New cricut, papermania & card candi goodies

Can't believe that it's been nearly a month since I last posted- December has obviously been a manic month. But it's almost done and I've thankfully got a bit of free time. Tried to get some crafting bargains when I visited the sales yesterday but was a bit disappointed- the Hobbycraft tills were down so they couldn't reduce the prices of most things- luckily some other goodies lifted my spirits.

The 'cricut craft room' system has replaced the old 'design studio' software and is a really good tool for making the most of your cartridges and doing new things with them. I've only just started using it properly and keep finding new things each time I have a go. You can download cartridges straight from the website rather than buying an actual physical cartridge- this is obviously great for those people that don't have much space (that's pretty much every crafter, anywhere, then!) but you can also link the cartridges you already own. They've got a 25% off promotion at the moment so it seemed like a good time to try it out. I've now got the Disney Pixar Cars, Elegant Edges, Fontopia Crests & Cards and Create a Critter cartridges. They came to about £66 all together which is very good value for 4 cartridges, especially a branded Disney one too.

I also picked up some 6x6 papers from the new Papermania 'spots and stripes' capsule collection for just £4 which are in a really nice selection of pastel springy colours and these match today's delivery perfectly! The lovely post-lady bought me the final part of my Card Candi TSV which contains 12 mini packs of Candi including spots, flower print & gingham patterns in lilac, green, orange, turquoise & yellow.

I've used all of my new stash to make this card (but also some old favourites that I haven't used for ages...)

I started with a 6x6 craftwork cards scalloped edge card blank, that I inked with 'Squeezed Lemonade' distress ink and just a little 'Shaded Lilac' on the real edges. I used the cricut 'elegant edges' cartridges that I downloaded, to cut a 6x6 papermania spotty paper into a fancy edge circle. I cut this in half and attached 1 half to the folded edge of the card. The flowers were cut using an xcut flower punch and DCWV textured white cardstock. 9 of the flowers were arranged randomly in the bottom right hand corner and the other 1 in the top left corner. I then added spotty green, orange & purple card candi to the middle of the flowers. The blue ribbon came from my crafty stash and was tied simply into a large bow and attached with glue. The finishing touch was a white square tag that has a silver metal edge that I've had for at least 5 years, and a blue button, threaded with the same ribbon as the bow. As the card is not for a specific occasion, I have added a generic 'Have A Great Day' silver peel-off message and star embellishment.

Proof, if ever it were needed, that we HAVE to buy new things otherwise we might never use the old stuff!