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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Earth Friendly Water Bottle - Give a Hoot!

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I live in Concord, Massachusetts - a very historic town.  At Town Meeting this year, Concord voted to ban the sale of bottled water in town, making history yet again.  The ban would take effect in 2011 - and is rather controversial...  Here is a LINK for more information about the ban.

On my last trip to Costco, I found these new bottles - just the thing for filling with your own tap water.  The set of three was less than $20 and there was another set in different colors - every family member could have their own color.  They have a locking top and a carabiner to hook the bottle to a bag or belt loop.  I think I may be seeing a lot of these around town - so why not give them a little personalization?

I set up a mat with all sorts of flowers and sayings from the Give a Hoot cartridge.  What a perfect cartridge for a project like this!  it is full of "earth-friendly" sayings and images.  By using Design Studio, I could plan out the sizes and fit quite a few shapes on a small section of the mat to conserve my vinyl.

Here is the vinyl after cutting - if you look carefully you can see the images and words.  I did a "kiss cut" which means the vinyl layer is cut through but the backing stays intact.This makes it much easier to remove the cutouts.

Here is another photo to show you how the "kiss cut" works.  the entire sheet of vinyl can be lifted from the mat and the individual items lifted off the backing.  The settings I use to do this are medium pressure (3), medium speed (3), and blade depth 4.

I applied the vinyl cuts to the water bottle without too much thought about placement - just a happy random assortment of sayings and flowers!

For an alternative, I tried a more formal design.  First, I determined a good size for the image by wrapping a piece of vinyl around the bottle.  I cut a piece four inches square for my design.
 

I used a frame and initial from the Storybook cartridge - here you can see the kiss cut piece of vinyl.  This piece was the Oracal vinyl.  The yellow vinyl was Wall-Pops vinyl.  I find the Wall-Pops to be more forgiving when you are working with it.  The Oracal had a stronger adhesive and was more difficult to lift and reapply without tearing.

 As a matter of fact, I did tear the bottom section and decided that just the top would work out fine - a little less formal.  It would be fun to do these for a group - adding names or decorations that represent each person.

I am not sure how well the vinyl will hold up to a lot of handling.  I have had vinyl Cricut bugheads (made with regular Wall-Pops) on my car for a couple of years and they have survived rainstorms and car washes and are only a little worse for wear.  The nice thing is that the vinyl is not expensive so you could redo the bottle as needed and change up your decorations!

This is a quick and simple project.  It is a lot of fun to figure out which decorations to use.  I think it would be a great activity to do with kids!

Sweet Treat Thursday at Cuttlebug Challenge

 

The Sweet Treat Design Team was asked to use Cricut Color Inks for our projects this week.  For some tips and tricks for using the markers and to see all of the Design Team projects, please be sure to visit THIS POST at the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot.

 

I used the red pen to outline the scalloped doily I posted in January (here is a LINK to the post).  The doily is made with the Mother's Day and Plantin Schoolbook cartridges.  I framed the doily in an inexpensive scrapbook page frame to use for a table setting as a serving piece for desserts or for candles.

 

I also designed a card using the Give a Hoot and Mother's Day cartridges.

I used this charm element from Give a Hoot to create the cut out portion of the card front.

 

 

I hid the outline and the hole of the charm after I sized it to fit a standard A2 card.  I also hid some of the very tiny places in the design to avoid having the marker leave a blob of ink.

 

 

I used the markers to draw the design and then cut out the card.  The markers draw a thick line and the blade cuts in about the center of the line, leaving a nicely outlined cut.  The effect is similar to inking but with a sharp edge that would be difficult to achieve by hand.

 

When you use the markers with Design Studio the software will draw/cut in exactly the same place.  DO NOT unload the mat between the drawing and cutting steps.  It is a good idea to put a piece of scrap paper beneath the blade carriage when you are changing from blade to marker to prevent accidental marks on your project.

 

 

I decided to add the "Mother" word art with the lovely flourishes - there is a shadow and a top layer on the Mother's Day cartridge as shown in the screen shot above.

To determine the proper size of the cut, I put the shadow version on the same mat as the card to check the fit.  Then I moved the shadow and a top layer in the same size to another page in the file for cutting.

 The top layer is very delicate and needs to be handled carefully when you remove it from the mat.

I added a liner of pink gemstone Core'dinations cardstock to the front of the card.  This provides a good support and nice contrast to the delicate cut.

For the finishing touch I used one of these sequin flowers from Creative Charms.  You can see these HERE on the Creative Charms site. 

The flowers come in various colors and are very sparkly and elegant.

My first set of markers came in a bundle with my Expression.  I got that machine in 2007 and I discovered in working on these projects that the markers do eventually dry out.  If you have some markers that are sitting around your house, why not pull them out and give them a try while they still work!

Just for fun, here is a LINK to one of my very early blog posts when I first discovered how well the markers work with Design Studio.

Mother Card with Cricut Inks

Happy Earth Day!

Today was Earth Day and I decided to try out the "Give a Hoot" cartridge to make a card to celebrate.  I took a look through the sentiments available and settled on "Go Green" (this sentiment could also work for St. Patrick's Day!).

Here is the location of the sentiment.  All of the rest of the cuts for the frog are made by using this key and changing the special feature and shift keys.  I sized the sentiment at 1 1/2 inches and the rest of the cuts were made at 2 1/2 inches.  I did not alter anything in Design Studio and the elements can be cut without using the computer.  Design Studio is so helpful in allowing you to determine exactly how to cut and arrange your elements and saves you from wasting your good cardstock with cuts that turn out to be the wrong size.  So you could say by using Design Studio you are "going green!"

Here you can see how I figured everything out on my Design Studio mat.  It looks like a big mess but this is not the cutting page.  I just used this page to check on the sizing and to be sure I found all of the layers I needed for the frog.  The rectangle is sized at 5 1/2 inches wide by 4 1/4 inches tall to give me a guideline for a standard A2 card.  There are a lot of layers involved.  This cartridge is one with the new style of layering.  There are no tiny pieces to add - the eyes and mouth are cut into the layers and the background shows through.  This style of layering uses more cardstock and produces thick elements but it is very easy to do with no stress over losing tiny pieces before you can glue them down!

These are all of the layers I cut.  There is a shadow layer in dark green, a base layer in black (to show through as the eyes and mouth), two frog layers - one to add the front legs and the other is the top layer.  There is also a layer for the lily pad.  You do have to think carefully about which layer should be cut in each color to get the result you want.  I used Core'dinations cardstock for the green layers and DCWV glitter cardstock for the lily pad.

I also cut the sentiment in the same dark green and top layer green I used for the frog.  The background layer for my card is from the DCWV Glitter Spring mat stack from last year.  It is a wild design but I finally found a way to use it. I think it makes the card so bright and cheerful.  The flower at the top left looks like a sun.

After I layered all of the pieces I had a heavy chipboard like frog to place on the card.  I used foam squares to adhere it and add more dimension.  I inked the edges of the background layer with lime green and decided to use a yellow card base instead of the white I had originally chosen.

This is a simple card but you do have to do some thinking to get the colors and textures for the layers the way you want them.

I ended up using green glitter cardstock for the lily pad - since it is DCWV and has a white core you need to be sure to ink the edges.  I also inked the top layer frog with green but it does not show up very well in the photos.

I felt a little odd using so many layers of paper to make an "Earth Day" card.  It seems wasteful but it does make the assembly of the frog go much faster.  I will be sure (as always) to use my scraps carefully.