Merry Christmas Ribbon and Hello Thursday

Happy Friday!  Just a little over a week left before Christmas and I still have lots to do but I think it will all get done (fingers crossed!).  How are you doing with your last minute preparations?

First things first - I wish I had enough ribbon to send some to all of you but I had to draw three numbers and here are the names that came up... 

Kris

Rosie

Pam (Old Teacher)

I have the envelopes all ready to go - I just need your addresses so please email me at capadiadesigns@gmail.com so I can send these out today.

Thanks to everyone who left a comment - I really appreciated some of the sweet things you had to say.

Hello Thursday - New Cartridges

Yesterday was "Hello Thursday" (the day when new Cricut cartridges are announced).  Here is a quick summary of the new releases and some links for you.   With the Cricut Craft Room operating now there are also digital cartridges released fairly often - you can always check the cricut.com site shopping page HERE to see all of the cartridges that are available digitally. 

There were two Imagine and two regular cartridges announced yesterday.  You can click on the names to go to Hello Thursday page on Cricut.com.  Click on the "cartridge box" on the top left shelf to go to the "Look Book" for each cartridge.

This and That is a Creative Memories exclusive and it is just what it sounds like - a mixture of this and that.  There are a lot of "cute" images, some nice word art, two alphabets and monogram sets.  This cartridge will be available in January.  As a Creative Memories consultant, I can order one copy now.  I am not sure that the content on this cartridge adds a lot to your collection if you already have a good variety of cartridges.  The colors used for the sample projects don't really show off the images at their best.  This is a cartridge that you will need to study to see if it adds enough to your collection to justify the price.

Victorian Romance is a seasonal cartridge with a limited number of images (usually just 50 keys are used for these cartridges with some layered images - I counted 23 total assembled images).  There are cupids and old fashioned couples, keys, a couple of pretty hearts and some 3D objects.  Once again, it is a matter of taste - some people will really like the style.  I actually prefer the "Lovestruck" cartridge from 2010 which is now available as a digital cartridge.  Take a look and see what you think.

The Good Old Days is an Imagine Art cartridge with a full set of layered images and 20 papers.  The cartridge is another Cosmo Cricket collaboration.  The images look like vintage illustrations from books and advertising and they are very nostalgic with a "clip art" vibe.  Of the 20 papers, nine are just different colorways of the same polka dot pattern.  Once again - you will either like this or not, depending on your personal style.  I am on the fence - there are a few images that I would probably use and I like some of the papers but I am not sure that it is a "must have" for me.

Notebook Doodles is an Imagine Pattern cartridge.  It has notebook paper and graph paper and sheets full of doodles.  Most of the doodle sheets are repeated in different colors or in color and black and white.  Once again - some will like this and some will pass.  I don't think I would use this one very much but it could be fun for some types of projects.

You can get another good look at the images and see some projects made with the new cartridges on the Official Cricut Blog.

Be sure to check out the Hello Thursday blogs for more great ideas - 

Joy's blog

Melanie's blog

Tammy's blog

Mixology blog

Four cartridges are now available as digital cartridges - Art Nouveau, Chic and Scary, Simply Scarecrows and Something to Celebrate.

Eight cartridges were added to the retiring list - DC Comics - Batman:  The Brave and the Bold, DC Comics - Superman, Forever Young, Pink Journey, Pagoda, Paisley, Sentimentals and Walk in My Garden.  I found all of these except Pink Journey listed as available as digital cartridges. (I may have missed Pink Journey - there are so many categories to look through!).

Whew!  That was a long wordy post with no pictures - not at all typical for me!  Here is a little sneak peek at the project I have to share with you tomorrow. So far - this is the only snow I have seen around here! 

Don't forget to check in and see what is new at Blitsy today - they put up the new sales at about 10 a.m. Central time.  If you haven't joined this free membership shopping site yet, here is my link that you can use to sign up - there is no cost or obligation for you to sign up. 

http://blitsy.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/989/ 

After you join, you can refer your friends and family - go to the "invites" page to get your link and you may earn some credits to use for shopping on the site.  Sales last for a week (while supplies last) and new items are posted on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and 10 a.m. Central Time.  If you become a "fan" of Blitsy on Facebook, you can get a code for 10% off your first order - on top of the great prices they have already!

I hope you have a wonderful day!

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More new cartridges -

 

Six new Cricut cartridges were announced on Thursday - the second of three "Hello Thursdays" for the month of June. These are all full cartridges. 

The six new cartridges are 

Ornamental Iron 2  

Summer Celebrations

Autumn Celebrations 

Phrases

Sophisticated (designed by Teresa Collins)

and Traveler  (exclusive to Creative Memories). 

