Love Card - For Valentine's Day or anytime

I hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day.  I meant to post this earlier in the day but I got busy with some projects and didn't sit down to write it up until evening.  I am close to figuring out a way to make a cut that has been very tricky to figure out...more about that later.

 

This is a special Valentine but could be used for other occasions too.  I used mirror cardstock for the heart which is very difficult to photograph effectively.

Here are the pieces of the card.  It is a simple design made more elegant with the glitter and mirror cardstock.  The A2 card base is Papertrey Ink dark chocolate - I like pink and brown together.  The heart paper is from K & Company - Kelly Panacci Valentine - cut at 5 1/4 x 4 inches.  The red mirror cardstock is DCWV from the Citrus Cardstock Stack and the white glitter cardstock is also DCWV.

 

I designed the card with Design Studio.  The card base and the pink layer are just guides to help me see how to size the heart and floral decorations.  I do not cut these from the file.  I used the heart from George but altered the shape slightly to fit the floral pieces.

Here is the floral spray I used - they look a bit like lily of the valley.  The size was about 2 1/2 inches - I adjusted it with the "handles" in Design Studio to 2.561 inches.

The "Love" sentiment is from Martha Stewart Seasonal Cake Art.  I really like the word art on all of the Martha Stewart cartridges - it is great for card makers as well as cake bakers!

At the 1 1/4 inch height the word is far too wide to fit in the heart, so I used the "handles" to adjust the size to 1.959 inches to fit nicely.

 Once I had my elements sized appropriately, I moved them to one mat to set up the cutting.  I label the tabs with the color and size of cardstock needed for each cut.  In this case, I put them on separate mats so I could change the blade and pressure settings since I planned to use vinyl for the heart.  I made one screen shot to post to show the placement.

I originally planned to use some of the red glitter vinyl for the card but I decided it was too flashy and did not have the elegant look I wanted.  I'll be able to use the heart I cut on another project.

When I cut the DCWV glitter cardstock I use blade depth 6, high pressure and multi cut 2 times.  Sometimes one cut will work but I prefer to do the second cut to get clean edges.  Occasionally, I need to do a third cut.  I cut the mirror cardstock with blade 5, high pressure and speed - there is no need to multicut.

I added all of the glitter elements to the red heart.  You need to be careful with your adhesive as it is difficult to remove marks from the mirror cardstock.  If you get extra adhesive showing you can try using a gum eraser to pick it up and polish the cardstock with a photo polishing cloth.

I added foam circles to give a little more dimension to the card.

Just that slight elevation adds a lot to the card and it is still easy to mail.

 I think the slight gap between the heart and the white stem that allows the pink cardstock to show through is interesting.

The mirror finish on the cardstock is so pretty - I tried another photo with different lighting to try to show you the effect.

I broke my usual rule of using only one or two cartridges - sometimes you find just the right thing in a lot of different places.

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day - we had a quiet evening at home with a special home cooked dinner.  We'll be eating lots of restaurant meals on the cruise so we weren't very motivated to go out tonight!

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Woven Heart Basket for Valentine's Day

I enjoy making these woven hearts for Valentine's Day (and other holidays too).  They are a typical Scandinavian decoration.  You probably have made these before.  Usually you cut out the pieces by hand using a template, but I decided to make some files to give me more time to do other things while my hearts are cut out by my Cricut.

I had some other things going on Saturday so I won't be able to do a full explanation right now.  If you don't know how to weave these together there are several sites that can show you - just search for "Scandinavian Woven Hearts."

 

Since Valentine's Day is Monday, I wanted to get the files posted for anyone who still needs to make some decorations.  I ended up testing the Gypsy file and ran into some problems (that I have fixed) so by the time I did all of my fixing there was not time left to write up the step by step.  I have lots more photos and some explanation of the design process to add sometime on Sunday so check back.

I have almost figured out the file for this variation (I first saw this idea in the Family Fun magazine).  I cut this sample with my Cricut, but I needed to hand cut to complete some of the curved cuts so it doesn't look as sharp as I'd like.  I am still trying to make it perfect...

