Milestone Day

It's time for a little milestone celebration!  This is the 1600th post I've made on my blog and I also noticed that the hit counter has passed 1,750,000.

It's been quite a journey since I started the blog in 2008.  I've learned a lot and I have enjoyed sharing my projects, files, tutorials, photos and bits and pieces from my life with a great group of followers, readers and subscribers. Lately I've been thinking about some new ideas for the blog that I hope will be in place by the beginning of next year. Thank you for all of your comments and support - I truly enjoy connecting with fellow crafters from around the world through my blog. 

I was trying to sort things out in my craftroom and I came across a card that I started back in July (it certainly has been a hectic year!).  I designed the file for the card base from a Dover Publications free sample image (I'll add the name of the book when I figure out which one it came from).

I cut the card base from textured dark green Bazzill cardstock and used papers from this mat stack for the decorative layers.

Here is the base card cut - I think I posted this a few months ago as a "sneak peek" so it may look familiar.  I measured the center rectangle and cut papers to fit for the card front and for a message inside.

The area for the message inside is perfectly aligned with the openwork cut in the front of the card.  I added a layer of the green cardstock to create a thin line around the mat for contrast.

After the layers were added the card was pretty but a little plain.

I decided to add gems to give the card some sparkle.  The card sat around on my worktable for a long time, just waiting for me to be inspired to finish it.

I recently found the Magic of Oz stamp set from Graphic 45 on sale at one of the larger craft stores.  The green gems I had added to the card made me think of the Emerald City and the "There's no place like home" sentiment was a perfect fit for the front of the card.

I stamped  a piece of white cardstock with Versamark ink and then applied some clear embossing powder.  After I heated the powder (one of my favorite things to do is watching the magic of heat embossing...) the sentiment was preserved in white.

I inked the cardstock with several shades of Distress Ink (crushed olive, ripe persimmon, pine needles and vintage photo) using a blending tool to create a mottled background.  The ink wipes of the embossed words very easily.

The lacy frame around the edges of the card front cut very cleanly with the Cameo.  I also did another version of this design with the card in a square shape.

If you have any questions about how I adapted the Dover file to cut with the Cameo, be sure to leave a question in the comments below.

Here is a peek at something that I used on my "secret" project while I was at my sister's house last month.  I'll share a few photos of the finished product soon.

Today is also a special day for my great nephew.  He is turning 6 on the 6th so it is his "Golden Birthday."  Have a wonderful day Ben!

The final milestone for today is the Presidential Election.  The race is close and I think we will all be glad to have the ads and phone calls come to an end.  Be sure to get out and vote!

Stay tuned to hear about the giveaway I have planned to celebrate 1600 posts and so many visits...


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Give Thanks Page Background

I like to keep scrapbooking simple.  When I look at the very elaborate pages with layers and layers of embellishments I have trouble finding the photos.  I like the page to support the photos but to stay part of the background so the story and the photos are the most important things on the page.

When I make cards, I often create a design that cuts an image into the card front.  I decided to start making some page backgrounds using the same technique.  I bought this book of Floral Stencil Designs from the new Dover Pictura site.  It has lots of great images that are simple to trace with the Silhouette Studio software and turn into cutting files (other programs that allow you to trace a shape will also work).

After I created the file I cut the page, using a double cut to be sure that all of the fine details would cut cleanly.  As you can see - it cut perfectly (yes, I do use my Cricut mats in my Cameo sometimes - I have lots of them and they work just fine).

I set the file up to cut the page at 11 x 11 inches to allow for a background paper to make a border.  I adhered some brown paper behind the cut and then experimented with various papers for the outer border.

This is a very dark green textured cardstock...a bit too dull...

This medium green has more life - but it is also a solid.  I decided to try some patterned papers.

I bought this stack on clearance last year.  It is a Halloween stack but the are some pages that are just overall patterns with no bats or pumpkins.

I liked this subtle yellow herringbone page - it is hard to see in a photo but the texture is obvious when you look at the page so it doesn't seem as solid as it looks here.

 

This plaid gives it some real zing! 

I think these pages will make quick and easy projects.  The paper choices can give very different looks.  You could try a small patterned paper behind the cutouts or just use two layers instead of backing the openings with a third color or pattern.

I am excited to try cutting more of these designs.  I have quite a few already set up on the computer but i won't have a chance to cut any more or add photos to this page until next week. 

What do you think of this type of page?  Are you a "flat scrapper" like me or do you prefer lots of lumps and bumps on your pages?

We are off on a short trip this weekend - I'll tell you all about it when we return.  I plan to have posts set up to publish while we are gone but if something doesn't work out it's only for a few days.  Have a great week!

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Just a few things...

