalk Ink. I inked the quote and the mat it sits on with Purple Passion Chalk Ink. I also Machine stitched the border.

Here is a close up of the butterfly and some flowers.

The butterfly is a chipboard element. So I painted it with white acrylic paint and then inked the edges with some Purple Passion Chalk Ink. I rubbed some Frosted Lace Stickles over the entire surface to give it a “sugary” look. I then added touches of Starry Night Stickles in the designs of the wings. Lastly,  and added some jewels down the center. I used some foam dots to give it some lift. I also inked the edge of the doily with Purple Passion.

Here is a close up of the flowers and the flourishes. I cut the flourishes out of black cardstock and the flowers out of some Lt. Purple cardstock. There is a quick tutorial below on how I made the flowers. I covered the flourishes with Silver Stickles.

Here is the recipe for this layout:

I used contents from the Club Q July Kit: Butterfly, Doily, Designer Paper, Jewels and Quote.

Sour Apple(Green), Sweethearts(Med. Purple/Mauve), Java(Brown), White, Black and Sweet Dreams(Lt. purple) Bazzill Cardstock.

Purple Passion, Bloody Mary, Mocha Mama , Midnight Confessions , Very Berry, QQ Powder Puff Chalk Inks.

Silver Stickles , Frosted Lace Stickles and Starry Night Stickles Glitter Glues.

5pt Flower Tutorial

First You need your Flowers Cut Out in Three Different Sizes. If using your Cricut, you can find a very similar flower to this on the Forever Young Cartridge. I didn’t get a chance to go through and find any others, but if I do, I will update this post :-) The sizes will vary depending on the finished size of the flower you want.

Next: You will need to ink the edges of all your flower with whatever color you are working with. I used the various inks above. I think the flowers look much more realistic in the end when you add more than one other ink color.

Next: You will spritz the flowers with either regular water or if you have some glimmer mist on hand, you can use that. I used some regular Gold Glimmer Mist. It doesn’t have any additional color to it, just the gold shimmer. Once they are spritz, you will want to crinkle and wad them up as much as possible. Just be careful not to “tear” your flower in the process. Let them sit like this for just a minute or so.

Next: When the flowers are only slightly damp, go ahead and unfold them. The main thing here is to make sure they aren’t too damp or soggy for this step. Once you have carefully unfolded them, you can “turn up” the edges by simply giving the edges a little curl or twist upwards.

Lastly, you will stagger the layers one on top of the other. Use two of the largest petals and three of the medium petals. The center petal will stay mostly closed. Each layer after that will “open” just a bit more. If you feel your center is just not closing well enough, you can add one of the smallest sizes to the center.

Here is a picture of a bunch of finished ones I created. Sorry the picture is a bit over exposed so you can’t see all the color depth the various chalk inks provided.

Once you finish these, you can have a whole bunch of blooms in the size and color you need. It took me about an hour from start to finish to complete all of these. So you can get a bunch of these done in no time at all and have them ready to go for projects :-)

FREE DOWNLOADS

Now for those of you that have an electronic die cutting machine and can use “cutting files”, Be sure to download the FREE flower file I used to make these flowers while you can. The file will be available only until Tuesday at midnight, est. time.

5pt Flower Cutting File

UPDATE....File Available at PaperCraftingWorld.com

For those that are on my newsletter, I will be sending out a newsletter on Monday and it will include the FREE FLOURISH file I used on this project. So be sure to sign up for the newsletter while you can :-)  SIGN UP for this by entering your information in the box in the top left column.

WIN A $10 Gift Voucher From PCW

ALSO, be sure to go to the Quick Quotes blog and leave a comment HERE, on the post featuring my project. Be sure to let them know I sent you and be sure to follow them!
If you leave a comment on the post featuring my project over there, you will be entered into a random drawing for a $10 gift voucher from PaperCraftingWorld.com. I will pick a winner from the comments and announce it here on Friday with the rest of our weekly challenge winners.




COME BACK TOMORROW-
Super Summer Cartridge Spotlight Kick Off
Beginning tomorrow, We will be having a Super Hot Summer Feature here at CookingWithCricut.com. 
Our wonderful Design Team members will be taking turns on Mondays Spotlighting projects using their favorite Cartridge projects! S


PLUS: We have invited several of YOU, our regular challenge participants to be a GUEST DESIGNER here at CWC!  Each Tuesday, One of YOU our lovely, crafty friends will be spotlighting a project here on CWC using one of your Favorite Cartridges!
We have a great summer line up of some hot, crafty inspiration coming your way!


