Welcome to the CTV Challenge#6 "Anything Goes".  Mary is awarding two stamp sets of choice to the winner of the challenge.  The design team is having a blast with all different types of projects and stamp sets. So, get ready to have fun and in the words of Paulette Jarvey  "come play with us."

I chose to make a set of cards as a gift to a friend.  I love working with puns,  and Mary's Garden Greeting  Stamp Set  just let the door wide open for me to come up with four cards playing on words.  I kept the designs simple yet bright and colorful and kept the embellishments to a minimum so the greetings are the focal points.  Since this set of cards is a gift, the insides are left blank for personal messages.   Here's a group pic. You can click on any picture for a larger image.

All finished cards measure 5" by 6.5" and are cut from white card stock.  Design details are listed with each card image set.  Measurements are given down further in the post. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Apple of My Eye:

The apples and basket were cut from the Doodlecharms cartridge.  The background paper is red card stock and the green check and apple design paper were from my stash.  The "twine" is crochet cotton died with a Sharpie marker.






In a Jam?



The jar is cut from Doodlecharms, the spoon is cut from From My Kitchen, the berries and the two labels are from Preserves.  You can not see it  in the pictures, but there is a clear transparency sheet as the top layer of the jar.  All these papers are from my stash as well as the ribbon.







What a Pear!

The pears are cut from Preserves, the palm tree and the chairs are from Life is a Beach.  I used the scalloped-scallop punch from EK Success for the border of the sand.  The face stamps are from Peachy Keen and the papers and embellishments are from my stash.





Love in Bloom

The turtles are from Walk in My Garden.  I welded them together using my Gypsy.  The heart is from Doodlecharms.  The ground "border" is from A Child's Year (under icon with shift 8th image I welded three together).  Papers and embellishments are from my stash.




Card cuts:
For Apple of My Eye I cut the bushel basket and it's braces and handle at 1.83 " high.  I cut the apples and  apple blackouts at 1.15" high.  I used my Gypsy to hide the apple and highlight on one set so the stems would cut separately.  They are small enough that you could just cut them by hand.  There are 4 small gold brads that fit into the holes in the braces.  I chose to cut one green apple and the rest red just for color interest. I used a white gel pen to color the highlight cuts on the apples and to add some dots to the leaves.  The red mat layer is 6.25" by 4.75".  The green check layer is 6" by 4.5" and the apple patterned paper is 2.75" by 4.5"

For In a Jam?  I cut the fruit jar (from gray card stock) and two of the jar blackouts (one red dot card stock, and one clear transparency) at 4" high.  I only used the lid part of the jar of the gray cut out.  I used Zip Dry glue to attach the transparency to the red dot card stock.  Mary has a similar project with a video here.  The strawberries, the additional berry and the leaves were cut from Preserves at 1.52".  The jar label is from Preserves, cut #49.  I cut a plaid one at 2.11" high and a light green one at 1.89" high.   The spoon is from From My Kitchen as is cut at 2.11" high.  I cut two of them and glued them together to get more dimension.  The plaid background mat is 6.25" by 4.75"

For What a Pear! I cut the very first image on the Preserves cartridge at 2.64".  I cut two pears and two centers flipping one of each so the leaves would be on opposite sides. Since there is not a blackout feature on this cartridge, I hid all the details of these images except the outline.  The chairs are cut at 2.41" and the palm tree at 4.65" from the Life is a Beach Cartridge.  The sky background mat is 6.25" by 4.75" and the sand is 6.25" by 1.75" after the border was cut off.

For Love in Bloom I cut the "ground" border at .85" high, welded three together and welded a 2.5" rectangle from George and Basic Shapes .  I wanted a border with flowers, but I didn't have any to fit the need.  A simple rectangle with some flower shapes glued behind it would also work.  The heart is cut at 1.08" high and the turtles plus the turtle shells are cut at 1.97" high.  Rounding to the nearest half inch would also work for anyone  who doesn't have a Gypsy.  The tulips are buttons I found at Jo Anns.  I sponged the blue background for the sky with Ranger Distress Tumbled Glass.  The googly eyes are from Michaels and I love the eyelashes.  I used larger ones that normal to add humor to the card.  The yellow background mat is 6.25" by 4.75", the sky mat is 6" by 4.5" and the ground is 6" by 2.75" (to the top of of the daffodils) after the border was cut off.

People always ask me how I come up with combining many cartridges to get an image.  I think having the Gypsy and now the Cricut Craft Room enables you to have access to all the cartridges at once without going through all the booklets individually making browsing easier.  The Gypsy search feature or My Cut Search has also helped to find images.  However, I spend time to just browsing my cartridges for images that are "hidden" such as on the icon button, or parts of of images.  Sometimes, I have my Gypsy with me while I watch TV and I scroll through cartridges during commercials.   Another idea, type in a cartridge title (i.e. Cricut Life is a Beach) and the word "cuts" in Google and search for images.  You'll be surprised at what other crafters create!  Ideas are everywhere you just need time to look.  Happy crafting!
Sue