Peace on Earth

We had a lovely day with lots of family in Wellesley and tomorrow we will do it all over again with a couple of dozen relatives at our house!  I hope that everyone who celebrates Christmas enjoyed the holiday.  Have fun shopping the sales tomorrow if that is your tradition - I will be cooking!  With luck I'll get a bit of "crafty" time too.


(I designed this card last year - it is one of my favorites.  I can't send a card to all of the people who read my blog so here is my "virtual" Christmas card to you.)

One more week....

So much to do - and not much time left until Christmas.  I didn't post my file for the wreath that I shared yesterday - I had hoped to do a quick video explaining how I did a few things in the file but there wasn't a chance to do that today.  Here is a LINK to the original post.

Since I have had several people asking for the file, I will try to explain quickly what you need to do and then add a video in a few days when I get home.  You actually cut the wreath from the first page of the file.  On the second page, you can cut the stars to layer on the wreath - I found these on another key and resized them to fit - I also used "hide selected contour" to make good use of the glitter paper and eliminate the star that is too large.

The rest of the pages all have to do with adding a greeting to the center.  The two alternatives are the Christmas or Blackletter solutions cartridges.  You can use something else or just make the wreath without a greeting.  The third page has the Christmas solutions cartridge version set up to preview (positioned in the center of the wreath).  On the fourth page, the same words are set up to cut efficiently from a 4 x 8 piece of paper placed with the top left corner at 0 on the X axis and 2 on the Y axis (if that is confusing just look at the virtual mat and you can see where to put the paper!).

The fifth page show the Blackletter alternative for preview only.  I created and welded the phrase but I left it unwelded on this page to get the color to show in preview and make it easier to visualize the final result.  If you cut from this page the letters will not be welded!

The cutting page for the Blackletter version is on page six.  There is a little complication that I will explain here.  I wanted to add an apostrophe for "Season's" and there isn't one on the Blackletter cartridge so I used the semicolon.  You should hide the top dot when you open the file - since there is only one item hidden, it does not stay hidden when the file is closed and reopened .  When there are three or more contours to work with I have a way to make just one stay hidden (here is a LINK to an old post explaining how to do this).  Since there are only two contours, I can't do that in this case so you will need to do it each time the file is opened.

I also wanted the dot on the "i" to be attached to the "i" and I used the semicolon again.  You will need to hide the dot from the original "i" and the comma from the semicolon.  You can see the hidden contours in the second screen shot above.  I hope that you understand this - it will be a bit easier to show you when I make the video.  If it is too confusing - just use something else or skip adding a sentiment all together!

Here is the download link for the file - you will need the Expression to cut this.

Wreath from 50 States

The angel in the photo at the top of this post is another of my brother's stained glass pieces and was a gift many years ago.  If you are interested in seeing more stained glass art, here is a LINK to the Century Studios blog and here is a LINK to the store.

ONE MORE NOTE - today was "Hello Thursday" and new cartridges were announced.  You should update the font pack on your Design Studio - here is a LINK to the update page (you will have to log in first if you are not already logged in on the Cricut.com site).  The new cartridges are the three Spring mini cartridges (Love Struck, Easter and Mother's Day), Songbird, Heritage, Tie the Knot, Forever Young and Sentimentals.  Lots to see! (I'll have more to say about these later).

I am back in New Jersey.  Our younger son finished his exams yesterday.  He has only three semester of college left now!  Since he is a musician and has a lot of equipment and instruments that need to come home for the long break he needs Mom and the minivan to get home. We are keeping an eye on the weather and hope to sneak down to Pennsylvania on Friday to see my Dad for a day before heading up to Boston - there is talk of a storm so we will have to see how it develops...

Tea light houses and Celestial Cards

When we lived in Germany I loved going to the Christmas markets.  We went to many of them and I started a collection of these tea light houses made by a company called Leyk Lichthauser.  Each house is based on an actual building in Germany.  I haven't added to this collection for many years.  The number of houses I have just fits nicely in the bookcase top of this secretary desk in our family room.  I used to use candles but it took a long time to light them and put them out so for safety and convenience I use strings of white lights to illuminate them now.  If you'd like to know more about these houses, here is a LINK to the English language site for the Leyk Lichthauser company.  There are many more styles available now.  The lichthauser shelves will have some greens added to make them more festive - I use fresh greens so I will wait until we are closer to Christmas to add them.

We were gone most of the day - first to the special music church service to hear my husband's parents and sister singing in the choir and then to our nephew's 8th birthday party.  The music was beautiful and the party was chaotic but fun (triplets, twins and birthday boy all 11 and under).  So I didn't get much done here but we did sneak in a quick stop at the mall between church and the party and checked a number of gifs off our list.

I did get my third swap finished and in the mail yesterday.  The swap was for A2 notecards and the theme was "celestial."  I had a few different ideas but ended up making these cards with some swirls of stars from Joys of the Season which I adapted in Design Studio and a large star punched with a Martha Stewart punch.

