A Handy Adhesive for Intricate DieCuts

Today I have a quick tip for you about a product that I tried recently.  One of the things I noticed at CHA was the number of types of adhesives that are available for crafters.  In most of the workshops, manufacturers had donated adhesive to use for the project so I had a chance to try some that were new to me.  Sometimes you need a wet adhesive and sometimes a dry adhesive will work better for your project.  I like to cut very intricate designs and I usually use a glue pen to adhere these to my card or page.

Letraset recently sent me this sample pack of their product called "LetraTac" - you can read all of the details about this product on their website HERE and on their blog HERE.  This is a sheet of very thin adhesive dots that are great for the intricate cuts.

I was helping a friend with the finishing touches on a scrapbook and she wanted to add some Kanji characters to a page that highlighted "Japan Day" at her son's school.  We looked up some of the words that seemed appropriate on the Pagoda Cricut cartridge.  The words we chose were "love, health, prosperity and happiness" (from left to right above).  After the letters were cut out (at 1 1/2 inches) we placed them on the adhesive.

Then we put back the protective covering sheet and used this tool to burnish the letters and pick up the adhesive.

Next, we lifted the letters from the adhesive sheet.  As you can see, many small white dots of adhesive were transferred to the characters.

 The adhesive is repositionable so we had time to decide on just the right position for the words and make some slight adjustments.  Once they were settled in place, we burnished them to the page.  The adhesive becomes permanent over time.

Since the Kanji characters are very irregular in shape there is more adhesive in this area that I can use for my next intricate cut.  It is easy to see if the adhesive is added to your cut because it is white and shows up well on most paper and cardstock.

LetraTac is available in the US online at Dick Blick  HERE, at Art Supply Warehouse HERE, DaVinci Artist Supply HERE, and may be available in your local craft or art supply store.

You can see a different (and very creative) way to use the LetraTac HERE - just add some Pearl Ex for a really interesting effect!

Lettering Delights Clearance Sale




I want to remind you that there are just a couple of days left to shop for the Lettering Delights graphics, alphabets, paper packs and fonts that will be retiring.  At 50 cents each these are a great deal.  There are also some super bundles and an additional special offer of $25 off if your order totals $60 or more.  The code for the $25 savings is "SparkleSavings" (this offer does not apply to the Simple Shapes Super Bundle which is already heavily discounted).

Just click the affiliate link above or in the left side column to go to the site and shop the sale.  I use some of the Lettering Delights sets in my digital scrapbooking and they also offer SVGs that can be used with many die cutting machines and programs.  The Clearance Sale and the special $25 off offer both expire at midnight Mountain Time on Sunday, July 31st.

One more note,  if you want an easy way to see the meaning of each of the Kanji characters on the Pagoda cartridge, please visit the post HERE where I reviewed the cartridge.  This post includes a chart I prepared with the translations on a keypad overlay and you can download this for personal use.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend - there will be a lot of painting going on around here.  Our construction is nearly finished (the wood floors get sanded and refinished next week) and we'd love to get all of the furniture back to where it belongs as soon as we can!

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A Jolly Old Elf!

The holiday season is well underway - guess who I saw on Saturday?  I had a chance to meet up with my walking friends at a local church fair.  I already had wreaths that we bought from our Cub Scout nephews, but I did manage to do a bit of holiday shopping.

I had a few other things going on and did not get a chance to spend time in my craft room - this is such a busy time of year.  Wreaths were on my mind after the greens sale and I thought I would remind you of the wreath I made last year using a cut from the Pagoda cartridge.  I don't think that would be the first cartridge you would think of to make a Christmas project but there is a cut on Pagoda that makes the most beautiful wreath.

I have seen a lot of projects using the Martha Stewart branch punch to make a wreath.  I have this punch and use it a lot, however, the Pagoda cut makes a "fluffier" wreath and requires less individual pieces.  You can also let the Cricut do the work and save your hands from all that punching!

Here is one card I made with this delicate branch cut.  You can see all of the details and download my file to cut as many branches as possible on the same mat at the original post HERE.

I should be able to get some crafting time in Sunday - I really want to try out a few of the files I have waiting in my computer!   I hope you are having a great weekend and that you are enjoying your holiday preparations.

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Black, White and Silver Card for the Scrappy-Go-Lucky Blog Hop

This is the card I made for the Scrappy-Go-Lucky blog hop.  We were given a theme (which you have to guess for the blog hop prizes) and a color scheme of black, white and silver.  You can get all of the details about the hop and the four great prizes (Country Life, Happy Hauntings, Rock Princess and Winter Frolic) at THIS POST on the Scrappy-Go-Lucky blog.