Here are the file download links - I used Plantin Schoolbook but you could convert the file for any other cartridge that has a rectangle and a circle.  Please be sure to click only on the file download buttons and not to download anything else on the 4shared - apparently there is a toolbar that some people downloaded (which you do not need) and then they had computer issues.  I am still working out an alternative hosting site but for today - 4shared will do.

 I have paid for a premium service to make direct downloads available to my readers.  I do have a donate button near the top of the right column if you would like to make a donation to show appreciation for the files and to help with the cost of this service - Thanks!

Woven Heart DESIGN STUDIO


Woven Heart GYPSY

If you download the files have fun making these heart baskets - they do get easier with practice!

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Scalloped Heart Tutorial

I wanted to share this file quickly since many people are working on Valentine's Day projects now.  For a variety of reasons that I won't go into now, I haven't made a video but I will explain briefly how I designed this heart.  I used Plantin Schoolbook for the heart but you could try with any other cartridge with a circle.  A heart shape is helpful but not required.

There are more and more cartridges with scalloped shapes available.  Standard scalloped squares, circles, rectangles and ovals are on quite a few cartridges.  Regularly shaped scalloped hearts are a bit harder to find.  There are some wonderful scalloped hearts on the Martha Stewart Cake Art cartridges.

You can use one of these hearts as a template to help you design a plain scalloped heart from circles and other shapes.  I chose this heart from the MS Seasonal Cake Art cartridge and placed a four inch image on the mat.

Then I selected a circle from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and adjusted the size to fit neatly in one of the scallops.

You can quickly fill the outline of the shape with circles by copying and pasting and repositioning the circle.  To make  the process go more quickly use the keyboard shortcuts "control C" to copy and "control V" to paste and hold down the "alt" key to temporarily make the handles disappear as you place the circles around the heart.

You can work on the same page as the template heart or you can preview the heart and work on another layer of the file to create the circle outline of the heart.

When all of the circles have been placed you can preview the design.  Be sure to weld the circles.  If you checked weld on the very first circle before copying and pasting each circle will already be welded.  If you did not check weld for the first circle, you can click your mouse on a corner of the mat and drag it to include all of the circle shapes and then check weld for the entire group at once.  You now have a frame which needs to be filled in.

For this heart, I added the heart from Plantin Schoolbook and stretched and squeezed it a bit to fit the heart shape.

When I previewed the design, there were four spots where the heart left a gap between the edge of the heart and the heart frame made from circles.

 I added a couple of circles that I stretched and rotated to cover the gap areas.

When the design is previewed, there are some problems with the welds.  The gaps remain on one side and the new shape will cut from the shape without welding.

To fix this, you need to change the order in which the items are added to the design and "burp" the heart.  To do this, simply select one of the outer circles near the inner circle that covers the gaps and then Copy-Delete-Paste the circle back again.  Do this for both sides - you may have to do it to more than one of the outer circles but eventually the preview will show proper welds.

Here is the final shape.  There are two circles near the top that I adjusted to be slightly larger to keep a good fit and continuity with the design.

Here is the preview of the scalloped heart.  To change the size of the entire shape, click on the mat and drag your mouse to the opposite corner around the items in order to select them.  Then hold down the control key and use the handles on the one items in the shape to resize the group as a unit.
 

I decided to make a separate layer with the circles only to use as a trim on the heart shape.  I did this by simply copying and pasting the circles to another mat.

If you want to do a color preview, you will need to click, drag and select the entire group for the heart or the frame and then uncheck the weld box.  Be sure to redo the weld before cutting or you will have a mess!

The Martha Stewart cartridges are full of great images, fonts, borders and sentiments.  You will probably want to add all of them to your collection because they are so versatile.  It would be very difficult to recreate most of the images.  However, if you need a certain shape right away (perhaps you are a late night crafter like me?) and don't have the cartridge with the image you want, you can sometimes use Design Studio or the Gypsy to make your own version.

