Birthday Balloon Shadow Box Card

Hey all! It's Courtney Lee from Court's Crafts here with your Thursday tutorial!

Okay, so this is both a tutorial and a "what you can do with the product" tutorial so I am going to show you the traditional way this is put together, but I am going to then deviate slightly by making the stars into mini shakers.. so hang with me.

Before you start anything when you import to the Cricut Design Space software you want to right click and ungroup everything. Then you want to highlight a whole segment and "attach". The reason you want to do this is so that the scoring lines actually end up in the correct places. It's a weird funny "glitch" but if you don't then the scoring lines think they want to cut out of black and even if you make them white they still will try to "cut" as a different object. This took me quite some "you-tubing" to figure out. :)

First of all I duplicated both the mirror looking layer and the background rectangle. The extra mirror looking layer is for the front of the card and the extra background rectangle is for acetate to make this a shaker-shadow box. Those are shown as a red piece and a black piece (not pictured) respectively on my screen shot. I'm so sorry I cannot get all of it into view! The Cricut software doesn't put it on different mats it just puts it in different colors (or you choose them) and it divides it onto different mats accordingly. I LOVE it for saving me time, but it's not super for pictures for a tutorial. :)

Step 1: I adhered the red polka dot panel (the extra mirror looking layer) to the front of the card.

Step 2: I adhered the red polka dot rectangle to the back middle of the card.

Step 3: Adhere the acetate to the back of the tan and white polka dotted panel.

Step 4: I added the foam dimensional tape around the stars and then added a second layer of tape to increase the thickness and then fill the stars with sequins.

Step 5: Put the cream layer upside down onto the foam dimensional tape. Line it up by using the top and the bottom line of the bottom panel.

Step 6: Put liquid glue on the skinny sides of the cream layer, the outside of the whole panel you have been working on, and the top and bottom of the "box". 

Step 7: Tuck the top and bottom of the box in between the cream layer and the rocket layer.

Step 8: Adhere the panels to the sides of the frame and decorate! :)

Recipe:

Lori's Shop: Tri-Fold Shadow Box Card: Birthday

Silhouette Shop: Tri-Fold Shadow Box Card: Birthday

Lori Whitlock's Pinstripes collection for Echo Park Paper

Pinstripes: Boy Bingo Cards (PS104010)

Pinstripes: Rocket Ships (PS104005)

Pinstripes: Alpha Stickers (PS104015)

Pinstripes: Adhesive Chipboard (PS104022)

Pinstripes: 6x6 Paper Pad

acetate

liquid glue

tape runner

Lori Whitlock's Creative Team May Blog Hop!

Hello and welcome to Lori Whitlock's May Creative Team Blog Hop! 

You should have gotten here from the incredible Tya's blog (One of my crafty heroines!!!) If not, start HERE in the beginning at Lori's blog for all the fun and all the chances to win!!!

Here is the freebie for today!!! 

Here are my projects. I decided to do two of the critter match boxes for you. :) 

First up: BEAR! rarrr!

The awesome texture on this bear comes from the designer stencil and translucent embossing paste with some glitter sprinkled on top.  This does require some patience to let it dry (or you can use a heat gun I am told). 

The only tricky (at least for me!!!) piece was the little ears. You fold all of the paper on the scoring lines. Now bend the outsides into the middle. It seems obvious once you do it but I was trying all kinds of crazy things. You should have been a fly on the wall! It was hilarious.

The ears then fold down flat and the cover piece goes over the top. Easy peasy and 3D strong! Nice going Lori!!!

Recipe: Bear
Lori's Whitlock's Matchbox Bear
Silhouette Shop Matchbox Bear
Echo Park: Pinstripes by Lori Whitlock
Echo Park: Random Star 6x6 Stencil
Echo Park: Dots and Stripes Winter (polka dots)

Second up: DOGGIE! Woof woof! 

I grabbed the star from the designer stamps that come with the Pinstripes collection and stamped it in some light chalk ink over the face of my cute doggie. I finished this one off with some straight sewing.

Dog:
Lori's Whitlock's Matchbox Dog
Silhouette Shop Matchbox Dog
Echo Park: Pinstripes by Lori Whitlock

Carta Bella Cardstock: Kraft

Before you go, here are some coupon codes for you to pick up your own awesome Lori Whitlock supplies!

