Sample cuts from A Child's Year

I could hardly wait to try out some of these cuts - I wish I could stay home and cut them all (OK, I know that would take forever!). We do have plans to get together with family for dinner tonight. I thought I would just post some pictures to show you the sample cuts I did and tell you the sizes. I have been pleased to find that these intricate images are cutting very well. You do need to be sure to have a good and sticky mat.

(Here is a LINK to my first post with photos of the entire manual and the keypad overlays for A Child's Year - if you spend some time looking at the photos you will find all sorts of surprises!)

Of course the first one I tried was the one I had seen in some of preview images on the Cricut site. I used "fit to length" at five inches for this Fourth of July go-cart and it cut at 3 1/4 inches high. This would fit nicely on a 5 x 7 card.



Here you can see the shadow layer in blue and the image cut in red. You need a bit of patience to remove all of the very tiny bits - the pointy hook tool in the Cricut tool kit works well for this. If you don't have that try a corsage pin or something similar to help poke out the very fine details.



I cut the beetle at four inches - forgetting that it was sideways in the book so the 4 inches was measuring the width - it is a large and scary beetle!



Next, I tried the child with an umbrella - I cut this at 5 1/4 inches.



There are so many interesting options with the Tag feature. I cut one circle scallop at 3 inches and one at 2 inches.



Then I cut the top layers and ended up with these cute tags and a couple of birds too.



I cut the apple card at fit to page on the piece of paper I had left and it is 5 1/4 inches. These would be so nice for teacher cards and gifts.



Here is the card folded with the apple cut out. I am eager to have this in Design Studio so I can eliminate the tick marks for scoring (if you have taken the Design Studio Basic Cards class with me you know that those tick marks are a pet peeve of mine - I don't like the way they look and think they leave a messy edge but you can easily delete them in Design Studio).



Here is another interesting tag option - above are the two pieces cut at three inches. The detail on the diploma is lovely



Here is the assembled tag.



I cut this beach umbrella with sand toys at 4 inches.



Here it is with the shadow added.



This bubble bath images is one of my favorites so far! It is also cut at four inches.



Here is the bubble bath image with the shadow.



The adorable tooth fairy girl - top cut...



and layered with the shadow in bright pink!



The grand piano at four inches.



The violin cut at fit to length for four inches - actual cut is 1 3/4 inches. Look at the delicate cut to the inside of the bow - it worked perfectly!



Last but not least - this lovely heart cut at three inches.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these - it is nice to know that they are easy to cut though I would not recommend trying to cut some of the images at tiny sizes.

Off to dinner - I'll post more later or tomorrow - and maybe even put together a project or two!

A Child's Year - One of the Best Yet!

I feel like my birthday came early (it isn't until next week). This morning I received a copy of the new "A Child's Year" cartridge to preview for you and I can tell already that this is going to be one of my all time favorites. This is a full cartridge and it is absolutely packed with great images, cards, tags, wonderful icons and even a full upper and lower case font - WOW!!!



The creative features include Monogram - capital letters in scalloped ovals or balloons,



Icon - so many great images and lots of nice realistic ones for those who don't care for some of the "cute" images on other cartridges,



a Card feature with folding cards and flat note cards,



Tags with some interesting layering options,



a full font which is very classic and useful - on first glance it reminds me of a cross between Alphalicious and Doodletype



and finally, a shadow feature for all of the intricate, Scherenschnitte style images on the main keypad.

I am so eager to start cutting - this cartridge is not in Design Studio yet but will be added soon (I believe they are working on adding the keywords). I resisted the temptation to go play right away so I could take photos to share with you - next I will be off to try some cuts which I will try to post later today.

This type of cartridge has so much to offer even if you don't use Design Studio - let me show you what it includes....(remember you can click on any photo to see it in a large size)



Birthday images with yet another cupcake option - the child in the high chair is adorable!



Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day - the shamrock and hearts are wonderful!



Two sets of Easter images - I love the little chick and the bunny in the tag.



Children with umbrellas - I remember someone was recently asking for a "Morton Salt" image - this would work very well. Next there are three pages of garden images - the border in the shift of the Icon looks great and I really like the girl pushing a wheelbarrow.



More garden images, a great watering can and potted plant and wonderfully detailed realistic leaves.



Outdoor - fishing images with a very nice fish on the Tag option and then some special "Mom" images. The roses and doves with a heart are beautiful.



"Dad" images with baseball, bat and cap and yummy ice cream - cones and a sundae!



Three pages of beach images - cute beach balls and beach umbrella vignette.



The third page of beach images and 4th of July (this was the image that is on the Products page on Cricut.com) The little go-cart looks fantastic - so much detail...



More 4th of July - watermelon and crossed flags and some very nice reading images and book icons.



Some school images, including a cap and diploma and a lovely realistic apple with detailed leaves.



Music images - take a look at that violin and the grand piano - I know I will be using these! The shaped card on that page looks very nice as well. The "craft" images include some nice scissors, the heart in hand motif (common in quilting) and a sweet girl at an easel.



Two sets of Halloween images - great pumpkins and costumed children.



Thanksgiving "Pilgrims" with a detailed turkey and some wonderful winter images - the snowman is very charming and the snowflakes icons are lovely and different.



Two sets of Christmas images - the holly icon is very stylish for a card and the steaming cup of tea and the teacup card can be used throughout the year.



Pages of images with animals including a duck and a very detailed beetle (almost scary!) along with some lovely bird images.



More birds and some cats! (I know many people have been wishing for more cat images).



The dogs are not forgotten and there is a cute folding tag of a bone



Some sets of girls playing old fashioned games and a very cute hand card.



