Happy Birthday with a Touch of Acetate

I love Shari Carroll.  She used to work for Hero Arts and you know how I love Hero Arts.  Her design style has always been so appealing to me and I have never ONE time seen a card she made and said "Ewwwwww!".  She recently went to work for Simon Says Stamp which is way cool...because not only can she work with Hero Arts things, I assume,  but also with all the great products Simon Says Stamp has to offer.  A win-win situation for me!

She recently posted a card on the Simon Says Stamp Blog which you can see HERE.  I love this card with the die cut sentiment and the touch of acetate.  I thought...well, I can do this. Sort of....when I made mine I was out of town and only had some supplies with me.  But the good news is that I used up some more paper scraps I had from some old Simon Says Stamp card kits.

Yay me.   I used what I had on hand.

Yay me.

Here is my card:

 I was most happy to use up that flair I had....it had been sitting around and I was wondering what I'd ever do with it!  Yay me.
The top layer with the acetate is adhere with some foam tape to give a bit more dimension and lift it off the patterned paper behind it.
I love the look of white on white...and I love that wood grained paper from Simon Says Stamp.  The "happy birthday" sentiment is also cut with exclusive Simon Says Stamp dies.  I do love the die cuts that Shari used but again I used what I had on hand.  And my hand does not own those.  Poor me.

The word "celebrate" was stamped with a Paper Smooches stamp.

It was fun to do...and a big thanks to Shari Carroll for always wonderful inspiration!

Happy Crafting!

Cricut Challenge: #3 Accent Essentials with Fabric Flower

Today I worked with the Accent Essentials Cartridge, some fabric, and a sheet of clear acetate.  (You'll have to look close to see the acetate in the picture below...the card is slightly open and the embossed purple cardstock is on the inside of the card.)

It is an older cartridge...probably one of the first shape cartridges I purchased.  I think I purchased it because I loved all the flourish images in it and I have used it several times...althought not in quite a while. 
Interestingly...there are some basic images but many of the creative keys are non functional...you basically get the shape and a shadow and that's about it.  Still there are some cute things on this cartridge.

I decided I wanted to try my hand at cutting fabric on the Cricut.  I purchased some cotton fabric pieces at Joann's and ironed some fusible webbing to it.  I read several tutorials and watched some videos as well and most said to place the fabric on the mat with the fusible webbing up and the fabric against the sticky part of the mat.  I made sure I used a new blade...put my speed on slow...my blade pressure high and the depth at the maxium.    I cut several flower shapes in different sizes from the Accent Essentials cartridge and glued them together with a hot glue gun.  I had bought some acetate at Michael's today...first time I'd seen an entire pad of acetate in the scrapbooking section...the brand was "Recollections" which is Michael's own brand. 
I wanted to use the acetate so decided on a card...put some embossed cardstock on the inside (which I embossed with the Thank You Cuttlebug folder).  I secured the fabric flower to the front and tied some Stampin' Up ribbon near the top.  The Many Thanks sentiment is from Paper Trey Ink Fillable Frames 1 and was punched out with the SU word punch. 

I thought it turned out nicely and really didn't take long to make!