Make your own Patterned Paper

I thought I'd show you another experiment with the gelly pens. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I love to make mesh designs using a motif from a Cricut cartridge and the Design Studio software. Many people wanted to know how I make these and we have a new class on Let me Show you How to Do that for Full Page Designs (click the link to go to the LMSYHTDT blog for details on registering).



I tend to take these designs to the limit and sometimes I find that I can't successfully cut a design because it is just too intricate. Sometimes it will cut well but be nearly impossible to lift from the mat. So I thought I could try using the pens to draw one of these extremely intricate meshes.

I started with the element highlighted on the screen shot of the keypad above.



Here is the element in preview (it is one of the "tiny icon" images on the Storybook cartridge so I am sure you couldn't tell what it looked like from the screen shot - I just wanted to show you the key location).



Here is a screen shot of the preview - you can see how dense it is!



I loaded up the mat with pale green paper and put the dark green gelly pen in the holder. Once again, I don't really understand how the software directs the cutting/drawing process - first the outline is drawn and then the design is filled in but there is some skipping around until the design is complete. This one took a long time to finish - but it finished!



Here is the final drawing on the mat - there were just a few tiny spots where the line was not continuous but they will be easy to fill in. I certainly would not want to try to lift a cut of this design from the mat!



Here is a close view of the drawing. I have created a simple piece of custom patterned paper. I have a plan in mind for this paper, however, you will have to wait a day or two to see what I am going to do with it since I am away from home and my Cricuts (no room in the car to bring one along!).

If you want to see some other gelly pen projects you can click HERE for the prior posts about these pens.

Here is a link to the US site where you can purchase a set of pens and the holder:

Scrappy-Go-Lucky


What a hot and muggy day it was today - we had some torrential rain (catching the edges of a near hurricane). It took a long time to get the car loaded for the trip to NJ and we were all dripping! The trip went smoothly and we are relaxing at my sister's house before the college move-in tomorrow.

Fleur-de-lis Mesh (Home Decor)

One of my favorite things to do with the Design Studio software is to make lace cardstock mesh pages. It is always interesting to see the designs that can be created by simple repetition of one design element.



This fleur-de-lis mesh is made from the fleur-de-lis on the Home Decor cartridge.



Here is a closer view of the fleur-de-lis. I think this is a particularly nice shape with great detail. I made a mesh with seventy fleurs-de-lis (seven rows of ten). That is a very large number of welds - the design is complex and takes a long time to cut. You can call a friend, do the dishes, throw in some laundry and have a cup of coffee and then (maybe) it will be done cutting! Be sure that your paper is well stuck to the mat and use medium weight cardstock with a smooth finish to try to insure a clean cut.



I was lucky - this design cut perfectly the first time I tried it. I carefully lifted the outer edges off the mat.



The border design that results from this cut is rather pretty and I will save this to use for a scrapbook page.



Take your time lifting the full page cut from the mat. I find my wide plastic putty knife to be a very valuable tool for a job like this! (you can get these at the hardware store for a dollar or two).



Once the cut is lifted, there will be lots of bits left on the mat. Of course, I did save the larger shapes (I can't throw anything that might be useful away!).



I don't know what to call these shapes - if you look at the one on the right you might see a viking with fluffy pigtails...



I decided to trim off the "horns" and ended up with these shapes that cold be corner accents...



...photo corners...



or even lined up for a border - there are lots of possibilities.



I also like the look of the mesh turned 90 degrees so the flowers are to the sides - you can see a "3" in the design this way.



The paper I used to test the cut was two sided - above you can see the slightly patterned opposite side (remember, you can click on the photo for a larger view). I think I may try this again with a very bold and bright paper and see how that looks.

If you use this file for a project, I'd love to see how it turns out.


(I am not posting a digital challenge this week - there may be one next Thursday. If you wanted to try Challenge #8 you have an extra week to try it).


Fleur-de-lis full page mesh

Bubbly Background (patience required)

I did some cleaning up today - in my house, in my scraproom and in my computer. I found a file that I made quite a while ago but had never cut and decided to test it. It is done with one element from Mini Monograms repeated and welded for a background mesh.

As it was cutting, I remembered why I didn't test the cut when I first made it. This takes a long time to cut. You will have time to read the paper, clean the kitchen and make a few phone calls while you are waiting for it to finish!



The good news is that it cut perfectly so I didn't have to do a second test! Above you can see the cut on the mat after I removed the outer edge of the paper.



When I lifted the cut from the mat, most of the diamond shapes and some of the small dots stayed stuck to the mat.



I saved the diamond shapes - they actually fit perfectly with the leftover diamonds from the cathedral window cut (and if you have been reading my blog for a while you know I never toss these offcuts but save them for future projects...) Here is a LINK to the Cathedral Window post and a photo of the full page cut from that file.



As I said, this design takes a long time to cut and you will also need some time to clean the cut by pushing out all of the little circles that didn't stay stuck on the mat. I did this over the trash but the little circles still went flying everywhere!

