Fourth of July - full page design (by request)

In September, I was asked by a Cricut Message Board friend if I could create a Fourth of July design similar to my Halloween design for an event at her church where the theme was holidays through the year - her month was July. She had located some glass vases like the one I used for the Halloween lantern and was planning to make these as table decorations and favors for the other guests to take home. Unfortunately, she did not take a picture (she is hoping to "borrow" one back for a photo) so I don't have a lantern version photo to share but I did test cut the design after I got home (I was in New Jersey when I got her email). I think it also works well as a framed piece. Here is a LINK to the post about the Halloween design as a framed piece.

Once again this is cut on a 12 x 24 mat with the paper placed at the one inch mark. Here is a screen shot of the design.



and here is a photo of the design on the mat after cutting so you can see the paper placement a bit better.



The look varies, as always, depending on the paper you choose to place behind the cut - here are a few examples...




Fourth of July - full page mesh

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)

Birthdays, Reunions, Awards , oh my!

Sorry for the long gap in posts - it is a very busy family time right now! We traveled to upstate New York for an 85th Family Reunion on my husband's side of the family and also to celebrate my mother-in law's birthday on 08-08-08. My niece, who was due a bit later in August, had her second child (a boy - welcome Henry James!) on 08-08-08 so that is quite a lucky day for our family.

While we were in the area we passed Hill Cumorah in Palmyra, New York, which is an historic site for members of the LDS church. I am not a member and not all that familiar with LDS but I took some photos to share with LDS Cricut Message Board members and spent a fair bit of time figuring out how to create a slide show and then also uploaded all of the photos at full size for those who can use them in their personal projects to share. The slide show and downloading instructions are at the bottom of the page - just above the Guest Book (please sign if you haven't before).



Upon my return I found that several people had given me a blog award! Thanks to AMKs_mom (aka Diane), Wife2TJ (aka Samantha) and Tomianne - I am flattered and happy to know you like my blog! I am not sure how many times I can receive this award - Jackie gave it to me a while ago and I thank her again - I will have to see if I can come up with another list of people to pass the award to, for now I will link all of you who gave me the award (Tomianne and Samantha - don't forget to link me!).

With all the family birthdays this month I realized that I had never shared the file for the quick title mesh I did for a swap on the Cricut Message board. The partially embellished cut is pictured at the start of this post and the only cart you need is Celebrations. This can be used for a page title or a package decoration and the sky is the limit on embellishing!

It's a Party Title Mesh

Lots more to come in the next few days as I get files test cut and photographed. It's good to be back!

Quick and Easy Cards

What do you do with a piece of paper like this?



I got this paper in a stack from DCWV (Die Cuts With a View) which had lots of "background" papers but I could not see how to place photos on a page like the one above. Here is the stack



The motifs are very cute and they already have glitter so I thought they would be good for cards - they just need a bit of a frame and some "pop"!

So I used the Design Studio software to set up scalloped squares from the Mini Monograms cart and scalloped rectangles from the Celebrations cart. I needed to measure each motif after I trimmed it and then adjusted the exact size of the scallop shape that I would use to mat it - I made the paper shapes 1/2 inch larger than the cut out motif. I simply entered the dimensions in the Shape Properties box so I knew that the size would be perfect. I placed the color I chose for each scalloped shape in the correct position on the mat according to the grid and cut the shapes.



I put foam squares on the backs to make the designs pop up a bit from the page. I used plain white cards in a 5 x 7 size and attached bright color mats in the 4 1/2 by 6 1/2 size from a mat stack by the same company so the color matching was easy.



Here are close ups of all of the sets of cards













There is no cut file for these as you will need to adjust the size to suit the paper you choose. This is a quick way to "mass produce" cards. I can add a stamped greeting to suit any occasion or just use these as note cards.

Frames for some young friends

The son of one of my Cricut Message Board friends had a very bad experience at his school which was something that should never happen to a child and hurt the whole family deeply. I wanted to do something to help out in some small way so I made these frames for my friend to use to celebrate her sons and to let them know how special they are.

The hearts in the hands symbolize the love that should circle this family to help them heal after this incident. While I had a particular reason for making these, I think that many of you can find a use for these in your family books so I am sharing them here. The center opening is 2.5 by 2.5 inches and should hold a school photo nicely. (The handsome young men you see here are my boys when they were in Kindergarten and third grade!)



There are four frames and you can use the background fillers I posted a couple of days ago to add more color and contrast. Below you can see a close up of each frame, first with the background and then without.

The Celebrate frame





The Little Hands frame





The Little Hands and Hearts frame





and the Shining Start frame





Here are the links to download these frames - please keep this family in your thoughts...

Celebrate Frame

Little Hands Frame

Little Hands and Hearts Frame

Shining Star Frame

Some "Fancy" borders made with cakestands

I kept looking at the cake stand on the Celebrations cart and thinking that it looked very cute and "girly" (since I have two - wonderful! - sons, I seem to be overly attracted to "girly stuff!)

So I tried welding them together to get a border for "fancy" pages. The example above is the first result.

Not satisfied with the "girly" factor I decided to add to it and fit in the open heart from Accent Essentials. There was some tricky welding but it was definitely fancier! Here is the resulting border:



Here are the two borders are at the top and the bottom of a page:



I also tried putting them together with a some of the black background showing like this:



I tried them close together and they looked like this:



The "leftover bits are also pretty and could be used - here are all the pieces:



These cuts are just placed on a black background for photographing and would be straighter if they were stuck down. For items this small, I use the CM precision point adhesive pen - I think there are other similar ones at craft stores. The important thing is to be able to control the flow of the adhesive. With the CM pen I have found that it is best to apply it lightly and then leave it sitting in the air until the white is gone and it just looks shiny. At this point, the adhesive is tacky, the delicate item will stick down very well and there will be no "oozing" of the adhesive.

Finally, these could be used on a page with a special matted photo in the center - like this:




These cuts require a very delicate hand in removing them from the mat -don't use your stickiest, newest mat to cut these or you will be unhappy!

Here are the links:

Single cakestand border

Fancier cakestand border