Getting "Sophisticated"!

Good morning!  I am pleased to be sharing a couple of projects today over at MyPaperCrafting.com for the Monday Cartridge Showcase.  Today we are featuring projects using the Cricut Sophisticated cartridge.  

You will love with the richly detailed images on this cartridge designed by Teresa Collins! The keys, chandeliers, flourishes, and other images are beautifully designed and layered. There are great phrases, borders, and fonts to add elegance to your cards, home decor, and scrapbook layouts. It has six creative features: Phrase, Border, Font 1, Font 2, Font 2 Shadow, and Base/Phrase Shadow.

My Mom recently celebrated a birthday.  Mom is an avid bird watcher -- there are no less than 3 bird feeders in her yard as well as a fountain and birdbath.  She even keeps a small pair of binoculars and a birding book by her kitchen window which looks out on one of the feeders and the birdbath.  So for her birthday I knew I wanted to create something bird-themed.  I found two sweet little ceramic birds at Michaels recently and paired them up with these two little bird houses I scored in one of their dollar bins last Fall.

I decoupaged the bird houses with papers from two different Paula Deen 6 x 6 paper packs that I also discovered in the dollar bins last Fall.  The orange and the light blue matched the ceramic birds perfectly!

The orange birdhouse features Fleur de lis 3 (handbook, page 47) cut at 2 1/2" tall from a scrap of kraft paper.  The bird (handbook, page 51) on the blue house was cut twice at 2 1/2" tall.  I sandwiched a dowel between the birds to make it stand up.

I also made Mom a card using this cartridge.

As much as Mom loves birds, she loves her flowers and garden that much more!  So a floral card was a must.  Here's the recipe for the card:

• My base card measures 5" wide by 7" tall and is a piece of Bazzill's Pinkini card stock.
• The decorative mats (handbook, page 64) were cut at 4 1/2" wide, 4" wide and 3 1/2" wide.  The striped card stock is by Basic Grey and is called Sultry-Fashionable (sul-1148).  The white is just plain old white card stock.  The green patterned paper is from DCWV's Cherry Limeade Stack.
• The flowers (handbook, page 52) were cut from Bazzill Chablis and Pinkini card stocks at 1" high (dark pink) and 1/2" high (light pink) and embellished with small pearls.
• The flower branch is Flourish1 (handbook, page 55).  I cut it at 4 5/8" from kraft card stock.
• The phrase is from the Cricut Cake Basics cartridge and measures 4" wide.  It was cut from Bazzill's Chablis card stock and plain white card stock and embellished with some tiny pearls.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my "Sophisticated" projects.  I hope you enjoy them as much as my Mom did!  Please take a moment and stop by MyPaperCrafting.com and see what Design Team members Charlotte and Melin created using this beautiful cartridge.

~ Jen