 

Happy Thursday!  I just have a few things to share with you today.  I am a big fan of Dover Publications and they are having a warehouse sale with savings of up to 60% off on their books and CDs.  Dover also has free shipping on orders of $25 or more until September 17th (usually you need to order $50 or more to get free shipping).

Every week, Dover offers free samples from a selection of their books.  You can sign up to get an email to remind you about the new freebies.   This week there are some great floral images - you'll find them HERE.  Dover has also launched a site called Dover Pictura where you can buy their images as downloads, save shipping and have them to work with right away.  The prices are significantly lower than the book prices when you buy the download.  The site is in Beta right now and prices might change.

I use these images for digital scrapping and to create cut files for my Silhouette Cameo machine.  The cornucopia image here was a weekly freebie sometime last year.  I am not sure which book it is from (but I'll try to find out and add the link if I can).

screen shot from cricut.com

I also wanted to let you know that the Bookmark - Classics digital images set is the freebie of the week in the Cricut Craftroom.  The style of these bookmarks reminds me of the work of Rob Ryan - check out his site HERE and see what you think...

To use the bookmarks, just log in to your Craftroom account (or create one HERE if you don't have one already).  This image set will be listed under "My Cartridges" and you can cut with it either from the craftroom or from a gypsy after you sync the Gypsy.  If you haven't checked out the Craftroom lately, you'll also see that there are images of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama available as freebies (I think they are meant to be there until the election).

The Design Studio update for the latest cartridges should be available next week on "Hello Thursday."  There is always a lag time between cartridge release and availability on the Gypsy and Design Studio - the cartridges are added immediately to the Craftroom so you can also check out images there if you are trying to create a project or just want to decide whether to buy a certain cartridge.

The page with the Design Studio update links was broken during the makeover of the Cricut site.  You should check this post on the Cricut Message board to be sure you have the latest version available.

I hope you have a crafty day!


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Rose card with Dover sample image

I want to remind you once again about the great books and CDs available at Dover Publications.  They have marvelous collections at reasonable prices and if you sign up HERE they will email you some links for free samples every week.   Dover has a lot of books on Spring Clearance right now - if you find some that suit your style they can be a great resource.  ( I have no affiliation with Dover - I just find lots of neat things there!).

Many of the sample images are easy to convert into cutting files in the Sihouette Studio software.  This rose image was one of the samples quite a while ago.  It is from the book "Floral Stencil Designs"

You can preview the images in many of the books on the Dover site.  Many of them come with a CD containing the images so they are easy to import to create a file.

 I used the stencil image to create a card with a design cut out on the front.  Since the design is a stencil, it was easy to incorporate into the card.  I also used the offset function to create additional full motifs for cutting (in red above).

The design cut very nicely on my test cut.  All of the inner pieces stayed on the mat and I could use this secondary design for another card by lifting it with transfer tape, adding adhesive and placing it on the front panel.

This design will work either horizontally or vertically.  You could flip the image to place the rose cluster on the left side if you prefer that look.

This card has been sitting in my "experiment" stack for a while - I think it is time to finish it with some embellishing and a sentiment!

Please let me know if you have any questions about how to do this in the Silhouette software.

Things don't show any signs of slowing down around here.  I took down the art show but everything is still in my car.  I spent a lot of the day driving around delivering people to various places and we had an event to attend in the evening so all of the framed pieces are just riding around in the car.  We've gone in to Boston for events two weeks in a row - great times but I am wishing for a quiet day in my craft room.

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Mermaid Artist Trading Cards

I decided to try a few different things to make the Artist Trading Card for my swap group last month.  The theme was "Alliteration" and I didn't have any brilliant ideas to suit the theme.  I fell back on an old tongue twister, "She sells sea shells, down by the seashore."  (Yes, I know that it isn't fully alliterative...)

I found this lovely mermaid image in one of the free weekly Dover Publishing sampler collections.  (I highly recommend signing up for their emails).  I added a border and the phrase with a pink glow using the StoryBook Creator 4.0 software.  I sized the image at 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches so it could be placed on top of the standard 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 ATC card with a small border.  I printed out a sheet of images on matte photo paper using my home printer.

I wanted to create a shimmery effect over the entire card so I first tried some kaleidoscope embossing powder.  I didn't care for the result (I must have really disliked it since I didn't take a photo of it!).  To cover the entire front of the card, I applied Versamark embossing ink and sprinkled the powder all over the surface.  To make the card easier to handle, I adhered the card to a scrap piece of watercolor paper (you can see it to the right of the card in the photo).  This helps to keep my fingers away from the heat.

Since the kaleidoscope powder looked odd, I changed my mind and tried to make the card look slick like water.  I had some UTEE (ultra thick embossing enamel) on hand so I started over with that.  You can see in this photo how the grains are larger than those in regular embossing powder.

