Hooray! I am back for a very, LONG awaited Silhouette Challenge! This months theme was "Summer", what a lovely tone to set for the next few months. For the challenge I decided to make a set of five cards that have to do with items you usually see during the summer. I had a lot of fun making these and am so glad I participated this month.



I used my Cameo, the Silhouette pens, watercolor paper, and my watercolors. First I designed the cards to a point through both photoshop and the Silhouette program. I used the Cameo to do a kiss cut, where it does not cut all the way through the paper, rather just marks the top.  This adds a nice texture to the designs. Then I used the pens and my watercolors to finish the rest.

My settings used to cut the watercolor paper (105lb paper) were a blade setting of 1, no double cut and thickness of 33 for the kiss cut. The full cut for the rounded edges was blade set at 7, no double cut and same thickness of 33. Throughout the kiss cut process I would pause the cut and clean out the blade housing so it wouldn't be too clogged.


The set of five have a starfish, salt water taffy, snow cones, the words "Relax" & "Sunshine".



The starfish card was made from a clip art starfish I found on google and used the trace feature to find the cut lines. Preceded by some very simple water colors to add depth and texture.



This was actually the first idea that came to mind for me after reading the theme for this month. I pictured someone laying on the beach, letting the sun wash over them as they listened to the waves come into shore. It probably helps that we also have a sound machine for Caroline that has an ocean setting. ;)  The yellow watercolor was used around the kiss cut words to create a happy, sunny vibe. Inside of the word RELAX, I painted a small scene of a wave washing on shore, creating the foamy white layer and turquoise ocean water, coming over the soft sand. Just talking about that makes me feel completely relaxed.

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?

My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so peruse the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!


1. Home At Eight // 2. DIY Just Cuz {Sam} // 3. DailyDwelling // 4. Where The Smiles Have Been // 5. My Paper Craze // 6. Get Silvered // 7. DIYJustCuz {Brittany} // 8. Whatcha Workin' On? // 9. The Stamp Doc // 10. Practically Functional // 11. Simply Kelly Designs // 12. Patina Paradise // 13. Architecture of a Mom // 14. Weekend Craft

Hello again!
    As much as I hate taking small hiatus', sometimes it just happens without any control. We started a tiny new adventure and would love to share it with you all. This will be one of my only posts about it on this blog, as not to distract from what this blog is about.

Our sweet Caroline is very into this new thing about the surprise egg videos out there on YouTube. After much, MUCH, viewing and consideration, we decided to start our own channel as well! This is just a fun little adventure to take with our daughter. There is a lot of bonding activity for us, as well she is learning so many things. We talk about the colors of items, we use a lot of toys she has for fun little play-doh covered eggs and some new ones. As well once we have enough subscribers we will be doing giveaways and donating toys as well to area children's hospitals. I want to teach her to spread happiness, just as much as she gets from these videos. If you can do us a favor and check out our little channel. Let us know what you think! We would love to hear from anyone.

Here is the information:
Channel Name: ACD Toy Collector

Here is one of our first videos to check out! Click for YouTube Chanel.

I will be talking soon about our current living situation (renting a house) and how we keep everything organized in smaller spaces! As well I am going to try and bring myself back into the Silhouette Challenges, I loved doing those and they are one of my favorite activities for me. Thank you for hanging around! See you very soon- Alisha