Home Again and my airplane project...

When we travel I like to bring something along to do on the plane.  These spirelli medallions are a lot of fun to make and easy to carry in your travel bag.  Here is a LINK to the post where I explained how to make them.

We'll be saying good bye to our new friends and flying home today - I hope the snow is gone!

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Spiral Rose Files (Design Studio & Gypsy)

I made a few more test roses.  They are getting easier to shape, however, this is definitely a case of practice makes (not quite) perfect!  I also managed to convert the file for Gypsy users and test cut it as well.  The file uses just one cartridge, Accent Essentials.  I used this because it had a spiral shape I could work from to build my flower.  It might be possible to use a different cartridge and change the design  with additional shapes, but this one  is a fairly common cartridge and most Expression owners have a copy.

There is a very slight difference in the size of the smaller section in the Gypsy file - you can try various sizes to get the flower to suit your project.  Before you try to resize, be sure to check to see that the shapes are grouped - they were when I finished with the file but sometimes I have items mysteriously "ungroup" when I am moving files back and forth.

 

The smaller section makes a pretty little flower all by itself.  You could just use one loop and make your flower look something like this.

If you want a larger flower, continue with the larger section.  I used Scor-Tape but you may want to try hot glue or another adhesive.

The flower on the left was made from the Gypsy file and the flower on the right was cut with Design Studio.  The two flowers are nearly identical but each flower has an individual look based on the way you turn the petals and glue them together.

I think that they are very attractive at this size - about 3 inches in diameter when you finish the assembly.   The cut file saves your hands from all of the cutting but there is still a lot of manipulation involved in assembling the flowers so your hands may get tired!

If you haven't been reading along for the past week, these flowers were inspired by the incredible displays at the DCWV booth at CHA.  If you go to THIS POST you can see the paper dresses and read a bit about the flowers DCWV had in their displays.  My file is based on the concept of the PDF from DCWV but I created it from cartridge shapes.  Thanks again to Erin Madsen for the inspiration and be sure to watch her video HERE if you are having trouble putting your flower together.

The download links are below.  Please leave a comment or send me a picture of your flower if you download the files. 

Spiral Rose - DESIGN STUDIO

Rose Spiral GYPSY

These links are now active and will give you a direct download - I have paid for a premium service to make this available to my readers.  I do have a donate button near the top of the right column if you would like to make a donation to show appreciation for the files and to help with the cost of this service - Thanks!

Sunday morning - (I have turned off these links and will post new ones ASAP - too many people were having issues with 4shared) 

Here is a "sneak peak" at another file I am finishing up.  These woven hearts are one of my favorite crafty things to make!  By using the Cricut, I can save a lot of cutting time and have shapes that are perfectly even and will weave easily.  The Design Studio version is done - I just need to try the Gypsy conversion and test cut it.  I have another variation that still needs a few more "tweaks" but it is really cute...

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Making Paper Roses - more details

 

I did a little more experimenting with my file for the paper roses today.  I wanted to try enlarge the cut to make some really large flowers.  I found that it was easier to assemble large flowers but it is still tricky to get the petals to line up correctly to give a natural flower look.  I tend to have problems with hot glue guns so I used Scor-Tape as my adhesive and it worked great!

If you missed the post about my inspiration for these flowers and the DCWV version that started the whole project, you can read it HERE.

I used a shape from Accent Essentials as the base to give me the spiral and then added circles and ovals to create the petals.  Here is the preview of the final shape.  It is similar to the template you can download from the DCWV blog but not exactly the same shape.  I may try some other shapes to form the petals...

You can see how I fit things together in this screen shot.

I made this shape in two larger sizes to make some BIG roses.  Here they are when I first removed them from the mat - they are totally flat.

I used a chopstick to curl each of the petals so the flower would have some shape.

Here is a closer view of the curled petals.

I assembled the center by turning the petals around the center and securing every so often with Scor-Tape.  I could have stopped here but I decided to add the outer layer.

This resulted in a rose about six or seven inches in diameter.

If you keep the petals more vertical the flower will be a bit smaller.

As you twist and turn around the flower, you sometimes need to make a fold or pleat to get the petals to fall correctly.

I need to practice some more to keep my petals from getting into rows - the flowers look more natural if the petals are staggered and not overlapping directly.

The first flowers I made were much smaller.  They all were made from the same spiral shapes - I just resized the file for each cut.

