Blue Rocking Horse

Hi all, Hope your summer is full of fun and stress reducing vacations! My dh started a new part-time job that makes just picking up and roaming with our travel trailer a little more difficult to do.  We miss that "freedom" to do that now and won't get to go that often anymore.  : ( .  But my daughter and family moved about 1/2 block from us so now the grand-kids are at our front door most every day now to swim in the pool or to get an ice cream cup "to cool off"!  But, back to the card for today.  This is one that I made for my brand new great-nephew!  Wow, makes me sound old!  That's ok, my aunt Sandy and aunt Bonnie are great-great-aunts!!

I made it with my new Cricut Expression and the A Child's Year cartridge.  At first I didn't think that I would use this cartridge enough to purchase it, but after looking through it I saw some really great possibilities for projects.  I am still "getting-to-know" how to use the CE and what speed, pressure and depth for the blade to cut and which goes with what paper so it makes clean cuts.  And this card is one of those try-outs.  I love the rocking horse and my niece-in-law said the new baby was going to be a cowboy, so this is perfect! 

I cut the rocking horse and it's shadow out and added silver gel pen highlights as well as to the other cuts.  Extra fine holo glitter give the cuts some sparkle.  The edges of the white pieces are inked in a coordination blue.  The front base panels are cut to mimic a quilt pattern and have machine stitching around them as well as the inside panel. You can see the dimension of the layers in the picture below. I love popping up the images.  But mailing them was causing some concern that they would get crushed by the postal service!! So I made a test box envelope and will be mailing it out to some family members to see if the cards make it there in one piece and not crushed.  If they do, then I will post the pattern, it is really easy, for everyone to use!  If not, back to the drawing board!

I have been experimenting with combining my quilling with the die cuts and will be sharing those as I finish them, there is even a project finished that has quilling and fabric together.  It will post at the first of the month. The internet is a great place for inspiration and there are so many great blogs and forums nowadays that you can get "lost" exploring them.  My bookmark of favorites is soooo long that I have to ration my time checking them out each day or I would have no time for anything else! 

I love to look at what others are creating and seeing the new and fresh ideas and re-worked old favorites but I often don't have the time to leave a comment, especially if it is a blog where most of the projects I love and would want to leave a message saying so.   I do read all the comments and love hearing from you!  I wish we could all meet and play with paper and glue for a while and get to know each other!  But with the distance this is the next best thing! I just wanted to thank everyone that comes by and visits for a few minutes whether you leave a comment or not, I know the time it takes and hope I the projects that I post will inspire your creativity. 

I love doing all kinds of paper craft and am working on a regular weekly "schedule" of cards, quilling, stamping etc.  Hopefully I will be able to stick to it.  If you want to see something, a technique, design, etc.  just let me know.  Still working on what tutorial projects to do, is there a specific one(s) that you would like to see??  Again, let me know and I'll do my best to show you!  Thanks for making it till the end of this long post! Until then,

Shalom,
Sonya