Challenge #72: Grown-Up Valentine - Must Use Black & Brads

Happy Wednesday and welcome to challenge day at Cooking With Cricut!  Our hostesses for today's challenge are Michelle, Kemma and Dalis.  They chose the theme "Grown-Up Valentine" with two requirements -- you must use the color black and a brad of some sort on your project.  Our Design Team has created some truly beautiful projects for you today!   Make sure you visit the Designer's blogs and leave them some love.

  

(L-R) Michelle, Kemma, Dalis

Heather used Sweethearts, Straight From the Nest and Sophisticated

cartridges for this playful and love-filled 12" x 12" scrapbook layout.

Kemma used George & Basic Shapes cartridge for this elegant card

featuring the Tea Bag Folding technique.

Larelyn created this cute card using the Phrases cartridge.

Michelle created this sweet framed Valentine using

Accent Essentials and Gypsy Font cartridges.

Elizabeth used the Art Philosophy cartridge to create her tree of love.

Dalis made this super cute banner using the Sugar & Spice cartridge.

Madison created this sweet card using the Sweethearts

and Plantin SchoolBook cartridges.

Charlotte used the Love Struck cartridge to create this beautiful card.

Debbie used the Lyrical Letters cartridge along with the Bear 'n Cupcake

digi stamp from PaperCraftingWorld.com.

Holly used the Sweethearts cartridge to create this beautiful card.

Now, it's your turn!  Link up your grown-up valentine and don't forget to add black and a brad -- you just might be our next Top Chef!  Here are some guidelines:

• Must follow the challenge topic.
• Must be a NEW project for this challenge, please no back dated posts.
• Must have a link back to this post on your blog.
• Must link your project through Inlinkz and not just your blog.
• Must use your Cricut in some capacity.
• Must have fun.
• You may gladly combine challenges...we love to pile it on TOO!

Make sure you stop by tomorrow, Thursday, February 9th and check out Chef Jenny R.'s Cartridge Showcase! And don't forget to mark your calendars -- our "Love Song" Blog Hop is this weekend -- Saturday and Sunday, February 11th and 12th.

Sunday, February 12th is the deadline for our Design Team Call -- if you'd like to be part of our awesome team, CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS.

And as always, thank you so much for crafting with us!

~ CWC Design Team

Challenge Reminder & FREE Files

Good morning crafty friends,

Hope you are have a TERRIFIC TUESDAY! Today’s post is just a quick reminder of our current Die Cut and Stamp challenge here at PCW-CWC!
Here are a few projects to spark your creativity!

Designer Evelyn is showcasing a lovely card she created using the free electronic die cutting file offered on our challenge post.


Melin created this card using the FREE 100% Loveable Digital Stamp also available on our challenge post. She also used a soon coming QT Patootie Heartbreaker digital stamp from PCW.


Lastly, Melin created this card using the FREE cutting file along with an adorable bear I love you A Latte Digital Stamp from PCW.




Be sure to head over to our challenge post HERE and grab the free files. You still have almost a week to link up your project and join us in the FUN!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Be sure to come back tomorrow as we will be unveiling our New Wonderful Wednesday Challenge!

Have a wonderfully crafty day!

Melin

Cartridge Showcase: A Child's Year

Happy Monday!  We hope you all had a wonderfully crafty weekend!  Welcome to our Monday Cartridge Showcase.  Chef Larelyn is taking over the blog today and sharing some of her favorite projects made with the Cricut A Child's Year cartridge.  All the sweetest childhood memories are captured in classic silhouettes on the A Child’s Year cartridge. Document the adventures of your little ones with the variety of playful scenes.  This cartridge includes: Monogram, Icon, Card, Tag, Font, and Shadow creative features.

So without further ado . . . here's Larelyn!

Hello my crafty friends!  I'm so happy to share one of my favorite cartridges with you today.  This cartridge is one that I was almost positive I didn't need or want.  I figured that since my daughters were grown, I don't have grand kids, and I'm no longer teaching there was no reason to get this cartridge.  Boy was I wrong!!  A Child's Year has become one of my go-to all-time favorite cartridges.  For me, it has everything:   adorable silhouette images with shadows, scalloped and balloon monograms, icons, tags, a great font, and a card feature.  What else would you need?  Here are some projects that I've created using A Child's Year:

This card uses the base-shift and shadow image on page 40.

The second card uses the base image and shadow on page 47.  I also used the icon from that page.

My next project is a page layout using the base and shadow image on page 32.

I love the scalloped oval on this cartridge.  I used it on this card.  It is the monogram found on page 57.

This cute little witch is found on page 53 using the shift key.  I also welded the font for the sentiment.

