Linking and Repairs for Cricut Gypsy

Exciting news for Cricut Gypsy owners was announced yesterday.  After a very long wait it is finally possible to link the cartridges that are on your Gypsy device to the Cricut Craftroom.  You can get all of the details on the Cricut.com site HERE.

There are lengthy instructions and a list of Frequently Asked Questions and you should be sure to read everything and follow these directions carefully.  This long awaited update will allow Gypsy owners with extensive cartridge libraries linked on their devices to use the same cartridges seamlessly with the Cricut Craftroom - they will no longer be required to insert each cartridge before cutting their projects.

There is also helpful news for Gypsy owners with devices that do not work - new repair options were announced.

source - Cricut.com

source Cricut.com

source Cricut.com

In a post on the Cricut Community Message Board HERE, Nathan added some additional information.  He confirmed that the current Gypsy model will no longer be produced but stated that support and content updates will continue to be offered.

The final blow has been dealt to the Cricut Design Studio program.  No more content updates will be provided which means that no cartridges issued after April 11, 2013 can be used with the program.  If you are a Design Studio user be sure to go to the update page HERE, to get the final content update.

The update version number is V130401 - save the file to your computer and then run it to install the last cartridges. 

 

This screen shot shows the cartridges that are added in this update.  The update is very quick since for this final update only the newest cartridges are added.  If you had not updated to the last version, I am not sure how you will be able to add the cartridges you missed since this update only adds the most recent.  If you kept up with the updates your program should be complete.  To find out if your program is up to date, check to see the last font update you installed - the update before this was done last October and the version was V121009 (see my post HERE).  The Teresa Collins December 25th seasonal cartridge and Something to Remember which were both missing from the last update have been included in the final update.

One more note - it is "One Buck Wednesday" at Jessica Sprague  and there are a number of kits that are either $1 or 50% off.  Echo Park, Carta Bella, Jenni Bowlin, Samantha Walker, Lori Whitlock, Carina Gardner and more all have  interesting items to try out at bargain prices for digital scrapping or cutting.  The papers and embellishments can be used for print and cut projects on the Silhouette machines as well.  (Click the image on the left to go to the site).

Do any of you still use Cricut Design Studio?   After years of daily use (sometimes for hours a day) I have used it only rarely since I added the Silhouette machines to my craft room.  It is very hard to switch back to the Cricut program once you get used to the abilities of the Silhouette Studio such as one click shadows and other helpful editing tools.  For anyone who doesn't own a Gypsy (or doesn't like the small black and white screen) and can't easily use the Craftroom due to internet issues, this is the end of an era.

Yesterday I woke up with a very scratchy throat and very little voice - probably allergies since I was outdoors for a long while watching the parade.  I had planned to do a video with the butterfly card instructions yesterday - if my voice improves, I'll do it later today - if not...it will be a words and pictures post for now.

Subscribe to Capadia Designs if you would like to have new posts delivered directly to your email.

Cricut Craftroom Exclusive Cartridges & the New Cricut Circle

There are over 100 digital cartridges that are exclusive to the Cricut Craftroom.  The cartridges can be purchased at Cricut.com  and are listed in a separate category HERE.  I have not been paying careful attention to the cartridges as they are released for a couple of reasons.  I have found the Craftroom program to be difficult to work with and I thought that the prices for these small sets of images was disproportionately high.

When Provo Craft announced that the Cricut Circle was changing to a new program, one of the benefits they gave to existing Circle members (as of July 31, 2012) was free access to all of the craftroom exclusive cartridges for the month of August.  So of course, I decided to take a closer look. 

When digital rights are given to a cartridge in the Craftroom, the rights are also added to the Gypsy when you run the Cricut Sync.  I spent quite a bit of time on Monday, looking through all of the cartridges that are now available on my Gypsy.  I also discovered that there are digital handbooks available for nearly all of the Craftroom Exclusive cartridges.  Many of the cartridges contain more than the three or four shapes you see when the item is listed. The link to the digital cartridge is in the item description on the Cricut site.  These handbooks are PDFs so you can load them onto a tablet or smartphone to look at them
 in your spare time.

