Challenge Me Monday #49

Hi everyone, I'm so glad you've joined us today for another great "Challenge Me Monday" here at Fantabulous Cricut. But before we get to this weeks challenge I'd like to introduce to you the NEW Fantabulous Cricut Design Team, we have some returning DT members and many new talented gals that I'd like you to meet.

Click on their blog title to visit their blog!
Returning DT Members:
Helen -Crafting Cricut Mom
Kate -Small Bits of Paper
Saundra -Luv Scrapping Together
Tanya -Nonna's Craft Corner

NEW DT Members:
Amy -Scrappin, Card Making and Living with Fibro
Audrey -Life is Beautiful
Barb -BugBites
Dana -Imagine What you Could Do
Evanna -Evanna's Paper Palace
Jamie -JME Creations
Jenae -Just Jenae
Jennie -Earthy Scrap
Larelyn -Hand Made From the Heart
Lisa C -My Lil' Bits

Lisa N -Pretty Paper Pretty Ribbons

Maquel -Paper Maine-iac!!

Marlene -Scrappin' Cookie
Rae -Wahoo Crafts
Sandee -Inspire to Create
Sarah -Sarah's Stampin and Stuff
Tamara -Happy Life Crafty Wife

They will be sharing their talent and inspiring you each week! Please send them a 'hello' and help them feel welcome.

Challenge #49 Shaped Card
We challenge you to create a shaped card something other then a square or rectangle.

~This Week's Sponsor~
$20 Gift Certificate -donated by

View "My Craft Spot" FCCB Spotlight Page -HERE

~Design Team Inspiration~
With sadness I say good bye to several of my designers. I'm so grateful to have gotten to know these lovely ladies and enjoy their talent.
Please let them know how much you have enjoyed their inspiration each week.

click on their names to view their blog
Andrea -Divine Domesticity
Walk in my Garden
Angela -Simple Creations

Sweet Treats cartridge

Brenda -Brenda's Scrappy Blog
Birthday Bash cartridge

Jamie -Cute Cards and Crafts by Jamie

Smiley Cards

Jean -Jean's Crafty Corner
Create a Critter, George and Basic Shapes

Jennifer -Scrappin' Aggie

Create a Critter, Designers Calendar, Mini Monsters cartridges

Jill -The Scrapoholic
Mini Monsters cartridge

Michelle -Scrappin With My Bug
Cricut Everyday cartridge

Saundra -Luv Scrapping Together
Create a Critter cartridge

Sharon -Ladybug Designs

Sweet Treats

Tanya -Nonna's Craft corner
Birthday Bash
Valerie -Crafty Go Lucky

Indie Art cartridge

~This Week's Sponsor~

$20 Gift Certificate -donated by

Our Sponsor has a special promotion for our FCCB followers.

With every $25 purchase you will receive a FREE 30 yard spool of Traditional Baker’s Twine. All you have to do is write FCCB free twine offer with your color choice in the “notes to seller” section during checkout. Did I tell you shipping is FREE? Thank you, Kimberly!

