f The Bugbytes: An Earth Day Project

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Welcome to The Bug Bytes a site/blog mainly for Papercrafting and some photography and other stuff thrown in here & there. Add in some die cutting machine, scrapbooking tools, cameras, scissors , glue and...... My name is Pam. If you have been redirected from Papillon Digital Design you have come to the right place.Hope you get inspired by the projects, videos and files. Would love it if you could leave comments and become a follower. (Word verification is turned ON to avoid spam. Sorry for that inconvenience.) Would love it if you would also share your project here . If you find a linky under the post do share your project by posting link there or if you do not find a linky post your link in the comments.Thank you for visiting. The website Papillon digital designs has changed to Papillon Digital Design so if the link gives and error or takes you to page with chinese characters then please drop the 's' in the link at the end of papillondigitaldesigns and try . That is change papillondigitaldesigns to papillondigitaldesign and try the link.

April 20, 2010

An Earth Day Project


Hi everyone! Let me introduce myself really quickly. My name is Elizabeth and I am a recent college graduate. I was introduced to the Cricut world about a year and a half ago and I have never looked back! I have a big Expression and a Gypsy as of Christmas of last year. My style is pretty simple, but I love it! I love to make cards and gifts, but my favorite thing is still scrapbooking. I hope you enjoy this project!

So, let me start off by saying I am a little nervous to be here, but am also excited to share my project with everyone. I have a small blog that I mainly started for keeping an archive of past projects for personal use, so this is my first time sharing with a large audience.

I had the tree box on page 127. I am sad to admit that although I have owned this cartridge for over 3 months, I had not used it yet!!! I hadn't even linked it to my Gypsy! Ok, please tell me at least a couple of you have some cartridge sitting somewhere on a dusty shelf that hasn't been touched in forever... it might help me get over my guilt...

I will admit that I am very glad this was not a video! Because it did not work out at all how I planned it. At first, I thought this was a box like one you would open. After I assembled a test cut I realized that it is more like a 3-d object, but you will see how I worked around that so I could still put some goodies inside.

Here is the tree box after all the scoring. I used my Scor-Pal to make the scoring a little easier. It worked really nicely to line up each score mark. I was surprised by how many flaps this box has, but this was the first box I have made.


This is the box after I inked up the edges. I was going for a distressed, recycled look to fit the Earth Day theme. Keep an eye out for more recycling later on in the post.




Then I had a brilliant recycling idea! I asked my fiance if he had any old papers from college that he didn't need anymore. He gave me a funny look, but handed me some papers.... he is used to not asking why I need strange things in the craft room anymore. :)



Then I got out my crimper that I bought at Michael's with a 50% coupon (the only way to shop really) :) and started crimping all the strips. After I crimped them, I squished them and shaped them until they had the look I was going for. Then I filled the box using the window as my opening until it looked nicely full, while still having room for other goodies.



Okay, let me address the green triangle I added as a layer. This was a big issue as I was working on the project. I was originally going to use this paper for the entire box, but then I didn't think it felt stable enough. So then I had the brilliant idea to use the Gypsy to create a layer! After all that's what the Gypsy is supposed to do! Unfortunately, I only own one cartridge with a triangle. No problem, right? Big problem. The cartridge is George and I am one of those unlucky people who still have not been able to link George to my Gypsy. Ugh. So I did something kind of crazy. I hand cut all the triangles. Woah. I was worried that I had forgotten how scissors worked that way after using the Cricut and my Gypsy exclusively. Don't worry I guess it's like riding a bike. :) I just traced the box and then cut slightly smaller so it would layer. In order to cut out the window, I traced the piece that had cut from the window originally and traced that. Then I cut that out and prayed that it would work as I had used up all of the one sheet of patterned paper I had bought. Note to self: Always buy at least two sheets. Anything less is tempting fate. The next picture shows the back of the box. This triangle was much easier. :)



I wanted to include a small packet of seeds as an Earth Day gift in the box. Then I came to another roadblock. The seed packet was way too big! No problem, I told myself as I took calming breaths. ;) I just folded it in half and glued it together with my ATG. That ATG is seriously a life saver! Here is a picture of the box with the packet of seeds inside.



Then I stamped a piece of cream cardstock with this awesome clear stamp I found at Hobby Lobby. Recently our local Hobby Lobby expanded by 8000 square feet!! It is like Christmas every time I stop in. I am constantly finding products they didn't stock before. The best part is they mix them in with the old merchandise so it feels like a treasure hunt! Oh, the simple pleasures in life. :) Anyways... I found a spring themed clear stamp set that had this adorable sentiment. I cut around the edge and distressed it with my Tim Holtz Paper Distresser. I couldn't decide where to adhere it down. Then I had an idea! I would tuck it inside the window and make it a little card or gift tag.



Here is a picture of the back of the card. I just wrote a small note on there and signed it. Here is another place where things did not go as planned. The pen I grabbed was slow to start and the 'H' on "Happy" just did not look right. I decided to widen it out and stylize the letters a little. Again, I am so thankful this was all not on video! I don't know how everyone does it!



Thank you so much for taking the time to read this long post! I hope you enjoy my project! I actually had a lot of fun making it once I got over the nerves. :) If you would like, feel free to check out my blog ScrapSweet Designs Again, thank you so much for looking and have a great day!