My card is a plain white card with a strip of black cardstock anchoring the design elements.  The card was to be 4 x 6 inches (instead of the usual A2 4.25 x 5.5 inches) since Mandy plans to use these cards in a photo frame in the guest room of her home in Australia.  The black anchoring strip is 2.5 x 6 inches.

As always, I used Design Studio to plan my card and also to cut the components efficiently and make the best use of my specialty papers.  I first previewed the card as a black card with a white strip but I did not like that variation and quickly changed to the white card with a black strip.

Once again, the ability to preview in color is a great benefit in using Design Studio.  By choosing the colors for each element you can get a pretty good idea of how certain colors will work and avoid wasting paper that would be used by cutting out lots of different "audition" versions.

I cut the black strips for the cards with my paper trimmer - if you have trouble cutting straight shapes with a trimmer you could cut these rectangles at 2.5 x 6 inches with the Cricut.  To place the pieces on the card front evenly I used a clear lay out ruler (available quite inexpensively at any art supply store) and aligned the ruler at 3/4 inches along the top and placed my paper strip along the base of the ruler.

I used this branch from the Pagoda cartridge and set the size at 1 7/8 inches to fit my card nicely.

By using Design Studio, I could rotate the branches to fit more on a smaller amount of paper than I would need if I cut the branches directly from the machine.  I cut ten branches so I had an extra (I only needed to make nine cards for the swap).

The flower layers for the branches are on the shift of the branch key.  Whenever you cut layers you need to be sure to set the same value on the slider bar - this will insure that they will fit perfectly.

Once again, using Design Studio to lay out the cuts, I was able to cut all of the flowers I needed using the smallest amount of cardstock possible.

The dragonflies are also from the Pagoda cartridge sized at 2 1/4 inches.  I chose to use the dragonflies with no added layers.

Since I wasn't adding the layers, I checked weld on each group of butterflies to eliminate the interior cut lines (webbing) that help with the placement of the layers.

I moved the dragonfly pairs close together to maximize the use of my specialty cardstock.  12 sets fit conveniently on the mat so I cut a couple of extras that I will use on another project.

I cut the branches from some silver cardstock I got a long time ago from Creative Memories.  This was one of my favorite metallic papers because it had a beautiful soft shine.  I have a little bit of it that I "hoard" and use only for special cards.  I have found that the best way to get clean cuts on intricate shapes like these branches is to use multi cut 2 when I cut the mat full of shapes.  In Design Studio, multi cut is set by choosing it from the Preferences drop down menu and then selecting 2, 3 or 4 times.

Here you can see how easily I was able to lift the excess cardstock from the mat.  You do need to be careful in lifting the thin branches from the mat.

I also used multi cut 2 for the flowers.  Nearly all of them stayed on the mat when I lifted the excess cardstock.  It is important to check the offcut carefully and replace any of the flowers back into position on the mat so you will be able to add them to the branch.

The flowers and the dragonflies were cut from some American Crafts linen textured silver cardstock.  In this close view you can see the difference in texture and shine between the branch and the flowers.

I left the flower layers on the mat and flipped the sheet of cardstock to the other side of the mat to cut the dragonflies.  I then had all of my small items available on the mat and could remove them as I assembled the cards.

The easiest way to adhere the flower layers to the branch is to add a spot of adhesive to each flower position.  I use the Creative Memories Precision Point Adhesive for these tiny details.

When the adhesive has dried to clear, I picked off the tiny pieces and placed them in the appropriate spots.  The cut is designed so that the pieces fit on the branch in approximately left to right order.  Keeping the pieces on the mat makes it much easier to get them in the right places!

Here are my nine cards all assembled just before I sent them off to Australia for swapping.

Now - do you have any ideas about the theme Mandy gave us for the swap?

There are nine designers involved in the blog hop and each day one designer will show you the card they created in detail.  We were given a color scheme (black, white and silver) and a theme.  You will need to look at all of the cards and try to work out the theme. 

Four lucky winners will be drawn on Wednesday, August 18th - one for each cartridge.  Remember, Scrappy-Go-Lucky is in Australia so you will need to convert the time from Perth time.  My day is Wednesday - but that means I needed to post this on Tuesday night in my time zone.

To play along with the blog hop and have a chance at winning one of the new cartridges be sure to visit all of the designer's blogs and add a comment to Mandy's Original Post on the Scrappy-Go-Lucky blog telling her what you think the theme is and also list your all-time favorite cartridge and why it is your favorite.

The links for all of the designers are listed in my post from yesterday - here is a LINK.

If you would like to use my file to make a group of cards (or just get a closer look at how I put the file together) you can download it at this link.

Black, White and Silver Card for SGL


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Crackled Vase Artist Trading Cards

This month the theme for my larger ATC swap group was "Crackle."  I had an idea right away - to make a vase that would have a crackle effect.  I looked in my supplies and saw that I had a bottle of "Inkssentials Crackle Accents" by Ranger (which I had never used) and then got busy with other things.

