Princesses with Square1 Masterpiece

When my little neighbors turned four, I wanted to make them something special.  They are rather fascinated by princesses and frequently wear special dress-up clothes to play princesses.

This also includes dressing all of the princess dolls.  Belle and Ariel seem to be particular favorites but this can change from day to day.

I have been exploring the possibilities of the Square1 Masterpiece inkjet printable adhesive fabric and I realized that it would be perfect for my project.  This is a great alternative to vinyl and safer for children since it contains no PVC like regular vinyl.  The material is also much easier to work with as it has less of a tendency to cling to itself and get tangled.

I own some digital kits of Disney princess images and backgrounds that I bought several years ago when they were available from Creative Memories.  First I used one of the backgrounds and adapted it from a square shape to an 8 x 10 rectangle to fit the 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of printable fabric.  I added the names at the bottom of each sparkly oval.  I printed these from my digital scrapbooking program (I did not make this a Silhouette print and cut so I could use the area that would be taken up by the registration marks and make the backgrounds as large as possible).

If you look closely at this photo you can see the woven texture of the Square1 Masterpiece printable material.

I brought the images into my Silhouette Studio software and created print and cut files.  The size of the princess images was determined by the available space on the background sheet.  I was able to test the images with the software to see how they would look on the background before cutting.

I needed a set of princesses for each girl, so I added two more princess images to the fourth and fifth sheets of printable fabric, along with a photo of each of the girls.

I used one more sheet of fabric to allow me to print extra images of the girls and some smaller princesses as well.  All four of these sheets were done as print and cut files with my Cameo.

The repositionable fabric photos of the girls blend in with the background nicely.

The backgrounds were trimmed with a regular paper cutter to remove the unprinted edges.

The wall decorations adhere easily to the wall next to the two beds and can be moved to another wall if they rearrange the room.  The repositionable adhesive Square1 Masterpiece material allows the images to be placed on the walls over and over again.

When the girls want a change, they can take off their photos and add whichever princess is their favorite of the day.

I made each girl an identical set of princess images so they could both choose the same princess without having to share the image and take turns placing it on their wall sign.

The girls needed a place to keep their extra images when they aren't in use on the wall signs.  I created small albums from office supply store plastic report folders and used some glitter Square1 Masterpiece material to add their names and a few stars to the front of each book.  I'll show how I made the books in another post.  The glitter material is amazing and you'll be seeing more projects made with it soon.

The twins loved their wall photos and the little books with all of the spare images.  I haven't checked lately to see how they are holding up to four year old wear and tear - I'll let you know!

Square1 Masterpiece has so many possible uses.  I am sure you can think of lots of ways to make some special projects for gifts or everyday. 

The company is launching a new program for people who want to earn some money with their crafts called the Creative Consultant Program.  You can see all of the details and the contents of the kits that are offered at Square1 Masterpiece.  This is not a direct sales party plan but rather a way for you to purchase product at a discount of 15-30 % and create items to sell at local fairs and shows.  Cara Miller will be providing a training program to help the Creative Consultants "Learn and Earn" as they develop projects for sale using the Square1 Masterpiece  materials.

Please be sure to let me know if you have any questions about the products or the Creative Consultant Program and I will do my best to help.

We made a quick trip to New Jersey last weekend to visit my sister and brother-in-law.  They are planning to move to Virginia to be closer to their grandchildren so this may be the last trip to their house. This photo was taken at sunrise from a third floor window - they have a fantastic view of New York City!  My sister and I had another adventure on Saturday morning - have any guesses about where we went?

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Hidden Treasures from Disney Cartridges

If you are looking for the Creative Charms Farewell Blog Hop, please click HERE to go to Friday's post.  All of the details about the hop are in that post.

 

Welcome to Day 2 of the Disney Pixar Blog Hop.  You should be arriving from Shawn's blog.  If you are visiting by chance you should click HERE to start at the beginning of the hop.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that my posts can get long.  If you are new here, I hope you will find some help and inspiration!

I wanted to try something a little different for my stop on the hop.  These cartridges are usually sought after for the layered character images.  I didn't buy any of the Disney cartridges when I first got my Cricut because our children are older and we are "just not that into" the animated characters.  It seemed that they wouldn't be very useful cartridges to own if you didn't care about the characters.  I soon discovered that there is so much more to like on the cartridges - I think they are worth having even if you never make a character!

