A little bling for my friends...

Special friends deserve special treats - presented in a lovely way.  You don't have to do a lot of work to make these cute little purse gift bags - just choose great paper and some bling from Creative Charms!  I have been on the Creative Charms Design Team for a while now and today I posted these bags on the Creative Charms blog.  The Design Team regularly posts all sort of great projects and it is definitely worth taking the time to go to the blog to see what's new - here is a LINK.

The basic bag is from the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cartridge.  This cartridge is on the retired list but you may still be able to find it.  It had been on the Cricut Rewards site but shows "out of stock" right now.

You can cut two bags at 5 1/2 inches on the 12 x 12 mat.  I used "hide selected contour" to eliminate the small circles.  I also checked "weld" for each bag to eliminate the "tick marks" for scoring the bag.  I do not care for the tiny cuts that show the score lines because they often make the edges of a card or project look a bit messy.  By using Design Studio or the Gypsy to cut the bags I can solve my "neat freak" issue!  In Design Studio, detail lines or "webbing" lines will not cut when a shape is welded.  (I did figure out a way to work around this to get the faces back on my animal cuts quite a while ago - here is a LINK to my first post about this and here is a LINK to a follow up post for the times when you do want the details to cut).

Usually the score lines are pretty simple to create with out the tick marks to help.  Sometimes, when I want to be sure about the designer's placement of the scores and folds, I cut a practice item with the score marks and use this as a reference to help me score my clean cut.

Once the bags are scored and folded, I add strong adhesive tape to the flaps and tabs which need to be sealed to form the bag.  I use Scor-tape which is very strong and neat to work with and relatively inexpensive.  In the photo above you can see where to place the lengths of tape.  The final piece goes on the inside of the bottom flap.

It is easiest to add the decorations to the bags before assembling.  I used gradient gem stickers on handles - all three sizes.  Every pack of gradient gems has a row of clear gems so I had plenty to decorate the handles.

I wanted to personalize the bags so I created a welded image of each name using the Cursive 101 font.  This font welds beautifully and is very adaptable.  When I cut the names I used multi cut 2 to insure that the cuts would be clean.  The Core'dinations gemstone cardstock I chose for this project also cuts beautifully in the Cricut.

The featured embellishment on each purse is a radiant sequin flower.  These are currently one of my favorite items for adding bling to a project.  The pink and blue coordinate perfectly with the turquoise and garnet shades of the Core'dinations gemstone cardstock.  I used the larger flowers and adhered them to the bags using a few small glue dots.

I added the names before folding and adhering the bags.  The assembly of these bags is simple.

First, peel off the tape backer from the side tab and line up the sides and top of the bag while adhering the tab to the bag side.

The next step is to remove the protective backing from the tape on the two side flaps.  This tape is close to the center and will adhere to both of the larger flaps that form the bottom of the bag.

Finally, the tape on the larger bottom flap must be exposed and this flap folded and adhered to form the base of the bag.

The finished bag should look something like this at the bottom.

With the names and bling added these bags are perfect for a small gift or some candy.

They would look very sweet as favors at each place for a luncheon.  When I misplaced the dot for the "i" in "Jennifer" I just added one more tiny gem from the gem sticker pack.

 I still need to make a few more of these - then I'll be prepared for the next festive "walking goddess" event...

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Back to School at Cuttlebug Challenge

This week the theme for the Cricut Design Team at the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot was "Back to School" - believe it or not it is only a month away for some people.  You can click HERE to go to the Sweet Treat Thursday post and see what each designer created.

We have a lot of families with young children moving to our street - as some of the "older" folks are downsizing and moving on.  Our boys are grown but I remember years of packing lunches - the only reprieve I had was when we lived in England and they attended a school with mandatory school lunch (and uniforms too - so simple for Mom!). 

To make lunch a little more special and to remind the children that you care about how their day is going, it is nice to tuck a note inside.  You have to be the judge of when this will become "embarassing" - it probably depends on the child!  You can add a little handwritten note on the back of the tag.

I used the tag from Plantin Schoolbook and set it up to cut six as large as possible on one mat.  The maximum size is 5.5 inches in order to use the shadow layer with the tag. 

You have to be very careful to avoid the "uncuttable" edges of the mat but they just make it onto the mat!

Next, I created a rectangle to use as a sizing guide for sentiments.  It turned out to be 3 x 4 inches.

I had some fun browsing around my cartridges for some appropriate phrases.  This was the first time that I used such a large number of cartridges in one file - there were ten.  I probably should have used the gypsy to cut the file but it only took a minute or so to insert them in the machine as the software asked for the cartridges it needed. 

The sizing rectangle was very handy to help me adjust the various cuts to fit the tags comfortably. I then nestled the cuts together to maximize the use of my paper - another advantage to working with Design Studio or the Gypsy.

 

I did one full mat and another half mat and cut them in a few colors so I would have options.  I have lots of leftover phrases now for other projects.  One tip - I set multi cut at 2 times to be sure I'd have clean cuts on some of the smaller items.

 

I added some quick pen stitching and accents with white and glitter gel pens.  The cardstock i used was just inexpensive smooth cardstock - these will probably end up in the rubbish so it doesn't make sense to use your best paper!