This photo gives you an idea of the relative sizes of the flowers.  You can adapt the size and shape of the petals to create exactly the flower you would like.  Paper choices are important - these are all test cuts on extra paper I had on hand  - I will choose the papers more carefully to get the look I'd like my final flowers to have.  I think the larger flowers could use a more defined center and might be better done in two coordinating papers.


I still need to convert the file for Gypsy users and test it.  I'll try to post both the Design Studio and the Gypsy versions sometime on Friday.  I started to have some pain in my left shoulder today and it is bothering me a lot - I don't know if it has anything to do with the procedure they did on my back but I need to rest and see how I feel in the morning. 

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About Snowflakes

I don't know why I am so fascinated by making snowflakes - but I am!  I always liked geometry in school and I enjoy finding new uses for old shapes too.  Today I want to share a quick process for making snowflakes and to "reveal" how I made the snowflake I posted last week.

Quite a few people left comments trying to guess what shapes were used to make this snowflake.  . This snowflake is made from just one shape with a circle added to strengthen the center.  Cartridge guesses included Accent Essentials, Home Accents, Winter Woodland, When it's Cold Outside and Storybook.  A crown, a diamond and a comma were some of the shapes suggested.  Deneen was correct about the element (a fleur-de-lis) and she thought it was from the French Manor cartridge

Here is the fleur-de-lis shape that I used - I drew the red box to help you see how it fits in the pattern.

The fleur-de-lis shape is from the Cupcake Wrappers Cricut Lite cartridge.  I chose this one because I thought it would look nice and lacy with the cut outs already in the shape (the diamond and other teardrop shapes).  You can use a solid shape and add other shapes to create cut outs but it takes a lot more fussing to get things perfectly aligned.

This is a screen shot of a snowflake made using the silhouetted fleur-de-lis on the Accent Essentials cartridge.  I did this just to test the look.  I think it is pretty but perhaps a bit too open.  You don't get a strong hexagonal impression when you first look at this variation.

This snowflake is very clearly six sided and has a definite hexagon center.  It might be improved by adding an additional layer.

So here are the basics for making a snowflake in Design Studio.  The same simple principles apply to creating a snowflake with the Gypsy but a few things will work differently - I'll try to point these out.

1.  Remember that a snowflake has six sides.  Think of a circle or pie with six wedges or slices and try to imagine if the shape you have chosen will fit nicely into a slice.

2.  You need to remember your geometry and the angles or rotation for a six sided shape.  You start with an element that looks interesting and check weld.  Then you copy and paste the element and, while it is still selected after pasting, change the value in the rotation box in the Shape Properties box.  (it is important to change the rotation right away in Design Studio because if  you click off the shape and go back to it the original and the copy will have merged and you can no longer separate them).

You will copy and paste 5 times and the values to place in the rotation box are 60, 120, 180, 240 (or -120) and 300 (or -60).  On the Gypsy, you will want to group the six items and you could enter six in the queue at the start or group them after you are done duplicating and changing the angles.

3.  You may spend quite a bit of time figuring out the best way to overlap the images enough to create a continuous snowflake design.  Some shapes look like they will overlap nicely but don't actually work very well.  Sometimes you will need to add another shape or another set of shapes to finish your snowflake.

4.  It is helpful to work at a large size so you can clearly see the areas where the images overlap and then adjust the size to be smaller or larger.

5.  If you are working on the Gypsy you will be able to duplicate the entire group and resize it to suit your project.  You can group and resize in Design Studio but you will not be able to copy and paste the images as a whole.  Since there are usually only six or seven elements, it won't take to long to create additional copies for the file.

 

This image is actually the "offcut" from another snowflake that I made tonight.  The actual snowflake is sooo pretty...but I will have to wait until another day to share it.  I do have a few other ways to make snowflakes and I'll try to give you some examples soon.  I had intended to post the file for this snowflake but while I was taking screen shots the file somehow corrupted (0 bytes left) and I will have to redo the file and post it in a day or two.

I am working on my layout for the cruise contest.  I hope that I will be able to make something that attracts a lot of votes on Facebook!  Please keep your fingers crossed for me...

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Fall Pumpkins with Cheerful Seasons

A couple of days ago I posted a layout using Accent Essentials.  There was a ring of circles and also some interior shapes leftover.  Here is the layout I made using these leftovers.  All of the rest of the elements are from the Creative Memories Cheerful Seasons cartridge.

The photo is one of my all time favorites of my husband and older son when he was about three years old.  I don't usually do one photo layouts but this just seemed to work.