There are some great frames, nice flower bunches and lots of hats on the Pooh and Friends cartridge, a wonderful teapot and some realistic shells and sea life on Dreams Come True, faceted gems and a needle and thread on Happily Ever After...and so much more.

 These "extras" are always fun to discover.  I  was using Design Studio to look through the various Disney cartridges I own and I found something on the Mickey and Friends cartridge that really caught my eye and made me start thinking.,.

This shape is meant to be used as the top layer to make a swirly lollipop.  I realized that it would make nice spirals that I could use to make some rolled flowers.

 I set up a mat to cut this image in a variety of sizes.  You don't need Design Studio or the Gypsy to make the flowers, however, you can place the images closer together to save paper if you do work through the software instead of cutting directly from the cartridge.

I used double sided paper from K and Company.  Cardstock could be too thick to curl nicely and text weight paper might be too fragile.  It is important to use double sided paper so there will be color on both sides of the flower.

 When  you lift the cuts from the mat, there are two pieces.  One is already a perfect spiral...

...and the other needs just a short snip with scissors to open up a second spiral.

Then, starting at the outer tip of the spiral, I used the quilling tool from one of my Cuttlebug quilling sets and wound up the strip tightly.  You could probably use a chopstick or skewer to wind the spiral if you don't have a quilling tool.

The strip widens a bit at the end and you should keep that area open for adding the glue to assemble the spiral into a flower.

A glue gun will be the best choice for adhering the end of the flower.  You do need to work quickly so the glue doesn't set up but you will have a little bit of "play" time before it dries.

Half of the spirals will have this type of an end to form the base of the flower.  For the others, you can bend the tip to create a small area to hold the glue.

 A pearl in the center gives the flower a much more finished appearance.  I used some pink Gradient Pearl Stickers from Creative Charms.

 It is difficult to hold on to the flat backed sticky pearl to center it in the flower.  This handy tool helped a lot.  It is a "QuickStik" from QuickKutz.

There is a low tack adhesive that will lift the pearl but then allow you to place and release it once you have the pearl in the right spot.

I prefer to make nearly flat layouts so this sort of flower has too much dimension for me to use it on a scrapbook page.  I decided to decorate a small gift box.  I took some of the smaller flowers and placed them on the box, moving them around until I was happy with the arrangement.

The box is a typical plain white jewelry box.  I could have covered the entire box with paper but I decided to just cut a backing square from paper in the same K and Company stack to fit the lid.

I also added some ribbon around the rim of the lid.  Scor-Tape is the best adhesive I have used for securing ribbon.  It sticks tightly and does not show through the way a liquid glue can.  I used the 1/8th inch tape on this 3/8 inch ribbon.

It is important to remove only a small part of the paper backing at a time - working around the sides so the sticky ribbon won't get tangled.  This ribbon is from American Crafts.

The ribbon adds some more texture and shine to the sides of the box.  You could use a paper strip or two cut to the proper size if you don't have ribbon that coordinates.

This little box would be a nice gift card holder.

 I cut a variety of sizes of spirals and some of the flowers are quite a bit larger.  These three fit nicely on a slightly larger box with just a strip of satin ribbon to dress up the top.

 They also look pretty arranged in a row.  If you cut several sheets of paper in different coordinating colors you could make a beautiful bouquet on the box top.

The finishing touch is the small white Sparkled Butterfly from Creative Charms.

I hope you didn't mind that I took a different "twist" on the Disney theme.  if you are feeling Disney-deprived, you can click on this LINK to see some older posts about the method I use to speed up production of the layered characters (yes, I do sometimes cut them out too!).  If you like videos, you can find the video explanation of this process at THIS POST.

Here is the full list of the blogs in the hop in case you get lost along the way.

Shawn	http://craftychicsblog.blogspot.com/
Diane (HERE)	http://www.capadiadesign.com/
Susan	http://www.cricutforbeginners.com/
Tami	http://scrappinrabbitdesigns.blogspot.com/
Kristal	http://www.gettingcricky.com/
Jessica	http://thecreativestamperspot.blogspot.com/
Kaye	http://yesterdaystomorrow2011.blogspot.com/
Cathie	http://www.creativecutter.org/
Bobbie Jo	http://sweetsassydiva-gspot.blogspot.com/
Jamie	http://jamielanedesigns.blogspot.com/
Kim	http://uscrap2.blogspot.com/
Melissa	http://disneydreamerdesigns.blogspot.com/

Your next stop is Susan's Blog - have fun hopping and don't forget to look for the hidden Mickeys so you can have a chance to win the grand prize - a new Gypsy!

