Some Birthday Inspiration to share...

Today I want to share some inspiration with you. This is a photo heavy post with some interesting images & patterns and a bit of fun at the end!

For my birthday, we took a drive up to Salem, Massachusetts, to visit the Peabody Essex Museum which was founded in 1799 and is the oldest continuously operating museum in the country.  If you live in New England and have a chance to visit this museum it is well worth the trip.  Salem, of course, is famous for the witchcraft trials of 1692, but it was also one of the most important ports in early America (until ships became too large for the shallow inner harbor).

The museum was renovated and expanded in 2003 and the space is delightful - bright and airy, even on a rainy day (we drove through torrential rains but the storm had passed by the time we left the museum).

The curves and "sails" in the atrium are a wonderful interpretation of the maritime history of Salem.

One of the current exhibits is called "Eye Spy, Playing with Perception" and it began with this angled mirror in the atrium.

I liked this quote - and it was particularly appropriate for some of the intriguing displays.

This seemingly random assortment of curved and angled metal rods...

...produces the shadow of a wooden artist sketching figure.  I am fascinated by the process that must have been used to determine the shape and placement of the metal to produce the perfect shadow representation of the model.  At first I thought the figure was drawn on the wall but it is not.

There were also several images formed by viewing an array of thread spools suspended on the walls through a viewing sphere.  The sphere inverts the image and sharpens it.

The painting represented in the first installation is Auguste Renoir's, A Girl with a Watering Can.

The viewing sphere is in the black stand on the right and in this photo you can see the array of spools which create an upside down version of the image that is flipped when viewed through the sphere.

Here is a close view of a section of the spools of thread from the left side of the array.  These images are a bit easier to understand because, as our son pointed out, they are simply "pixel" versions of the paintings with each thread spool representing a pixel!

Here is one more - can you see it?

When viewed through the sphere you can see that it is one of the Campbell's soup can paintings by Andy Warhol.

 In another part of the museum we saw this amazing shell dress sculpture.  It is called "Island Bride" and was made in 2002 by Brian White.  The inspiration was the sailor's valentines made from shells - taken to a much higher level!

The patterns and precision are amazing.

Here is the waistline...

the hemline...

a closer view of the flowers...

and another side view of the figure.

When we came home, I found the package I have been waiting for.  Thank goodness the Fed Ex delivery person had the sense to put it in a plastic bag.

Yes,  my Cricut Circle membership kit arrived on my birthday.  I think that is a lucky omen!

Here is my yummy birthday cake - not a Cricut cake, but one from a favorite local bakery.

It is covered with chocolate meringue and the center is basically made of thick chocolate frosting!

I managed to blow out the token candles on the cake.  At least they weren't the type that continually relight themselves!

Here are a couple of books that my son and his girlfriend gave me - I am looking forward to trying some of these patterns in my CM StoryBook program!

My husband found this set of tiny pencils for me - they are packaged in a CD case!.  I guess the idea is that you can take them along and color anywhere!

I love the way they look but I am not sure if I will be able to hold them to color any images.  Here you can see my son putting them back into the case after they spilled.  These are some tiny pencils!

Thank you to everyone who sent emails, cards, Facebook messages or comments to wish me a happy birthday.  It was so nice to be remembered by so many people!  I have a few "birthday" surprises planned for next week so stay tuned....

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.  I am planning to have some crafting time with my new cartridge tomorrow...


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A Sweet and Sparkly card

Just a quick card today with (shocking, I know) no Cricut!  In the never ending quest to tidy my craft space I was sorting through more "trial" bits and pieces that were on my island and I found a card base made with a punched edge that had never been finished.  The base of this card is 4.25 x 11 inches, scored and folded at 5.5 inches.  The edge is punched with the Floral Vine deep edge punch by Martha Stewart.  Be sure to center your punch to get a nice symmetrical design.  For directions on centering the punch pattern, see THIS POST.

 

The deep edges punches are fun to play with to create borders.  You can see my first post about this punch at this LINK.

The paper layer for the front of the card is a soft green damask from this wedding mat stack that I bought on clearance for $1.  I am not sure if it is still available - here is the upc information

This paper has a lovely linen texture which was very effective when the glitter is applied.

The glittered designs and words were done with this adhesive rub-on set from K & Company.  Once again, it is something I have had for a while and i am not sure if it is currently available.  Here is the UPC info

I cut the adhesive rub-ons into smaller sections so I could use many shades of glitter.  I used six different colors of glitter.

I used a variety of colors from a set of Martha Stewart glitters on the adhesive rub-ons.  The Martha Stewart glitter is very fine and worked beautifully.  I could sprinkle on just a bit of glitter and use my finger to apply it to the adhesive with almost no waste.

It is quite difficult to photograph the beautiful shine of the finished glitter.  It is incredibly sparkly but in a soft, not brassy, way.  The adhesive rub-ons are great for working with glitter and not making a huge mess!

