Borders from A Child's Year

I realized that lately I have been posting a lot of cards so I thought I'd share a couple of borders today. These were made when I was first trying out A Child's Year in Design Studio after the program was updated with new cartridges.



I welded together some teapots and added the words "Tea for Two" to cut out from the teapots



I used the initial medallions to put a letter in the center of each teapot. By sizing the medallions to overlap the teapot by just a tiny amount I was able to prevent the scalloped oval from cutting as you can see in this preview.



Unfortunately, the letters in the medallions are not "stencil" type letters which means that you need to keep track of the tiny centers of letters like "o" and "a" and glue them into position.



When working with these tiny pieces, I find this tool helpful. It is from Quick-Kutz and is called the Quick-Stik.



You take the cap of the top and there is a sticky substance that helps you pick up the small bits of paper.



You can then place the bit of paper in the proper position and use the opposite end of the tool to make sure the paper is positioned correctly. (The pieces are tiny - the center of the "A" is that little triangle you can see at the bottom of the photo).



The centers of the "O" were large enough to put the adhesive on the cutout piece, but for the tiny bits for the "A" and the "R" I put the adhesive on the background paper and placed the tiny cut on the adhesive spot.



You can see how tiny the letter "A" center is in this photo!



Even the full letter cut outs are tiny and easy to lose - I have no idea where the "F" is!



Once you finally get the centers in position the border looks like this.



I also did a simple scissor border. I have lots of sewing and quilting photos to use for layouts and I thought this would make a cute page accent.



The cut has a tiny hole for the hinge of the scissors - at this size it is so small that it did not cut cleanly.



I recommend using "hide contour" to eliminate the holes. Unfortunately, there is only one contour to hide so you will have to rehide the holes each time you open the file (I put a note on the page tab as a reminder).



Here you can see the second test cut - the scissors look fine without the holes.



I also test cut the teapot border again. I was using the textured DCWV paper and it did not cut nicely at this size - I find that paper is better for large cuts without a lot of detail. I also do not like the look of the white core on these intricate cuts.

I didn't even bother to place the missing bits in the letters on the second cut. I decided that it would be better to redo the file using a font with a stencil feature.



I chose the "Alphalicious" font using the crown tag option. The two pieces of the design are individually adjustable (the teapots and the letters). When you first enter the "Tea For Two" phrase it is spaced as you see above. I needed to use the kerning control to speed up the process of fitting the teapots and letters together. (Kerning is simply a way to describe or define the amount of space between letters).



I could use the nudge arrows to move all of the letters into position, but, by using the kerning and applying a positive number (.5 as shown above) instead of the negative number I would usually use to bring the letters closer together for welding, I was able to quickly move the letters to something close to the proper position.



Here are the letters after I applied the kerning.



I fine tuned the placement using the nudge arrows.



In this close view screen shot you can see all of the hidden contours that allow just the letter to cut out from inside each teapot.



The stencil letters have "bridges" that hold the centers in place so the letter is still legible. Here you can see the both the "O" and the "R" with the tiny connections to the center.



Here are the "leftover" letters on the mat - they are extremely thin and delicate but could be saved to be used on another page.



I like the look of this border better - and I really like the way the letters remain intact due to the stencil type image I chose for the centers.



I am including files for both borders - the scissors are super simple but it may save you a bit of time. Remember to hide the holes for a cleaner look (you could add a pen dot for the hinge).

The teapots and the letters spelling "Tea for Two" are both adjustable but you will need to align them with each other when you resize. Remember, if you copy and paste the letters, you will need to rehide all of the unwanted contours after closing and reopening the file to make the hide contour feature active.


Teapots and Tea For Two borders (A)

Scissor border (A)

I am doing the Happy Dance! The update for Design Studio has been released and is available to download from the Cricut.com site now! Here is a LINK to the page.

I have downloaded the update and I will be very busy this weekend! Tomorrow is Graduation in our town and we have several parties to attend so I will be trying to get some designing in between all of the festivities. I just wanted to make sure to let you know to go and get the update so you'll be able to use the new cartridges.

