Quick Christmas Countdown Flip Top Advent Calendar

Are you ready for Christmas?  Are your kids anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa?  Well, if you're a little late creating an advent calendar this year, here's a quick one to whip up so your kids can count the days until the jolly fat man arrives.  My inspiration to make this flip version of an advent calendar came from the flip top calendar Jin at Under A Cherry Tree made back in January 2013.  I made it a little smaller than she does in her tutorial, so I did not use her template to make it.  Using Silhouette Studio DE, I resized the graphics from the Bo Ho Ho Advent set to 2.995"Hx2.245"W and then added a 3.6"Hx2.25"W rectangle  to make room for the binding (no need to trace the graphic).  I decided to let my Cameo cut the binding circles instead of using my Cinch since the width of the cards was making it difficult to get them accurately centered.  This is one page of the graphics in Silhouette Studio:

After setting up each page, I print and cut out the cards.  To create the "days until Christmas" portion I put a paper from the BoHoHo paper pack and the words on a  2.25"Wx1"H rectangle.  Using some chipboard from JoAnn's, I created the calendar base much the same way Jin did, only slightly narrower (11"Lx2.5"W).  I scored at 5", 5.5" and 6".  I used the Cinch to punch the holes at the top for the base since I wasn't cutting it in my Cameo.  After putting all the cards in order I put everything on the O wires and used my Cinch to bind them together.  Now my daughter has a little calendar to put on her nightstand to remind her Santa is coming soon!

This has to be the quickest advent calendar I've ever made!

I used:
Cameo 
Silhouette Studio DE (Can use the free edition)
Lettering Delights:
BoHoHo Advent set
BoHoHo paper pack
BoHoHo alphabet
LD Charming Bold

Keep counting down and Have a Crafty Day!

Inspiration Found: Two Print and Cut Cards with Silhouette Studio

I was looking for inspiration the other day, when I came across a post by Jin at UnderACherryTree about making cards using shapes, offsets and rectangles in Silhouette Studio DE.  She has a tutorial here and here, both are easy to follow if you'd like to make one too.  

Originally I was going to make just one card, but then another idea landed in my head so I ended up making two. The first one is for my son who loves music and plays both guitar and piano, as well as the viola.  His birthday is coming up this week.

Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You!

This card came together so easily.  I print and cut everything, including the solid color for the guitar because I wanted an exact match with the color on the patterned paper.  It made it so much easier than hunting down a piece of cardstock that more than likely wouldn't match.

The next card is for no special occasion, but I think I'll give it to my daughter since she's always been my beautiful butterfly!

And with this one I decided to print on the inside as well.

 

I love using the center to page feature in Silhouette Studio DE!  As long as I remember which way to put the paper in to print the second side (something I forgot to do on this card), it's easy to print on both sides of a card.  

I had so much fun making these, I'll definitely be making some more.  Thanks goes to Jin for the inspiration!

Here's what I used:

Guitar Card:

Musical Instruments Cut It Set

Doggy Paper Pack

LD Hanson (font)

LD Hang Ten (font)

Butterfly Card:

Butterflies Cut It Set

Birds Of A Feather Paper Pack

LD Dear Diary (font)

LD Platform Soul (font)

Have A Crafty Day!

Free SVG Site and A Paris Themed Shadowbox Frame

Hello there.  I know it's been a while.  That's what happens when I get my car back after over a year of having to share it with my husband.  That means he drove it and I stayed home.  Hey, whoever makes the money gets the freedom and the car, right?  Well, last week that finally came to an end.  You could say I went a little nuts and made sure I was out every day since it was such a novel thing for me to do.  Of course I made visits to my local craft stores.  Hobby Lobby was my first stop, then Michael's and A.C. Moore.  Ahhh, sweet freedom.  Amidst all that, I did create a few things.  Some were Valentine related, and the frame I made could fall into that category, but it's really a gift for my daughter who I happen to love very much.  The cool part is where I got the frame from, but more on that later.  Take a look:

Name and face concealed to protect the innocent.

It's a shadowbox frame using the Be Mine digital papers and elements by Echo Park. The rose is from the Crush On You Boxes SVG kit from SVGCuts.  A side note about that rose: I had to cut it three times before I put it together to form a satisfactory rose.  I don't know what it was, but I had such difficulty getting it to look right!  Originally the paper was darker, more like the darker circles on the patterned paper, but after cutting it two times out of that I had no more.  I had to settle for the lighter color.  The black trim is from Michael's and it has its own adhesive which made it a snap to put on.  I had a little trouble making those corners look right, but I think they turned out ok, just don't check under that rose!  Here's a close up of that difficult rose:

Your eyes are fine, it's the camera that's out of focus!

Not the best picture, but the best I could do.   Now about the frame itself.  I learned about this site called Ideogram from this post at Cleversomeday.  It's pretty neat.  You put in your measurements for one of the twelve available templates and out comes an SVG file you can cut with Make The Cut!, SCAL, Silhouette Studio DE(SSDE) or any software that cuts SVGs.  I used SSDE to print and cut this frame by dragging and dropping the digital paper on to the frame template.  In fact, I laid out the whole thing in SSDE which made it so easy to envision the final result.  One thing I noticed is if I used inches, the frame would not import at the proper size, but if I used centimeters it did.  It's not a big deal if it comes in small, all you have to do is resize it while maintaining the proportions.  

By the way, my daughter loved the frame since she loves all things Paris.  I can't wait to make more of these frames for my other children, they'll make sweet birthday gifts (well, they would if my other children were girls, but since they're boys they'll probably not appreciate them much!).  You really should check out this site, and thanks to Kay at Cleversomeday!  I noticed they added a heart box too, it looks really cool!  I love getting things for free, don't you?  Let me know what you make!