I used some Creative Memories shimmer paper to cut the star swirls and metallic gold for the punched star.  Unfortunately, this paper is no longer available.  It was one of my favorites and I save it for special projects now.  Each of the four swirls of stars is in a different color (it may be hard to tell from the photo - it is even a bit difficult to tell two of the colors apart in person).

Here are all my cards before I sent them for swapping.  They have plain white paper inserts so they can be used as notecards.  They are not quite what I had envisioned - I hope my swapping partners like them...

I have lots more decorating to do tomorrow.  I'll be away again for three days at the end of the week so I have to  make a big push to get it mostly done before I go.  I know I am behind on answering email and comments - I will try to catch up tomorrow (does anyone else need more hours per day right now?).  I will also try to add another video as promised.  A few people have had trouble hearing the videos - I am not sure why.  I have tried it from several different computers and the sound has been fine.  You can adjust the sound on You Tube and on your computer so please check to be sure you have it high enough to hear. 

"Grouping" in Design Studio - Snowflakes in Circles

The decorations are coming down from the attic fast and furious now - I want to get most of them up before I go to pick up our younger son for his Winter Break next week.  This stained glass Santa was a gift from my brother many years ago and always hangs in the kitchen window.

The next tree to go up is the "upside down" tree.  It has a base and two sections and it takes two of us to put it together.  This is the tree for all of the delicate glass ornaments - lots of room to dangle and out of reach for the smaller visitors!

I usually try to keep the lights on the top section and then rearrange them when the tree is assembled but this year I took them all off and started right from the top.  For the next few days we will enjoy the tree with lights only and then I will start adding the ornaments - it takes a couple of days to finish!

I did make a quick video showing how to make the snowflakes in circles.  These are what I call "adjustable" designs.  You can do some grouping in Design Studio but you need to plan and have the patience to do a lot of nudging!


 I hope you find this video helpful - I will try to make another one showing a more complicated grouped design soon.  I am limited to five minutes on a video so I may need to do this in parts.  I'd like to purchase some software that will make it possible for me to make longer videos but it is very expensive so that will have to wait a bit longer.

We have a lot of family plans for tomorrow but I want to try to get more holiday decorating done later in the day.  I hope you don't mind me posting the stages of decorating our house - it helps to motivate me to get things finished.  I know that many people put things up right after Thanksgiving, but we have always done it in gradual stages and then leave everything up well into January (the days are short, dark and cold and the lights just make things more cheery in the dead of winter).

I wonder how many of you are still decorating...

Lots of little Christmas Trees!

I have been making lots of Christmas cards - trying out all sorts of different styles.  I thought I'd start posting some of them since it will be December tomorrow (how did that happen?).

In October, I wrote about some design inspiration and the Nordic red/white look (here is a LINK to that post).  I was working on a new card design and realized that it would look great in plain red and white.

Here is the basic cut of the card.  I actually started out to make a border and then began moving things around and built this pyramid of trees.  I use the circle feature for the tree to make the borders and then just continued using that element, hiding the circle contour to make the tree shape from the trees.

In this screen shot you can see how I altered the tree shape by stretching to make the trees fit the typical A2 card front.  The trees look a bit odd because there are two layers on top of one another (I had to do this in order to make the circle stay hidden when the file was closed and reopened - here is a LINK to a post explaining how to do this).

 This preview shot shows the finished file as it will cut.  I hate to waste paper so I filled the extra space with two cuts of the original border I designed.

The file will work for a 6 x 12 mat - if you have an Expression you can simply turn the mat and do a second cut on your 12 x 12 paper to get two cards and four borders.

 This is the basic card cut from lightweight red cardstock and layered over a plain white A2 card.

Adding some pen stitching will make the card more interesting (I must have been tired when I did this - it is rather uneven - I'll just call it "homespun charm"!).

The border looks nice on a simple white card - these would make useful notecards for the holidays.

I used a glue pen to dot adhesive on the solid parts of the border - you have to be careful about tape runners with all of the tiny cut outs.

I decided to try adding another paper to make some more variations of the card.  I found this paper last fall at Tuesday morning reduced to $5.99.  It has great bold graphic designs for a modern Christmas look.

I cut a piece at 8.25 x 4.25 inches to form a liner.  Since the paper is one sided there will be a nice white surface for the message inside the card.  I adhered the liner to the front of the card and left the back unattached.

I like the way the stripes fit these trees - they almost look like trees with layers of snow on the branches.  I added a dot of yellow Stickles glitter glue to the stars at the top of each tree.

I used another border for this card.  I added a layer of the same red cardstock cut to 5.25 x 4 inches and then layered another piece of the green and white striped paper cut to 5 x 3.75 inches.

Here are the two cards that used an additional paper.

These are the cards that have only red and white (the original concept).

There are many more variations possible with this simple pattern.  Adding more layers and colors will change the look.  You could also add some sentiments or additional  images (cut or stamped).