We are headed into Boston for dinner and a concert now but I may try to sneak in a cut or two when we get home - so check back later in the evening!

I did the file for the cut pictured above very shortly after I started using Design Studio - there are two versions - one with diplomas and one without. Here are new links to download this design if you'd like to use it. I moved the files from MediaFire to 4Shared - you need Alphalicious and Beyond Birthdays to cut this title.

Doing the Happy Dance (with diplomas)

Doing the Happy Dance (no diplomas)

Pumpkin Picking (title swap 3)

This is my third design for the title swap. I did this one with layers. You can easily add layers to the other files by selecting the element or letter you want to layer in another color and creating a separate cut for that element.

The first page of the mat is designed so you can cut the base layer and the pumpkin and letter layers all at the same time. The photo below shows you how to set up the mat.



Here is the base layer alone - you could use this for a simple title



Here is the same cut with the contrasting pumpkin layer added



Below you can see the letter layers - they are in sections to fit with the placement of the letters in the base design.



Here is another view of the complete layered version (the letters are not adhered to the base - when they are they cover the base layer completely).



The final photo shows you the scale of the design - here it is photographed on a 12 x 12 sheet of paper (remember - you can change the design by using the "handles" on the corners to alter the shape - there are a few variations on pages two and three of the file).



Pumpkin Picking (A)

Trim the Tree (title swap 2)

Here is the second title I did for the swap. This title can also be adjusted to be wider or taller depending on the space you have on your page. A few variations are shown in the photo above.

Below you can see how the cuts looked on the mat - in this file all three variations are on one page. You can copy and paste any of these to a new page and cut them individually (the two smaller ones will fit on a baby bug mat - just rotate the tall skinny one 90 degrees to fit the smaller mat - portrait orientation).



You can also copy and paste the design on a new mat and then set your desired height and width in the Shape Properties box. Below you can see the cuts after the larger piece of cardstock was lifted - the grid gives you a better idea of the exact sizes (please excuse the paper lint in the photo- I think it is time to wash my mat!)



One more view in traditional red and green - a bit hard to get a nice photo due to the contrast!




Trim the Tree (A)

Happy Halloween - with words in Alphalicious (and how to change fonts)

Several people contacted me to say that they loved the Halloween design but do not have Cuttin Up. It is easy to change the words to a font from a cartridge that you own. Here is a quick step by step explanation of how to do this.

First, download my original file which used Plantin Schoolbook, Paper Doll Dress Up and Cuttin Up (not the later version which eliminated Plantin Schoolbook by using Cuttin Up for the bars between the rows of elements).

Do a "save as" of this file and rename it by changing the list of cartridges used at the end of the file name to include the name of the font you will be using (and delete Cuttin Up).

Then click on the words "Happy Halloween" in the original design and delete them. Double click on the mat to place your cursor near the beginning of the space for the phrase (if you have trouble getting the cursor to the right place you can use your arrow keys on the keyboard to move the cursor to the starting position).

The letters in the original design were about 1 1/2 inch high so set your slider bar for 1 1/2 and type in the letters in your chosen font - they should be in all capital letters so each letter will touch the top and the bottom bars. You can then use the nudge arrows to overlap the letters (or overlap just some) to get the look you want. Adjust the letters until they fit the space (touching both the upper and lower bars) and look "right" to you . Be sure to check "weld" in the Shape Properties box. (I adjusted the total length to 11.8 inches to be sure that the letters would cut neatly).

Preview the design and make any adjustments needed where the letters are not adequately welded or the spacing looks odd to you. Then save and cut your modified design.

I am including a download link for my file for the design revised to use Alphalicious to save you time if that is the font you would need to substitute for Cuttin Up.

(Try to get Cuttin Up when you can - it is a useful font for many projects!)

Happy Halloween full page (Alphalicious words)

Sugar and Spice - in any size you want!

Here, as promised, is the updated file for the Sugar and Spice design which I have recreated using the new technique for "grouping" that I explained in the tutorial I posted on August 21st. Here is a LINK to that tutorial and I will keep a link at the top of my blog to help those that are just getting started on this new method of welding which produces finished designs that can be copied, pasted, resized, rotated, flipped and manipulated in the same way the a single element could be in the prior version of the software.

