Calendar Day: Feeling Patriotic?

What comes to your mind when you think of the word patriotic?  The flag, right?  That's what I thought when I made my calendar for July, the month we in America celebrate the birth of our nation's freedom from tyranny, our Independence Day.  I feel very grateful to live in America, and my calendar shows it!

I used my own calendar grid I created in Make The Cut a while back.  On the top where the striped paper is, I added the words "Land of the free because of the brave" to it, to make it a little more interesting, and because I firmly believe it.  This country is great because of the people who sacrificed and who still sacrifice everything for our freedom!  This calendar puts that thought in the forefront of my mind.

Everything except for the fonts and the overlay of the Declaration of Independence (which are from Lettering Delights) is from Carina Gardner's Americana collection, that I purchased at the One Buck Wednesday sale at Snap Click Supply Co.  Gotta love that sale!

Are you feeling slightly more patriotic after looking at this calendar?  I know I am! 

Here's what I used:
Make The Cut!*
Photoshop
Americana Collection by Carina Gardner
Pride and Freedom Overlay
LD Abe Lincoln
LD Remington Portable

Hope you have a very patriotic Independence Day!

Make something red, white and blue and Have A Crafty Day!
*I'm an affiliate for Make The Cut! because I LOVE it!

June Calendar Day

Ahhh, sweet June has arrived!  Summer is on its way!  Only a few more days left of school for my kids, and the lazy days of summer will be upon us.  I'm not sure what we're doing this summer, but I'm hoping for plenty of days at the beach!  What will you be up to?

I finally got to work on my June calendar, which to me looks more whimsical than lazy days of summer but here it is:

I really like the color scheme of this collection called Snap Happy by Dani Mogstad.  I picked up this digi collection, which has a boat load of images, at Snap Click Supply for 1.99 during the One Buck Wednesday sale.  You should check this sale out if you haven't already, but be careful, it's dangerous to your wallet!  Luckily, DH doesn't read this blog.

Getting back to the calendar, there's only a few things I did differently.  I made my own checkerboard pattern for the grid, and I used the pre made tags included in the collection for the days.  I also used the included alphabet for the title and numbers.  The only place I used a font is for the noted holidays or events for this month.  As much as I like the alphabet for the numbers, it made getting them all lined up a bit more difficult than if I had used a font because each number was on a separate layer.  Of course if I had named the layers as I went along it would have made it much easier!  Hint: Naming layers as you drag them onto your project is a good habit to get into, it helps you keep everything straight as you work.  But you already knew that, didn't you?  Well, let's just say it took me a while to realize it, OK?

Here's what I used in case you like what you see:
Snap Happy Collection by Dani Mogstad
Background Masks Collection by Samantha Walker
TXT Modern Mom (font) 

Hope your summer is a crafty one!
 

Is It May Already?

Unbelievable.  Yes, that's how I feel.  The month of April went by so fast and what did I post?  Nothing.  Well, I managed to get this calendar done, and I'm glad for that.  I'll make no excuses except to say I haven't really felt inspired lately.  I made myself cut something and put it together today. I'll show that in a future post because there's a bit to say about it, (like the dilemma of version 3) but that's it.  I made a few things this past month, like the 3D letters I made for my son's 17th birthday and a very quick Dr. Who card, but not much more.  Oh, I made a bunny from SVGCuts, and it was cute, until my lovely dog, Molly, decided to eat its head!!  So, yes, I had a headless bunny for Easter.  Thank goodness, May has arrived and with it the warmer weather.  Here's my simple calendar for the month:

 I don't know what made me go with this theme.  It could be all of the bees flying around my house lately.  My kids are deathly afraid of them.  My daughter commented how much she didn't like bees as she watched me create this calendar, but I persevered.  I love the bear at the top and the hexagon shape is one of my favorites.  What's not to love?  If you haven't checked out some of the Lettering Delights graphic sets, you really should, they're so much fun to work with!  Hope you have a great month of May!

Files I used:
Bees Knees Graphic Set
Bees Knees Paper Pack
LD Alley Cat Font
LD Stitch Script Font

Happy May and Have A Crafty Day!

Let The Dog Days Begin!

Finally, some long overdue creativity.  Something simple, and relatively quick.  Something I felt compelled to create after being inspired by this card.  I'm in dog mode.  Dog on the brain, dog in front of me, dog next to me, dog under my feet, dog every where I go.  So this is what I came up with:

The Dog Days have DEFINITELY begun!