I have a token prize to send to one person who leaves a comment on this post.  Anonymous comments are fine but please be sure to leave some identifying information so I can contact you if your comment comes up in the random draw (message board name, email with (at) and (dot) typed out to avoid spam, etc.).  This is a photo or photo mat storage folder from Creative Memories with 12 journaling mats with Disney characters.

The journaling mats are double sided (one horizontal, one vertical) and are from the Disney Vacation line which is no longer available.  They could also be used for an autograph book.

Have a wonderful Sunday - the first of May!

link to discussion Day #3 - Time to Craft

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Discussion Day #3 - A Perfect Day (and some more blog hopping)

I thoroughly enjoyed the Royal Wedding - everything about it was nearly perfect.  Did you see some of the amazing hats?  We lived in England for five years and the women really do wear hats for special occasions.  I loved looking at them in the millinery departments of the large stores.  Unfortunately, I have thick hair and a relatively large head so it was difficult to find hats that actually fit. 

In 1998, my husband and I had the chance to attend the races at Ascot.  It was not the "Royal Ascot" week that you think of in the play My Fair Lady, however, the Queen, Prince Philip and other members of the Royal Family were in attendance.  I did find a hat that fit for the occasion!

The Creative Charms Farewell Blog hop is continuing through the weekend.  I want to welcome any of you who are here for the first time because you are "hopping" through.  For my project and the full information on the hop, please go back to Friday's post HERE.  If you visit all of the blogs and put the message together you could win the Grand Prize.

I am also participating in a two day Disney Pixar Blog Hop which begins today.  I don't do many blog hops so it is funny that these both ended up on the same weekend.  I am part of the Sunday group so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what I have prepared.  The hop will start on Shawn's blog HERE.  If you are on Facebook you can see the event page HERE.  The Grand Prize for this hop is a Gypsy

 I hope you find lots of inspiration in all of the blogs you can visit on these hops. 

Today is Saturday so it is time for our next "discussion."  I have really enjoyed reading the comments and I hope you have had a chance to check in and see what other have to say.  Last week's discussion about "how much is enough?" was very interesting and made me rethink a few things

A few people wrote that they had typed a long comment and then lost the post when they hit reply.  I don't know if there is a limit to the length of the posts in comments on Blogger or if there was another reason this was a problem.  If you have a lot to say, you might want to type your comment as an email draft and then paste it into the comment form.  If there is a problem you could go ahead and email it to me (capadiadesigns@gmail.com) to add to the body of the post.

 Discussion Day #3 -  Time to Craft

Most of us have many demands on our time.  While we may want to spend time crafting, there are always the daily details of life that require our attention.  The internet is a great resource for information and shopping for supplies, however, it can be a huge time sink. If you are constantly reading about projects that others have done and searching out tutorials for various techniques (or hanging out on message boards or Facebook) you might not get a chance to actually make something during whatever amount of time you have for crafting.

If you had the luxury of a full weekend with no other responsibilities (no job, kids, spouse, cooking, cleaning, laundry, paperwork or other distractions) what would you do?  Are there things you want to try that you haven't had time to investigate?  Are you a chronological scrapbooker who needs to "catch up"?  Do you have a project that doesn't need to be done right away that you'd love to complete ahead of the deadline for once?

Are there tools in your home that you have purchased but have not mastered (or even used!)?  Is there a technique that interests you that seems too complicated, messy or time-consuming to try in your normal schedule?  Would you want to spend some of the time attending a class or crafting with others or would you prefer to be on your own with the luxury of doing whatever you wanted to do?

I'll confess that I have a Wacom Bamboo Craft tablet that I was so excited to purchase with the idea of using it for my digital crafting.  I have only taken it out once and I'd love to spend the day getting to know all that I could do with it.

If there is a specific tool or technique that you have questions about be sure to mention it and perhaps another reader will chime in with some helpful tips for you.  I will also do my best to answer any questions you have if I am familiar with the tool or technique.   I'll continue to leave a link to the topic at the bottom of each post for the week so you can add your thoughts at your convenience.

Have a wonderful weekend and happy hopping! 

(The tulip at the top of this post is blooming in our front yard - I'll have some more to show you with that image in a couple of days...)

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