Snow ATCs for February

The theme for my small ATC group this month was "snow."  I usually think of shades of blue to go with snow themes, however, since it was Valentine's month, I decided to use pink and red for a change.

  

I started with this image on the Graphically Speaking cartridge.  This is one of my favorite cartridges - there is so much variety and lots of unique cuts that are not repetitive with other cartridges.  It came out at the same time as Storybook and while Storybook was an early favorite, I think a lot of people were pleasantly surprised but the versatility of Graphically Speaking.

I have used this image for an A2 card before - here is a LINK to the post.

 

  

Artist Trading Cards must be 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches.  I wanted to layer this image on the base card so I set the slider bar for 3 1/4 inches.  Then I set the width to 2 1/4 inches.  In the image above you can see the original square image and my adapted image.

 

  

The design has some contour lines around the edges which I hid using "hide selected contour."  I also decided to hide the snowflake cut out.

 

  

I created eight of the ATC tops.  Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to copy and paste an image with contours hidden and have them remain hidden.  So I needed to hide seven lines eight times (it didn't take long).   I previewed the cuts by placing a full sheet square in a contrasting color on a second mat.

 

  

I cut the tops in pale pink textured cardstock.

I used a photo I took last winter for the backs of the cards.  This is a holly bush in our back yard covered with snow.  I brought the photo into my Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus 3.0 software to edit, resize and add the words.  I worked at 5 x 7 to make it easier - this is exactly twice the size of the ATC so I know that it will shrink proportionately for printing.

 When my image was ready, I saved it to my desktop as a JPEG and then imported it into my Creative Memories Memory Manager 3.0 software for printing. This program has standard package layouts which makes it very easy to print a sheet of 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch images.

Here you can see the sheet of eight ATC backs that I printed on matte photo paper (8 1/2 x 11 inches).

I trimmed the images just a tiny bit inside the printed area to be sure that they would not be seen on the front side of the ATC.  Then I inked the edges with red ink to hide the white contrast against the red base card.

I cut small pieces of white glitter cardstock to fill in the window behind the letters.  It looks very sparkly and snowy.  I didn't want to add the weight and bulk of a full glitter layer to the cards.

I carefully placed the card topper in the snow Cuttlebug embossing folder from the Oh My Crafts exclusive holiday bundle.  I planned the placement of the embossing to fill the corner where the snowflake cut had been in the original design.

  

 Here are all of the components of my ATC ready to assemble.

 

  

 I used my Precision Point Adhesive to adhere the embossed topper to the red card base, sandwiching the glitter layer in the window opening.

 

  

Here are the six cards - front...

 and back.  I have filled in the number of each ATC and signed them on the back. 

  

Here is one more view of the front 

  

and the back.

After I had packaged and mailed the ATCs, I realized that I hadn't added the small pink gem to the cards.  I guess I will be sending them individually to my swapping partners so they can stick them on if they would like to "fix" my mistake..

The moral of the story - try not to craft when you are suffering with a bad head cold and not thinking sraight!

I wasn't able to get the ATCs for my large group done in time and will do them and send with the next monthly group for March.  Tomorrow it will be two weeks since the fire that destroyed our neighbor's home.  Thank you so much to those of you who have sent cards to cheer them and amuse the children.  If you wanted to send a card and need the information here is a LINK to the blog entry with the details - just scroll to the end of the post.

ATCs and Santas

The theme for one of my ATC (Artist Trading Card) swap groups this month was "fuzzy."  I have had a few questions about ATCs so I will try to answer them here.  ATCs have only one hard and fast rule - they must be 3.5 inches x 2.5 inches. They are to be original, small editions that are self produced and traded with other people who create ATCs.  They must not be sold - only exchanged.  On the back of each ATC there should be the name and signature of the artist along with their contact information, the title or theme of the ATC and the number (1 of 8, 1 of 8, etc.).  They are meant to be sturdy enough to be handled and are usually sent in clear sleeves or custom envelopes.  Collectors keep them in boxes, in commercial trading cards pages (9 per page) or even make custom albums to display their ATCs.  You can find lots of information about ATCs online and many companies make supplies specifically for ATC creation, trading and storage.

So back to the "fuzzy" theme.  This one was tricky.  Usually I get an idea pretty quickly and initially I thought of fuzzy teddy bears or cute animals but I just wasn't getting a "cute" idea that I liked.  So I put off working on these for a while.  I then went the opposite way and came up with an simple and elegant card.