We've had Molly for about two weeks now.  There haven't been a lot of days with sunshine, but on the days there was, I took pictures, lots of 'em.  Sort of like when you have a new baby and all you do is snap photos of the cuteness, only she's a dog and can move around a lot more.  Notice in two of the photos she's sporting the paracord collar I made her.  She looks pretty sharp, doesn't she?

Now I could go on and tell you exactly what I did to make this layout.  But I think you might fall asleep, or click the back button to return to wherever you came from.  So I won't bore you with what a clipping mask is or how to make rounded rectangles in Photoshop.  And I won't even discuss how I make templates in Photoshop to use for digi and paper layouts.  Maybe some other time.  I will say that an excellent way to inspire yourself is to look at other people's work.  But, then again, you probably already knew that.  I'm sure you don't need me to tell you anything.  I'm just happy that I created something after the slump I've been in and I wanted to share it.  So just enjoy the puppy cuteness as I do (and sometimes don't) every day!  And if you have anything to say about it, well go right ahead! 

In case you're interested, everything I used for this layout is from Lettering Delights except for the tab at the top which is an SVG (converted to a PNG in Make The Cut!*) from SVGCuts.  Here's some non-affiliate links if you'd like to check them out: 

Max&Kitty Paper Pack
Cool Cat Top Dog Graphic Set
Top Dog Graphic Set
Doggie Treat Alphabet
LD Charming Bold (font)
LD Post (font)
Miss Baker's Classroom SVG Kit

Now get inspired and Have A Crafty Day!

*I'm an affiliate for Make The Cut! because I love it! 

Goodbye Gulliver, I'll miss you

It is with tears in my eyes that I write this.  This morning one of our neighbors told my husband he'd seen a cat on the side of the road and thought it was one of ours.  Unfortunately our neighbor was right.  My awesome cat, Gulliver, not quite 3 years old yet, had been hit by a car and left on the side of the road in the rain.  We have three cats and he was my absolute favorite.  I will miss him very much.  I thought I'd post a layout I did of him a couple of months ago.

The largest picture on the right is one of my favorites that I took of him when he was about two months old.  As he got older he got scruffier, but he was a male cat and he wasn't as interested in grooming as his mother and sister.  You can't see the bottom letters, but it says "Gull-Gull", which I always called him and it used to drive my kids and husband nuts.  But it seemed to fit him.  He was a really laid back cat.  You could pick him up and his legs would just hang, he was totally relaxed.  His only flaw was when he would try to go after your feet, and sometimes managed to claw you pretty good.  Well, I guess that's goodbye Gull-Gull, as best as I can do it right now.  Thanks for being a great cat.

January Layout

This year I've decided to focus a little more on doing scrapbook layouts.  I'm no big scrapbooker, I've only done a few layouts.  Nothing I feel really proud about because for some reason I find them to be a big challenge!  I even took a scrapbooking class, because I thought there must be some kind of science to it.  I discovered that's not really the case and although there are some design theories out there on how a page should be laid out to appeal to the eye, it really is a matter of your own preference.  I mean, who's going to be looking at it?  You have to be happy with it and that's all that matters!  So here is my January layout that I will hopefully have some pictures for by the end of the month.  I thought it would be cool to document each month so at the end of the year I can look back and see the changes in my kids while also having a scrapbook to document the year.  

The only Cricut cartridge I used on this was Designer's Calendar.  I chose this color theme because I had the fantasy of entering into the design call that My Pink Stamper held last week.  It required the colors pink, green, and brown, and a color of your choice.  But in my usual fashion I didn't get it done on time.  However it was a good thing because it was the catalyst for getting this done!  I added a few irock gems on the snowflakes and I'll probably add some stickles but this is it for now.  One thing I did that I don't normally do is lay out everything with colors in Design Studio first.  It was very helpful to do this, and if you're design challenged and color challenged as I am, it really helps you see what it will look like before you cut.  Of course you can only use solid colors, which wasn't a problem on this one.  I suppose you could just substitute a color for a print if you were using one.  It is great to get the right sizes so you know everything will fit right where you want it.  Here's a screen shot of how it looked in Design Studio before I cut it.

The only complicated part is getting all the layers in the right order so the preview is right.  I started by creating a preview page where I put all the shapes where I wanted them.  Then I copied and pasted them on separate pages and chose the preview color.  When I wanted to cut it I loaded the file onto my Gypsy so I could arrange the shapes for the best use of paper without changing it in Design Studio.  If you haven't tried this, give it a shot!  I'll be back.......