If you love the digi files... :)

If you love her cutting files!!! :) Stock up!

Here is the blog hop order for today (in case you get lost):

Lori Whitlock

Corri Garza

Mendi Yoshikawa

Traci Penrod

Kathy Skou

Tya Smith

Courtney Lee 

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Ashley Cook

Rachael Sheedy 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Did you enter into the giveaway above? Okay, great. Now head on over to the uber talented Ashley's blog!

Daily Doodles - Under the Sea Style!

Hi everyone!!! It's Courtney Lee with Court's Crafts today and I decided to show you my April calendar as it is the "finished" one. I LOVE the Daily Doodles. I have been doing them since December and as a non-scrapbooker, this has been such an awesome way to capture our lives. I'm putting them in this fabulous scrapbook so the girls can look back and realize all of the fun things that we did. It doesn't have all the detail - as in I don't put "painting" on there but you could! I just put our scheduled family activities, Lilibeth's "firsts", their milestones, visitors, play dates, etc.

This clipboard hangs in our mudroom so anyone can look at it and know what is going on.

I love using the doodle pops and the sprinkle shapes for big events. This little girly sea turtle is just perfect for McKenna's birthday! I have to say - it's one of my favorite sprinkle shapes ever!

I made a little scene in the bottom left corner.

I use washi tape and fancy frills to show when people are out of town (or when we have a houseguest staying for a while). This has been super helpful for the girls to visually see when daddy gets back, etc. 

I always like to do a little something at the tops of them. The sprinkle shaped star and little fish on the bottom right of the scene were the perfect finishing touches. The pre-made month labels are AWESOME. I love this font.

The 6x6 pads in each collection come with this cute matrix of squares. I love using them on my daily doodles. You will be able to see three in the big picture. I used the bubbles to highlight other events.

Here are two Saturday birthdays and this time instead of writing in straight lines I wrote around the objects and I have to say that I LOVE the look. I plan on doing this in the future months too! 

Here is is again in all it's crazy glory! I know it looks like a lot but it just builds up over the month. And.. I admit... I kind of like it that way. This is how wonderfully and cutely chaotic our life is right now and this is SUCH a fabulous way for us all to stay organized and on the same page! 

Grab some daily doodles and start capturing your family memories. I promise you wont regret it and how fun will it be when the kids get to look back and see what our lives looked like? I hope it will make them feel loved, special, enriched and cared for. 

doodles used:
doodlebug: under the sea: 6x6 paper pad (5138)
doodlebug: under the sea: washi tape: pretty polka dots (5000)
doodlebug: under the sea: fancy frills (5144)
doodlebug: under the sea: icons (5143)
doodlebug: under the sea: shape sprinkles: under the sea (4953)
doodlebug: doodle pops: daisy dolphin (4980)
doodlebug: daily doodles: lilac (4934) 
doodlebug: mini doodle pops: minnows (4975)
doodlebug: daily doodles: lily white months (4938)
doodlebug: bubblegum mini rub-ons: candy shoppe (2165)
doodlebug: bubblegum skinny CS stickers (4717)
doodlebug: lilac skinny CS stickers (4724)
doodlebug: bubblegum teensy type CS stickers (3427)
doodlebug: lilac teensy type CS stickers (3434)
doodlebug: lily white teensy type CS stickers (3435)

Strawberry Carton Mother's Day Card

Well good morning!!! This is Courtney Lee from Court's Crafts here with another Mother's Day card.

I made this one for my mother-in-law.  She teaches students and I wanted something fun that she could put on her desk and look at! :) It's also just fun and springy.

I won't lie. I LOVE strawberry cartons. Is there anything that makes you want to go on a picnic more than wild strawberries!?! :) Here you can see how much depth this has. I added different thicknesses and amounts of foam tape here and there to make things stand out, but I just love the clusters all over the place. This crate is just bursting with strawberry goodness! 

I used both the Petticoats AND Pinstripes collections from Echo Park by Lori Whitlock for this card. The enamel dots are from the Petticoats collection. These collections are scrumptious for classic cards of all sorts. 

Recipe:
Lori's Shop: Box Card Strawberry Carton
Silhouette Store: Bow Card Strawberry Carton
Petticoats and Pinstripes for Echo Park by Lori Whitlock
Cricut Explore Air