My Thoughts Exactly Thursday: Cherry mouse

It's DT Thursday for My Thoughts Exactly, and today is the "Bee's posting day"... ;-) Don't forget to check out the other Bee's (aka Belinda) project here. :-D

Not quite sure what to tell you about my card for today. I think I was trying to have fun and make something a little different today, and I probably succeeded! LOL ;-)

I used the Sweet Thoughts stamps set, I really wanted to go with a cherry theme, I LOVE everything cherry, it is my favorite fruit and flavor for everything you can think of... ;-) This cute little mouse was feeling lonely in my drawer after I cut her out from A Cricut cartridge (Create a Critter) eons ago... ;-)  And I thought it would be unexpected to perch a tiny cherry on the top of her head... And it looks like she is wearing a little french beret... LOL ;-)

The Tag and the Trendy Twine  are of course from Annie's Paper Boutique... :-) The tag was just sitting on my desk, and when I picked this yellow striped paper it called out my name!... ;-)

My Thoughts Exactly 1st release!!! :-D

                             

This is it!... The moment we have been waiting for... Today My Thoughts Exactly is finally launching their stamps collection and releasing their 2 very 1st sets!  :-)

This is The Birds & the Bees.

This is Under the Sea.


The stamps are acrylic photopolymer (same manufacturer as Papertrey Ink, so you know they're good! ;-)) which enables you to play around with them, like bending them like I did for this card...

The concept behind those stamps sets is a mix and match format enabling you to make all kind of funny sayings or puns. The stamps have been designed so that you can put them all together on one block and stamp in one step, or you can play around and deconstruct the sayings, use a different color for the focus word etc.... Focus words are a different size and/or font for a fun and whimsical effect. A cheat sheet with all the possible sayings is available on the site to help you jumpstart your imagination.

You can see and order the stamps here, and get more details on Alyssa's blog. 

Now a few words about my project for today... I made a card for my daughter who is vacationing in France and apparently having a "whale of a good time" so the saying was just perfect for me! ;-)  I used the Under the Sea set.

When I thought about using the little whale from lettering delights (the "Something Fishy" set again) I instantly wanted to make the words come out of the whale spout..., which is why I used blue ink to make it more like water, even though a black or grey ink might have brought more contrast.

My whale is of course on foam tape and the saying-spout isn't actually glued to the card, enabling more movement and a little bending away from the card for more dimension.
The wave is from a Cricut cartridge and the top was sanded, and the background paper is digital paper from the Splash collection by Echo Park, it was printed on tracing paper (a much cheaper alternative to vellum, for a very similar effect!... ;-)) The sun is from Lettering Delights.

I'm having lots of fun playing around with those stamps and you will see more projects with them very soon. Next Thursday I will have another project here for sure. If you missed it, my Bird card already uses My Thoughts Exactly stamps (this time the "Birds and Bees" set).

Every 1st of the month MTE will release one or two stamps sets and have a DT group post, meaning we will all post a project and take you on a mini blog hop if you like! The following Thursdays of the month the DT members will take turn posting, Alyssa will have all the details and link to all the projects every Thursday, as well as having projects of her own.

Now here is the line up of the MTE Design Team. To see all the projects for this July release, start with Alyssa's blog and you will then be linked to the following DT members in the order below...

Alyssa:                 My Thoughts Exactly
Bee:                     Dare to bee creative (<- you're here.)
Bee (Belinda):      Bee's Hive o' Drama
Jennifer:               Our change of Art
Jessica:                Crafty Rocket Science
Lenae:                 Sugar Gem
Thienly:               Mod Paperie

I hope you will enjoy seeing all the DT projects today and will be inspired to make your own projects with those wonderfully versatile stamps. :-D  If you have been following our line up from the start your next stop is Bee's blog. :-)



Wishing you all a great 4th of July week-end. :-D

School project: sorting worksheets

I know my blog has been very quiet in the creativity department lately.... but it's the end of the school year and I have lots of odds and ends to take care of... >.< I am looking forward to crafting just for pleasure again soon, but right now it's just not happening, especially with a sick toddler in my hair!!... ;-)
One of the things on my to-do list was to finish my volunteer hours for my son's school. I finally got to it and made those sorting worksheets using my Cricut cartridges Everyday dolls and Dress Up Dolls.
I've made those before for a previous classroom and they are fun to make, however they are time consuming since everything has to be laminated then cut again, then velcro added on every piece.
This time to make things a little easier I cut everything out of white cardstock and then colored the pieces with my Prismacolor markers (alcohol based markers).

It's hard to see on the pics for the categories, I did: In the kitchen/in the bathroom, for the beach/when it's raining, musical instruments/transportation, toys/food.

Laura, Piggie and Gerald...

It's my niece's birthday next Friday. Laura is turning 6 and she loves to read "Piggie and Gerald" books. Last time she came to visit us in Florida, we went to the book store together... and shortly after, those 2 (see picture below) were taking a plane to Connecticut... ;-)

So, when I made her birthday card, I just had to make a Piggie and a Gerald to go with Laura...

I used the Cricut "Everyday dolls" cartridge to make my Laura, and SVG Cuts files (Cuddly Animals part 1 and 2) for my Piggie and Gerald.

I had lots of fun, although let me tell you, inking the edges of those tiny parts and putting foam tape behind them was quite a job for my big clumsy hands... ;-)

And I realized afterwards that I should have used darker ink on my elephant since it barely shows and that the eyes should have been a tad different (forgot the eyebrows!) to look more like the comic book... but I think she'll know who those 2 are and I think she should get a kick out of it!.... ;-)

School projects with the Cricut

These are some projects I made for Noah's school using my Cricut "Everyday Paper Dolls" cartridge. As you can see (or can't, unless you enlarge the pic... ;-)), I had fun with details. It was very time consuming because of all the different colors and the fact that everything is laminated, then cut again by hand. I didn't take pics of the "striped characters" but the clothes come off (there's velcro between all the layers) so that the kids have to dress the character appropriately for the weather. I love it, my only concern is that even with the laminating it might not be very sturdy over time...

This one was done using the same cartridge (and I think also the "Paperdoll Dress Up"). (Again it is hard to see, but clicking on the pic will give you the giant version.) This time it is sorting worksheets. ( in the kitchen/in the bathroom, animals in my house/animals in the jungle, toys/food, in the garden/in the sea). Same problem as above, besides the time consuming aspect to choose and cut all those little pieces, even laminated I'm wondering if they will withstand being handled by kids repeatedly. A larger version would have been better but then you don't have 2 different groups on the same page...

Anyway, I got those cartridges thinking my daughter would have a blast with them, but I have to admit I love them just as much... now if I only had the time to use them! ;-)