Decorative Initial Block Frame

This is a quick and simple project that makes a nice "little gift" for any occasion.  It is also a great way to recycle some old acrylic box frames that are still in good condition.

This type of frame can often be found at rummage sales and yard sales.  I bought this entire box full of frames this year for 25 cents to a dollar each.  The frames are also readily available new at craft and discount stores.

If you find these frames in the larger sizes and they are too scratched up to use as frames they make great "drawers" to hold your wood mounted stamps.

I cut pieces of cardstock from the DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Girl mat stack, measuring them to fit the top and sides exactly.  The "K" is from the Storybook Cricut cartridge.

I had intended to have the side pieces inside the frame, however, I discovered that they made the insert too thick to fit in the rigid plastic box.  So I adhered them to the outer edges.  This is a decorative piece and not meant to be handled a lot so they will be fine on the outside.

Here is a closer view of the top edge.  The side cardstock and the initial are smooth and the floral background is a glittered cardstock.

A ribbon tied around the box looks pretty and serves as a reinforcement for the edge pieces to stay put.  O tied a knot at the top to prevent the bow from coming undone too easily and then tied a fussy bow.

 Here is the box frame with the tied and trimmed bow.  It is fine like this but I thought some added bling would make it seem more special and look nice sitting on a shelf and catching the light.

I added two sizes of the green gradient gem stickers from Creative Charms to the strong left side of the "K" in an alternating pattern.

This will look very cute and girly sitting on 13 year old "K's" shelf - I hope she likes it!

This sort of project is easy to make and easy to personalize for anyone.  Most people seem to like gifts that are made with personalization that makes the gift unique to them.  If you have a lot of frames, you could also spell out an entire name or word.

Our construction project started on Tuesday so I am going to have some challenges in making my projects and posting on my blog.  It is exciting to have things happening - I just have to get more done on the inside!

Happy first full day of Summer - the kids in our town still have school until Friday - I am sure they are ready to leave and start vacationing!

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Easter Egg cards (from the past...)

Happy Monday!  Well, it is not a particularly happy Monday for me due to "technical difficulties."  I am visiting my Dad for a couple of days and my laptop power supply cord has stopped working!  This means that I can't post my items for Scrappy-Go-Lucky today since I was working on a review full of screen shots and I can't duplicate these on my Dad's Mac computer.

It is too late for me to change course and post a different project (I post at night for the next day's morning email) so I will once again give you a few links to refer to until I get the situation sorted out (or get back home to my desktop PC!).

The cards at the top of this post are some that I designed a couple of years ago.  A lot you have started reading my blog more recently so you may not have seen them - they are quick and easy to make if you still are looking for Easter card ideas.

The post about this card is HERE.

The post about this card is HERE.

The links are the old 4shared links since I can't re-upload right now to the new service I use for instant downloads.  I don't think you will have any problems with these - you just have to wait a bit for the download.

The swirly egg card uses just the Wild Card cartridge and the pink card uses the Beyond Birthdays and Storybook cartridges.  These both take advantage of "hide selected contour" and you could try something similar with some of the newer cartridges.

I will take this power failure as a sign that I should slow down and enjoy visiting my Dad - but I might be able to post a little project for you tomorrow if I can remember how to upload photos to his computer (and if I have the right cables with me)!

Don't forget to check out the Discussion Day link and add your thoughts if you would like to join in.  I hope you have a great day!

link to Discussion Day 1 - Why do you craft?

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Fancy (but simple) Storybook Lace Mesh

Many people have asked me for more information about mesh or paper lace designs.  There are many types of designs that can be used to make these intricate cuts.  Some of the more recent Cricut cartridges have elaborate lace designs that are beautiful at full page size (Mother's Day, Straight from the Nest, Cindy Loo).  You can also create these pages using smaller images and welding them in a pattern.

This delicate lace was made using just four images from the Storybook cartridge.  I altered the width of the image a bit to get a good fit on the page.  The adapted shape is 5.8 x 5.8 inches.

 The four images are arranged to overlap evenly along some of the outer swirls.  This screen shot shows the final image after welding.

To cut a design like this one - with lots of intricate curves and thin sections  - I usually find it better to use a heavy patterned paper instead of cardstock.  For my test cut I used a sheet of K & Company paper with a fairly subtle pattern.

You could use the offcut to create a frame for a page.

Different backgrounds with varying degrees of contrast give very different looks to this lace.

I had intended to give more explanation on how to make this type of mesh and also to share some techniques for making it an "adjustable" design in Design Studio but I ran into another glitch in the new version of Design Studio.  The problem with the nudge arrows getting "stuck" and the selected element moving along the mat with no way to stop it is has come back again.  I opened and closed the program several times but I still had a section of the design that "lost control" and could not be stopped!