A few cooking images and a rolling pin, wooden spoon and mixing bowl - also some more teacup and teapot images including a nice aperture card and tag.



Baby doll and airplane images - some "captain's" wings and a suitcase - also some nice word art.



Two sets of toy images - the tricycle and little wagon are very detailed - also a great card with a scalloped front.



"Dress up" images - a lucky horseshoe and stick pony and a cute princess dress and crown.



Just look at those teddy bears - they are great! and the bubble bath images are also sweet...



Time for bed - a lovely card and tag, another cat and the "tooth fairy" with a tooth and tooth brush - the little girls with fairy wings are precious.

The designer of this cartridge is Sharyn Sowell and I have to say I think she is amazingly talented and has given us some wonderful new images. I like the fact that many of them are very realistic so they can be used for all sorts of things and are not limited to "Kids" projects and pages. This was a cartridge that I have been interested in ever since I heard about it from the reports from CHA last winter and it not only lives up to but far exceeds my expectations.

(Thanks to Cathy from the Cricut Message Board I am adding a LINK to Sharyn Sowell's website - truly incredible work!)

I am going to go do some trial cuts and will post them as soon as I can - I am sorry to be such an "enabler" but I think that once you look at these images this cartridge will end up on a lot of "wish lists" because it is so classy and versatile.

I'd like to say thanks again to Provo Craft for the honor of being asked to review this cartridge.

Digital Challenge - Word Art Frames

It's Thursday and time for another Digital Challenge for FCTSC. I am doing these every other week right now and you can see links to past challenges in the side column.

The digital freebies at the Creative Memories site today are frames with word art - if you'd like to check them out here is a LINK to the page. These remind me of the frames I did when I was first getting started with the Design Studio software and we couldn't weld inside a frame - you had to build the frame from pieces to put a word inside.



These date back to early in 2008 - in the first month of my blog - I've learned a lot since then!



So, for this week's digital challenge, try making a word art frame of your own - it can say anything you want and be for any occasion. Here are a few that I did - they are lots of fun. I incorporated my word art inside the frame for some of these - all of the frames were grouped with the word art to make resizing simple.



I use the Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus software - if you'd like more information about this software here is a LINK. I have given the information about the elements I used for each of these frames below.

Top left frame filled with paper from the "Delight" digital power palette and word art from "Wishes and Dreams" digital kit.
Top right frame filled with paper from "Holiday Traditional" free predesigned pages and word art from "Delight"' digital power palette.
Lower left frame filled with paper from "Recipe Book" digital kit, word art also from "Recipe Book" digital kit.
Lower right frame filled with paper from the "Primary" digital power pallette, word art from "Mod" digital power pallette.

Remember, if you want to participate in the FCTSC digi challenge, you will need to join FCTSC in order to be able to post your project in the digital challenge section of the gallery.

Have some fun experimenting with putting frames and words together and be sure to post what you make in the gallery at FCTSC.

Happy Fourth of July!

It is the first of July and it was chilly, cold and rainy here in New England today. We are starting to wonder if there will be a "real" summer this year! But the Fourth of July is nearly here, so I thought about a design I made quite a while ago (before there was a "Stand and Salute" cartridge).

Last October, after I made the Halloween lanterns which were featured in the Chirp newsletter on the Circut.com site, I was asked to design something similar for the Fourth of July. If you don't remember or didn't see these lanterns this LINK will take you to all of the Halloween entries - there is a ghostly fence border and then three entries about the Halloween design (you might want to start reading with the oldest post first).



This is the mesh I designed for that lantern. It was meant to be cut on the Expression and I used Plantin Schoolbook, Accent Essentials, Cuttin Up and Celebrations. Here is a LINK to the original post - I have moved the file to 4shared if you want to download the large version. You need the Expression and a 12 x 24 mat to cut the original design.



I decided to adapt this design to make shorter lanterns and to make it "baby bug compatible." I needed to change cartridges and adapt the sizing and placement to fit a baby bug mat.



I changed from Plantin Schoolbook to George for the long rectangles between the rows of elements and I eliminated the Accent Essentials starburst since it is less likely that a baby bug owner will have this cartridge.



The bars extend into the "uncuttable area" at the sides of the mat but you can simply make a few snips with some sharp scissors to complete the cuts.



Don't forget to save any useful bits leftover - these "4s" could be used on another project.



I used Creative Memories Precision Point adhesive on the back of the cuts and when it had dried to clear I adhered vellum along the cut.



I used Scor-Tape to hold the sides of the lantern cylinders together.



For one version of the lantern I adhered the vellum up to the last bar and left the top elements open with no lining.



For the other version, I adhered vellum all the way to the top of the design.



It really is a matter of personal preference (and may depend on how much vellum you have handy - I had a 10 x 12 sheet which I could cut in two pieces to complete both lanterns by making them slightly different in the amount of backing.



I actually think I prefer the look of the open top.



These cuts can also be used as a wide border on a scrapbook page or for a holiday display. The stars along the bottom of the red cut are optional and are on a separate page of the file. If you want to use them, cut the first page and just leave your mat in the machine and cut the star page.

If you don't have Cuttin Up, it is easy to change the letters to a font that you do have (but Cuttin Up is a great font and you should have it!). Here is a LINK to a post where I explained how to change the letters on the Halloween Design - if you have any problems, just let me know.

I used a battery operated small pillar candle to light the lanterns. If you use a real candle, be sure to put it in a glass container and then place that container in the lantern. You have to be really careful with these paper cuts and an open flame!

I will probably use these as table decorations on Saturday when we celebrate the 4th - I just wanted to post them today to give you time to make them if you would like to use them this weekend.

4th of July Baby Bug Lanterns