It doesn't take too long to make this heart and I encourage you to try it out following these directions.  If you are impatient you can download my file at the link below.  This is still a 4shared link as I haven't had time to set up a new account somewhere else.  I hope that there will not be any issues with the downloads after all of the trouble I had with the gypsy files.  This is a Design Studio file.

These are my trial cuts. I'll add some bling and use them for a card.  They would also make cute "paper cookies" for a Valentine's tree (I wonder if any of you put up a Valentine's tree?).

What other sweet projects are you working on?  I hope this heart comes in handy for you.

Scalloped Heart

Happy Australia Day to all of  my Aussie friends! 
I am finishing my packing today and should be flying to LA early tomorrow morning to meet up with Mandy, Jane, Enfys and lots of others at CHA.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that the storms don't keep me from flying... 


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Snow Day - and a little Valentine project

Happy Thursday - it is the next to last day of my time as Guest Designer at Everyday Cricut.   If you have arrived from the Everyday Cricut blog welcome!  If you are visiting my blog for the first time, I hope you will find lots of interesting and helpful information.  At the top of the right column you can click to subscribe by email or follow this blog if you want to keep up with my projects and tutorials. It has been a very busy week and I have so many more Valentine's projects on the go - I hope you will continue to visit my blog to see them in the coming weeks.

Today on the Everyday Cricut blog I posted another card...

...and a cupcake holder - both made with the Ornamental Iron cartridge.

I have a tiny pink tree that I will be decorating for Valentine's Day.  Last year, I saw these heart shaped ornaments at Michael's and picked them up to make some new decorations for my tree.  I used the "floor wax" method to make glitter ornaments.  These have been very popular and many of you probably know how to make these and have made some of your own.

If you are not familiar with the process you can read more about it at THIS POST.  It is fun and easy to do and the effect is magical!   I first heard about these from Joy and I have made many ornaments in the past two years.

I used two different shades of Martha Stewart glitter - the red is Garnet and the pink is Tourmaline.  The heart ornaments are fairly small and don't take as much glitter as the large ones I did for Christmas.

I cut the words "adore" and "love" from the Home Decor cartridge at one inch.  I used white "Wall-pops" vinyl and kiss cut it with the settings blade 4, medium pressure and medium speed.  You do not need the deep cut blade to cut vinyl - it actually cuts more easily than paper.

The words are very thin so the vinyl will easily wrap around the ornament and stay smoothly adhered with no bumps or bubbles.

I may add a few more words to the variety of hearts.  These ornaments just need a little dressing up to be ready for the tree.

When you make these ornaments it is a good idea to save the boxes they come in so you can pack them away safely.  All of the ornaments I have made are still looking great with no loss of glitter noticeable.

I am hoping to have a chance later today to record some video lessons on how to make a few of the projects I have been sharing this week.  It has been a very busy week and today we had the distraction of the huge snowstorm!  Fortunately we didn't lose power.  I hope you haven't had problems with the storms.

The TV weather map tonight was something to see - white nearly everywhere.  There is snow on the ground of every State in the lower 48 except Florida - now that's unusual!

The snow was wet and sticky on the side of the house.

The outdoor tress are buried halfway and the strands of lights on the deck are partly under the snow.

 You can just barely see the tip of the candy cane that marks our front walkway.

There are walls lining the paths through the snow - about 16-18 inches deep here.

 Fortunately we have a snowblower and my husband is an expert at clearing our paths and driveway.

The snow is piled high on the deck railings and clinging to the trees.

As long as we are safe and warm inside it is fun to see the changes this amount of snow brings.  I am planning to stay inside as much as I can and hope to spend most of the day crafting!

Have a great day and be sure to check back to see if I have posted any of the videos.  I have a few more things to finish up for tomorrow - one of them is very tasty!  I'll also have a little surprise to tell you about to finish out the week of Guest Designing on Everyday Cricut and I think you will like it!


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