I bought some ribbon (a big spool of the great wired ribbon they sell at Costco very reasonably).  The ribbon was ivory with a flocked floral pattern.  I cut my base cards from ivory damask cardstock from the Luxury Stack by DCWV.  I have a Design Studio file to cut perfect bases on a 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock that I have shared already.  It is easier than using a trimmer and more accurate.

I "fussy cut" the ribbon to make sure that the floral motif would be centered on each ATC.  The wires in the edges make the ribbon too stiff for this project so I simply pulled them out.  I used my ATG gun to apply adhesive to the ribbon, along each edge and right down the center.  Then I placed the ribbon about 1/4 inch from one edge of the ATC and wrapped the ends around to the back.

The ribbon is rather sheer so you can see some of the shiny cardstock through it.  This looked very elegant and rather bridal so I added a cluster of three tiny "diamonds" to emphasize the formality of the card.

For this large group (14 people) I usually create the back of the ATCs digitally.  I use my Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus 3.0 software to do this.  I chose a digital paper to coordinate with the front of the ATCs and set up the file to print 9 on a piece of letter size matte photo paper.

After carefully choosing the coordinating paper, I was very surprised to see what came out of my printer - lavender card backs!  Fortunately, it wasn't my eyes - I just had to replace my color ink cartridge.   I wasted a piece of matte photo paper but I can use the white side for cards (I will emboss it with my Cuttlebug - it works beautifully).

Here are all of the ATCs before I put them in sleeves and sent them off for swapping.  I am very curious to see what others in the group made.   I think a few of us found this theme more challenging than we expected.

I didn't get as much decorating done today as I hoped.  I spent several hours outside chopping the ice off of our driveway - what a job!  My hands are very sore and my back muscles are achy, but I cleared the ice at last (it has been there since last week).  I did get the family room mantle set up with the Santas.

These Santas have been accumulating for years.  In fact, I have so many Santas that there is also a tall tree full of Santas that is always in our front hallway (I haven't carried that down from the attic yet...).

Here is another section of the Santas...

There is a little snowman section on the mantle too!

TicTac Toe swap

My friend Kay comes up with all sorts of ideas for swaps - here is the latest.  We were to make tic tac toe squares on 4 x 4 inch bases.  A lot of the people in the swap group had been involved in many "inchie" swaps and had many little 1 x 1 creations that needed to be used for something!  Unfortunately, the 1,000 inchie swap I participated in seems to have fizzled and I have never received the 1,000 swap inchies (here is a LINK to the post where I showed my inchies). 

I created a .cut file for the grids - it is adjustable so I can make the board in any size.  Unfortunately, after I cut the frames, the file corrupted and I need to test the back up file before I post it (so look for it next week (after I am home again)  if you are interested).

The variety of the tic tac toe creations was amazing.  Here is a LINK to Kay's blog where you can see all of them.  She also has some creative ways to use them so be prepared to spend some time browsing!

The weekend has been lovely - the weather is great and it is so nice to be with all of the family.  Here is my Dad with his cake - we had a lovely party tonight and it will be hard to say goodbye as some of the family starts heading back home tomorrow.  I'll be here at Dad's for another couple of days and then will drive back, stopping to pick up our younger son and a few friends as we head home for Thanksgiving.

November ATCs - Paper Folding

"Paper folding" was the theme for one of my ATC swap groups this month.  As soon as I knew the theme I was sure I would do some sort of origami.  When I was in elementary school I did a report on origami and made a big board full of folded creations!  I was fascinated by all thing things you could do just starting with a square of paper.

One of my favorite things to fold was this little pagoda shape.  I won't put the step by step directions here right now (I didn't take photos along the way) but if you are interested leave a comment and I will try to create some simple instructions (or maybe a short video would be easier).

There are 14 people in the group - that is a lot of pagodas since there are three in each stack! The paper is cut to 2 3/4, 2 1/4 and 1 3/4 inch squares.  Folding the pagodas from the 1 3/4 inch squares was very tricky for my adult hands to do ( I remember it was so easy when I was 10 years old!).