Now hurry on over to My Craft Spot. –HERE
Offer good until March 15th 2011

Sunday Spotlight

Welcome to Fantabulous Cricut's Spotlight Sunday. This week we get the privilege of sharing with you one of our new sponsors.Kimberly Tracy is the proud owner of My Craft Spot.About Kimberly:I started scrapbooking when I was teenager, but really got into it when I had a family of my own. Even though I still enjoy scrapbooking, as soon as I bought my Cricut, I couldn’t help but fall in love with card making. All of those die cuts needed center stage!Some of my favorite things to use in my crafting is stamps, ribbon, glossy accents, and glitter.My favorite Cricut cartridge?... Hmmmm so many to chose from. I don’t think I could pick a favorite, but my top 5 would be Winter Frolic, Mini Monsters, Country Life, Sweet Treats, and Birthday Bash.I enjoy making Crinkle Ribbon as much as I like to use it… very relaxing working with all of the dyes and coming up with new colors.Even more than I love paper crafting, I love to spend time with my family camping, gardening, and just hanging out. I also love a good book and a cup of Hot Chocolate on a stormy afternoon.What you will find at My Craft Spot:Baker’s TwineBaker’s Twine is a new item that has recently been added to My Craft Spot. You can purchase Vintage Baker’s Twine in 25 yard bundles and Traditional Baker’s Twine in 50 yard bundles. Traditional Baker’s Twine can also be purchased in 30 yard spools.Baker's Twine can be found -HERE.Here are a few projects Kimberly has made with Baker’s Twine.__________________________________________________________Crinkle RibbonGorgeous hand dyed ribbon with a vintage feel. The hand dyed colors are rich and beautiful. Some of the colors are ‘aged’ (slightly stained with a darker color). The texture is soft, silky, and crinkly. Some colors that can be purchased are spring moss, raspberry truffle, buttercup, vanilla bean, denim, and black diamond, just to name a few. You can purchase this in bundles that Kimberly has created or you can create your own bundle.Crinkle Ribbon can be found - Here.Kimberly has generously shared her lovely Crinkle Ribbon with a few of the design team members so we could create with it, Thank you, Kimberly!

Just look at the beautifully created projects using hand-dyed Crinkle Ribbon from My Craft Spot. (For more details of each project click on each members name.)

CandacePink Bubblegum Crinkle RibbonKateRaspberry Truffle Crinkle Ribbon

Chocolate Truffle Crinkle Ribbon

Vanilla Bean Crinkle RibbonSaundra

Spring Moss Crinkle Ribbon

Petal Pink Crinkle Ribbon

Buttercup Crinkle Ribbon

Sharon

Petal Pink Crinkle Ribbon

Shipping is Always FREE at My Craft Spot. Isn’t that wonderful!

My Craft Spot will be our sponsor for this week’s Challenge Me Monday.

But wait, don’t go yet!

Kimberly has a special promotion for our FCCB followers.

With every $25 purchase you will receive a FREE 30 yard spool of Traditional Baker’s Twine. All you have to do is write FCCB free twine offer with your color choice in the “notes to seller” section during checkout. This special promotion will end March 15th so you will want to hurry!  Did I tell you shipping is FREE? Thank you, Kimberly!

Now hurry on over to My Craft Spot. –HERE

_____________________________________________

Would your store/shop be interested in being "Spotlighted" here at Fantabulous Cricut?

Contact Robin via the Contact Me tab or click – Here

Thank you for joining us today!

Saundra :)

FCCB Spotlight Hostess

Scrappin' Saturday - What's your Style?

One great thing about scrapbooking is that there is no right or wrong way to scrapbook. Everyone has their own style, their own likes and dislikes, and favorite techniques and products.

If you're new to scrapbooking, you may not have figured out your style yet....and if you've been scrapping a while, your style may have changed over time. Practical Scrappers recently ran a series of posts on their challenge blog about scrapping styles, talking about key elements of each and showing lots of examples of each style. The styles they explored over the last 10 days were: Artsy, Cutesy, Classic, Grungy, Whimsical, Graphic, Shabby Chic, Clean & Simple, and Sophisticated.

Of course, discovering your scrapbooking style doesn't mean you have to stick with just that one. Most scrappers have one or two primary styles, but dabble in other styles, depending on the photos they're scrapping. Photos of your kids playing outside might be more "cutesy", while scenic vacation photos might lend themselves to more of a "classic" style.

You can see that I used more of a whimsical style on the page about my DGD, but more of a graphic style on the layout with the Fall photos.







Learning about the different styles of scrapping helps you understand why certain products or manufacturer lines appeal to you, or why some layouts really catch your eye when you're looking through magazines or on-line galleries.

I hope you'll explore the articles on Practical Scrappers, and then come back here and leave a comment telling us which style (or styles!) fit you the best.

Hope you have a wonderful and scrappy week!

Fantabulous Friday - "Boys Will Be Boys"

Happy Friday!

I'm so happy that you could join us for another Fantabulous Friday!

This week we will be exploring the Cricut cartridge "Boys Will Be Boys"! I have really enjoyed working with this cartridge this past week. This cartridge lends itself well both to "little boys" and "big boys".

