What do a Pinecone and a Beehive have in common?

In this case, they are non-traditional shaped cards.  Imaginisce challenged a couple of us designers to create cards that don't fit the typical shape and size that you normally think of for cards.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  I REALLY wanted to create a pinecone but I couldn't get the shape right and I didn't seem to have the right Cricut cartridge in my small stash of cartridges. I searched through clip art and even attempted to hand draw one but they just looked like weird blobs. On to Plan B, my next thought was a bee hive and I was lucky to find one immediately on my Sentiments cartridge.  It even had a pretty overlay - SCORE! 

I cut it out and then traced it over white cardstock and cut the shape so that it made a card.  I added the sentiment, a bee and a pretty bow.  I topped it off with some black bling.  It's very cute in person and not so cute in the photo - you can't see the dimension of the overlay, the popped up buzzing bee and most importantly, you can't make out the bling. 

Being the perfectionist that I am, I searched through my cartridges for another idea and low and behold, it's like angels started singing - I spotted a pinecone on the Create a Critter cart. This card came together so quickly.

I cut a base out of brown and then cut 4 more pinecones the same size out of 4 different pattern and cardstock colors.  Starting with the bottom layer, I cut  the first piece and adhered it, leaving the tip unglued so I could fold it up a bit.  I cut the 2nd piece up from the bottom and adhered it over the bottom piece, again leaving the tips unglued.  I did it again on the 3rd piece and the remaining pieces, though I had to add my own scalloping since I was cutting apart the cut-out.  I wantd the scallops to be oddly shaped so did some random cuts.  I topped it off with some ribbon and mesh looking ribbon that I also inserted into the pinecone here and there.  After stepping back to look at it I decided to add the sentiment inside, though a cute little dangling tag would also be cute. 

Supplies: Cricut Create a Critter shadow 5 3/4" cut; cut out of 5 papers - Bazzill Basic Brown T9-943 Mono (background) on Bazzill white cardstock card base. Layers - Bazzill Navel; Imaginisce Happy Harvest Collection - 003339, 003337, 003340; Misc ribbon