At first I tried using some scrapbook paper but it was too thick for the tiny shapes with so many folds.  The paper should also be two sided or solid due to the nature of the folds.  I found some origami paper that I bought years ago when we lived in Germany and chose three "Autumn" colors.  After they were all folded (which took much longer than I had planned on - thank goodness for Priority Mail) the sections stack together.

The bottom tier of the pagoda had a tendency to pop open so I put a glue dot in each side to keep it flatter.

I started making the pagodas before I got the Pagoda cartridge.  Once I saw this branch, I knew it would make a perfect background for my little pagoda. (This is the same branch I used for the Christmas wreath - here is a LINK to the wreath post).

I used some "sand" paper from an old DCWV Summer cardstock stack for the card base.  I inked the edges just a bit for some definition.

I usually do the backs of the ATCs on my computer.  This month I kept it very plain and chose the "Matisse" font which somehow looked Japanese to me (!)

I think we all had fun with this theme - the ATCs look great and I can't wait until they arrive in the mail.  I took a sneak peek at them on KER's blog - she is our hostess and does a great job of getting everything in and out each month.  Thanks to all of the great people in this group we have had very punctual and exciting swaps each month for nearly two years now.

Here is a LINK to KER's blog where you can see all of the other ATCs from our group - enjoy them!

Dress ATCs (and a Gypsy Update)

 My second ATC swap group had the theme "Dress" for the month of October.  This group varies in size each month and there were six of us participating for this theme.

 I used paper from the DCWV "Crafty" stack.  This paper has a linen-like textured finish.  The designs have an old fashioned feel and many feature sewing motifs, including one with little scissors and one with sewing machines.  I bought this at Jo-Ann's a month or two ago and hadn't had a chance to use any of it until now.

I particularly liked the papers with buttons - there are a couple of colorways of the same design.  The lighter color background that I used for the base of the card was from a stripe on one of the 12 x 12 sheets.  The group of six ATCs was photographed on the button paper with a red background.

I added two layers of ribbon  layered on the button paper.  I then cut heavy watercolor paper to ATC size (2.5 x 3.5 inches) and sandwiched them together to hide the tails of the ribbons. I hand wrote the information on the backs.

The little "dresses" were made using the third from the smallest die from the large petite scalloped circles Nestabilities set.  I cut away wedges on each side, wrapped the "waist" with ribbon, and added Stickles across the "bodice."  The dresses are adhered with foam squares for a dimensional effect.

I have quite a collection of ATCs from the swaps I  have participated in - some are neatly organized in a binder in baseball card page protectors and some need a "home" beyond the box they are sitting in right now.  My friend Kay hosted this swap this month - she is a fabulously creative person and always makes incredible ATCs - and then puts us all to shame with her clever ways of saving and displaying the cards.  You should click this LINK to see the adorable book she made to hold this set.  Fair Warning - once you get started looking at Kay's blog you will have a hard time leaving - enjoy her work and leave her some comments!


On a completely different topic...I am not sure how many of the people who read my blog regularly also read the Cricut.com message board so I thought I would give you this update about the Gypsy that I posted to the message board last night.  If you don't read the message board - here is a LINK to the site. The Board is a great source of up to the minute information about all things Cricut and you can read without posting (lurk) if you are a shy person.

I hope that there will be at least a partial update to the Gypsy software available in the next few days but there are many factors that enter into the decision to release these updates.  I do believe that Provo Craft is moving ahead as quickly as they can to make the improvements needed and that they are keenly aware of the need to deliver the functionality that was expected to be available at the intitial release date.  Here is my post:

I wanted to let you all know that I had a lengthy conversation with several people from Provo Craft today, including Matt Strong who is the Director of Product Development.

We talked about many of the issues with the Gypsy and Design Studio, including the frustrations that many of us have been having with features that are not yet working.

Matt told me that all of the known welding issues have been fixed and they are still wrestling with the file transfer/compatibility between Gypsy and Design Studio.  Apparently it was working and then final testing revealed problems that they have been trying to resolve.  He said they have about 70% success with the transfer but want to have it working as perfectly as possible before releasing an update.

Fixing all of these problem is their #1 priority right now - he told me there were 12 people working on it and testing the fixes.

I strongly suggested that it would be a good idea to release an update with the welding fixes and other changes if the file transfer is not fully functional yet - this would show everyone that it is being worked on constantly.  I also stressed that communication is a key issue - if people know what is going on - even if a date certain for the release can't be given - it will go a long way to creating happier Gypsy users.

