Albany House (and the stair step project)

Before and after my trip to CHA in Chicago I visited with family in Wisconsin.  My sister and brother-in-law are the owners and innkeepers at Albany House Bed and Breakfast in Albany, Wisconsin.  Albany is a small town about 30 miles south of Madison.  Their website can be found at http://www.albanyhouse.com/  You can get all of the details about the B & B and take a virtual tour on the site.

As you have seen from my photos over the past week - there is something intriguing to look at wherever you go in the B & B or on the grounds.  This is the "bottle garden" in the back of the property where they grow flowers and gourds to decorate the house.  Beyond the gardens are corn fields.

Here is just one example of a creative table arrangement with the garden flowers.  This sort of centerpiece makes it easy to see and get to know your fellow guests over breakfast at the large table in the dining room.  The food is fabulous - both Margie and Ken are excellent cooks.

The main house was built over 100 years ago - you can read the history of the property at this LINK.  The style is influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement with lots of oak woodwork and interesting period details.

The floor in the foyer is made of imported French tiles in this hexagonal pattern and they used this geometric motif for the lawn sign and website.

An old corncrib on the property was moved and renovated into this charming summer house - it is a great place to relax and chat on a hot summer day.

There is a large barn on the property with parking for bicycles (many people come to the B & B and use it as a home base for bicycle touring in the countryside).

Last year they started offering artist workshops which run from Tuesdays to Thursdays once a month in the summer months.  The instruction is by Deborah Meyer, a very talented artist,and there is a limit of 9 artists per session for personalized teaching.  You can see some of Deborah's work on her website HERE.  The workshop classes are held in a section of the barn that has been renovated but still has rustic charm.

Everything I know about collecting I learned from my sister - she has a fabulous "eye" and can spot finds and arrange objects in very pleasing displays.  Aren't these old metal wall pockets in the barn interesting?

Margie has collected pottery for years and there are colorful displays all over the house and even in the barn.  These are great for still life classes.

There are two more workshops this summer.  August 17-19 is called "Explore!" and is aimed at expanding your art horizons with different materials and techniques.  September 14-16 the workshop is "Cards and Gift Items" for a head start on the holidays.  For more details about the workshops you can contact Deborah by email  momwow51 (at) hotmail (dot) com (typed the usual way - I am just trying to prevent spam pickups).

There are also quilting and knitting groups that hold retreats at Albany House and it would be a great place for a cropping getaway as well.

About a year or so ago their neighbor was ready to move into a retirement apartment and they purchased her cottage which is directly across the street and provides river access to the Sugar River for canoeing and kayaking.

They made extensive renovations to turn the cottage into a great vacation rental property.  The second floor was just an attic but now has this lovely bedroom suite with a fireplace and sitting area.

The room is at the top of this steep and narrow set of steps.  Ever since the renovations began, we have been planning on adding a saying to the steps - a little surprise when you open the door to go up to the bedroom.  It was hard to think of the right phrase but the carpenter working with them on the house had a great suggestion. "The rise to the top takes many small steps" is both literally and figuratively true.

I cut the words in Cricut vinyl using the Plantin Schoolbook font before I left on my trip.  I "kiss cut" the vinyl using the medium pressure, medium speed and #4 blade depth.  This will cut the vinyl cleanly but leave the backing intact which makes it much easier to work with the vinyl.  I used the beige Cricut Vinyl in the 12 x 24 size.

I cut the words at three inches and the carpenter's name at 2 1/2 inches.  First we "weeded" the vinyl - in other words we removed all of the background vinyl leaving only the actual letters on the backing sheet.  I had decided not to weld the words because I wanted the look of the separated letters. The Cricut vinyl is very thin and sticky and with this many cutouts I could not salvage the offcuts for another project.

I cut small sections of transfer tape to use on the individual words so I could space them properly on the stair risers.

Then I placed the words on the stair risers trying to get the spacing even but not "too perfect," using the empty vinyl box as a spacer to keep the words level on each riser.  Once we stepped back and were satisfied with the arrangement, I burnished each word on to the risers and peeled off the transfer tape.

It was difficult to get a clear photo in the stairwell but here you can see the final result.  Kelvin is the carpenter who came up with the saying so we attributed the quote to him on the bottom step.  It is in the same shade of vinyl but looks brighter since it is closer to the light.

