ATCs and ABCs

Tonight I am flat out exhausted after attending graduation and then finishing the "move-out" process with my son. The weather was a bit overcast, but the ceremony was held outdoors so I could attend and hear him sing with the Chorale (if they move indoors, tickets are required). It is hard to believe that in just two more years he will be graduating.

While I was at graduation, I thought about the long path from preschool to college graduation and the basic building blocks that begin an education. The theme for one of my Artist Trading Card swap groups this month was "letters and numbers" and the card I did fits right into the education theme too.



When I was thinking about the theme, the song lyric "ABC, easy as 123" kept popping into my head so I decided those would be my letters and numbers (remember the Jackson 5 - for a link to a 1974 version of this song in a skit on the Carol Burnett show click HERE).

I used the Mini Monograms cartridge and welded together five circles and one square to create the design. You can see all of the cuts on the mat with the background removed above and below is a photo of the letters on the mat after the design was removed.



I made the letters and numbers alternate lines for a bit more interest. You need to be sure to save the centers of letters like "a" and "b" when you are using letters that are not the in the stencil format.



Above are my black cuts on a plain white piece of paper - I replaced the centers of the "a" and "b" but the tiny bits in the "3" were so small that I decided to skip them and let the "3" be extra loopy.



These were just not colorful enough so I added one inch punched circles in three kindergarten colors to back the openings. I staggered the placement of the colors.



Now my cuts were ready to be added to the cards. I cut the ATC cards in primary yellow and centered my letter and number cuts. They looked a bit bare so I added some pen stiching around the edges of the cards.



The group was small this month and I only needed to make seven.



For the backs, I added a 2 x 3 inch rectangle in black and wrote the information in white ink so it would look like a chalkboard.

(Tomorrow my son and I will drive back to Massachusetts and I have already warned him that I won't be doing any more box carrying - he can work on unloading the car with his Dad who is waiting for us back home! I will do my best to catch up with emails, comments and class registrations tomorrow night, but it may be late when we get back, so if not tomorrow....Monday!)

A pretty little card, and some notes...

Today I made a quick card using the filigree file I shared earlier this year. (Here is a LINK to that post in case you missed it). It is a good idea to cut several of these card toppers at a time and then you will have them handy for when you want to make a card in a hurry!

The topper was cut in plain white cardstock and I used the "stylized flowers" Cuttlebug folder to emboss the plain area above the filigree.



I "fussy embossed" - carefully lining up the edges of the topper in the folder to try to have the embossing connect with the filigree design.

The butterfly was a spare from my very first use of the Storybook cartridge (when it had not been added to Design Studio and I just wanted to cut a sheet or two of images to try them out). I added Stickles to define the body and antennae and attached the butterfly to the card using foam squares for dimension.



A note about the online lesssons -

As I mentioned last week, I have asked JenC to join me in this new teaching endeavor. We have been working hard to get the new blog set up and it will soon be ready to go "live" This new blog is where the schedule, fees and registration details for all of our classes will be listed. You will be able to learn how to use the Design Studio software by participating in a live online classroom. If you like the videos I have been posting, you will love the online classroom - we will be demonstrating in real time and you will be able to ask all the questions you might have about the trickier aspects of using Design Studio.

I will be teaching some classes together with JenC and we each will be doing some classes independently so we can better cover the various time zones. I know that many of you are impatient for us to get started - keep checking our blogs for information about our "Grand Opening" - it will be very soon!



Another note about the videos -

It seems that YouTube was the answer and, finally, everyone can see the newest video (#5). By purchasing the upgrade to the software I was able to make the screen recording in a format that will upload to YouTube. I will go back and redo the earlier topics and post those to YouTube as well as soon as I can find the time.

There was a bit of initial confusion from subscribers to the email feed because the daffodil image that had been a link to the videos in the past was just a title and the embedded YouTube box does not appear in the email. If you get the daily emails, remember you can click the title and it will take you directly to that post on my blog. You can watch the video directly from my blog or on YouTube (by clicking the "YouTube" icon).

When you watch the video be sure to click on the "HD" button at the bottom of the screen (it will turn red when it is "on") - the clarity of the recording will be much improved. It is also a good idea to use the full screen view which makes it much easier to see the details.


Finally, for those of you who say you like to hear about some of the personal details (and particularly for my friend "YO"), I got a "significant" hair cut today - it is much, much shorter!

Finally Filigree!

I know some of you have been eagerly waiting for me to get this file posted. I have to tell you that this has been one of those "troublesome" files -I kept running into problems in the test cuts and I really don't know why some of the problems occurred. I will explain some of the issues I had so you won't be surprised if you have problems too (please let me know if you do - maybe we can figure out why there is such erratic behavior by these bugs!). As of tonight, I have successfully cut everything multiple times and I hope that you won't run into any problems.



Above is another variation of the full card topper. I used "hide contour" to "fill in" the ovals at the edges of the topper. Unfortunately, the element I used has only two contours, so, each time you want to cut the "filled in" version, you will need to re-hide the inner ovals. Perhaps a future update will fix this glitch of contours not staying hidden - my fix (described in the post linked HERE) will only work if there are three or more contours in the design.



I wanted to keep this card very simple since the filigree design is so elaborate, but I thought it needed just a bit more so I added a butterfly made with the Martha Stewart monarch butterfly punch.



The sentiment was cut with a Cuttlebug using the die from the "With Gratitude" A2 cut and emboss set.



In an amazing bit of serendipity, the letters align perfectly with the scallops!



Above is a photo of the card from a few days ago - that border cut perfectly the first time I tested it (and made the card using the test cut).