The first five cartridges are already available on the Cricut.com site for $59.99, click HERE to go to the page (Phrases is showing out of stock at the moment).  One cartridge (Traveler) is exclusive to Creative Memories.  I have ordered this cartridge (consultants can order one of each new item early) but it won't be available to purchase on my Creative Memories website until July 1st.  I'll post a review once I have received it and have a chance to try it out.

If you click on the colorful names of each cartridge, the link will take you to the Cricut.com product page for the cartridge.  There do not seem to be any "Look Books" for these cartridges.

You should also visit the Official Cricut Blog to see more information and projects featuring the new cartridges.   Click HERE to go to the post for Hello Thursday.

You can see even more projects on the Hello Thursday blogs:

Joy's blog 

Melanie's blog

Robyn's blog

Tammy's blog 

Mixology Crafts


Retiring Cartridges

Tinkerbell & Friends 
Cars
Pooh Font
Mickey Font 
Happily Ever After and  
Dinosaur Tracks
 

Six more cartridges will be retiring.  These are all on sale for $34.99 on the Cricut.com site right now (click the titles to link to the site) and can probably be found at other retailers for competitive prices.  If you want to see the full content of these cartridges you should go to the Cartridge Library on Cricut.com where you can find PDFs of the full handbooks.

When I checked Thursday night, the new cartridges had not been added to the Cartridge Library and there was not an update for Design Studio to include them.

I have just assembled the information and links for you in this post - I haven't really had a chance to look over the cartridge images in detail.  The Creative Memories cartridges have been excellent so far and it looks like Traveler will also be very good.  Ornamental Iron 2 is just the sort of thing I like and the designs on Sophisticated look useful to me as well.  The Summer and Autumn Celebrations cartridges and the Phrase cartridge will probably be ones that I'll need to see in detail to decide if there are enough images that I would use.  The style and type of layering on the Celebrations cartridges doesn't appeal to me at first glance and I am not sure how many of the Phrases I would use - I like to make my own phrases and word art.

(Can you guess where I am from the photos?  I am sure that a few of you can!).

Here is a sneak peek at part of the project I was going to post today (until I remembered that this was a month full of "Hello Thursdays").

link to Discussion Day #5 - Life is too Short...


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New Cricut Cartridges (and a new way to look at them)

Five new Cricut cartridges were announced on Thursday - the first of three "Hello Thursdays" for the month of June. There is also a new way to view and evaluate the cartridge releases that I think many people will find quite helpful. 

The five new cartridges are 

9 Months  

Love You a Latte  

Recess

Sweet Shop

(these are Lite cartridges)

and County Fair (this is a full content cartridge which will be exclusive to HSN). 

If you click on the colorful names of each cartridge, the link will take you to the "Look Book" for the cartridge.  You will see images of the assembled cuts from the cartridges, the "Cartridge in a Minute" video introduction and some still images of the projects featured in the video.  (These are flash based and may not be viewable from all devices).

You should also visit the Official Cricut Blog to see more information and projects featuring the new cartridges.   Click HERE to go to the post for Hello Thursday.

The first four cartridges are already available on the Cricut.com site for $39.99, click HERE to go to the page. 

You can see even more projects on the Hello Thursday blogs - Joy and Melanie had projects up late Thursday night and these links will take you to their posts.  I'll add direct links to Robyn and Tammy's posts  and the Mixology blog whenever I see their Hello Thursday posts (most likely on Friday).

Joy's blog 

Melanie's blog

Robyn's blog

Tammy's blog 

Mixology Crafts


Speaking of Fall and Opposites Attract will be retiring, so if you were thinking about either of these you should try to get them now before they are difficult to find. If you click on the names of these cartridges you will go to the Cartridge Library on Cricut.com where you can find PDFs of the full handbooks so you can see everything on the cartridges.

When I checked Thursday night, the new cartridges had not been added to the Cartridge Library and there was not an update for Design Studio to include them.  I hope these will be added soon.  You can see the tri-fold guides and sample sheets for the Lite cartridges on the Official Cricut Blog HERE.

The new cartridges are all similar to existing cartridges with some slight differences.  For example, there are already quite a few baby cartridges, however, 9 Months is focused on the pregnancy and has some unusual images, such as an ultrasound.  I'll have to take a careful look to see if there are enough images on any of these cartridges to justify adding them to my already full shelves!



link to Discussion Day #5 - Life is too Short...


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Shaped Card for Sparkly Snowman

This snowman really is sweet.  I think he looks like he is asking for a hug!  As promised, today I will show you how to make the shaped card base.  If you have Design Studio or the Gypsy you can make truly custom cards by adapting shapes from your cartridges.