Here is an example of one of the cartridge PDFs for the "Movie Night" digital cartridge that sells for $9.99 (the digital cartridges have occasionally been on sale at 20% off so watch for the sale if that seems high to you).

I haven't made up my mind about rejoining the Circle.  The price is drastically reduced but so are the benefits.  I don't really want any of the cartridges that are offered -  I would have preferred a system that would allow you to select any cartridge for your membership cartridge benefit.

Circle membership was offered beginning August 1, 2012 at a new lower price of $79.99 or 3000 Cricut Reward points. The revised benefits do not include a Circle blog, Circle magazine, Circle meetups, contests, early notice about new cartridges (formerly called Wow Wednesday) or other items there were promised for the original Circle but never completed.  The discount and free shipping for orders might be worthwhile but I rarely spend $50 at a time on Cricut.com and cartridges are fairly regularly on sale in the large craft stores for $29.99 (this week at Joann's).

The new membership can be purchased in the shopping section of Cricut.com HERE and includes:

• One cartridge exclusive for one year to Cricut Circle members, or you can choose a different cartridge.
• 10% off of all purchases made on Cricut.com
• Free shipping on orders over $50 made on Cricut.com
• Exclusive promotions on Cricut.com
• Double reward points for purchases on Cricut.com

There is also a separate area of the Cricut messageboard that is open to Circle members only but no definite timeframe was given for keeping that section of the messageboard open.

The Circle cartridges are no longer exclusive to members - after a year they will be available to purchase like any other cartridge.  You have the choice of the Exclusive cartridge "Something to Remember" or five other cartridges, Fontopia, A Quilted Christmas, Dr. Checkup, A Frightful Affair or French Manor (the original exclusive Circle cartridge).

If you were a "Premier Charter of Charter member of the Circle and you rejoin, you can email support to get a $10 credit on your Cricut/com account.  You can also use reward points to pay for a membership but the 3,000 point requirement doesn't seem to make sense since you can purchase a cartridge in rewards for 1,000 points.  If I rejoin, I'll probably pay cash in the hopes that I could do better with my stash of points (having heard repeated promises that the Rewards site is being revamped as well).

So, to get back to the exclusive digital image sets - I actually found quite a few that I like and I am looking forward to using them this month.  If you haven't looked at them lately it might be worth spending the time to scroll through the list.  If you are a former Circle member, it is definitely worth taking advantage of the free use of the images this month.  Maybe if you are a good planner you can precut lots of things you anticipate needing in the coming year!

The big project that I just finished last week involved redoing a group of old magnetic albums that were badly discolored.  There were so many pages that I decided to just do a title page for each book rather than try to decorate every page (it would have taken many days to do that!).

I discovered the French flag and country shape in the France digital cartridge and it worked perfectly for the cover.  I used my Cameo for the title.  I welded the font "French Script" and created a blackout shadow for the welded word with just a few clicks.  The castle for the England books, is from Once Upon a Princess and the title was cut with the Cameo, welded in "Stonehenge" font and shadowed.

I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments:

Have you tried any digital Craftroom Exclusive cartridges?  What do you think of them?  Do you think the prices are fair for the content provided?

Are you thinking about or have you joined the new Circut Circle?  What makes it worthwhile to you to join?  Did  you choose the "exclusive for one year" cartridge or one of the others?

I'll have to make up my mind soon - there are lots of other ways I could spend $80...

Subscribe to Capadia Designs if you would like to have new posts delivered directly to your email.

Happy Flag Day!

It's a beautiful sunny and cool day here in Massachusetts - with a great breeze to show off the flags!

Father's Day is just around the corner - have you made your cards?