Here is our schedule of FUN for the rest of this summer:
Monday- CWC Designer-Cartridge Spotlight
Tuesday-Guest Designer Cartridge Spotlight
Wednesday-Weekly Challenge Reveal
Thursday-Cutting File or Digital Stamp Project
Friday-Winners Announced
Saturday-Project and Specials Including Hops
Sunday-Tutorials and or Additional Projects

Thank you so much for sharing your crafty time with us!

FB Fan Freebie

Setting Up

Pen Work Projects

Good morning crafty friends,

I just wanted to share a few projects I had made last year using the “pens” option with my machine.



Vintage Layout

Here is a view of the entire layout.

Here is a close up of the flowers I used my “pens” to add the pen work in the center of the flowers. I then changed out the pen for the blade and while the mat was still loaded proceeded to “cut out” the flowers. Once the flower were cut, I added a little bit of shading to the edges and curled the petals for some dimension. Very fast and easy with some nice results.

Here is a close up of the border. I “drew” it right on to the background paper. It was very fast and easy and I didn’t have to worry about the paper “tearing” trying to get the intricate detail. I just let the pen do the work :-)



YOU ROCK CARD

Here is a pic of the completed card.

Here is a close up of the “pen” work. I used the Cri-Kits gel pens for this one. I designed the die cut and used my pens to “fill in” the wings and the flourish in the middle of the heart. I colored the heart in with  my Copic Markers as ell as the crown and the outline of the wings.



Hope this inspires you to get your pens and markers out and give them a try. There are several options out there for using “pens” with your machine.  Whether you have a Cricut, Pazzles, Silhouette or other Electronic Die Cutting Machine, this option is available to you and opens up your design ideas!

CLICK HERE to go to our challenge and add your project and check out what the rest of the DT did!



SNEAK PEAK!
Be sure to come back by tomorrow as I will be posting a super pretty Quick Quotes project using their July Club Q Kit and a tutorial on making some pretty flowers!


Have a wonderful day!

Winners Announced:)

Welcome to Cooking with Cricut

Today we would like to announce the winner of Challenge #41- Anything Goes!  The winner of the Top Chef prize was chosen by Random Organizer.

The winner is...Amanda- Amanda's Crafts and More 

Congratulations Amanda:)

Amanda used the Wild Card and Simply Charmed Cricut  cartridges to create this sweet birthday card for her God-daughter.  You can "pick up" your top chef button on the left column and proudly display it on your blog.  As the winner Amanda will receive her choice of digi stamp or cutting file from Papercraftingworld.com. 

Amanda, please contact Madison at FunkyCards @Charter .net (no spaces) within two weeks to claim your prize.

The Top Three Chefs were chosen by the Cooking With Cricut Design Team. You can "pick up" your top chef button on the left column and proudly display it on your blog. 

Sabrina- Sabriolet Designs

Tanya- Nonna's Craft Corner

Barb- BugBites-the creative buzz-

Cricut Pens or Sun Die Cut...  It's that easy.  This week we want to see what you can create using your Cricut pens or markers or if you don't have that option, you can create a project with a sun die cut.  Once again you have until next Tuesday at midnight to post your projects.  One winner chosen at random will receive his or her choice of digi stamp or cutting file from Papercraftingworld.com.

Have a wonderful day!

~Madison - Prize Coordinator

Card with Pen Work

Good morning crafty friends,

Here is the card I made featuring pen work with the Amy Chomas Glitter Gel Pens, Beautiful Quick Quotes products and my Cricut. This is for our new challenge here at CWC.

Here is the recipe for the card:

Quick Quotes: Mary’s Garden 200 Designer Paper

Quick Quotes: 1.5 Pink Polka Dot Organza Sheer Ribbon

Quick Quotes: Bloody Mary and Mocha Mama Powder Puff Chalk Ink.

Quick Quotes: Baby, Kids and Family Itty Bitty Quote Box. This is the 1 Corinthians Quote on the card.

Pink, Mauve, Green and Cream Bazzill Cardstock

White Cardstock for Pen work

Amy Chomas Pen holder and Glitter Pen

SVG drawing and cutting file for frame.

Forever Young Cartridge for the little flowers.

Liquid Pearls for the Pearl accents

Cricut Expression and appropriate software.

Be sure to join our challenge HERE!!! You can use your Cricut or other pens for “drawing” OR if you don’t have these available you can use a SUN die cut on your project!

Remember to stop back by tomorrow as we announce our winners from last week’s challenge and feature another great project!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Have a wonderful day!