The Reminisce Accents cartridge has an amazing variety of frames with layers and shadows.  These are fun to cut as they are designed and used as card toppers or journaling spaces.  With a few simple steps you can also turn these shapes into cards.  Remember, you can click on any image to see it in a larger size and read the notes more easily.

I chose this shape which is the last one in the fourth row.  As you can see, when you place it on the mat with the slider bar set at 5 1/2 inches the proportions are not correct for a standard A2 card.

Whenever I make a card or a topper for a card, I use a guideline rectangle to make sure that my elements will fit neatly.  For a vertical A2 card you need a rectangle 8 1/2 inches wide and 5 1/2 inches high.  I center it on the mat with the x value at 1.75 and the Y value at .3 - these numbers will work for the 6 or 12 inch mat.  Use the upper left handle to position the shadow shape so it is touching the top of the guideline rectangle and the center line on the mat.  Then use the handles at the center right and bottom center to fit the shape to the guideline rectangle.

Once you have fit the shape into the guideline, check weld while the original shape is selected and then copy, paste and then flip the shape (check flip in the Shape Properties Box). You need to flip the shape to be sure that the front and back of the card will match.  Some shapes appear to be symmetrical but they seldom are perfectly symmetrical.  Then use the center left handle to slide the shape to the left until it lines up with the left edge of the guideline rectangle.

In order to give a solid spine to the card and to create a shape that the frame will fit correctly, you can add another shaped to be welded inside the card.  this can be any handy shape on the cartridge that will cover the center area and create a solid area to fold the card.  At this point you can copy and delete the rectangle and paste it to another mat in the file to use for previewing the card.

Preview the card by clicking the eyeball.  In most cases you will have a problem with the weld because the center shape was added after the two card sides.  You can see by the dark lines that the center will have unwanted cuts.  You need to "burp" the design.  This means that you need to copy one side of the card, then click delete and then paste it back again.  In Design Studio, the pasted shape will go to the exact position that the original was in so your card will be intact again with no adjustments.

Preview again and you can see that the center of the card is now solid and only the dark outer lines will cut.

Now all you need to do is to adjust the frame to fit the new card shape.  You can add the frame to this mat or place it on another and preview the file again.  Use the handles to move it into position and reshape the frame so it fits the card nicely.  If you were working on the same mat that contains the final card to cut, copy and paste the frame to another mat so you can cut it.

This was my first test cut of the file.  I usually cut a design in ordinary cardstock to be sure that everything works the way I intended and then cut with my "good" cardstock.  I can still use this as a card - it just isn't the shimmery and shiny look I wanted for the snowman.

I prefer working In Design Studio over the Gypsy for this sort of card.  I find it much faster to simply stretch and compress a shape with the handles and I dislike the way the gypsy resizes from the center which means I constantly have to move the shape back into position.

Please let me know if you have any questions or don't understand the process for making the card.  It is really fast and easy to do and, with a little practice, soon you will be making lots of new shaped cards.

A few more things...

Today was Hello Thursday and eight new cartridges were announced.  There are seven Lite cartridges - they are

Cupcake
Four Legged Friends
Inspired Heart
Jolly Holidays
Playtime
Twinkle Toes
Zoo Day

and there is also a new cartridge called Cricut Classic Font (which is a full cartridge and I believe it will be included in the Walmart Black Friday colorful Expression bundle along with the Playtime cartridge).

Two more cartridges were added to the retired list - Base Camp and Fabulous Finds.

To see some projects made with these new cartridges you can visit the "Hello Thursday" blogs - here are the links

Joy's blog 
Melanie's blog 
Robyn's blog
Tammy's blog


The sample sheets and handbooks are not yet listed in the Cartridge Library but you may want to check in another day or two - just click the link.  You can get a look at some of the images in the Shopping section of the Cricut.com site.

I appreciate very much all of the messages of support and the votes that you are making to help me win the Crusin' with Cricut Creative Memories contest.  The contest continues until the 23rd and you can click on the image of my layout at the top right of the blog to go directly to the voting page.  You need to wait a full 24 hours between votes, so if you can't vote because it already says "I voted" please try back a little later in the day. 

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July New Cartridges and Updates

Yesterday was Hello Thursday and there are five more new cartridges that will be released soon - with the three Martha Stewart cartridges that makes eight new cartridges this week!  There are also updates for Design Studio and the Gypsy.

The new cartridges are Country Life, Happy Hauntings, Rock Princess, Simply Charmed and Winter Frolic.  These are all full cartridges.  Two more retiring cartridges were announced - Basketball and Baseball.