If you have a Cricut and use the Craftroom online design program you will find some free cards available to you this week.  Just log into the Craftroom, open a new project.  Select "my cartridges" and you will find the cards listed in bold print. 

I hope you are having a great day!

Subscribe to Capadia Designs

Digital Cartridges and Hello Thursday

Yesterday was "Hello Thursday" - the day when Provocraft announces new cartridges.  There were only two announced - Snow Days and Cricut Font and Basic Shapes.  Snow Days is a seasonal Mini and Cricut Font and Basic Shapes is a digital cartridge that is free with the purchase of the new Cricut Mini machine.  You can check them out on the Hello Thursday page HERE.  Click on the cartridge boxes on the top left shelf to see the "look book" for each cartridge.  Two cartridges may seem like a small number for a Hello Thursday release, however, the new Mini was launched on Monday and there were just twenty digital cartridges released as Craft Room exclusives. 

You can see the Craft Room Exclusives HERE.  The images on the Craft Room Exclusives include some of the often requested categories (such as Greek Letters).  I think the price is high - some sets include only five or six images for $9.99.  However, if there is an image set that you find appealing, it might be a reasonable price to pay.  I used to be happy to pay $10 (with a coupon) for a set of four sizzlits dies which would only cut in one size and did not have layers.

When I checked the Cricut.com site I counted 275 cartridges that are now available as digital cartridges.  You can see them HERE.  This may be good news if you have been trying to find an older or discontinued cartridge, however the prices are full retail prices.  As I understand it, digital cartridges are available to you in the Craft Room and will transfer to your Gypsy for use without a computer or internet access.  The digital cartridges will be added to the Gypsy the next time you run Cricut Sync.  If the images are very new, you might have to wait for an update to add the cartridge to the Gypsy.

If you click on the white shelves in the center of the Hello Thursday page you will see some cartridges that are retiring - however, with the digital cartridge option I am not sure that it matters anymore...

You can see more images and some projects made with the Snow Days and Cricut Font and Basic Shapes cartridges on the Official Cricut Blog. 

(if you are curious about the cut at the top of this post...I'll tell you more about it in a few days)

My hand is healing and we are on our way to Pennsylvania today - I'll try to catch up with email now that I can type a bit better but it may take me a few more days so please be patient.  I do try to answer all emails- if you haven't heard back and it has been a week or more please feel free to send another message - sometimes things get lost in the shuffle!

Have a great weekend!

Subscribe to Capadia Designs 

Veterans Day

Today we honor the men and women who served in the US Armed Forces.  The date of November 11 was chosen because the armistice that ended World War I was signed on that date.  This date is celebrated in many other countries and is sometimes called Armistice Day, Remembrance Day or Poppy Day.

We hear cannons early in the morning every year on Veterans Day.  Our house is not far from the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and our town has a flag retirement and burning ceremony on Veterans Day each year.  The small American flags from all of the graves of veterans are collected and properly disposed of by burning.  In the Spring, new flags will be placed.  Throughout the year, old and tattered flags are collected in the Town Hall and other places and these are all brought to be disposed of.  People can also bring their old flags to the cemetery on the day.

There are three drums for the fires and three lines form as flags are handed to an officer for proper and respectful disposal.  When our sons were home and in Scouts, the Troop helped with the logistics of the flag lines. 

At the end of the ceremony, two trumpet players from the high school play Taps (with an echo).  The sound is quite beautiful in the old cemetery when they play from up on the hillside.

My father served in World War II.  He will be 87 next week.  There are not many World War II veterans with us any more.  Dad has been in the hospital for a couple of weeks (they think he had a minor stroke) but he has improved enough that he will be able to go back to his apartment in time for his birthday.  If you could please keep him in your thoughts as he continues to do the rehabilitation needed to fully recover I'd appreciate it very much.

The new Cricut craft room online design tool is now available to everyone.  If you have not seen the craft room in action yet, you can go HERE and read all about it - then sign up and try it out.  I have very mixed feelings about this tool - there are some aspects that I like but I often find the program gets "stuck" or moves very slowly which can be frustrating.  There are also features that could be added to make the creative possibilities much greater.  I do like having the ability to work with the Imagine content in the program.  Give it a try and see what you think.


