A Custom Gift Box with Anna Griffin

Every year we have a Secret Santa gift exchange at work.  Our exchange covers three work days and a final gift at the staff party.  The three day gifts are small items, and I needed a special box for K-Cups.  I found a beautiful box in Design Space by Anna Griffin.  The sample is in gold, but I am obsessed with silver!

I am entering this in the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge blogs, Challenge 341 Christmas.  The cartridge used is Anna's Holiday Home Decor.  I used Anna's Silver Glitter paper and LOVE how it cuts in my Cricut!  Using 12 x 12 paper and the default box size, this box will fit 3 K-cups.

Something New with My Anna Griffin Planner

I recently stumbled across a blog with ideas from customizing your planner and loved a fold out pocket page that it had so much I wanted to make my own.  You can see the inspiration page below. 

The inspiration pocket page had holes punched in the left side and was clipped so that it could be put into the binder rings.  I wanted my page and Anna Griffin paper to last and chose not to put those holes in mine.

I started with Anna' Gracious Giftables Cricut Cartridge and sized up the pockets to be 8 1/2" tall and 5 1/2" wide.  One side needed no editing when I scaled it up and the other needed a rectangle welded to get the finished size.  I also cut a rectangle to attach my pieces.  To get the size page I wanted I had to cut this with a 24" mat and cut one piece at a time so that the second page was not cut short.  I actually delete one side and cut the other.  The file will still want a 24 inch mat but cuts a 12 x 12 page.

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge blog is having a Something New Challenge #317, and this is the first time I have had a chance to use Anna's Gracious Giftables.  I love that I have another use for this cartridge than gift giving!  And this idea would be fabulous for a mini album too.  If you would like the file for your AG planner here it is.  

Since I cut a one sided pattern paper, I created a pocket liner paper using some printed paper in Design Studio and some Anna Griffin flowers.  I just flattened the flowers on the paper and printed them on some Avery large labels.  It made great stickers that were flatter than printing on paper.

On top of the pocket pages, I cut pockets with Anna Griffin Holiday pocket dies.  I have discovered the joy of die cutting lately.  I love the dimension of embossed dies!

Supplies

Anna Griffin Gracious Giftables Cricut Cartridge

Anna Giffin Black and White Card stock

Anna Griffin Pocket Dies

Cricut Design Space

Avery Large Mailing labels

Printer

Gold Washi Tape

Anna Griffin Card Kit  (flowers, flourishes and butterfly)

Princess Birthday Card with Cricut

My niece just had a princess themed birthday party with all things Disney and I needed a special card, so I pulled out my Cricut and here is my card.  I added some pink Stickles to highlight the Happy Birthday and some Mini dew drops from The Robin's Nest to repeat the colors in Snow White's Dress.  I am entering this in the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog #305 Birthdays.  

Supplies:
Cricut Disney Princess Happily Ever After (Snow White)
Cricut Paper Lace (Happy Birthday lace medallion)
Cricut Baby Boutique (Fancy Frame)
Cricut Circle Shape (pink oval inside frame)
Mini Dew Drops from The Robin's Nest
Pink Stickles
Pop Dots
White Card Stock
Computer Printer
Cricut Scoring Stylus

Link to CRS file here.  

Step Outside Your Color Comfort Zone!

Yellow can be a difficult color to craft with and I don't keep a lot of yellow in my stash.  But one of my favorite perennials is my yellow tree peony (photo below) and I thought I would like to try an Anna Griffin card for Mother's Day with this yellow flower as inspiration.  I used Anna's Lovely Layered Cards Cartridge again and will put my sentiment inside.  Once again the darkest yellow needed some umph with distressed inks to pop and I didn't want to use a cream neutral with the yellow, so I added this small scale dot by Stampin' Up.  I am going to enter this one into the Fantabulous Cricut blog Mother's Day challenge as I see that you can enter 3 times.