Since this is one of those Desigh Team projects where I made something that I probably won't use (!) I made a gift bag to give these to someone with young children.

The bag is the same one I used for the Beach project earlier this month - once again from Plantin Schoolbook - one of the most versatile cartridges of all.

The "abc123" label on the bag is from an ATC swap I did quite a while ago - it was a spare top (I didn't like the way the pen stitching turned out) that was in my box of "random things to use someday"...  It was made with Mini Monograms.  Here is a LINK to the original post.  I will try to find the file to post - for some reason I didn't link it in the original post over a year ago - it may be buried in the thousands of files in my DS project folder!

I hope you enjoy this simple idea and can spread some love along with the peanut butter in the lunches of your little ones.

I am posting the file I used so you can use the tags at the maximum size without having to figure it out again.  You will probably want to find your own words and phrases and may not have some of the cartridges I used so go ahead and delete and substitute in what suits you.  You can check the cartridges used in the Cartridge Library window - use the drop down menu and choose "This Project."

Lunch Box Notes

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Vacation at the Beach

Today is the first of July - Happy Canada Day to all of our neighbors to the North.   I hope to have a few special files ready for you soon.

Today is also another Sweet Treat Thursday over on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot.  The theme was "vacation" this week.  Please be sure to visit the Cuttlebug Challenge blog to see all of the Design Team projects.

I made a decorated gift bag that would be great to fill with special beach treats for some friends.

The bag is cut from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge (there are lots of nice extras on this font cartridge that normally comes bundled with the Expression).  I cut it at 11 inches using the 12 x 24 mat and the Provo Craft 12 x 24 textured cardstock.

The wave, bikini border and the words are from the Life is a Beach cartridge.

I thought there were too many bikinis after I cut the word art, so...

I trimmed the bikini from the words.  The bikini border is cut from DCWV glitter cardstock from the Spring Stack that came out last year.

I set up all of the decorative cuts on one mat and then could simply choose the papers in the right sizes to get perfect cuts for the bags.  When you do this it is important to pay attention to the grid and position your cuts so that Design Studio will cut them centered in the proper paper locations.

 This inexpensive pencil case (I think it was $1 at Staples) is decorated with some vinyl cuts.  These were left from my water bottle project (here is a LINK) and I believe the flowers are from the Give a Hoot cartridge.  The word "sweet" is from Paisley  cartridge.  The plastic will keep the contents dry though it is not watertight.  Sunglasses should fit in the box nicely.

I added a bit of bling to the bikini tops and the dots of the "i"s.  They add some personality to the images.

 The flower gems I used came from this assortment from Creative Charms - they are from the Spring Medley in pink.  Today is also the day that a new Deal of the Month starts at Creative Charms.  I'll be back with more details about that soon.
 
So...how teeny would the bikini have to be to fit in the bag?  The bag measures 6 x 7 x 2 inches - 84 cubic inches.  I think it would need to be a bikini for a small child (or a very daring adult)!



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Owl Easel Card

This card is for the Wednesday Challenge at the Cuttlebug Challenge blogspot.  I am on the Cricut Design team but we sometimes do "cross over" to do other projects.  Ironically, it wasn't until I finished that I realized that I had completely forgotten to use the Cuttlebug!

The Challenge was to make an Easel card.  This style of card is just different enough to make people excited about receiving your "unusual" card, but really not much more work than making a standard A2 card.  For the base, I cut an 8.5 x 11 sheet of cardstock in half vertically to create a piece 4.25 x 11 inches which is then scored at 5.5 inches to create the base card.  The front of the card is then scored again at 2.5 inches from the bottom of the front side. An additional piece of cardstock cut at 4.25 x 5.5 inches is adhered to the lower part of the card front which then creates a hinge for the easel effect.

We were using paper from the My Mind's Eye Quite Contrary Collection. I also used various shades of Core'dinations solid cardstock for the owl and sentiment.

I set up the file to cut all of the design pieces on one 12 x 12 mat in Design Studio.  The file is actually set up on two 6 x 12 mats for users of the smaller machines.

The owl is from the Give a Hoot cartridge.  I used "hide selected contour" so I could cut the legs and the flower circles for the eyes in different colors.

 The flower and the sentiment are also from Give a Hoot.  The scalloped rectangle is from Graphically Speaking and I altered the proportions slightly in Design Studio to fit the A2 card size.  You can load the paper for each mat on the 12 x 12 - just turn the mat 180 degrees and load the paper in the proper positions to cut the second page of the file.

I keep all of the pieces on the mat to make it easier to assemble the image without misplacing a tiny beak or leg.

I cut a strip of paper 4.25 inches x 2.5 inches to decorate the bottom of the inside of the card.  The I put the sentiment on the flower shape and raised it with foam squares to create a "stopper" to keep the easel top from falling down when it is folded.

The owl is also on foam squares so the wings can flutter a bit!  With the owl background paper this made me think of ET "hiding" in the toy closet(!).

If you would like to use my file to cut all of the decorative pieces you can download it here.

Owl Easel Card

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