One IMPORTANT thing to note is that after you complete the design you should not use the "apply" button in the Shape Properties box after you enter new values in the x and y coordinates or in the height and width boxes. The "apply" button is only for kerning and if you hit it after entering new values in any of the top four boxes it will make all of the elements "jump apart" and you will have some difficulty getting the design back to where you started. For this reason, I would suggest saving a backup file with a few copies of any design you make so you can retrieve one if you somehow hit a control that takes your design apart!

I decided that the cupcake needed a bit of bling so I added Stickles glitter glue for the frosting and cut an additional cupcake in the correct size so that I could cut off the "wrapper" portion (I first tried just adding pen lines as you can see below but I thought more contrast was needed to make the cupcake stand out!



To cut the extra cupcake you need to first size the full design by using the handle in the lower right corner and then click somewhere else on the mat, select the cupcake from the celebrations cart and move it over the design, using the handle in the lower right again to size it exactly the same as the one in the welded design.

Select, copy and paste that single cupcake to a new blank page (and be sure to delete it from the page with the full design) then load a mat with paper, cut the cupcake and trim off the "wrapper" portion (just two small snips as there is a design cut at the wrapper level. I do wish that we had the option of keeping some of the detail lines when items are welded - perhaps in another update?



My favorite thing about this technique is the ability to create a design the would work for a small card, a large card and a full page layout by designing once and then saving and copying and pasting to create a new size for your project.



The cards in this photo are 5 x 7 on the left and A2 (4.25 x 5.5) on the right. This is such a time saver, however, I still hope for a true single click "select all" and "group/ungroup" feature to be added to the program.

Sugar and Spice (grouped)

Pretty Princess Frame

This is another variation on the anniversary frame - I cut this from plain pink but realized right away that it definitely can use some "bling." Once again - be sure to keep track of the small dot for the "i" or you can use my Cricut message board friend Kopperhead's suggestion and use a gem for the dot! (see the link to her "100 Things" blog in the right column).

Since I don't have a plan for a layout yet, I didn't attach these "gems" but this photo gives you an idea of how it could look - now I need to get some Stickles to outline the edges!



The view below shows how this looks on a full 12 x 12 sheet at an angle. When I figure out which photos I can use this with I will post an embellished version - or you can try this design and post your version back for me!



Pretty Princess Frame

Fancy Anniversary Frame

I have been playing around with lots of ways to frame and mat photos - some simple, some not so simple. We just had a wonderful vacation with my husband's family in Florida and I started to think about some of the family photos from the past few years. My inlaws had their 50th a few years ago and I have completed a few album pages from that celebration but haven't done a page with just their portrait so I created this frame. I may recut the frame in a gold cardstock for that photo.

Many people celebrate "milestone"anniversaries each year so this frame can be adapted to suit the occasion - the number at the top can be changed as needed (just remember to "burp" the design after you change the number). You could also change the occasion by substituting "Birthday," "Prom," or what have you.

I hope you can use this for a special occasion layout in your scrapbook. I will be posting a few variations in the next few days.

Fancy 50th Anniversary Frame

Graduation is coming - before you know it!

Many of my friends and customers get involved in making a scrapbook for the first time for a significant birthday or anniversary or to honor someone for a graduation or retirement.

It's time to get started on those graduation books - the season will be here faster than seems possible on these cold snowy days (at least they are cold and snowy here in Massachusetts!)

This is a bit of fun I designed for a graduation book using Alphalicious and Beyond Birthdays.

Here is another photo showing it on a 12 x 12 page so you can get a sense of the size.



Here is the link - I did it two ways - one with diplomas and one without (which could be used for other occasions). Fair warning - I did not cut the one without diplomas but it was done first and then I did a "Save as" and added the diplomas for the second one so I am reasonably confident that the file is fine. When I get a chance I will double check it.

Doing the Happy Dance with diplomas

Doing the Happy Dance - no diplomas