Tonight, I tested the cut again and you can see the result above (!) I was using the Expression instead of the Original Cricut for this cut - but that shouldn't make a difference.... I checked my blade assembly (took it out and looked for any paper bits stuck in the blade housing but there were none) re-tightened the assembly, checked to be sure that the paper was firmly stuck down on the mat and tried the cut again.



This time it cut perfectly - I can't say what made the difference since I hadn't discovered any problems in my checks after the first cut....



A few days ago, when I was testing the file I had the "Cricut mysteriously stops cutting at X % problem" - 62% in the example above and 90% in the example below.



Once again - this is something that used to happen frequently but it hadn't happened to me for quite a while. Everything "freezes" and you have to turn off the Cricut, and close and restart the Design Studio program to try cutting again. In both cases, the file cut perfectly the second time. I have no explanation for why this would happen but it did "clear" by restarting everything - whether or not it could happen again is unknown (I am just trying to give full disclosure so you know what "could" go wrong).

You will need Mini Monograms for either file. I did two separate versions with George and Plantin Schoolbook - the file will cut on the 6 x 12 mat so it is "baby bug compatible."

Filigree Card Toppers (George)

Filigree Card Toppers (Plantin Schoolbook)

A bit of Digital Fun!

I am home but having a bit of trouble getting back into the swing of things - long drives take a lot out of me and I was feeling a bit under the weather today. I thought I'd show you something I've been experimenting with. I have been turning some of my Cricut designs into elements I can use in my digital scrapping.



You may remember this medallion from the chipboard album posts. I made it from a shape on the Home Accents cartridge - here is a LINK to the original post.



I used my Creative Memories StoryBook Plus software (which is a fantastic digital scrapping program) and turned a photo of the cut into an element that I can use in my digital layouts, cards and hybrid projects. I can resize the design, change the color(s), fill it with various digital papers, layer it with other shapes - the possibilities are endless!



In this image you can see three of the shapes grouped, resized and filled with various gradients and colors, rotated and shadowed.

Here is one more example. Below is a photo of a part of the bubbly background made from Mini Monograms (here is a LINK to the original post for this design).



Below you can see some background paper I created using this design.



I plan to use these for lots of projects - if you have questions on the specifics of how to do this or about the software just send me a note. The creative possibilities when you combine these two programs are truly amazing!

Scalloped Rectangle - A quick design tip

I think you all must be getting tired of hearing about my travels, my family and our projects, so tonight I just have a quick tip to share.

I recently saw a project where someone had used a scalloped rectangle in a book. It was obvious that they had taken a scalloped square and stretched it in one direction to turn it into a rectangle.



Above is a screen shot showing what happens when you simply stretch a scalloped square - the scallops become somewhat distorted since the number of scallops remains the same and they are covering a wider distance.



Here is another view in black and white - there are only five "bumps" across the top and bottom of the rectangle. The scallops at the top and bottom are shallower when compared to the scallops on the sides. While, in some cases, you might want this "look" for your project, if you prefer a more regular scalloped rectangle, there is an easy way to create one in Design Studio. You will need to have a cartridge with a scalloped square such as Mini Monograms.



Simply place two scalloped squares in the same selection box and nudge the second one to the left until the scallops align neatly. In the screen shot above you can see that this overlap produces a scalloped rectangle with eight "bumps" across the top.



This screen shot shows the difference between the stretched square and the overlapped squares a bit more clearly.



You can make variations in the size by using a larger or smaller overlap - above you can see a "seven bump" version of the rectangle.



This screen shot shows how the squares were nudged to form the "seven bump" version.



You can see a "six bump" version above.

By putting the squares together in the same selection box you have created an adjustable design that you can cut and paste. Once you have the squares aligned, you can make small adjustments to the size by using the handles. These adjustments will not create as large a distortion when compared to simply stretching the original square.

So, if you don't have one of the carts with a scalloped rectangle, you can make one from a scalloped square. Even if you do have one of the rectangles - this method will help you make a rectangle with the exact number of "bumps" you need.

Bubbly Background (patience required)

I did some cleaning up today - in my house, in my scraproom and in my computer. I found a file that I made quite a while ago but had never cut and decided to test it. It is done with one element from Mini Monograms repeated and welded for a background mesh.

As it was cutting, I remembered why I didn't test the cut when I first made it. This takes a long time to cut. You will have time to read the paper, clean the kitchen and make a few phone calls while you are waiting for it to finish!



The good news is that it cut perfectly so I didn't have to do a second test! Above you can see the cut on the mat after I removed the outer edge of the paper.



When I lifted the cut from the mat, most of the diamond shapes and some of the small dots stayed stuck to the mat.



I saved the diamond shapes - they actually fit perfectly with the leftover diamonds from the cathedral window cut (and if you have been reading my blog for a while you know I never toss these offcuts but save them for future projects...) Here is a LINK to the Cathedral Window post and a photo of the full page cut from that file.



As I said, this design takes a long time to cut and you will also need some time to clean the cut by pushing out all of the little circles that didn't stay stuck on the mat. I did this over the trash but the little circles still went flying everywhere!

I wanted to take a photo of the mesh on a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock but I had trouble getting it to stay flat - so I put a tiny piece of adhesive on the back of each circle with my Creative Memories tape runner (it has a control wheel that allows you to dispense one or two tiny strips at a time).



Here is a close up of the pattern - I have plans for this design - I wonder if any of you can guess what I am going to do with it?



If you have a baby bug, you can cut the half page version which is also in the file (I didn't do a separate test cut because it is simply the same file with the lower rows of circles deleted).

Bubbly Background

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.