Here is the sample page for the Country Life cartridge.

You can download the full handbook HERE.

There are now many options for Halloween - here is the sample sheet for the Happy Hauntings cartridge.

You can download the full handbook HERE.

The Rock Princess cartridge is sure to be a hit with tween girls.

You can download the full handbook HERE.

Simply Charmed is a new take on the Doodlecharms cartridge (without a charm feature).

You can download the full handbook HERE.

If you want an early start on your holiday crafting Winter Frolic will give you lots of new images for your projects.

You can download the full cartridge handbook HERE.

I want to remind you again about the Cartridge Library on the Cricut.com site.  It is a great resource.  If you are not familiar with it, click HERE to go to the listing of all of the Cricut cartridges with PDFs of the sample sheets and cartridge handbooks.

Have fun looking through all of the new options and making your wish lists.  You can see some sample projects using these new cartridges at Obsessed with Scrapbooking,  Courtney Lane Designs,  Creative Critters Cricut Club and My Pink Stamper.

You can also explore these cartridges in depth with Design Studio or the Gypsy - I'll give some more info about the updates in another post.


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New Cartridges and Updates

Yesterday was "Hello Thursday" - the day when Provo Craft announces the newest Cricut cartridges.  Five new cartridges were announced - four of them are already available at ACMoore stores. 

To see the full cartridge handbooks for each cartridge just click on the name of the cartridge below to go to the proper page from the cartridge library under the information tab on the Cricut site.  Here is a LINK to the cartridge library page - if you haven't seen this valuable resource you should take a look.  You can find single page previews of each cartridge and the full digital handbook as well.

Cindy Loo

Freshly Picked

Mini Monsters

Wall Decor and More

You can see some information about Toy Story in the shopping section of the Cricut.com site (the handbook is not yet available in the Cartridge Library).

Two more cartridges were listed as retiring - All Mixed Up and Christmas Cheer.  If you are interested in either of these and don't have it yet you should try to get it soon.

More Cuttlebug Companion folders to go with the four new cartridges were announced.  You can see them in the shopping section of the Cricut.com site - here is a LINK to the page for all of the Cuttlebug Companions.

You can add all five cartridges to the Design Studio program by downloading the font pack update HERE.  You will need to log in to the Cricut.com site to do the download.

When you download the update you should save it and then run it to be sure that the new fonts will be properly installed.

There is also a Program Update available at the same link.

I tried the program update on my new desktop and found that there are some issues.  I would recommend waiting until these are cleared up before installing the update.  There are some reported issues from people who say they have had their older files corrupted by the new update.  I did try opening a few older files and did not have a problem.

It does appear that work is being done towards the grouping feature.  You can click and drag to create a box around two objects or sets of objects in separate selection boxes.  Then you can move them around the mat together.  When you try to enlarge the items, they will enlarge together but their relative positions will not stay the same.  This new feature also does not keep a flipped item flipped and you can't copy and paste the selected object as a unit.

I did not try doing any cuts with the new update after I discovered these problems - I'd rather wait to be sure things are working properly (and my desktop is two floors away from the Cricut!).

I did spend some time looking at the new cartridges and each one has features that interest me - so the wish list is growing.  There are some empty spots and repetition of images (such as the blackout of the frames and seed packs on Freshly Picked).  While I would prefer to have cartridges with no keys left empty and no images repeated, I understand that the cartridges are designed with the user who is working directly from the cartridge in mind.  Keeping the blackout image on each key does simplify using the cartridge.

I'd love to know what you think of the new cartridges and which one is at the top of your wishlist.  I think my top two are Cindy Loo and Wall Decor and More...but that could change(!)

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Designing Minds Think Alike...

Last Thursday I received the "Hello Thursday" email from Provo Craft.  These emails come on the third Thursday of each month and usually contain announcements of the newest cartridges that will be released soon.  (If you do not receive these emails you can sign up on the Cricut.com site to keep up on all of the news.  Look for the purple area at the bottom right of the page).

This month there was a "sneak peek" with images from future cartridges combined in a teaser collage.  Here is the image that was in my email.  You can see that there are lots of themes - I am not sure how many cartridges are represented in this image. It does look like the long requested "cat" cartridge may finally be making an appearance.  I also see Halloween, extreme sports, farm, tools/home improvement, some more "indie" type images, various holidays, a "spa/girly" group of images and food with faces (!).

Two more retiring cartridges were announced - Printing Press and Paper Pups.  This brings the list of retiring cartridges to eight: Solutions Cartridges - Blackletter, Christmas, Sans Serif & Street Sign and Full Cartridges - Stamped, Tags Bags Boxes and More (announced last month), Paper Pups and Printing Press.