So that was my "crafty project" at Albany House.  It was fun to do and now we are looking for more places to add words and sayings in vinyl.

If you are interested in staying at Albany House sometime check out the website HERE and tell Margie that "Capadia sent me!"  It is a great place for a getaway and only two hours north of Chicago if you need a break from the city.

Subscribe to Capadia Designs       

You must be the Change....

It has been a long time since my last posting about words on the wall. Today we were celebrating a family birthday and I finally cut and installed this quote for my sister-in-law (we had talked about this months ago but just hadn't done it!). I decided to use a cursive font so I could cut entire words that would weld nicely and stay on a level line. This made installation easier - there were only 12 words plus Gandhi's name. I used blue painter's tape to get a level line on the beam.



The photos are long and skinny so here are a couple of close up views of the quote.



I used the Wall Pops vinyl which cuts beautifully in the Cricut. I set the blade depth at 4 and pressure and speed at medium - these settings cut the vinyl but not the backing so you can just peel the entire word off the backing without having to fuss with separating the letters as you would if you had individual letters fully cut out through the backing.

By using Design Studio, I could conserve the amount of vinyl I needed to use. First, I typed out all of the words and welded them as you can see in this screen shot.



I then checked the quote and realized that I had written "want" instead of "wish," so I fixed that and also added Gandhi's name. Once I had all of the words sorted out, I started copying and pasting them onto additional pages in the file, rotating the words to fit as closely as possible. Here are screen shots of my two cutting mats - one 12 x 24 and one 12 x 12.






For the quote, I set the letter size at 3 inches and I then did Gandhi's name at 1 1/2 inches. I thought that the printing 101 "G" was easier to read than the Cursive 101 "G" so I cut both versions for my sister-in-law to choose her favorite. Below you can see the two choices...



I also cut quote marks and an equal sign to trim for a "dash" before Gandhi's name. I had forgotten the period for the end of the sentence but we just used a regular hole punch to cut one.

By carefully "squeezing" together the words for cutting, I was able to create the entire project with 30 inches of the 6 1/2 inch vinyl stripe size of the Wall Pops. When I bought the vinyl it was about $10 for a 16 foot roll so the cost to make this was very reasonable - less than $2.

Here is a LINK to a few other posts on my blog about wall words projects. These are a lot of fun to do and I am now motivated to get some done for my studio!

Wall Words on the Window

I helped a friend do a bit of decorating for the traditional senior class Faculty and Staff Appreciation Luncheon at our high school. I used Wall Pops and the Alphalicious font at six inches for most of the words. I welded the "Class of" at a four inch size and also welded the "from the" at a 2 inch size. The apostrophe for the "'08" is actually the top part of the exclamation point sized to look proportional.

I had the electric blue wall pops that had been on special at Lowes on hand and by using the Design Studio software I was able to fit the letters together and use only 8 feet of the 6 1/2 inch roll so this was a very economical project. I wasn't sure about the color since the theme was a sort of western picnic but we found that it was almost and exact match for the blinds in that room - a bit of serendipity!

No file here - just another example to show you of vinyl lettering - it was very easy to apply to glass and will come off without leaving a residue (though a quick cleaning will probably be needed for fingerprints!)

More words on the walls

This was a project for a library - the homeowners wanted something related to books but not too long or serious - we ended up with "So many books, so little time!" I used Alphalicious at 6 inches to design this - I like the whimsical nature of this font. I discovered that there is no comma on Alphalicious so I used the one from Plantin Schoolbook.

Here is the view as you enter the library from the most frequently used door.



The number of letters is nearly the same in each phrase but the first part has wider letters (the "m, n and o" are all much wider than the "l, i and t" so it is difficult to get the spacing to work and look balanced. We ended up choosing to keep the spacing from the sculpture in the center consistent which made the first phrase extend a greater distance to the left than the second one extends to the right. Since the room is usually entered from this door, the eye is fooled and it looks like the length is about the same due to the angle at which it is viewed.


Here is a close up of each side of the saying



The capital "S" in Alphalicious is rather short and looks a bit funny (like it might be upside down) so we tried it both ways (flipping the "s" top to bottom) but ended up keeping it as the font is designed.