This design is easy to make on the Gypsy and I found that the Gypsy is much faster than it used to be with preparing and displaying the design previews.  I did a Gypsy file but I haven't test cut it yet - I'll try to do that tomorrow so I can post the file.  Our oldest son arrived tonight from California for a weekend visit so I did not have any more time to troubleshoot the Design Studio issue.  If you have a Gypsy, you can try making this design on your own - it should be very simple to do.


The message boards are buzzing with news that there are a large number of new Cricut Lite cartridges which seem to be exclusive to Walmart.  If you go to the Cricut Message board you may find some more information from members who have seen these in their local Walmart stores.


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Earth Friendly Water Bottle - Give a Hoot!

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I live in Concord, Massachusetts - a very historic town.  At Town Meeting this year, Concord voted to ban the sale of bottled water in town, making history yet again.  The ban would take effect in 2011 - and is rather controversial...  Here is a LINK for more information about the ban.

On my last trip to Costco, I found these new bottles - just the thing for filling with your own tap water.  The set of three was less than $20 and there was another set in different colors - every family member could have their own color.  They have a locking top and a carabiner to hook the bottle to a bag or belt loop.  I think I may be seeing a lot of these around town - so why not give them a little personalization?

I set up a mat with all sorts of flowers and sayings from the Give a Hoot cartridge.  What a perfect cartridge for a project like this!  it is full of "earth-friendly" sayings and images.  By using Design Studio, I could plan out the sizes and fit quite a few shapes on a small section of the mat to conserve my vinyl.

Here is the vinyl after cutting - if you look carefully you can see the images and words.  I did a "kiss cut" which means the vinyl layer is cut through but the backing stays intact.This makes it much easier to remove the cutouts.

Here is another photo to show you how the "kiss cut" works.  the entire sheet of vinyl can be lifted from the mat and the individual items lifted off the backing.  The settings I use to do this are medium pressure (3), medium speed (3), and blade depth 4.

I applied the vinyl cuts to the water bottle without too much thought about placement - just a happy random assortment of sayings and flowers!

For an alternative, I tried a more formal design.  First, I determined a good size for the image by wrapping a piece of vinyl around the bottle.  I cut a piece four inches square for my design.
 

I used a frame and initial from the Storybook cartridge - here you can see the kiss cut piece of vinyl.  This piece was the Oracal vinyl.  The yellow vinyl was Wall-Pops vinyl.  I find the Wall-Pops to be more forgiving when you are working with it.  The Oracal had a stronger adhesive and was more difficult to lift and reapply without tearing.

 As a matter of fact, I did tear the bottom section and decided that just the top would work out fine - a little less formal.  It would be fun to do these for a group - adding names or decorations that represent each person.

I am not sure how well the vinyl will hold up to a lot of handling.  I have had vinyl Cricut bugheads (made with regular Wall-Pops) on my car for a couple of years and they have survived rainstorms and car washes and are only a little worse for wear.  The nice thing is that the vinyl is not expensive so you could redo the bottle as needed and change up your decorations!

This is a quick and simple project.  It is a lot of fun to figure out which decorations to use.  I think it would be a great activity to do with kids!

Double Birthday - a little late...

I suddenly realized that I had missed sending cards for a significant family birthday - our twin niece and nephew turned twelve this month and I wished them Happy Birthday when we saw them just before their birthday but then totally forgot to send cards!  So, these cards will be late - I hope they will like them (along with the "flat" presents inside!).

The inspiration for our nephew's card was this leftover piece of blue mirror cardstock. (I cut the accent stars for the card yesterday from this and the negative space looked rather interesting - sort of modern and space-age...).  I had a piece of the green shimmer cardstock left as well, so I started with those two pieces.  I rounded all of the corners on the green cardstock and decided to round just two corners on the blue piece.  I added an extra piece of white cardstock to the back of the blue layer so that only white would show through the openings.

I happened to have an extra "Happy Birthday" cut from Lyrical Letters in my "leftovers" box.  I thought the star shape was very similar and would be great for the inside of the card.  I had misplaced the dot for the "i" but a tiny green gem fills in very nicely.  To make things coordinate, I wanted to cut his name using the same font on Lyrical Letters (the "Connected" font).

The first time I cut the name I used this bronze metallic cardstock but it was too dull and the card did not balance nicely.

I looked around and found this pack of foil cardstock I bought a while ago - there are two types of texture in this, one is ribbed and the other more of a woven effect.  There was a nice orange/copper color so I chose that to coordinate with the orange "Happy Birthday" inside.

I welded the name and then adjusted the size to 3.5 inches long and 1.5 inches high.  As you can see, this is very small and the upstrokes in some of the letters are very thin.  You have to be extremely careful in lifting a cut like this from the mat.