I wanted to take a photo of the mesh on a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock but I had trouble getting it to stay flat - so I put a tiny piece of adhesive on the back of each circle with my Creative Memories tape runner (it has a control wheel that allows you to dispense one or two tiny strips at a time).



Here is a close up of the pattern - I have plans for this design - I wonder if any of you can guess what I am going to do with it?



If you have a baby bug, you can cut the half page version which is also in the file (I didn't do a separate test cut because it is simply the same file with the lower rows of circles deleted).

Bubbly Background

Tulip Mesh (an example of "hide contour")

I created this file last year when I got the Storybook cartridge. When I tried to cut it - I made a mess! I think the paper I was using was just too thick and perhaps my settings were off. At any rate - I tossed it aside and that was the end of that!



Below you can see a close up of the incomplete cuts - it was not worth trying to punch it all out to complete the cuts.



Today, when I was trying to get some tidying up done in my scrap room, I found the sad mesh - and decided to give it another shot.

I think I might use this with some photos from a trip to the Netherlands we made while living in England. One of the stops was at a "restored" fisherman's cottage and there was a lot of Delft tile. I love blue and white and the tulips from the design I repeated for the mesh seem like a good fit.

I cut the mesh again - on slightly thinner cardstock and made sure that the cuts were going through completely. When I was done, I realized that, while most of the mesh lifted easily from the mat, there were two "trouble spots" - one that is just inherent in the design and one that I could fix.



The leaves of the tulip motif curve in such a way that there is a small bit to be removed on one side - the cut is there but it requires some "poking out" since it is so tiny. The other trouble spot was the area at the bottom where I used the little circles to align the images - they turned out more like scratches due to their tiny size.

Since we now have the "hide contour" feature, I could eliminate those pesky little holes - and I did (it took a while to get them all!). To remove the holes, you left click on the exact line of the part you want to hide - it will turn red.



Then you right click somewhere else on the mat and this pop up menu appears - click on "hide selected contour" and it will turn to pale blue (which means it is hidden and will not cut).




I tried another cut, this time using black paper (because the pattern also reminds me of the iron work on a gate).



My third cut has no marks on the areas where the holes were and it was much easier to just have the one area to fuss with as I cleaned the cut.



Below you can see the bits that remained on the mat after lifting the cut - I saved the larger rounded ones.



They look like little tabs to me - if you fold them in half they could be attached to a photo mat or card element for a bit of interest.



I may use this mesh as a backdrop for the page, or I may not - I haven't decided yet. Here are the photos I had from the cottage - I think if they are cropped and matted in red or yellow it might look nice - check back in a few days to see if I completed the page(!)




Tulip Mesh

Three Bar Filigree (by request)

Many of my designs require the use of the Expression but I try to make variations that can be cut with a baby bug (the original Cricut)whenever I can. A reader asked me if it was possible to adapt the Five Bar Filigree design I did in September for the baby bug. I changed the proportions of the bars to come up with this revised design.

Here is a LINK to the entry for the five bar design I posted in September (a photo of this version is below).



The file is set up to cut the design once on a baby bug mat on page one and you can cut two on a 12 x 12 mat by using page two (you can just flip the mat and cut a second design). The reason for the two files is that the "uncuttable" area of the 6 x 12 and the 12 x 12 mats is slightly different. I wanted to maximize the cut for each size of mat.



The first time I cut the design on the 12 x 12 mat the very end of the section did not cut, as you can see in the photo above (I was able to do some hand trimming to save the cut).



You will need to do a very small bit of hand trimming to finish the outer bars of the design as you can see in the photos above and below



Below you can see the slight difference in the width of the outer bars on the design. You could trim these to make the design edges perfectly consistent.



I have learned that with my machine I need to put the paper slightly lower than the top line to get an even frame (you should do a test cut with"ugly" paper to see how your machine and your loading technique affect the cut and adjust the paper placement accordingly).



You will also need to trim the "bumps" which were in the uncuttable area of the mat on the 12 x 12 design. This is very simple to do.



You may remember from the original post that this design will yield some usable offcuts - you can see the shapes in the photo below.



This design still reminds me of the elaborate iron gates you might see at a park or estate. I will eventually get around to cutting it in black and placing it over a landscape photo ...

Three Bar Filigree

Fourth of July - full page design (by request)

In September, I was asked by a Cricut Message Board friend if I could create a Fourth of July design similar to my Halloween design for an event at her church where the theme was holidays through the year - her month was July. She had located some glass vases like the one I used for the Halloween lantern and was planning to make these as table decorations and favors for the other guests to take home. Unfortunately, she did not take a picture (she is hoping to "borrow" one back for a photo) so I don't have a lantern version photo to share but I did test cut the design after I got home (I was in New Jersey when I got her email). I think it also works well as a framed piece. Here is a LINK to the post about the Halloween design as a framed piece.

Once again this is cut on a 12 x 24 mat with the paper placed at the one inch mark. Here is a screen shot of the design.



and here is a photo of the design on the mat after cutting so you can see the paper placement a bit better.



The look varies, as always, depending on the paper you choose to place behind the cut - here are a few examples...




Fourth of July - full page mesh