Give Thanks

 This is a 2 page layout made using the CTMH Artbooking cricut cartridge, using button 35, page 72 in the handbook, size 11".  The overlay is cut from Kraft paper, the coloured papers are Recollections brand from my stash.  This edge distress-er makes easy work of roughing up the paper, it takes up the ink & softens the hard border that is edged with twilight ink.  A good tip is to not use that edge distress-er over a project, else there will be shreds of paper dust EvErYwHeRe.  Scissors work well for roughing up edges, but the micro-tip scissors are so very sharp, bloodletting would wreck the project.  Not to mention valuable crafting time spent on cleaning it up and healing.  I stamped the cutout pieces with Geometric backgrounds D1853 stamp set; the tree trunk I used White daisy pigment ink, the leaves I used mini pigment set ink, sorry but I didn't note which ones.  A tip about stamping on bitty pieces of paper:  put a scrap of copy paper over the stamp set foam cushion insert so the excess stamping isn't on the insert.  It was easy to ink in bands of colours on the distress stamp and then clean it all in one round.  I found that the pigment ink shows up on the Kraft paper, the dye ink was more muted looking.  Some of the leaves are trimmed slightly, and they are all popped up on 3D foam tape.

The Kraft paper is more fibrous, it cuts best with a slightly lower blade pressure than usual and multicut ON.  The leaves are edged with a bit of twilight ink.  I squish the lid on the ink & then pick up the ink on a sponge that I've cut into 6th's.  Other bloggers like them cut into quarters, but I like the slimmer profile to use.  I will show you in another post how that works.

I like how I could use the layouts together or separate, and even swap left to right.  This Artbooking cartridge is my favorite because I don't have to play around with the dial size and everything coordinates nicely, even when elements are swapped around.  I haven't got the pictures printed yet, so anywhere it looks like the overlay would hang over a picture is not glued down.  I should say "adhesive" but I am getting sick of the overuse of that word on blogs, youtube, etc., but that's just me.

A cricut tip:  When looking at the handbook, notice that each example is in a code of colours.  This is to remind you to pick 2, 3, or 4 colours for your project.  If you only use 2 colours on a 4 colour example, the layers blend together visually and vanish unless you take steps to alter the cuts with ink or doodles or something.

Whatever you are making, I wish you crafty success!