April showers...

The last two sets of Tags plus Inchies (TPIs) for the swap my friend Kopperhead organized were themed "Weather or Not" and "History. Or Her Story." For my Weather themed set I immediately thought of "April Showers" (not terribly original - what can I say?).



I had this paper from a Debbie Mumm stack and I wanted to use the word "Rain" for my inchies. It was tricky to get the paper set up so I could punch out enough inchies - there were only nine "Rains" on each sheet and only three sheets in the stack so I needed to get it right! I cut into the paper on the diagonal so my punch would reach (sorry, I guess I didn't think to take a picture of that).



I "fussy-punched" the word "Rain" twenty times but, since this stack is just paper, I needed to cut backing squares from cardstock to make the inchies sturdy enough to add to my tags. To make it a bit simpler, I used adhesive backed cardstock so I could quickly put the two pieces together.



For my "May flower," I chose the six petal flower on the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. I decided to use the same sort of lettering technique that I used for my "time for cupcakes" tags by having the words cut into the shape (here is a LINK to that post). This time I used the Printing 101 font instead of Alphalicious.



This was very time consuming - in order to use the stencil version of the letters, you need to hide the outer contours so that only the letter will cut. I also hid the center holes in the flowers. If you look carefully at the screen shot above you can see all of the blue hidden lines. Remember, you can click on the image to make it larger. The words are not welded but the letters are nudged close to each other in order to make the words legible.



I used the puzzle piece version of the letters so I would only have one contour to hide on each letter. This was faster since I wasn't planning to reuse the file. The problem with hiding only one contour is that it will not stay hidden when you reopen the file as you can see in the screen shot above. I would have a lot of hiding to do before I could cut these again! I hope this problem will be fixed in a future update of the software.



Here is a close up shot of the flowers with the words cut into them while the flowers are still on the mat. I am always amazed that letters and shapes that are so tiny will cut successfully. I used blade depth 4 and medium pressure since this was paper instead of cardstock.



When I carefully lifted the flowers from the mat, the words remained stuck down. Even though I usually save everything - these were just too tiny and delicate for me to imagine reusing them so they did go into the recycling...



I cuts sets of three flowers into four inch strips of paper on the baby bug. The offcuts were saved for future projects - don't they make a cute border?



The flowers were adhered to textured cardstock circles in a pretty pale pink. I added a "skittle" to the inchie for a raindrop and punched through the tag and the inchie to tie them together with some thin ribbon.



Here are my 20 TPIs ready to send for swapping - I have come to the conclusion that 20 of the same thing is a lot to make!

You must be the Change....

It has been a long time since my last posting about words on the wall. Today we were celebrating a family birthday and I finally cut and installed this quote for my sister-in-law (we had talked about this months ago but just hadn't done it!). I decided to use a cursive font so I could cut entire words that would weld nicely and stay on a level line. This made installation easier - there were only 12 words plus Gandhi's name. I used blue painter's tape to get a level line on the beam.



The photos are long and skinny so here are a couple of close up views of the quote.



I used the Wall Pops vinyl which cuts beautifully in the Cricut. I set the blade depth at 4 and pressure and speed at medium - these settings cut the vinyl but not the backing so you can just peel the entire word off the backing without having to fuss with separating the letters as you would if you had individual letters fully cut out through the backing.

By using Design Studio, I could conserve the amount of vinyl I needed to use. First, I typed out all of the words and welded them as you can see in this screen shot.



I then checked the quote and realized that I had written "want" instead of "wish," so I fixed that and also added Gandhi's name. Once I had all of the words sorted out, I started copying and pasting them onto additional pages in the file, rotating the words to fit as closely as possible. Here are screen shots of my two cutting mats - one 12 x 24 and one 12 x 12.






For the quote, I set the letter size at 3 inches and I then did Gandhi's name at 1 1/2 inches. I thought that the printing 101 "G" was easier to read than the Cursive 101 "G" so I cut both versions for my sister-in-law to choose her favorite. Below you can see the two choices...



I also cut quote marks and an equal sign to trim for a "dash" before Gandhi's name. I had forgotten the period for the end of the sentence but we just used a regular hole punch to cut one.

By carefully "squeezing" together the words for cutting, I was able to create the entire project with 30 inches of the 6 1/2 inch vinyl stripe size of the Wall Pops. When I bought the vinyl it was about $10 for a 16 foot roll so the cost to make this was very reasonable - less than $2.

Here is a LINK to a few other posts on my blog about wall words projects. These are a lot of fun to do and I am now motivated to get some done for my studio!

