Cricut Creation #1

Our project today would be perfect for that friend of yours who has a favorite pooch...or maybe as a sweet journaling card on a scrapbook page of your special pet.

Awhile back, I bought this fun Rusty Pickle paper with the "I love dirt. It is delicious sentiment." I loved it and thought it would be perfect for me since I'm always making dog pages. Well, as it turns out, there is a stamp set that also has that same sentiment (along with many other adorable images). The set looks like this:

It took some looking but with the help of an online friend (thanks Jill in Texas!) finally it was located at http://www.beachaudio.com/ . I can't recommend this company enough. I placed my order two days ago and it was in my mailbox this morning. Excellent customer service and very reasonable shipping!

As soon as I received my stamps, I couldn't wait to start playing. I choose the dog diecut on the Animal Kingdom cartridge (page 128). I used a dark chocolate as the base for my dog, and a lighter sand color for the layers (size: 3" for both). Once I layered the pieces, I adhered the dog to a white piece of cardstock. Then, using my scissors, I trimmed it so as to leave a slight white border all the way around. I used EK success paper shapers for the black nose as well as the heart on the collar. Then I made accents on my dog using both brown and white pens.

The topper/card base itself looks like this:

Dimensions:

Red: 5 1/4 x 4

White: 5 x 3 3/4

Black: 4 3/4 x 3 1/2

Next, we're going to add a mat on which to put our dog diecut. It will be placed more towards the top:

Dimensions:

White: 3 1/4 x 2 3/4

Red: 3 x 2 1/2

Next, I layered my dog on top of the red mat. I also added a little black circle (same punch I used for doggie's nose), one in each of three corners.

My sentiment was placed on a diecut made using the Storybook cartridge. It's the scalloped square on page 47. In order to make this shape, here is what you do:

First, load your cartridge, and place your overlay over the keyboard.

Turn your machine on. Place your mat (with the white cardstock on it) up to the rollers on your machine. Hit "load paper".

Push your Accent Blackout button until it lights up.

Push the shift then "T" button.

On the right hand side, is your dial for the size, turn it to 1 3/4 ".

Then hit "cut".

Now, remove your white cardstock from your mat, and replace it with some red. Load your paper in the same way you did before.

This time, turn your dial size on the right to 2 ". Push the "repeat last" button. Then cut.

Stamp your sentiment on your white scalloped square. I like to use the Versafine Onyx Black as it gives a nice clean, crisp image. Now you should have two pieces that look like this:

Adhere your sentiment onto your red scalloped paper. Before placing that on your topper, cut a small strip of white cardstock measuring 1/4 x 3 1/2 ". Adhere this toward the bottom portion of your card (see picture below). Then place your sentiment on top of it. Because I am not crazy about using ribbon, I added some little black circles to my white strip using a black pen. This gives the illusion of polka dot ribbon.

Here is a look at the finished project:

Hope you enjoyed today's project! Please feel free to leave a comment! I'd love to hear your feedback! Thanks!