I applied a strip of the same paper to the inside of the card to show through the punched border.  You could line the entire card with a contrasting color if you prefer that look.

I am expecting a special delivery tomorrow.  I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Cricut Circle membership box.  It was supposed to be here on the 3rd of July.  Well that didn't happen and now it is arriving on the 10th, on my birthday, so it turns out to be perfect timing!  I can't wait to make something with the French Manor cartridge.

One more note:  According to an email I received this afternoon, the Lettering Delights 60% off sale has been extended to the end of the day July 10th - all of the details and the code are in yesterday's post HERE.  They just added a really cute seaside bundle called the "Seven Seas Collection" - so I had to buy that one too while the sale was still on!

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Lacy Labels and more...

Of all of the Cricut Lite cartridges that just came out last month, Lacy Labels has to be my hands down, slam dunk favorite.  I can see myself using every single image on this cartridge over and over again.  It is perfect for cardmaking but will also work for mini-albums and scrapbook pages.  A couple of weeks ago, one of my online blog friends called me from Walmart for some advice about which cartridges to buy and I told her this was one that should be at the top of everyone's list but that I was waiting a bit to buy it since I just spent a significant chunk of money to join the Cricut Circle.

A few days later, a package arrived with this great cartridge - I could hardly believe it!  Marilyn Mae - you are such a sweetie - thank you so much!  I am working on putting together an appropriate "thank you" package to send you.  I have only had a chance to try a few cuts and they are just as great as they looked in Design Studio.

The layers are intricate but cut very cleanly and by choosing some lovely Core'dinations gemstone cardstock and adding just a few pearls or gems from Creative Charms I made these two samples.  For the image at the top of the page, I took my photo into the Creative Memories StoryBook program and created my own embellishments from the photos.  The background paper for the image at the top of this post is from the "Inch by Inch Collection" by Lettering Delights. 

I also used the "Inch by Inch" collection to make this quick digital page in my StoryBook software.  This is one of the sets I just got in the super secret 60% off sale that ends at midnight (MDT) on July 9th. It was originally $18 and on sale as a collection for $9.  After the discount code was applied, I got the set of six papers, two full alphabets with numbers and punctuation and 30 graphic embellishments for just $3.60!

If you'd like to take advantage of this sale, you can support my blog by clicking on the box above or in my left side bar to take you to the Lettering Delights site.  I will get credit for the referral.  The code to use is "Firecracker" and you can use it as many times as you like between now and midnight (MDT) July 9th to take 60% off your total order of any size.

I have to confess that I made a blunder yesterday.  I wanted to adjust the Flights of Fancy file for George to fit the opening in his tray better.  He told me the opening was 10 inches and, without thinking it through, I quickly chose 8 inches as the size needed (thinking of a 1 inch border all around a ten inch square).

I was tired (I tend to finally sit down and write my blog or finish designs late at night) and so I didn't follow my usual procedure of making a template or guideline to check the size and placement of a design.  If you have taken classes with me, you know that this is something I always emphasize!

I did warn George to cut the file in "ugly" paper so he could check it before using the expensive metallic paper he was thinking of for the final design.  He let me know that the cut was just a bit too big.  The light bulb went off - I needed my square shape to fit in a round hole - oops!

The diagonal of an eight inch square is actually a bit larger than the diameter of a ten inch circle.  If you click on the image above you can see that a 10 inch circle cuts off two corners of the design when it is sized at eight inches.

 

By placing a shape on the mat to use as a guideline you can visualize the final effect and adjust your design to suit.  I ended up with a seven inch square design that I will send to George as my take of the best option for his project. There is a lot of truth in the expression "haste makes waste" - at the very least haste makes it likely you will make a mistake!

Last, but not least, today is my friend Nancy's birthday.  She is a Red Sox fan and last month when we were at the game I saw the scoreboard message and snapped this photo for her!
Happy Birthday Nancy!

I had to renew my driver's license today - just in the nick of time before my birthday (in Massachusetts your license expires on your birthday - I am not sure about other states).  There is a requirement that you go in person every other time so they can get a new photo.  I checked online and went to an office about half an hour away to try to avoid lines but it still took a big chunk of my day.  I did stop in the Marshall's across the plaza and found a few scrapbooking bargains which made the trip a little less dull!  I'll show you what I found soon.

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Resizing with the Gypsy

Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment on yesterday's post for Scott.  He was very proud of his project and I think he really enjoyed hearing from so many of you.

I practically wrote a novel yesterday with all of the bits and pieces to catch up with and I still didn't manage to include everything.  I wanted to share the "Flights of Fancy" file that I did for a reader request from George  (here is a LINK to the original post if you didn't see it the first time).

George had asked me for help with a design he had in mind and I created a .cut file in Design Studio on a 12 x 12 mat for a full page result.  He wanted a version in a smaller size as well - about 5 1/2 inches.

