Artbooking... and a card

Hello crafty friends! 

 

I finally got my hands on the Close To My Heart/Cricut Artbooking cartridge and oh my goodness.  I seriously think this is one of the best cartridges that Provo Craft has ever put out.  It has a great font, a ton of pre-welded titles, pre-made mini books (or LOs) where everything is designed for you already, basic shapes, banners, accents, backgrounds... I could go on and on but I'd rather show you!

 

Here is just one LO I made (click on the picture to enlarge). 

 

 

This uses the "Teen Layout" pre-made, pre-figured-out layout on page 81 of the

Artbooking handbook.  I used my own colors and made the page about my 10 y/o,

of course.  No teens here yet, thankfully!  :)

 

Left-sided page:

 

 

Right-sided page:

 

Now, originally I made my Cricut cuts and was going to leave it all as is, just add an embellishment or two.  But the boring cardstock just about demanded (LOL) that I stamp on it, distress it, something, to make it less boring.  So I did stamp on it.  Normally I draw dashed lines around the perimeter of photo mats or the 12x12 paper, but I found a stamp and used that instead.  See the sun rays above with all those lovely dashed lines?  Yup.  That's a stamp, and the circle part with the chevron pattern is another stamp. 

 

Here are a few accents.  This banner with "about you" was cut from the Art Philosophy cartridge.  The alpha is CTMH's Keyboard Kraft Alpha.  The wooden piece is from the wooden Mini-Medley Accents.  And there's bling too- Opaques Mocha adhesive gems.  On this banner I did the stitching with a marker, by hand. 

 

 

This stamped border is from the set called Love Life.  It really

brightened up that boring corner of my background cardstock.  I also used my pen to outline the whole title.  There wasn't a shadow of the shape to be cut and I can't just leave it like that... when there's no shadow I always outline the cutout for just a bit more depth.  You can see towards the bottom of the "1" where my marker became possessed and I messed up.  I will ignore my OCD and leave it as is.... :)

 

 

 

Another shot of the accent pieces and bling. 

 

 

This twine is also part of the wooden mini-medley accents.

 

 

The cool part about the frames on the LO above is that I still have

these two mats left over for another project.  :) 

 

 

Here's the sun part on the left-sided page.  I stamped from the same Love Life set and added bling, more wood, and the twine.

 

 

Here's a view of what I used; click on each name to go to my CTMH website for ordering purposes. 

-- Love Life stamp set

-- Opaques Mocha adhesive gems
-- Mini-Medley Accents, wooden

-- Keyboard Kraft Alphabet

-- Pacifica Ink Pad

-- Cricut Artbooking Collection

  

 

So, I had that Love Life stamp set out and decided to make a card with it.  It's a fantastic stamp set.  Here's a picture of it along with the paper I wanted to possibly use.

 

 

These are all the stamped and cut elements of my card.  I used the three-circle

thingie as a background on my Topiary cardstock, using Topiary ink

too for a tone-on-tone effect.  The orange flowers are stamped with Sunset. 

I decided not to use the rose flower side of the patterned paper, only the green dots.   

 

 

My completed card.  Except for the small flowers, I inked the edges

of everything in either Topiary or Sunset, and I added some bling too.

 

 

Don't forget to stamp the inside!  I made two of this card and on the right one

I didn't ink my stamp properly so I had to do damage control by adding another

 stamp... I like the only on the left better, the one where I inked the green swirly

stamp correctly.  My sister likes the haphazard-looking swirlies on the right card... go

figure.  I used the Topiary ink and the stars and hearts are stamped with Sunset ink. 

 

 

 

Detail shot:

 

 

 

That was my Artbooking adventure for today.  Stay tuned for

more as I explore this cartridge even further!  Until then,

stay crafty, my friends.  LOLOL

 

Topiary ink pad can be purchased HERE

Sunset ink pad can be purchased HERE