Letter of The Day at My Cricut Craftroom

Hello Everyone!  

May is just flying by, isn't it?  Today I am posting my project for My Cricut Craftroom  and we are still working our way through the alphabet every Monday. 

Today's Letter is U .... and I chose to do a layout for my project.  When I started thinking about the letter U and what Cricut cartridges or images I had for the letter U... I immediately thought of a BEACH UMBRELLA!

I have not been to the beach for a few years, but I can still dream about sitting on the beach with a tropical drink in my hand, shaded with a bright and cheerful beach umbrella - - and that was my inspiration for this layout. 

As I started looking at my cartridges, I recalled that A Child's Year had a beach umbrella on it...and upon further looking, I saw the cute images of the children playing at the beach as well.  I love the shadow/sihouette images from  A Child's Year, but thought I wanted to add a pop of color to some of it.   I first cut the black silhouette version, then used the shadow feature key to make the yellow shadow outline. I still felt it needed just a bit more, so then I re-cut a few of the images in various colors and then hand cut out the section of the image that  I wanted to use on the layout and adhered it to the black layer.  

It is not showing up very well in my photos, but I did ink the edges and then used foam squares 

to give more dimension to the layout. 

I am loving the Brilliance Ink pads, sold in Erica's Store. Here I used Brilliance Dew Drop Graphite Black.

Using the Life Is A Beach Cartridge and the "fit to page" feature on the Cricut Expression - I cut two rows of "waves" and inked them with Brilliance Ink (also in Erica's store) in Moonlight White to give the look of white caps as the waves roll in toward the shore.  

When adhering the waves, I slightly overlapped the rows and left the top of the waves un - glued, so that I could slide in a photo mat and photo.

To finish off the layout, I free hand cut some layers of sand and then inked them in brown ink  (also in Erica's Store) in Coffee Bean (a very pretty brown color).  

The photo mats can be used vertical, as shown  or horizontal, depending on the photo to insert.

Boy, this makes me long for a beach vacation!  

Please visit My Cricut Craft Room to see what the rest of the team designed for either Letter Of the Day or Imagination Monday!  

I hope you will stop by and visit me again . . . and remember...I read and enjoy all your comments!  Won't you please take a moment to leave one?  

Thanks and have a great week!