Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog and 2 weeks in the top 5!

Yesterday I found out that, for the 2nd week in a row, a card I made landed in the top 5 at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog!  Saying that it made my day would be a huge understatement.  The other submissions have been spectacular
and I consider myself very lucky to have been chosen.
Thank you to the Design Team!!

The wins and acknowledgements my work has received during the short few weeks that I've been participating in challenges has gotten me completely jazzed, pumped up, excited.....whatever word you want to use for this really good feeling I'm enjoying.  And motivated.  I'm really motivated to see what else I'm able to do.

I hadn't been planning on doing a card for FCCB this week because the theme is one that offered few options with the cartridges that I currently have.  Or so I thought.  (Don't get me wrong, it's a great theme.)  I just hadn't put on my thinking cap about that one.  The theme is "Cool Treats."  While I have several different ice cream cone cuts, those just didn't appeal to me.  Ironically, my very first job was at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop when I was 15 and I loved that job!  Not sure why I was hesitant about ice cream.  It's a natural for the challenge and has resulted in some super cute cards that have already been submitted.

Anyway, after donning said thinking cap, I decided to make a lemonade stand.  Hmmm, one little problem.  I don't have any cuts that would pass for a lemonade stand.
Enter Cricut Craft Room.  What would I do without it?

The main part of the stand and the awning stripes are from Sweet Shop.  It's the candy shop cut that has been stretched and re-sized to within an inch of its life.  The contours that can be removed were.  There are some that unfortunately remained.  For the window, I just placed a rectangle on the front layer and sized it proportionately.  The top of the building was cut off by hand after my Expression did its job.  *SEE HINT BELOW*

I cut scraps of the kraft cardstock into long narrow strips and inked all of the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink before adding them along the front of the stand for the boards.  Little "nails" were added with a brown Bic Mark-It marker.  For the chalkboard sign, I used a little scrap of black cardstock and wrote with a white gel pen and inked it up with a bit of white.

The awning was hand cut with the exception of the white stripes.    It looked too crisp and clean to go with the boards on the stand so I inked the heck outta that little sucker.  A couple of orange patches and black "stitching" completed it.  To finish off the stand, I added a ledge with a red table cloth and the pitcher of lemonade.  The pitcher was first cut using the Baby Steps cartridge.  It began it's life as the sippy cup cut at 1" then I hand trimmed it down to this shape.  It can't be seen in the photo but I layered 2 of the cups.  One is white paper that I colored with a yellow Bic Mark-It.  The other is a layer of clear acetate so the pitcher has a glossy appearance in person.
(She types as she wishes her photography skills would magically improve.)

My little sales girl also comes from the Baby Steps cartridge and Peachy Keen stamps.  Killer combination, those two!   Glossy Accents make such a huge difference in the overall effect of the eyes.  Rosy cheeks were added with a bit of chalk and freckles were done with my white gel pen.

"An easel card would really fit this design."  I thought after I had  nearly finished it, so a little alteration here and there was needed.  No biggy, though.  There are loads of tutorials on YouTube if you're not familiar with easel cards.

Okay, so after a mile long post, here's my card.

Isn't that little just as cute as can be?
I've decided to call her Lucy.  Lucy the lemonade girl.

You can find her at the following challenges:

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge -- Cool treats

A Little Bit Crafty -- Summer sun
The ABC Challenge -- T is for thank you
Card a Day Blog -- August anything goes
Digistamps 4 Joy -- Make your own embellishments
Outlawz -- Monday greeting challenge

And just because I love it so much, here are a couple more photos.

*HINT*  When re-sizing and/or altering the shape of a multiple layer cut, open all of the pieces into separate layers in Craft Room and overlap them.  Then begin re-sizing, etc.  Make sure you do this for any change you make to the dimensions and they will all match for you.  Bet you're thinking "How would she know that?"  Experience...frustrating experiences. 

If you are still reading this gi-normous posting, I REALLY want to thank you for spending so much time here today!