I took several tries to practice the technique and get smooth, shiny tops on all of the images.  You need to do at least two coats to get rid of any bumps.  The paper did curl up a bit when the cards cooled.

For the base cards, I used watercolor paper.  I sprayed it lightly with glimmer mist and then inked the edges with distress ink.  I did enough pieces to make the cards a double thickness to try to keep the enameled top image flat.

I adhered the enameled image to one layer of the inked watercolor paper.  You can see that there was still a slight curl.  When I added the back piece the cards flattened out even more.  To "train" them to stay flat, I put them under a heavy stack of magazines overnight.  This seemed to do the trick (I hope they don't curl up again before my trading partners receive them!).

It was a small group this time so I only made five cards.  The three layers and the overnight "pressing" seemed to work to create a nice thick and flat card.

I wanted to do something a bit different for the signature information on the backs.  I cut out some shells (from the Dreams Come True Cricut cartridge) and sprayed and inked them.  Then I wrote all of the details with a gold pen.

The final step was to adhere all of the shells to the backs of the cards.  I couldn't really capture the shine of the mist but they do look very pretty when they shimmer in the light.

We've tackled and completed two of the projects my sister had on her list.  I've got one more day to finish another project to send along for my soon-to-be-born great-niece!  When I get home, I'll try to get the simple scrapbook page challenge set up - I may even be able to find a few prizes to keep everyone motivated!

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Art Deco and more...

Yesterday was Hello Thursday - the day each month when new Cricut cartridges are released.  I haven't been keeping up with all of the cartridge releases here on the blog.  When they started to come out every week (digital cartridges) it became too overwhelming to try to keep up.  You should be sure to register on the Cricut.com site and subscribe to the newsletters if you want to get email notifications about new cartridges.  You'll also find information and projects on the Official Cricut Blog.  Of course, the Hello Thursday bloggers, my friends Joy (Obsessed With Scrapbooking)  and Melanie (Courtney Lane Designs) will be showing lots of great projects made with these cartridges.

You can find the Hello Thursday page HERE.  The new cartridges are already in the Cricut Craftroom.  I checked but the update for the Design Studio isn't up yet - I'm not sure if the current Gypsy update includes these cartridges.  (All of the bold red words in this post are "clickable" to go to the sites mentioned).

The cartridges released this month are:

Spring Cottage
This is a seasonal cartridge with a limited number of images.  They are very pretty but I already have lots of similar images on other cartridges.  This cartridge does have a cut for the cute paper strawberries that have been popular for a while and a basket to put them in.

Chip Decor
This cartridge coordinates with chipboard products sold at Hobby Lobby.  This is a great idea - I remember how long it took me to figure out the exact shapes for some of the Michael's flower shaped chipboard books to create files for them.  I won't be getting this one since we don't have Hobby Lobby in my area so I don't have any need for it.

Paper Doll Teen Scene
I am sure this will be very popular since people have been asking for more "grown up" dolls for quite a while.  It's not a cartridge that I have a lot of use for right now so I don't think I'll be getting this one.  I also don't care for the style and the lack of noses and mouths on these dolls!

Now before you get to thinking that I am sounding very negative about this release, I have to say that the other two cartridges do appeal to me - a lot!

Art Deco

This is a cartridge with images that we haven't seen before, great fonts and a very nice monogram system.  I was able to quickly create a screen shot in the Craftroom of my monogram in a pretty frame.  There are options for left, right and center initials so you will be able to make beautiful etched glass items and monogram note cards with this cartridge. 

Contemporary Nature

This is an Imagine Pattern Cartridge.  There are twenty patterned papers and some sheets of tags with four additional projects.  The color palette appeals to me - teal, blue, gray, purple - and the designs are attractive.  I used it to make the screen shot at the top of this post. I still have a problem with buying 20 sheets of digital paper that I can't recolor for $40 - it is so much more expensive than the typical digital kits that I buy and I can use them in more ways with other programs...still, I do like this cartridge.  Maybe I'll be able to find it for a better price in a few months.

So that's my take on this week's offerings - what do you think?

Here is a sneak peek at my St. Patrick's Day design.  I'll be posting the card I made with it tomorrow.  I created it in the Silhouette software, starting from a free design from the Dover sampler (but making a few of changes to make it "cuttable"at a small size).  This design is only about 3 1/2 x 4 inches and you can see how tiny and thin some of the lines are.

If you aren't on the Dover Sampler email list, you should be.  They have great sample images every week that you can download and use for all sorts of projects.  Some of the files are SVGs and some are regular clip art.  You can sign up for the Dover Sampler here.

How will you be spending St. Patrick's Day?  It is a "major holiday" here in the Boston area so there will be lots of parades and parties.

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