Does anyone else think this is a lucky day - just because it is 11-11-11?


Subscribe to Capadia Designs 

'Tis the Season for Snowflakes

I've had several requests to show the complete handbook for the new Creative Memories cartridge, 'Tis the Season.  I am not sure why the handbooks are no longer posted in the Cartridge Library under the Information tab on Cricut.com.  It has been months since any new books have been added.  You can see the books for Reminisce Accents, Cheerful Seasons and Stork's Delivery in the library (just click on the names to go to the booklets).   I posted photos of the book for the Traveler cartridge HERE.

'Tis the Season is a great Christmas cartridge with lots of traditional and modern images.  The word art is particularly good and works for scrapbook pages or cards.  The Creative Memories cartridges cost more than the average sale price of some cartridges, however, they all are well designed full cartridges with both fonts and images.  The collection is growing and it seems to be hitting all of the most commonly scrapbooked topics.  I think that cartridges represent a great value when you look at the number and types of images available.  I remember when I used to be thrilled to get a set of four dies that each cut one image in one size for $10 on sale.  A cartridge gives you so many more options with many cuts and a great variation in sizes possible.

I have photographed my book to share so you can get a good look at everything this cartridge has to offer.  If you don't have many holiday cartridges, this would be a great addition to your collection.  If you have most of the other Christmas cartridges, you will need to look closely at the items on this cartridge to see if they are different enough to make the cart worthwhile for you.

I know that many of you probably have friends or relatives who are Creative Memories consultants.  I don't want to interfere with any existing relationship you have with a consultant.  However, if you don't know anyone local to you who sells Creative Memories, I would be very happy to help you with any questions.  If you live in the US, you can order these cartridges from my Creative Memories personal website and have them shipped directly to your address. If you are in another location, I may be able to refer you to someone who can help you in your location so send me an email and I'll see if I can get you a referral.  All of the cartridges are located on THIS PAGE of my personal website.

I spent quite a while taking and editing these photos and I didn't get a chance to watermark them.  Please respect my work and do not copy these images to share on any other site.  You are welcome to share a link to this post if you want to help someone who is looking for this information.

The main images on the first half of the cartridge coordinate with the "Noel" paper line from Creative Memories.  You can click on any of these images to see them at a larger size.

The main images on the second half of the cartridge coordinate with the "Holidazzle" paper line from Creative Memories.

The last row of keys will cut some lovely snowflakes in the feature section for the Sleigh Ride font.  Since I am so smitten with snowflakes - I had to try these out.

 I cut all of the snowflakes at three inches, except for the space age example in the lower right corner.  This was cut at two inches so I could fit all of the flakes on one 12 x 12 piece of white gemstone Core'dinations cardstock.  I had a little bit of trouble with one snowflake (with the curlicues) but I was happy with the detailed cuts on the others.

Each snowflake has a shadow backing that adds more interest to the cuts and holds the loose center sections of several of the flakes.  Here I used some Core'dinations Couture glitter cardstock in a light blue for the backing.

I have a few special tips on ways to use these snowflakes that I will share tomorrow.  When I checked last night, this cartridge had not been added to Design Studio and it did not appear after updating my Gypsy.  I'll let you know when I see that the updates are available - there are a couple of ideas that I want to try out that involve welding and hide contour...  You can use the cartridge in the Cricut Craft Room online design tool.  There was another update to the Craft Room and it is now possible to start linking your cartridges to your account.  I'll be posting more about the Craft Room soon - I wonder how many of you are using it and what you think about it?

Most of the snowflakes in our yard have melted - but they do say that this may be an extreme winter - I am crossing my fingers that the predictions will be wrong.  I still prefer the paper kind of snowflakes!

Subscribe to Capadia Designs