There will also be more Cuttlebug folders that are designed to coordinate with Cricut cartridges.  These are called "Cricut Companions" and the sets listed are Once Upon a Princess, Robotz, Heritage, Sentimentals, Create a Critter and Preserves.  Images of these folder sets were on the Cricut.com site when I looked on Thursday, but when I checked today they were no longer posted - they may be back soon....(ETA - the images are live again - you can click each name to go to the page for that set and see a full view of each folder).

When I saw the folders, my first thought was that these were a terrific idea and will be great to further enhance any Cricut projects made with these cartridges.  The first set of Cuttlebug folders to coordinate with a Cricut cartridge was the Asian Bundle which works well with the Pagoda cartridge.  These new sets look like they have more of the actual cartridge images to emboss.  I think I will be "needing" most of these!

The folder that really caught my attention was one that coordinates with the Heritage cartridge.  I designed a number of files when I first got this cartridge and most of them I haven't posted yet.  One was this card topper which is very similar to the image of the embossing folder!  It just goes to show that given a certain set of images, different people can have very similar ideas on how to use them.

I used this trial cut for the card at the top of this post.   I'll share more details about it at another time.  To answer the question I know I will get, those lovely sequin flowers are from Creative Charms (here is a LINK to the page on their site where you can see more about them).

I hope you are having a nice weekend - it is rainy and chilly here but predictions are that the weather will improve for the Boston Marathon on Monday.

Hello Thursday News - Design Studio Update

Today was "Hello Thursday" and four new Cricut cartridges were announced.  They are all full cartridges.  Three will be available in mid-March  - Give a Hoot, "Just Because" Cards and Preserves.  The fourth cartridge, Straight from the Nest, will be available exclusively from the Home Shopping Network (HSN), also in mid-March.

Here are the cartridge samples from the Cricut.com site:

This is Give a Hoot.  You can see more info on the Circut site at this LINK and download the full cartridge handbook HERE.

 

This is "  Just Because"   Cards.  You can see more information on the Cricut site at this LINK and download the full cartridge handbook HERE.

This is Preserves.  You can see more information on the Cricut site at this LINK and download the full cartridge handbook HERE.

 

This is Straight from the Nest.  You can see more information on the Cricut site at this LINK and download the full cartridge handbook HERE.

It was also announced that Serenade, the cartridge that was bundled with the Wal-Mart Black Friday solid-colored Expressions will be available in mid-April.  This is great news for many people who wanted this cartridge but didn't need a new machine.

Finally, there are four cartridges that will be "retiring" - this is the first time any of the cartridges have been retired.  They are all Solutions cartridges - Blackletter, Christmas, Sans Serif and Street Sign.  

I have Blackletter and Christmas and I like them both a lot.  The Christmas Solutions cartridge has wonderful images, including the swirly tree, intricate ornaments and angels, wintry houses and church and door,window and sign images.  I am surprised to hear that this cartridge would be retired .  If you don't have it, take a good look at the images and, if you like them as much as I do, try to get this cartridge before they are gone.

The Blackletter font is great for Halloween and there are some interesting emblems and shapes that I have used in some designs I have shared.  

 

Here is a LINK to the posts where I used Blackletter for projects.  Two of them are pictured above and below.

I am very happy to see that Provo Craft has been coordinating the announcement of new cartridges and adding all of the information  about the cartridges to website, including the full handbooks, right away.  It used to be so frustrating to try to find all of the images available on the various creative features keys.

The most exciting thing for me is that the updates for Design Studio and the Gypsy are ready simultaneously with the announcement so, even though the cartridges won't be available for about a month, we can start experimenting with the images, making designs and deciding which cartridges we want to add to our Cricut libraries.

To update your Design Studio program to include these cartridges, go to this LINK (you will need to be signed in to the Cricut.com site) and download the Font Pack.  Be sure to SAVE the download and then run it to install the new cartridges.  Your Design Studio software should be closed when you do this.  When you open the program, the new cartridges will be included in the "All by Category" list.

Your Gypsy will update with the new cartridges when you run the Sync program.

Some bloggers were given the cartridges to preview - you can see their projects on these blogs:

Joy Obsessed with Scrapbooking

Melanie  Courtney Lane Designs 

Tammy Creative Critters Cricut Club

Robyn My Pink Stamper

There may be others - these are the ones I know of so far...

I haven't had a chance to really explore these cartridges yet but I do have them in my Design Studio to play with!  Our older son and his girlfriend arrived from California tonight and we are so happy to have them here for a quick visit before they head to Washington D.C. Our snow is already melting and my cold is improving - things are looking up!