75th Birthday Card

We had a family get together today for my father-in-law's Birthday (he will be 75 in a few days). Of course, this called for a card! I wanted to try out the foil cardstock from my DCWV Citrus paper stack so I set about designing a card to feature the shiny mirror finish paper. I decided to use the blue (the stack comes with blue and red foil papers).



I wanted the card to have a more "masculine" look so I chose the "Opposites Attract" cartridge. This cartridge has both a bold blocky font and two variations of a cursive font. I used the "Opposite" font for the "75" and the "Upright" cursive font for the "th" I welded to the number and the "Happy Birthday" which I welded as a separate unit to place on top of the "75." If you position all of the letters in the manner you want them to weld, but leave weld unchecked, you can try previewing different colors for each page to see the effect of various colors for contrast.



Once you have chosen your colors, be sure to go back and check "weld" so your letters and numbers will cut as one unit. You can double check this by previewing - if the shapes show up as a dark black line with no color inside they are welded.

The green and blue in the above screen shot are sizing rectangles - the blue represents an A2 card front (4.25 inches wide and 5.5 inches high) and the green is 4 inches wide and 5.25 inches high to represent a layer option with a one eighth inch border. When I did my test cuts, I actually cut the smaller rectangle so I would have a useful negative cut I could layer on the card top if I liked the look.



Here are two versions of the card. I used the blue foil and the bright green and orange cardstock from the Citrus cardstock stack and some glitter stripe cardstock from the Citrus stack to try various options for the card. The foil cardstock is very attractive - the shine is dramatic (and difficult to photograph!).



For this card, I inked the edges of the card, orange layer and "75th" with blue ink. The foil "Happy Birthday" looks great with the glitter cardstock.



This is the version of the card we decided to give - the shiny "75th" is the focal point with the "Happy Birthday" in orange layered on top.



Here is a close view of the "Happy Birthday" - I added white dots to give it a bit more "spark."



Yet another variation could be made using the offcut from the "75th" cut - you'd need to be sure to save the small piece between the "5" and the "t" and to adhere it in the correct position.

It is a lot of fun to experiment with various combinations of papers in the same design and to see the difference it can make for your cards.

President-elect Obama Sign Card

We were invited to join a group of friends for a potluck dinner and to watch the election results last night. Our hosts had done a lot of campaigning for Obama over the past months. About an hour before it was time to go to their house, I got the idea to make this sign card for them.

Below you can see the "wrapped" card.



I used 140 lb. watercolor paper and planned the letters to be four inches wide and nearly eight inches tall. I added stars as part of the design in strategic positions to strengthen the folds where the letters did not have much of a connection. I cut extra layers of stars in star paper and red cardstock to add to the design.



The paper I used is much thicker than regular cardstock so I used multi cut x2 to be sure that the letters would cut cleanly. The paper was 18 x 24 so I cut it in half lengthwise for the 12 x 24 mat. I used the "opposite" font on Opposites Attract and stars from the George cartridge. Above is the plain cut which I scored at four inch intervals and then accordion folded.

After adhering the stars, I used a Martha Stewart glitter pen to outline the stars and the edges of all the letters. These pens are very sparkly - sorry, the photo does not really do them justice.



The card stands easily due to the use of extra heavy paper and the accordion folding.



Was the card a good luck token? Our friends put it by the TV and, shortly after the polls closed on the West Coast, the race was called and Barack Obama was elected to be the next President of the United States.

Seaside Fun

I did another adjustable title design - these really are addictive! (The tutorial explaining how to create this type of design is linked at the top right corner of the page). If you choose your elements carefully, you can take advantage of the layering available on many of the Cricut cartridges.

I selected the ocean elements (waves, seahorse, starfish) from the Dreams Come True cartridge (they go with Ariel from the "The Little Mermaid") and also used the upright upper case font from Opposites Attract. The original design in a few sizes is on the first page of the file. After I created the full design, I used the shape properties box to create a border/title for a 12 x 12 page by setting the height at 3.5 inches and the width at 11.5 inches. This is set up on the second page of the file. The third page just shows the design stretched to cover most of the page - you can play around with it to get comfortable with using the "handles" (but remember to always keep at least one copy of the original design so you don't need to download it again)!