Mother's Day Challenge Entry

Have you ever visited the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge blog?  It is a wonderful source of inspiration and ideas for the Cricut machine.  They have reached a milestone of 300 challenges and have a great prize this time.  So, I am in on the challenge 300:  Mother's Day!
My card is made with Anna's Lovely Layered Cards.  Even the sentiment is from that cartridge.  So easy to cut and put together with fabulous results!  And I'll give you a great tip when you don't have enough contrast in your three colors of pink card stock try to sand the lightest color pink (hopefully it has a white core like mine) and add some darker distress ink to your darkest pink paper to make your flower pop.  I have two boys and therefore don't keep much pink paper for scrap books.

Try It Tuesday: Stuck Sketch Blog

I love a challenge to motivate me to scrap a memory and if you follow my blog or my Pinterest account, you know I love any scrapbook page with a circle!  In fact I have a whole board on Pinterest called Scrapbook Pages:  Circle in a Square.  So, I am all in for this Stuck?! Sketch challenge   And Fantabulous Cricut Challenge this week is for Back to School, so I will enter this challenge too.  I used my Cricut Explore to cut a circular maze I found on the Internet, as well as the birdy sign, the Cabin sign, the star and the Field Trip circle.  Cartridges used are:  Cabin, Songbird, Designers Calendar, Store Front, K-12, Close To My Heart Art Philosophy.  I used the Explore's print and cut for the Cabin, birdy and Field Trip signs and just cut the rest and glued the layers.

Above you can see the inspiration sketch.  I played with the circle portion, and left the title and embellishment placements similar.  I dropped the mat pattern paper because my circle was bigger and I wanted to highlight the maze.
The American Pickers would be proud of me, because I even used a button from a local estate sale to embellish this page.  So, a page about the oldest build in the county also have some local ephemera.

Challenge Pages with Fantabulous Cricut

I love to motivate myself to finish a paper crafting goal by entering a challenge.  On my scrapping goal list was my son's band camp photo.  So, when I saw this week's challenge at the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge blog:  Summer Activities I had my motivation!  Camp is a Summer activity!  Here is my two page spread made with the Hannah Montana Font (Camp), Quarter Note (circle and note) and Rock Princess Cartridge (I'm with the Band).

I had some trouble getting the font to weld, so I actually added some very slim long rectangles the same size as the lines and welded them to the font.  I cut his lanyard up and used the ribbon for trim, and added his id as an embellishment.

#CampinCritters is for Christmas Too!

It's been so long since I have posted to the blog, but I had to post this fun project!  Have you ever bought a cartridge for only one cut on the cart?  Well Campin' Critters was my impulse buy for one cut and the one cut I wanted was the backpack with the sleeping bag on top.  Don't worry, I have found I love several more cuts once I got the booklet in my inky little hands!
We're having a Secret Santa exchange at work this year and I needed some special gift boxes.  I wanted my backpack to have a candy cane top instead of a sleeping bag, so I used American Crafts Holiday Red Suit paper for the peppermint roll on top.  I cut white paper to cover the oval, so that the side appeared like a candy. I used sticky Velcro at the seam so, the roll is a gift box too!  I used sticky Velcro in the side pockets and will add a little  Inside I put a roll of mints but it would be perfect for your favorite lip balm too!  Anything Goes challenge at the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge blog.

The backpack body is made with K and Company BW Evergreen paper.  I added ribbon instead of paper straps for the roll, some buttons on the side pockets, a sparkling buckle and American Crafts black velvet ribbon, and a sprig from Michaels.  I am entering this in this weeks Fantabulous Cricut Challenge blog's Anything Goes challenge. 

 

Here are some dimensions for you:  I cut the box at 11 3/4" and had to hide some of the straps to fit in on the mat.  My finished backpack portion is 4 3/4" high and 3" x 2 1/2" wide.  With the roll on top the finished height is 6 1/2".  Side pockets are too small for a gift card, but I will put find a little something special to put in them!  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Thanks for stopping by!