Personalized Correspondence Cards

Thanks to all who took a guess about what might be in the box. There were some pretty clever suggestions! Yes - it is more custom stationery. I wanted to make a gift that was unique and obviously personalized for a certain individual (in other words - not just an initial), and, since I am so tired of winter, it had to be in spring colors!

I've made lots of A2 notecards but I thought I'd try something a bit larger - in fact, twice as large. I set up my Design Studio mat with an 8.5 x 5.5 rectangle (1/2 of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper). These are correspondence cards - not folded cards. I used circles to create a scalloped shape for the card.



After I had the basic card shape set up, I added letters. To have letters cut into the card without losing the centers of letters, you need to use a cartridge with a stencil font option. I looked through them quickly and found all of the following fonts that could work. Hello Kitty Font, Learning Curve, Don Juan, Alphalicious, Cursive 101, Doodletype, Making the Grade, Opposites Attract, Pooh Font, Printing 101, Printing Press, Zooballoo

There are a few more (such as Base Camp, Jasmine, Mini Monograms, Stamped & Tear Drop) which have some letters that will work but others that will not.



When you are setting up the letters to cut you will need to use the "hide contour" feature to make sure that only the letter itself will be cut. If there are detail or "webbing" lines (such as the directional instruction lines in the Printing 101 and Cursive 101 fonts) you will need to check weld to eliminate these lines from the cut.



It is also easier to use a letter with at least one other line in addition to the outline that can be hidden, otherwise, you will need to remember to rehide the outline contour each time you open the file (here is a LINK to the post where I explained this quirk in the software)



I made another box card folder to hold these correspondence cards. I needed to use two sheets of card stock due to the large size of the cards. I cut two pieces of cardstock t0 10 x 12 inches.



I used my Scor-Pal to score each piece at 1 and 1 1/2 inches on the 10 inch sides and at 1 inch on one of the 12 inch sides and 2 1/2 and 3 inches from the other 12 inch side.



After scoring and folding I cut away the corners to the inner score lines.



Then I rounded the corners as show above.



The box is assembled by connecting the two one inch spine sections. Then fold up the corners in the same way that I explained for the A2 folder (LINK to that post) and the 5 inch card folder (LINK to that post). Directions for adding the ribbon closures can also be found on those posts.



These are all of the cut out letters - I am thinking of adding one set of them to the box (similar to the monogram letters I did for the monogram cards I shared in January (here is a LINK to that post).



I used some pretty ribbon in a spring check pattern for the closure. I got this ribbon in a large spool of 50 yards at Costco (they often have nice ribbon at an unbeatable price, I paid $6.99 for this spool).



If you don't want to insert letters into the card, you can use the plain file and perhaps add some stamping or just use it to make simple A2 folded notecards.



These were cut from on sheet of 12 x 12 cardstock. You can then score them at 4.25 iniches and fold carefully, making sure to perfectly align the scallops.



The patterned card stock I used for the test cuts is two sided and a nice weight so with one simple cut you have some stationery ready to use. Of course, you could add embellishments if you want to make these "fancier."



Above you can see the "leftover" piece from the 12 x 12 paper. You can trim a 2 1/2 inch strip from the side and leave a double frame that could be used for a layout.



If you didn't want to use it the frame for a layout (maybe you are more of a card maker than a scrapbooker), you can cut it apart and use the scallop strips as trim for cards as I have suggested before.



You can cut the strip to add a partial lining to your note card envelopes - measure your envelope to double check but I think the standard width is 5 and 5/8 inches. Adhere the strip to the top of the envelope just below the flap fold.

Scalloped Correspondence Card - George

Scalloped Correspondence Card - Plantin Schoolbook

Stair Step Card - Beyond the Basics

Once you get started with the concept of "stair step" cards - it is hard to stop! I thought it would be fun to try a double set of stairs, add another row for five letter words and cut letters into the bridging circles. Here is the card I made for my friend Donna's birthday using all of these techniques.



I cut the extra panels for the front and embossed them with the Divine Swirls Cuttlebug folder. Then I used Stardust Stickles on the swirls to really make them pop! The extra letters from the name cutout were perfect for the envelope. I embossed the envelope with the Birthday Candle Cuttlebug folder.



Here is one more view of the card stretched out a bit and placed flat on the table. To cut letters into the circles without having a problem with the "holes" (in letters like "A," "D," "O," and "P") you need to use a cartridge with an interior cut-out style (stencil) font - in this case I used Printing 101. The candle flame on the cupcake was enhanced with a heart gem for additional bling!

I hope you are also having fun experimenting with these cards - I'd love to see what you have made.

Double Staircase Card - George

Double Staircase Card - Plantin Schoolbook