Next, this was my CWC project last week.  I used the inside cut from the monogram found on page 69 for the tag.

This project uses the tag feature on page 49. It's a box that holds seven Hershey Treasures chocolates.

And finally, I used the card feature (shift) on page 48 for the scalloped mat on this card. 

I hope you can see the versatility of this "oldie but goodie" cartridge.  When I'm in a designing slump, I turn to A Child's Year and can almost always find the perfect images to make a project come to life.

Hugs and Happy Crafting,

Larelyn

Super cute projects, Larelyn!  Thanks so much for sharing them with us today.  Make sure you head over to Larelyn's blog and leave her a comment and let her know how much you enjoyed her showcase!

We hope you'll stop back in Wednesday for our weekly Cooking With Cricut challenge.  On Thursday, Chef Jenny R. will be sharing projects she's made for her Cartridge Showcase featuring the Go Canada cartridge. 

Make sure you mark your calendar for this weekend's blog hop, too!

And there is still time to join our Design Team -- click on the banner at the top of the page for more information . . . the deadline is February 12th!

~ CWC Design Team

Layouts A Labor of Love

Good morning crafty friends,

I just wanted to post a few layouts that four other women and myself have been working on. One of our friends has a life long friend who has some health issues. Our friend decided to help her get her family pictures into 3 scrapbooks that she can give to her three children. We have all been super hard at work scrapbooking these photos for her.

Here are just a few of the layouts we have finished so far. I will share more as we get them done and as time permits. I believe all of these layouts were made using the Cricut and various cartridges. As I get the info I will update this.


This layout was created using the Pooh Font, Celebrate With Flourishes and Doodlecharms Cartridges.

This is a close up of the die cuts.








Hope these inspired you. Have a wonderfully crafty day!

Winners Annnounced

Welcome to Cooking with Cricut

Today we would like to announce the winner of Challenge

#70- Anything But A Card And Yellow Polka Dots.  The winner of the Top Chef prize was chosen by Random Organizer.

The winner is...JulieK- A Little Bit of Bling

Congratulations Julie:)

Julie created this fabulous notebook using the Hopscotch Cricut Cartridge. You can "pick up" your top chef button on the left column and proudly display it on your blog.  As the winner Julie will receive her choice of digi stamp or cutting file from Papercraftingworld.com. 

Julie, 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. 

Glenda- Glenda's Cards

Lori- Got2BCrafting

Marcia- Marcia's Memories

Red, white and pink!  Those are the colors you will be using this week to create your kid friendly valentine.  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

Cartridge Showcase: Better Together

Welcome to Cooking With Cricut's Thursday Cartridge Showcase.  Chef Mindy is taking over the blog today and sharing her favorite Cricut Imagine Art cartridge . . . Better Together! 

This cartridge has images celebrating love and friendship to help you share exactly how you’re feeling. No matter what kind of heartwarming project you’re making, you can easily customize and personalize the cute layered images with the included patterns and color palette.

So without further ado . . . here's Chef Mindy!

This cartridge is full of cute images with great colors and patterns. One cool thing about the Imagine is that since it is a printer as well as a Cricut, you can print on any media intended for ink jet printers. For this first project I printed my image on T-shirt transfer paper. When you do this, you need to remember to flip your image so that the words will go the right way when you iron the image on to the shirt.

For my second project I decorated a gift bag to go along with the shirt.  I used the same adorable image and filled some borders from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge with a pattern from Better Together. 

This frame is one of the bonus projects included on the cartridge. I cut the frame at "fit to page."  It is a great size to frame a 4x6 photo. You could use this frame just on it's own to hang on the refrigerator or use it on a scrapbook page. I used it to frame this sweet picture of my puppy. I love her eyes.

My next project is a simple little note card.  I printed the image almost the same size as the card base and then just glued it on. I love how it looks like the image was printed directly on the card base itself.

My final project is this cute little bear card.  I printed a rectangle of one of patterns from the cartridge and used that as my card base. I then added the sentiment, the bear, and some flowers. I pop dotted the flowers for a little added dimension. 

  I hope you have enjoyed my Better Together cartridge showcase.

 ~ Mindy

Great projects, Mindy! Thanks so much for sharing them with us today.  Head on over to Mindy's blog for more information on her projects and make sure you leave her a comment and let her know how much you enjoyed her showcase.

 

Mark your calendars for our next blog hop scheduled for Saturday, February 11th and Sunday, February 12th -- two days . . . two sets of designers . . . two times the Valentine fun - 'cause "Love is in the Air!"

 

We also have a Design Team Call going on -- check out the link at the top of the page or click here if you are interested in joining our team. We'd love to have you join the fun!

 

~ CWC Design Team