I used Design Studio to determine the size to print the photo which I had edited to a square format.  I just added a square and stretched it to about the right size and then rounded up to 7 1/2 inches.

I printed the photo on 8 1/2 x 11 photo paper using the custom size option in my Creative Memories Memory Manager software.

I placed the ring over the photo to check the size - so far so good!

I added some tape to every other circle to hold the ring over the photo.

Then I simply cut away all of the excess making sure that nothing would show at the indentations between circles.

I double checked the back to be sure that I had cut enough away - it looks messy but that doesn't matter since it is all hidden.  I also had saved all of the yellow cutouts and added those back to the ring of circles.I briefly considered putting faces on some of the circles as if they were pumpkins but I decided it would be too much.

I made the pumpkin cut from the Cheerful Seasons cartridge at four inches.  The cartridge has images for spring in the first row, summer in the second row, fall in the third row and winter in the fourth row.  All but two of these images have four layers using the shift and layer keys.

Here is one helpful tip for cutting the shapes.  When you use Design Studio to cut you can adjust the placement of the images and potentially save a bit of paper.  Here I rotated the pumpkin base cut about 24 degrees and then was able to use a four inch strip of paper to make the cut.  It isn't always important or a significant difference but at times when you have just a bit of a favorite paper left to use this trick will help you make the most of it.

By counting the squares on the mat (just look at the rulers on the sides) you can figure out what size pieces of paper you need.  You can even use a scrap from another cut as I did for the stem.  One more tip - sometimes I am asked about the numbers on the mat when someone sees a screen shot on my blog.  If you don't have these showing on your screen, go to the "View" menu and check "Show Ruler."

Once you have optimized the amount of paper needed you can cut all of the layers at once.

Here are all of the pieces of the pumpkin.  I had intended to make the brighter orange the base and the textured Core'dinations cardstock the top layer but I goofed!

This turned out to be a happy accident.  I actually like the darker shade in the background and I used the Cuttlebug Mesh embossing folder to add a heavier texture to the pumpkin.  The stem was cut from a white core cardstock so I inked the edges - I don't like the white to show.

I cut the word "fall" from the Cheerful Seasons cartridge - there are a lot of seasonal words and phrases, some are bold like the one I chose and some are in script fonts.

I wanted some sort of flourish for the top left and I chose this leaf, also in the fall row.

Most of the papers I used are from the K and Company Halloween Whimsy (Jen Yanok) paper stack.  All of the paper is double-sided.  I was planning to use the striped side when I made the cut.

I thought it was too busy and the stripes were blending in to the brown speckled background so I flipped the cut and made it start on the left side of the page.

A few of the flocked black spider bits show but I think that the overall contrast is better this way.

I also originally considered using a solid black background but I found it boring!  The stripes do show up better against the black.

I normally make very flat layouts - I don't like albums to bulge - but I am branching out a little and using some three dimensional embellishments like the vintage frames and chipboard I used on the layout a few days ago.  Here I just popped up the pumpkin a bit with foam squares.

Just that little bit of dimension give the layout more interest.

I may even get up the nerve to go back and add Stickles to the pumpkin tendrils!

While I originally thought the Reminisce Accents cartridge was my favorite of the two cartridges I am finding that Cheerful Seasons has a lot to offer.  The style of the artwork is not too cutesy or stylized and will work for many projects.

As I mentioned yesterday,  Joy and Melanie are featuring the Creative Memories cartridges this week on their blogs and invited me to join in a mini blog hop.  Here are the links:

Joy - Obsessed with Scrapbooking

Melanie - Courtney Lane Designs

If you would like to see some of my projects with these cartridges that I have posted already here are two more links for you  - Reminisce Accents and Cheerful Seasons. 

If you are interested in purchasing these cartridges you need to purchase them through a Creative Memories consultant.  I am a consultant  and I would be happy to help you if you don't have a consultant already.  You can order the cartridges through my Creative Memories personal website day or night from anywhere in the country.  If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me.

Here are the links

Reminisce Accents

Cheerful Seasons

These cartridges have coordinating papers that are also exclusive to Creative Memories.  You can find these in the various categories under Scrapbooking Paper on my site.

There are also digital versions of most of the papers which can be found HERE.
 
I have a goal to sell at least 40 cartridges this month so I can be included in a contest to win a spot on the Cricut Cruise.  I'd love to go along with some of my lucky friends who have already been invited so I appreciate your purchases to help in getting me one step closer.  Thanks!

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