Matt said that the updates include other fixes including being able to move large groups of items more smoothly and to zoom while in preview - previews are also building much more quickly (one of the problems I have mentioned before).  There is also a completely new keyword database and better functionality in the search feature.

Some news that I am very excited about is that Matt confirmed that grouping will be added to Design Studio - the goal and intention is to have complete "design parity" between the two programs (so "hide selected contour" would be available on the Gypsy too)

I am going to be tied up teaching a class for the next couple of hours but I will come back to the board later this evening if you have more questions - I don't know if I can answer them all but I will collect them and communicate them to Matt and his team.

If I learn any more about the updates I will pass along the information.  Be sure to watch the message board for any official statements about the release of updates.  If you have problems or suggestions that you would like me to pass along, please leave a comment or send me an email at capadiadesigns@gmail.com and I will consolidate the requests and send them along to the Product Development team.

Music ATCs

I finally have the new computer in approximately the same working order as my old laptop (which will be heading to Texas for repairs tomorrow). My brother in law even helped me get my Firefox bookmarks back (it was a bit complicated but he is a computer genius!). I have a lot of email and comments to catch up on and I am a bit behind schedule on Design Team work to submit to some of the sites I design for. I hope to be all caught up before we leave on vacation at the end of the week.

By some lucky twist of fate, both of my ATC swap groups had the theme "music" this month. I meant to do two entirely different cards, however, with so much time unexpectedly consumed with computer issues, I decided to make similar ATCs for both groups.

I wanted to use the Hannah Montana cartridge and to test out the way the Music feature works in Design Studio.



If you look at the virtual keypad in the music feature it is nearly impossible to tell what many of the keys are. It is very helpful to have your handbook available when you are working with this feature. The important thing to remember is that this feature is created to "weld" the letters on the music staff when you are using the Cricut machine without the software so you can nudge the items into position but do NOT use kerning or check "weld" - the file will corrupt.



In the screen shot above, the black rectangle represents the size of an ATC (3.5 x 2.5 inches). At the bottom of the page you can see the staff ends around the word "music" as they were entered on the mat. By using the nudge key, I was able to move the letters much closer together, as you can see in the center image.



I resized the word to 2 x 3 inches so it would fit on an ATC comfortably and prepared a mat full of these words to cut. This detailed cutting of so many images takes quite a while to finish.



When you preview these cuts they look rather peculiar - above is the full sheet of words viewed on the cutting page and below you can see how this looks on the preview page.



Don't be alarmed at the preview - the words will cut correctly.



I did have a bit of trouble with two of the corners having cuts that were not quite complete but they were easy to pop out or trim with tiny scissors.



The bottom cut is the one I used for the ATCs. As you can see, the top cut, which was done by the machine freestanding, is the same height but much wider and would never fit on an ATC.



It took a while to check the cuts and remove the inner pieces. I then chose background papers for each group, adhered the cuts using a wide Zig glue pen and set them up on my island to add the stickles accents on the hearts and the dot of the "i" - in gold for the red cards and in red for the green cards.



Here is a closer view of one of the red cards



The second group was small this month and I only needed to make five.



I usually design the backs of the ATCs in my CM StoryBook software and print them, but for the small group I punched a few notes and wrote all of the details by hand. The two notes at the bottom are punched through the backing cardstock and the note at the top is applied to the card.



Here is the larger group ready to send.



I had to reinstall driver software for my printer to get the backs to print. I must have changed a setting in the print menu because the first group printed quickly and lighter in color (less ink applied) than the second group.



I chose the papers and cardstock because they were bright and happy. I like the confetti effect on both the front and the back since music is often associated with celebrations of all sorts.



The cuts are fairly smooth but there were some ragged bits - at larger sizes they will cut more smoothly.



I took one of my cuts and imported a photo of it into my Creative Memories StoryBook digital scrapbooking program and turned it into an embellishment for a digital page. The background paper you see here is digital paper from CM - from the Disney Hannah Montana collection - a perfect fit!

I'll be doing a few more things with the Hannah Montana cartridge and sharing them soon. This cartridge has a lot to offer with really interesting fonts and great music images, guitars, hearts and butterflies. There is really very little that is strictly Hannah Montana so I'd recommend the cartridge for anyone with music and theatre events to scrapbook.