Christmas Tree A2 card and borders

Birthday Candle Card (take two)

Here is another birthday candle border card.  This is my test cut of the A2 size card I wrote about yesterday.  I used the Christmas solutions cartridge to create the border.  For this border the candles can be made proportionately taller than the candles on the Hanukkah menorah on the Joys of the Season cartridge that I used a few days ago.

I cut the card base from this piece of 12 x 12 cardstock from the DCWV Sweet Stack.  I saved the apple border for another project.  I was able to cut two 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 card bases for two A2 cards.

Here is the card topper cut.  I decided to emboss the rectangular section.  I did put a page in the file to create a layer so you have the option to add that if you like.  I also changed the file so that you can cut the pieces using only the Christmas cartridge.  (The file does have some George rectangles for the preview guideline rectangles but you don't need to cut those pages).

I embossed the rectangle with a new Cuttlebug folder I got recently from Oh My Crafts (here is a LINK to the folder set on their site - it is an exclusive set).

Here are the card components.  The Happy Birthday sentiment is from ZooBalloo.  You can use a sentiment from any cartridge that you want - I will just show you how I adapted this one to suit the card.

The screen shot shows the location of the "Happy Birthday" sentiment.

I wanted the words welded together vertically to fit on the card topper.  Once again, "hide selected contour" is useful for altering images like this.

I simply placed two of the phrases on the mat, aligned them in the position I wanted and checked "weld" on both images.  Then I hid  all of the parts of the words I did not want to cut.  They are very pale blue in the screen shot above.

Here is one more close view of the candle border.  I used yellow Stickles to highlight the flame tips.  I wonder if I can find some more candles to make borders...

Birthday Candle Border A2 card topper

Christmas in August

There are certain rituals involved in getting ready to go back to college - sorting, packing, saying goodbye to local friends...and sending your Mom to Costco for essentials like pita bread and brownie bites. While I was at Costco today I discovered that Christmas has arrived already! There are Christmas lights and decorations starting to fill the aisles.



One of my favorite bargains at Costco is the wired ribbon. There are all sorts of lovely designs and the price is so reasonable - a 50 yard spool of wired ribbon is only $6.89!



I saw this snowman patterned ribbon and immediately had an idea for Christmas cards - I couldn't wait to get home to try it (when I should have been finishing the back-to-school laundry!). There are three different snowmen with some trees and snowflakes. I cut segments of ribbon centered on each snowman to use for my cards.



I cut some 12 x 12 paper to three pieces - two sections at 5.25 x 12 inches and a leftover strip of 1.5 x 12 inches. I ran the 5.25 x 12 inch pieces through my DreamKuts to create three four inch wide sections. This paper is from an American Crafts Christmas pack I found at Tuesday Morning in Connecticut on our last trip. I used my Creative Memories trimmer to cut out a window. Most trimmers have an arrow to indicate the blade position and by aligning this with the grid on the base you can make interior cuts.



Here is my card layer with the center cut out removed. (Of course, you save these centers for other projects).



I applied tape to the top and bottom edges off the opening.



Then I placed my snowman ribbon strip on the tape at the top, being careful to keep the sparkly wired side edges exposed in the window.



I smoothed the ribbon over the tape at the bottom of the window and then added tape all around the layer.



I layered the ribbon front on a red A2 card. Simple and quick! I could add a sentiment in the lower section or just leave the front as it is and add a greeting inside the card.



The ribbon is sheer and sparkly and really catches your eye in the light. The glittery wired sides also add a lot of sparkle to this design. You could put a paper frame around the opening or ink it but I like it plain and simple.



I was able to quickly make a card with each snowman. On this one I miscalculated my cut and it is about 1/4 inch too low at the bottom - when I do the next one the tree top will just peek out with the star showing.



Here is the third version - each card has a slightly different sized opening in the top mat.

I thought about making a Design Studio file to cut the layers and openings but I think it is easier and more precise to do these the "old fashioned" way. Due to slight differences in mat loading and machine calibration it would be nearly impossible to get the openings perfectly centered using the full 12 x 12 sheet. Aso, you would have to hand trim at the edges of the mat to complete the cuts once they reached the "no-cut zone." Cutting these by hand makes it possible to make small adjustments to get evenly spaced results and maximize the use of your paper.



These were fast to make, the materials are inexpensive and they are cute - three good things! I counted nine snowmen per yard of ribbon so this spool would have 450 sparkly ribbon images to use for the cards at a cost of about one and a half cents for each snowman. It is pretty hard to find an embellishment that can carry a card front for only 1.5 cents!

One piece of 12 x 12 paper will yield six layers for the fronts. I got paper in a pack at a reduced price but if you figured on 60 cents for a sheet of good quality patterned paper the cost would be 10 cents for the layer. For the A2 card base I cut an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock in half - Papertrey Ink sells lovely 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock at 50 pieces for $9, so the average cost per card is nine cents. Add an envelope for about 15 cents and even if you add a liner or some Stickles or other embellishments to the card your total cost per card is less than 50 cents.



Now I guess I should go finish that laundry!