It was very difficult to get a photo with the shine on both the blue and orange cardstock showing.  I hope you can get an idea of the effect from this photo.  Since I had already adhered the bronze name I simply layered the shinier orange one right on top.  This actually gives a nice raised effect.

For our niece's card I wanted to use this piece of glitter cardstock with cupcakes.  It was left from a larger piece in the DCWV Sweet Stack that I use quite a while ago for a project.  I used the Core'dinations gemstone cardstock again for the pink layer.  Since I knew that my cupcake layer would cover some of the pink gemstone cardstock, I punched out a few flowers that I can use on another project.

I added some bright green dotted ribbon, first wrapping a piece around the layers before adhering to the card and then tying a bow and attaching it with glue dots.

I added her initial cut from the Storybook cartridge at 1.5 inch in a deeper pink shimmer cardstock.

I also cut the "Birthday Girl" from the Storybook cartridge for the inside of the card in the same deep pink shimmer cardstock.  The dot for the "i" is connected to the "t" but I added a tiny diamond to accent it.

 Lyrical Letters and Storybook are two of my favorite cartridges - I very often can find just what I need for a quick card on one of them.


A small bit of enabling - I just got the sale flyer for Jo-Ann's in the mail today and Cricut cartridges are $39.99 each from April 1 -3.  Also, cardstock is on sale at 5 for $1 on the same dates so here is a chance to stock up on the Core'dinations Gemstone cardstock

Luck of the Irish for Sweet Treats Thursday

 

Top of the morning to you!  This week's theme for Sweet Treats Thursday at the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot is all things green for St. Patrick's Day.  Be sure to visit to see all of the great projects the Design Team has created and then visit their individual blogs for full details.

My first project was this framed "Luck of the Irish" to decorate for the holiday.  Above you can see the preview in Design Studio.  You will need the Storybook and the A Child's Year cartridges to duplicate the design.  I used George for the oval that is welded in the center of the image but this can be changed if you don't have George. 

To make things a bit easier for you, I have added an oval from Plantin Schoolbook on the last page of the file.  If you don't have George, select the oval and copy it.  Then click the tab marked CUT for the frame, delete the George oval and paste in the oval from Plantin.  The weld box is already checked on the Plantin Oval so your file should cut properly.

If you do not have George or Plantin, you can use another oval from a cartridge you do own.  Start with a vertical oval and adjust the values in the Shape Properties box as shown above.  Be sure to check weld for the oval.

 

There is a separate preview page showing the words and two shamrocks.  Do not cut from this page - the weld is not checked so the color will show for a preview.  The words are created in one selection box so they can be copied and pasted as a group.  You can also alter the size if you want to use the words for another project.  Be sure to check weld if you copy the group from this page to use in another project.

On the page labeled CUT, I added four more shamrocks to make the best use of my paper.  The postion of the paper is marked on the tab - you need a 4 x 6 inch piece of paper placed at 3 inches down and in (X-3, Y-3) to cut the words and shamrocks.

Here is a photo of the 4 x 6 paper on the mat.

I used an inexpensive frame from Ikea for this project - I purchased several red and green frames at Christmas time knowing that they would be handy at other times of the year.

I used several shades of green paper (it is amazing how many I had and how tricky it was to find the right combination of three!).  Here is my trial layout before adding the white pen stitching and the Stickles in Lime Green.

 

Here is one more view of the finished piece in the frame along with the card I made with a few of the extra shamrocks. You can download the .cut file at this link.

Luck of the Irish

  

The "leftovers" card was made with some pieces of the same cardstock and the extra shamrocks.  The patterned paper is from a DCWV Spring stack from a couple of years ago.  I cut the light green squares at 1 1/4 inches and inked the edges.  They are embossed with one of the Oh My Crafts exclusive Cuttlebug folders in a brick pattern ( I think I had "Over the Rainbow" and the yellow brick road mixed up in my mind with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!).

I attached the shamrocks with glue dots and bent up the leaves a bit, creasing them at the centers.  The patterned paper had small circles with the words "Happy St. Patrick's Day" surrounding them so I added a bright green gem in the center of each circle.

  

I made this centerpiece last year and I thought that some of my current readers would not have seen it.  There are several files to help you create your own.  

 

I set up files for the little leprechauns at four inches with all of the sizes and paper placement worked out for you.  The leprechauns and the shamrocks in the bouquet are from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge.

  

There are also several card toppers.  The "Good Luck" is an adjustable file and can be resized to fit a full 12 x 12 page.

The posts for the various cards, the leprechauns and the center piece are all from March of last year from March 11 to March 15.  Here is a LINK to the posts from last March  - you can scroll down until you find the ones you are interested in.  To get directly to the page that has these posts click "older posts" twice.

I hope you enjoy these and that you have a Happy St. Patrick's Day!