For today's Fantabulous Friday, I have created a project for my grandson Blake who is almost 2 years old (my little boy) and for my son Matthew who is 28 years old (definitely my big boy)!

Before we get started, let's take a quick look at the available features on Boys Will Be Boys...

*Layer

*Arrow Font --- Love this feature!

*Block Font

*Phrase

*Phrase Layer

*Shadow

My first project for this week is all about Blake....

I created a 2 page layout of my cute little guy using several of my favorite cuts from this great cartridge.

I love this Arrow Font! How cute is that? To create this look just cut your letter using the Arrow Font, then cut again using the shift key, adhere the pieces and your done!

Don't these trucks just scream BOY? You can't get much more "boy" than this! To bring in this week's challenge of embossing, I got busy with my Cuttlebug on these guys! I used the Diamond Plate folder on the dump truck and Distressed Stripes on the tires. I love the added texture!

The second page of Blake's layout gets the helicopter from page 65... it also got a quick run-through in my Cuttlebug! There are several choices of arrows (straight, curved, angled, etc.) on the last few pages of the handbook. Check the Arrow Font and Block Font features to find one that works for you.

Now, let me show you what I created for my big boy, Matthew. My big boy (gee...I'm gonna be in trouble if he ever reads this) is 28 years old and just celebrated his 5th year in law enforcement! He may be mine, but I'm really proud of him....so I created this gatefold card to let him know....

This is the police car from page 43. I cut it out twice and pop-dotted the layers for some depth. I broke out my Cuttlebug again and embossed the red background mat. The folder is called "Traffic Jam"...how perfect is that for a police officer?

For the inside of the card, I used the Phrase and Phrase Layer features to create the word HERO. I cut a red circle from the Layer feature for my note to Matthew.

While doing some research for this cartridge (yes...it was research...not playing around on the computer), I came across an adorable card from K. Andrew at Getting Cricky...

Isn't this just adorable? She has a great video and a Gypsy File of this card available on her blog! If you would like to visit Getting Cricky, just click HERE.

Well, that's about all I have for you today. All this "boy stuff" was a nice change of pace for me and I hope you enjoyed exploring "Boys Will Be Boys" with me. Now, it's your turn...go create something for your boy! As always, I love to see your creations...so leave me a comment with a link and I'll drop by for a visit!

Until next time,

Tanya

Thursday's Tutorials: Inking Cuttlebug Folders

Happy Thursday Everyone and Welcome to another Thursday's Tutorial here at Fantabulous Cricut. It is all about embossing this week. I do most of my embossing with the Cuttlebug and this week I found a great video to share with all of you on how to ink your embossing folders. This video is from Joy of Joy's Life. Be sure to check her blog out for lots of other great projects and ideas.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and remember you still have time to enter this week's challenge.

Just remember to use a cricut cut and some type of embossing on your project.

Happy Crafting!

Jean

Wednesday Winners #47

I hope you all got to enjoy your favorite seasonal weather for our last challenge, even if it is still winter outside.

~This Weeks Winner~

My Pink Stamper

Family & Friends stamp set

(chosen by random.org)

#8 Evanna -Evanna's Paper Place

Congratulations Evanna!!!

To claim your prize please contact Robin at...
fantabulous cricut @ yahoo .com (remove spaces)

You have two weeks to claim your prize.

Remember to grab your "FCCB Winner" blinky to display on your blog! You can find the blinky code on our right-hand sidebar.

~Design Team Top 5~

#26 Lisa -Pretty Paper Pretty Ribbon

#27 Faith-Abigail -Faith-Abigail Designs

#30 Tamara -Happy Life Crafty Wife

#48 Cheryl -Cards by CG

#61 Jenny -Jenny's Scrapbooking Haven

to grab your "FCCB Top 5" blinky to display on your blog! You can find the blinky code on our right-hand sidebar.

Thank you to all those who participated in our challenge!

Come join us for this weeks "Emboss it!" challenge -HERE

Make a project and incorporate some type of embossing (i.e. wet, hand embossing, folder embossing).