When I changed the settings to fit the design to the 12 x 12 page, the elements changed in their proportions. I needed to select the layer options for the seahorse and starfish and then place each one over the modified design and use the stretching handles (lower right for both directions, center left for horizontal stretch and center bottom for vertical stretch) to size the layers individually. Once I had them matching the base layer, I placed them in positions on the mat where I could use the "multiple colors of paper all cutting at once" method to get the cuts I needed for this design at the same time (this is the method I have explained in previous posts about making the Disney Princesses).


Above is a screen shot of the placement of the elements (the layers show in solid blue since they are not welded) and below you can see how the mat was set up and the results after cutting.



Below you can see all of the elements after they were removed from the mat (all placed on a 12 x 12 sheet of card stock so you can see the relative sizes).




If you look carefully at the screen shot you can see that there is some overlap of the waves and the seahorse in the design. This area will need to be trimmed so the layers will work properly (and the blue wave will not show through the detail holes on the seahorse).

Below you can see the wave before and after trimming. In the photo I had the top and bottom waves reversed (be careful they are easy to confuse!) but when you try to adhere them you will realize which one belongs in each position. You can leave these untrimmed and just tuck them under the seahorse.



It is fine to put the adhesive on the waves base layer, but you should put the adhesive on the top layer for the starfish and seahorse to avoid any chance of glue showing through the detail holes.









Below is the title with the layers added



You can also try offsetting the layers a bit for a different effect. I think this is particularly effective for the waves.



You will also have these offcuts which can be used for another project.



This should be useful for summer vacation pages - I hope some of you will have photos that work with this design. You could cut out additional seaside elements and placed them around the layout to tie things all together.

Seaside Fun (A)

Easter treat bags

I really haven't used my Cricut as a stand alone machine since I started using the Design Studio software. These treat bags for some of our nieces and nephews were made using the shopping bag on the Tags Bags Boxes and More cartridge. I used the software to set them up to cut two bags at the maximum size possible on a 12 x 12 inch piece of card stock and to use the remaining space to cut out some small flowers.

I find it so helpful to be able to lay out the cuts that I want and to see exactly how they fit on the paper. Here is a screen shot of the cut



and here is the "leftover" piece after cutting this file which shows how I maximized the use of the paper



When I scored the bag for cutting I found that the paper I was using (DCWV with a white core) was not the best choice for this project. After folding on the score lines the paper "cracked," revealing the white core which made the edges look sloppy.



On this close up shot you can see how distracting these white areas are - not the look I wanted at all!



Fortunately, by reversing the folds and using the "wrong" side of the paper (with a less dramatic texture), I was able to make the bag neatly.



Here is the finished prototype bag with a flower cut from glitter card stock (multiple cuts at high pressure and 6 blade depth were required to cut this flower!)



For my Easter treat bags, I used card stock that was solid color to avoid the white core problem. I was able to cut two on a sheet and I used some of the flowers to decorate the bags. First I ran them through my paper crimper - I have had this tool for years but rarely used it (I think I will be using it more now!).

I used a colorful eyelet to secure the flowers to the bags. Here is a photo of the crimper - it is made by Fiskars and I think it is still available at craft stores (there are probably some other brands and styles out there as well).



I set up a cut file with all of the names and cut them from Wall Pops vinyl - it sticks to paper just like it sticks to walls! I used part of a 12 inch by 6 1/2 iinch strip for the names and the upright feature of the Opposites Attract font for the names which I welded and then stretched or shrank to fit comfortably on the bag fronts. Once again the 4 blade depth, medium speed and medium pressure worked like a charm to cut the vinyl cleanly without cutting the backing sheet. Here is the "leftover" vinyl - there is room to cut more from this sheet so it is in my "save" pile waiting for the next project!



Using the thin vinyl to label the bags gave the front a smoother look than it would have had if I had used paper and glued it - it was also a big time saver since the vinyl is adhesive backed.

Finally, a photo of the basket of filled treat bags with jelly beans, "grass" and fancy Spring chocolates.



No cut files since your young relatives most likely have different names (!) and I really just wanted to show how helpful the software can be when you want to cut using the designs that are on the cartridges without combining them in new ways.