Well - I found out that crackling takes a bit of work!  At one point I considered taking a different approach and using the Rice Krispies characters - Snap, Crackle, Pop - but I stuck to it  (literally!) and finally got my cards done.

I chose the vase with flowers from the Pagoda cartridge.  The key is highlighted above.

While there is a layer option for the vase, I decided to simply cut the basic image twice and cut off the the flowers.  When I looked at the layer option, I realized it would take me forever to hide all of the unwanted parts!

I set up an ATC sized rectangle (2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches) and use this guideline to determine the size of the vase that would fill up the space nicely. 

As always, I was able to be very efficient in cutting the images by using Design Studio and arranging them "creatively" to fill the paper as densely as possible.

I chose this busy floral polka dot print for the base layer so I would have interesting random flowers coming out of my vases.  I wanted the flowers to be pretty but to put the focus on the crackled vase.

I cut another set of vases in the green cardstock I wanted for the vases.  After I cut off the flowers (which I saved for another project) I put the vase sections on an old Cricut mat and starting applying the Crackle Accents.

This turned out to be quite messy.  I had a hard time getting good coverage using the bottle tip to apply the medium so I ended up squeezing a "glob" onto each vase and pushing it around with my fingers.  I am sure there is a better way!

The drying time varied depending on how thick the coating was.  Overall it averaged about six hours.  in this photo you can see what a difference the glossy crackled finish makes to the vase.

Here is a very close view.  I definitely want to try some more projects using this medium.  It is a great effect and I think if I rubbed some ink in to highlight the crackles it would be lovely for a vintage project.

As I usually do for this group, I did the backs of the cards digitally.  For this one I chose a cracked effect to apply to my background.  My first thought had been to try to use paper that looked like blue and white china so I used blue on the back.  in the end I went with the brighter more contemporary colors but I left the backs blue - I like blue!

I made the base card from heavy textured Bazzill cardstock.  After I added the flower and vase layers I thought it looked a bit dull so I pulled out my white gel pen and dotted the corners.  These little dots just lifted the brightness and seemed to finish off the simple card.

Here is the entire group ready to be packaged and sent off for swapping.

It is a lot of fun to try new things on a small scale and participating in a swap group can push you into areas you wouldn't think of trying on your own.  ATCs are a great testing ground and a good way to stretch your creativity.

I wanted to let you know that Twisted Papers has some great new Valentine's freebies for subscribers to their newsletter.  You can see the images on the home page of their site and there is a link to sign up for the newsletter - couldn't be simpler.  If you have a Facebook account, check out their Facebook page and sign up as a fan.  Every time they reach another 100 fans, they will release another freebie so join up and spread the word.  

I used a tiger image from Twisted Papers for my last ATC (here is a LINK to that post).  They have so many fantastic images, the quality is terrific and the price is so reasonable - if you like vintage you will love this site!

A few Digital Sites ...

Today I want to pass along a couple of links to sites that may be of interest, particularly if you are doing digital or hybrid projects.

The first is Lettering Delights.  I am not sure if they are part of Provo Craft, but I have found that they have many of the same images that are on the Cricut cartridges in digital form.  The picture at the top of this post was made using items from the Oriental Garden Collection.  They are the same as items on the Pagoda cartridge.  I haven't had a chance to make a full project yet (I just bought these yesterday) but I think it would be fun to do cards that have the Cricut cuts on the front and some of the coordinating images printed inside.

There is a great bundle sale going on now.  In addition to the sale, if you spend $15 or more you can use the coupon code "BundleUp" and get an additional 25% off.  The sale is on through January 6th.  Some that I noticed that will be of interest are:

 Peppermint Holiday Card Kit (like Winter Woodland)

Wonders of the World Collection (like Destinations)

Modern Miss Collection (like Forever Young)

Hello Cupcake Collection (like Sweet Treats)
It's Your Birthday, Cupcake Super Bundle (even more of Sweet Treats)

There are hundreds to check out - lots of really nice sets of images and fonts too.  They also have printables for party favors and cards.

The other is a brand new site Design House Digital.  They officially opened yesterday!  If you sign up for the newsletter you will get a great freebie kit designed by Jen Allyson. There are also three freebie kits for the month of January.  I am looking forward to exploring this site some more - there is a forum and there will be classes, challenges, and lots of fun things to do!

Design House Digital has quite a roster of fabulous designers including Deena Rutter, who designed the Cricut cartridges Storybook and Stand and Salute.

Have fun exploring these sites.

It is snowing here - again!  We finally got our older son's boxes mailed to him (he traveled with only carry on bags so we had to mail nearly all of the Christmas gifts he received to him in California).  The day was full with an afternoon movie (Sherlock Holmes) and dinner out so I didn't get much time to do Cricut projects.  Not much organizing progress today either....oh well, tomorrow is another day!

