Cricut Circle's weekly contest #37

This time our challenge is as follows: "All week long the Cricut Circle Design Team has been showing you new and different techniques to use with your Cricut Cuts (check back tomorrow, there is still one more!). . . now it’s your turn! Create a project of your choice (Scrapbook page, mini album, card, home decor . . . it’s up to you!) including one of the techniques we have showcased this week. Let me recap for you! Monday, Kristen used letter stickers to create her own textured patterned paper of sorts to cut shapes from. Tuesday, Suzanne cut her shapes from vellum and used her Cuttlebug machine to emboss them. On Thursday, Jennifer used beads and glitter to dress up her Cricut cuts to create a Keepsake Photo Thank You card. Today, Deanna shows you a crayon resist technique with spray mists. Finally, tomorrow Michele Kovack will be back to show you how to add shading and dimension to your Cricut cuts using Copic markers! Choose one of these techniques and then apply it to your own project! We can’t wait to see what you do!"

I did a layout of myself when I received my A. S. from Boise State. I have spent the last 10 years thinking it didn't count for much, since its not a bachelor's degree, but, no more! I'm going to celebrate it because I worked hard for it. {I was born an English major - I used to get library passes in high school on dissection days, which does not usually lead to Science degrees ;) }

I chose to use glitter and beads to enhance my project. I used black Stickles on the black cuts of my flowers to give them a little life. I centered each one with tiny glass beads, turned on their sides, to mirror the black dots in the ribbon. Usually, I try to hide the holes in the beads, but I like this effect, too. I also used glass beads shaped like leaves as accents to the flowers. They are clear and don't show up very well so I dabbed green Stayz On ink on their backs.

I used the Mother's Day Bouquet cartridge, which I love, for all the flowers, and Lyrical Letters for the font. I tried to plan out the exact flowers to use but, in the end, I just followed the advice from the cartridge's packaging and layered my favorite shapes together to create my flowers. Good advice. I do have to say, though, that I hate that I dropped the big flower on the left down too high up on the page - it makes the pages unbalanced :( but that's kind of my thing ("Everything would be perfect except for that one thing!")