To make the frame I used:
Silhouette Cameo
Silhouette Studio DE
Be Mine Digital Paper by Echo Park
Be Mine Digital Element Pack 2 by Echo Park
Crush On You Boxes SVG Kit (rose)
Celeste's Cutesy Corner Elements SVG Collection (corner on photo)
American Crafts Cardstock (white for printing)
Core'dinations Cardstock (rose)

Now go to Ideogram and Have a Crafty Day!

A "Fishy" Card: Is It Two Lost Soles Or Sole?

Hi there.  Maybe you could help me out with a little grammar dilemma since I'm no master of the English language.  When I saw this cutting file with two fish in a fish bowl from Lettering Delights, a song started playing in my head.  You know the one, it goes like this:  "We're just two lost souls swimmin' in a fish bowl, year after year.... it's by Pink Floyd, and it's called "Wish You Were Here". I wondered, how could I make this into a punny card?  (And is "punny" even a word?).  I'd heard of sole fish, but I wanted to make sure they really existed.  I consulted google, and yes, there is a type of fish called sole (yeah, I think everybody already knew that, except me!).  I was all set.  Wait a minute, I thought, is it sole or soles when you're talking about two of these type of fish?  I didn't want any one to think I was talking about two feet, but I figured people would get it anyway, so with reckless abandon, I made this card using Silhouette Studio DE (SSDE):

Does that sound right to you?  Are we feet or fish?

I was so pleased with how it turned out, but the issue of whether or not I was making a fool of myself almost prevented me from posting it here.  So I took a risk.  Isn't that what life's about?  If anyone reading would care to offer an answer, I'd love to know, but I can't say it'd change my mind about making this card!
 
To create the front of the card I had to give dimension to the frame to make room for the beads.  To do this, I made an inset shape of the frame and cut it out six times.  I glued each shape together and then glued them to the card base:

Hey, what are those green things down there?

It didn't matter if the stacked shapes were perfectly lined up since the frame I placed over them covered them up:

Hey, this fishbowl is kinda nice, maybe we're not lost!

I used the sketch feature, set on continuous, to sketch on the frame (this was inspired by Jin's card), and then I cut a piece of acetate and glued it to the back of the frame before adhering it to the front of the card.  If you'd like you can check out the other card I made using the sketch feature in this post.

In SSDE I used print and cut to create the card base.  To align the front and inner sentiment I used center to page. I printed the front of the card, turned the paper over, put it back in my printer and printed the inside.  CAUTION: Take note of which end of the paper went into the printer first.  You MUST put the same end that went in on the first printing, in for the second time, or this will happen:  

Don't let this tragedy happen to you!!

I took the paper out of the printer and couldn't remember which way I'd put it in, so I guessed.  Oops.  I'd like to blame it on son number 3, who happened to walk in and talk to me at that very moment, but I take full responsibility, seriously, son, it's not your fault.  To prevent this in the future, I'll draw a little arrow on the paper to indicate which end I put in first (hopefully I'll remember to do that!).  Has this happened to you?  I hope not.  Now I've got to figure a nifty way to cover this up so I can give it to my husband who loves Pink Floyd as well.  Any ideas?  Leave a comment and let me know!

Supplies I used:
Silhouette Studio Designer Edition
Silhouette Cameo
Silhouette Black Sketch Pen
American Crafts White Cardstock
Green Seed Beads
Hooked on You Cut It Set
LDJ Zoodle Font

Thanks for checking out my "Two Lost Soles" card, and Have A Crafty Day!
 

How One Card Turned Into Four Cards!

Because of the event that started my week I didn't get the chance to post the cards I made with that lovely melting snowman from this post.   Instead of making one card, I ended up making four different versions of the same card.  I'd like to show you all four versions of this card, and maybe you'll discover, as I did, that creating is a process!  During that process I used a lot of features in Silhouette Studio DE(SSDE).  SSDE has many great features that I love, but my absolute favorite is the ability to print, sketch and then cut.  I have not been able to achieve this in Make The Cut.  If anyone knows how to do it in that program PLEASE let me know!  Well, on to the first version:

I'm floating!

Something didn't look right when I put this card together.  It was too plain and the snowman was floating!  I went back to fix that and came up with this:

Much better down here!

I'm feeling sketchy

I lowered the snowman and added some sketching around him to look like a shadow.  This is where I got to use the print, sketch and cut feature.  It looked much better to me, until I thought, something's still missing!  On to the next one:

Not the sun!!

Yes, it needed a sun!  I mean, why else would he be melting?  The sun was cropped to the printed mat on the front of the card so the rays didn't extend beyond the mat.  Cropping is another fun feature in SSDE.  In the first two cards I paper pieced the snowman, but in this one I just printed him out, making it quicker to put together.  I was satisfied with this card until I remembered all the cards Jin makes at Under A Cherry Tree.  I thought, I need to make it a shaped card and take it to the next level!  On to the fourth and final version:

Since this card had less space, I had to eliminate the words on the front.  I also used a different type of sketch around the snowman.  You might notice a black line around the card edge, which is from me not remembering to make the outline transparent instead of black.  I thought if I didn't have print outlines checked in the program those lines wouldn't print, but they did.  I didn't want to make a fifth card!  In case you're wondering, here are the inner sentiments for the cards:

How sweet!

So that's the creative process I went through to get to a card I felt happy with.  I learned to keep going when you're not satisfied, and that it's a great way to distract yourself from things you'd like to forget about!  Do any of you find the same things to be true?  I'd love to hear what your creative process is like!  Here's what I used to make these cards:

Snow-Brainers Cut It Set

In Like a Lion Paper Pack

Soak Up the Sun  SVGs

LDJ Drippy Font

LD Love Me Font

SNF Lollihop Font

Thanks for stopping by and Have a Crafty Day!