My Adorable "little" Mistake

For being part of the Cricut Circle group, we get an exclusive Cricut cartridge every quarter.  This quarter we received "French Manor" which has gorgous french inspired images.  I have been meaning to use this cartridge all month but as I mentioned before, we have been a bit busy at our house this month.  Tonight I decided no more excuses...those dishes in the kitchen can wait....it was time to create a little project to show off the beautiful details of this cartridge.

 

I have to be honest...it didn't start out to be an adorable "little" card ...I kind of forgot to move the size dial larger. However, sometimes a mistake isn't really a mistake, it is an opportunity, right?
 
This little card is more index card size than a normal card might be. It was cut at 4 inches.  I did the base card layer with blue card stock, then cut the same base card cut again but in the yellow swiss dot. I then cut the bird cage OFF the yellow layer and then adhered the frame that was left of the yellow card base over the blue card base and adhered.  Next I cut just the bird cage in black cardstock and layered over the blue cage.
 
TIP:  The black layer cage needs to be cut 1/4 inch smaller than your card base so it fits better.  I cut this one at 3 3/4 inches so it fit over the blue card cage layer better. It left just a slight blue shadow around the edges which I think worked well with it.   

After all this layering, then you see a yellow swiss dot framed card, with a black cage with slight blue shadow and a blue bird. 

To make the blue bird stand out more, I used a blue glaze pen and covered it so it now slightly shiny.  And added a black eye with a black glaze pen.

To the black bird cage, I added mirrored studs using my new iRock tool.  Love that thing...it was the final perfect touch to the cage.

I backed the image with some Basic Grey paper I had in my stash to add a little more color. I then lightly inked around the edges of the card with Peeled Paint distress ink just to make it pop a little more.

I kinda like my little card....what do you think of it?

July Catch Up Post

Lots happening in July...obviously so much so that I didn't make time to blog.  Shame on me!

Let's give you a little run down on what was going on this month and maybe you might forgive me for not blogging...okay, I know there is no real excuse not to blog....teeheee.  Promise to do better.

Well obviously, we spent some time celebrating 4th of July.  In fact, we had THREE celebrations. 

My Dad 's birthday is 4th of July and he turned 70 this year.  Happy Birthday Dad! We had the family over to celebrate with barbque steak and all the fixings...Yum !  Love you Dad!  

Bianca and Nicolas insisted Grandpa wear the Silly Birthday hat...I think it looks good on him, don't you?

Some close friends of  ours throw a huge 4th of July party every year since we can shoot off fireworks in their neighborhood.  This year was no exception and their were tons of kids of all ages and lots of friends hanging out having a good time.  Plus really great potluck food! The fireworks show is always interesting as it is usually all the kids outside watching their dad's try and put on a fireworks show....they did a fantastic job. Well the exception of the firework that tipped over and scared the heck out of the spectators :)  Luckily no one was hurt.

The following night we were lucky enough to celebrate with some other dear  friends and we went and watched the incredible fireworks show downtown.  I just love fireworks, don't you? Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I don't have incredible pics to share...you just gotta trust me on this one.

I kept Bianca the following week and we had a great time taking in some of the sights around town.  One day we went to the Johnson Space Center with my brother and nephew and enjoyed ourselves immensely.
And we went to the Children's Museum...I really don't know why they call it a children's museum since I had a great time playing there too :)  Oh, does that mean I am just a big kid..GUILTY as charged!

Bianca (on the far right) loved being a part of alive science show at Space Center Houston.  In fact, she asked the lady after the show how she could get a job like that!  Love that girl...always thinking ahead!

Let's see what was next...oh yeah, the Creating Keepsakes Convention was here in town and my daughter Crystal and some of her friends came to town from Dallas to go with me.  We had a lot of fun.  And I was glad to have Crystal and Winston here since it has been a while since they last visited.  Luckily the little mini flood we had drained off quickly and Crystal as able to travel back to Dallas the next day.  It actually rained 3.5 inches in only 45 minutes right over our neighborhood...flooded the streets and took 2 hours to drain off.  I haven't seen that much water on our street in a looooooong time.

Then of course, we had to take Bianca one night to go see "Lois" the Corpse Flower at Museum of Natural Science and History.  Lois became a mini celebrity as the city waited patiently for her to bloom and give off her stinky aroma and beautiful plummage.  Alas, we went at 10:45 pm at night (yes the museum had special hours just so Lois adoring fans could come see her), but we only smelled a faint rotten food odor....not the rotting flesh odor that had been predicted.  It was fun having a little mini adventure and going to the Museum at night.  We only had to wait 45 minutes in line to see Lois for 10 minutes.  Yes, we are a bit silly at our house.

Below is a picture of Michael and Bianca admiring Lois, the Corpse Flower.

We hosted a birthday party for our daughter Heather for all the family at our house the following weekend.  The barbque was great and everyone had a wonderful time.   Heather has decided it is time to stop mentioning the actual # of years old but I am glad she still wants to celebrate with family :)

You may have noticed that we have a BIRTHDAY HAT at our house that we force, I mean ask, the birthday person to wear...it is another silly thing we do in our family. 

Last weekend on Friday night we helped give a party to celebrate a 5th Degree Black Belt for Michael's Sensi, Rick.  It is quite an accomplishment and we are really proud of Rick for achieving this feat.  Again, we had great food and enjoyed hanging out with friends.

Then for some insane reason, we decided on Saturday to do on a 15 mile Bike Ride in 98 degree heat in the middle of the afternoon.  Boy, was that H-O-T !!!  It was the bike ride that did me in, it was the heat.  What can I say, I live in the Air Conditioning Capital of the World and I am NOT afraid to use it !!!

On top of all this I managed to fit in a few Cricut Demos at Michaels.  I have gotten pretty good with the Yudu machine now if anyone needs help silk screening :)  We have  full month of demos scheduled for August so I will be Cricuting again soon.

Okay, I am tired just reading about all that we did this month.  So long for now. I promise to be back soon to post some creative projects I have been working on this month. 

Hope your summer is going along smoothly and you are making time to enjoy good times with family and friends.