Painter's tape is very helpful for keeping your lines straight - of course you do have to get the painter's tape on straight to begin with! I used 12 inch rulers propped on the top of the window trim to place the tape. Next time I will try a laser level - that also reduces the risk of a faulty spot in the wall paint lifting when the painter's tape is removed.



I used Design Studio for this project but it is not necessary to have it to do wall words. Using Design Studio just helps you to conserve the amount of material you use since you can lay out the letters to fit tightly together before cutting. I was able to get the entire saying to fit in five feet of 6 1/2 inch "wall pops" material. I also used my 24 inch mat for the first time and this helped to get the letters fit together tightly since I had more room on the mat to "play" with the positioning.

When adding letters randomly like this is is easiest if you write out your phrase and cross off the letters as you add them - this insures that you cut all the letters you need since they are out of order and it is hard to keep track otherwise! Below you can see the "leftovers" - there is some room here to cut out a few more small things so they are in my "save" pile for now!



If you didn't see my earlier post about cutting wall pops in the Expression (February 5, 2008) I will repeat the cutting information here. I have been very happy using blade depth 4, medium pressure and medium speed - the wall pops material is cut cleanly and the backing remains intact which makes it easy to remove from the mat and to transport to the place you will be posting the words. It is important to smooth down the material and get all the air bubbles out before cutting.

No cut file posted this time since everyone will have different ideas about what they want on their walls - I just wanted to show you another idea. (If you want to copy this exact phrase you can email me to send the file to you - contact info is in the right column at the top).

Have fun changing your walls to fit your mood!

Words on the Walls

One of the first things I wanted to do after I got my Cricut was to cut adhesive vinyl and put words and decorations on the walls in my house. I was inspired by a post on the Cricut message board that I saw shortly after I started using my machine. The post was of a very colorful craft room done by Alene, known as "lovemypoodle" on the message board and words can't explain how cute it is - you just have to go to this post to check it out! L@@K my craft room with CRICUT cuts!!

I started off on a much smaller scale and just wanted to put a Christmas phrase on the beam between our kitchen and family room for the holidays. I used Plantin Schoolbook at 3 inches and cut the letters out of dark red "Wall Pops". "Wall Pops" is a brand of adhesive back vinyl that come in about a dozen colors in either 13 inch squares, 13 inch circles or rolls that are 6 1/2 inches by 16 feet. They are sold at wallpaper stores, college bookstores and many, but not all, Lowes stores. At Lowes the regular price is $9.99 for a pack of five squares or five circles or a roll. You can find out more about them and the colors available and sales locations at the Wall Pops website

Here is a photo of the beam with the words



I cut sections of the vinyl that were 12 inches long and stuck it to the left side of the mat and then navigated to the corner using the arrows around the cut button and pushed "set paper size." I had my blade depth at 4, the pressure and speed dials at medium. It cut beautifully - cleanly cutting the vinyl but leaving the backing pretty much intact so I could just peel the letters off and place them one by one. The holly at the end was something I had already cut from paper using the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge and since I didn't have a "Christmas" shade of Wall Pops green I used tape to stick those up at the end.

I have not tried other brands of vinyl yet, including the new Cricut vinyl, but there are many other brands and nearly any color you want is available somewhere. You do want to be careful to make sure that the vinyl has repositionable adhesive that won't damage your walls.

After the holidays, I carefully took the letters down and stored them on some old office page protectors so that I can use them next year. They seem to stay very sticky so I hope they'll be usable for several years before I'll need to cut more.



I didn't have Design Studio yet so I just used the regular Cricut system and had it on "paper saver" - I have read that others have been able to squeeze lots of letters in for their words by using Design Studio to lay them out - just keep track of the letters as you place them so you have enough of everything! Below is the "waste piece" from my new saying for the beam...



It is important to smooth the material down to the mat very well and to make sure that all the air bubbles are out so that you will get good cuts with no shifting - some people have actually used sandpaper to rough up the backing sheet and make it stick down better.

For the next saying I used the Alphalicious cartridge - also at 3 inches. It was a bit more challenging to get such a long saying up in a way that I liked but you can keep repositioning things until you approve of the result! Here are a few photos of my beam right now - it will change when I feel the need for something new (or maybe for another holiday).

close ups



and the whole thing...



Check out the Cricut message board to see lots of other examples of funny and nice things that people are putting on their walls.