Pagoda

Pagoda is the third cartridge I found at Michael's this week.  I left it to the last to review because the cartridge has been available in Design Studio program for a while so I thought that many people would have seen the images already (I imagine that most people who read my blog are also Design Studio users).  It can be helpful to see the color handbook (and I was on a roll taking photos!) so I will do a bit of show and tell - show you the images and tell you my thoughts about this cartridge.

Pagoda is a full cartridge with six creative features.  They are

 

 

 

 

You will notice that three of the features involve Kanji.  Kanji are Chinese characters that are used in Japanese writing.  You can find out all sorts of information about these online - here is a LINK to an interesting Wikipedia entry for some background.  

 This is an example of the Kanji character for ocean.  The cartridge will cut the character with two shadow layers, the character cut into a layer to fit on a tag, the character cut into a card and the character cut into a rounded rectangle that fits on a corresponding layer with the English word as seen here.  I was very surprised to find out that there was not a legible listing of the English translations of these characters - the only way to see the word is to squint at the ever-so-tiny image on the handbook page for that Kanji character.

It really would have been a good idea to have a page that shows the English words for quick identification.  I looked through my handbook a number of times so I don't think I missed it! I was so bothered by the lack of this page that I created my own to share with you.  It took a quite a while to do this but I know it will be a handy reference in the future.

Please respect the time and effort I put into taking, editing and posting these photos by referring others to my blog to see the photos and not copying them - thank you.  I do not disable right clicking photos on my blog, however, I am sharing these images for your personal use and not for duplication, or posting to other sites, message boards and blogs. Thanks for understanding (you may be able to tell that I have recently been notified of some of my work being used without my permission so I may be overly sensitive to this issue right now- it is a hazard of sharing on the internet).

So on to the photos and my thoughts about this cartridge.

Remember, you can click on any photo to see a larger view.

The first images are of lamps or lanterns

Another lantern and the first of three dolls (these remind me a bit of the matryoshka- Russian nesting dolls - on the Paisley cartridge I reviewed a few days ago.

The other two dolls - I actually have one of these that my parents brought back from Japan years ago - it brought back a nice memory,

Two fish - these are fish in kite format

 

Another fish (not a kite) and a Yin Yang symbol (this is a frequently requested symbol on the Cricut Message Board Design Studio forum).

A fierce dragon and a sweet Panda bear

Another Panda that looks like it needs a hug (sweet) and a humming bird

Another humming bird and a flying crane

A standing crane and a fish leaping from the water

another leaping fish and a pair of dragonflies (these would be beautiful with their wings cut from iridescent paper)

a couple of bonsai trees

some stylized tree branches

a bamboo cluster and a flower

my new favorite plant/branch (see yesterday's post HERE to see why) and another lovely flower cluster

more flowers - I particularly like the one at the top and I think the lower one looks a bit like a calla lily

more beautiful flowers - so many on this cartridge

and even more flowers - these are layered flowers that would be nice for paper bouquets.

flowers in a vase and a typical Japanese garden bridge (I did something interesting with the bridge in Design Studio - I'll show you soon...)

a temple and a shrine

a couple of cages (for those of us who are wishing we had Serenade...)

A couple of beautiful fans - the layers are very pretty with the flowers

an umbrella and a teapot and cup

a rice bowl (with a Greek Key border?) and chopsticks!

a curtain or screen and sandals

and finally, a couple of kimonos.

So, as you can see, there is quite a variety on this cartridge.  I have to say that this is a welcome change in that it contains many images that we haven't seen on other cartridges (and no cupcakes - not that I have anything against cupcakes...).  Many of the feature keys are used for the Kanji characters and their layers so if you aren't interested in using these for many projects you really have only half a full cartridge.  On the other hand, they are a great feature for using in home decor projects among other things.

The basic set of images with attractive layering is well worth the price of a cartridge.  The flowers and branches would be lovely for all sorts of cards - particularly for sympathy cards with their simple elegance.  The more realistic style of this cartridge is nice for those who don't do a lot of scrapbooking or cardmaking for children - this is more of an adult style cartridge which I know many Cricut fans will appreciate.

Once again there is a lot of repetition in the tag shapes but this is helpful for ease of use when the Cricut is used without Design Studio (it is amazing to me but many people do not use Design Studio or a Gypsy).  There are some interesting cards in unusual proportions and I like this change as well - of course you can always alter these to more standard sizes by using Design Studio.

I am very glad that I found this cartridge - I believe it is available from many sources and, with Black Friday just around the corner it will certainly show up on many shopping lists.  I'd be curious to hear what others think about the Kanji - I see a lot of uses for these characters but they may not be of interest to everyone.