In order to resize the design, I moved it to the Gypsy which has the grouping ability that is missing from and has been one of the most requested updates for Design Studio. It is possible to group many designs in Design Studio.  I figured out how to do this right after the up and down nudging arrows were added to Design Studio in August of 2008.  Here is a LINK to a tutorial I prepared at that time - I called these "adjustable designs."  This is an old tutorial and I do a few things differently now when I make an adjustable design, however,  the basic information has not changed.

In order to keep items in the same group, you must plan out the sizes carefully.  It is not possible to keep the items all in one selection box once you have flipped or altered the proportions of a shape.  The latest update to Design Studio does allow you to select a series of images that have been rotated, altered or flipped by pulling a phantom box around them but if you resize the group the items will not stay in the proper relationship to the other shapes.

When I took the file over to the Gypsy, I could group the frame, the butterfly and all of my letter keys as one large unit.  Then it was quick and easy to resize the entire design to a card size.  My original design had three words that were grouped, a butterfly and a frame.  When I brought the resized file back over to Design Studio each letter was individual  - the word groupings are not retained.

There is also an issue with the welds when the file is transferred back to Design Studio.  The issue is the common welding in a frame problem and you need to "burp" the frame to take care of the inaccurate welds.

To "burp" the design, simply select the frame, copy it, delete it and paste it back again.  Now the welds will work and the cut will be complete.  The frames in this file have all been "burped" and are previewing correctly.

George had cut the smaller version and placed it in this display tray.  It seemed a bit too small so I have taken the file over to the Gypsy again, enlarged the frame to 8 inches square and brought the file back to be saved as a .cut file for non-Gypsy users.

Flights of Fancy (3 sizes)

If you make something with this file George and I both would love to see how it turns out!

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A Special Day - and some odds and ends...

I have an assortment of things to post about today - just skip the ones that don't apply to you! I am catching up on a variety of topics in one big post!

Camp Aunt Diane

Today was a special day because I had our nephew Scott here for "CAD" ( aka - Camp Aunt Diane).

Our twin niece and nephew were checking in for their sleep-away camp in Maine today so Scott visited me instead of spending the day riding back and forth to camp with his parents.  I took this photo of the twins before they left.  I'll let you in on a secret - I took two photos and in one Thomas shut his eyes and in the other Kathryn shut her eyes!  (remember, you can click on any photo to make it larger so you can see the details more clearly).

Digital photography came to the rescue!  I was able to use my Creative Memories Memory Manager 3.0 software to clone the face from Kathryn's "good" photo into the one where Thomas kept his eyes open.

Here is the "before" image...

and here is the "after" version.  Memory Manager is the photo editing and organization software that works as a great companion to the CM StoryBook digital scrapping software.

I have been watching the shipping notices and I think the last two people who ordered the StoryBook program through me during the sale should be receiving it shortly.  If you ordered the software through me, you should also look for an email from me in the next day or two with some proposed times for our live online help/demo session.  I am looking forward to helping you make the most of this software.

Cartridge Update for Design Studio and Gypsy

Updates to add cartridges to the Design Studio program and the Gypsy are available now.  You will notice that Celebrate with a Flourish is missing from the list of Lite cartridges.  However, it was included in the last update and when I did the newest update I did not lose Celebrate with a Flourish in my Design Studio  program.

To update your Design Studio program for the newest cartridges (Fall minis - H20, Pumpkin Carving and October 31st, 3 Birds on Parade and the Savory Cricut Lite cartridge that was missing from the last update) go to the Cricut.com site at THIS LINK and download the Font Pack update dated July 1, 2010.  You will need to log in to the site if you are not logged in.  Be sure to save and then run the update to be sure it will work properly.

To update your Gypsy, connect the Gypsy to your computer, turn it on and run the Gypsy Sync program.  Follow the prompts and don't be alarmed if it takes quite a while to finish - there is a lot of content to be added (all of the Cricut Lite cartridges and the new cartridges listed above).  Celebrate with a Flourish is missing from the Gypsy update and will be added soon.

French Manor (the new exclusive Cricut circle cartridge) will also be added to both programs soon.  You can get a good idea of the images by looking at the "European Decor" cartridge in Design Studio.

Lettering Delights Sale

If you are interested in trying some new digital content don't miss the secret sale going on right now at Lettering Delights. There are just a couple of days left to take 60% off any size order and some of the items are already on sale or in bundles which reduce the cost even further.



You can support my blog by clicking on the box above or in my left side bar to take you to the Lettering Delights site.  I will get credit for the referral.  The code to use is "Firecracker" and you can use it as many times as you like between now and midnight (MDT) July 9th to take 60% off your total order of any size.

Recipe Request

Several people asked for the recipe for the quinoa (KEEN-wah) pilaf we had on the 4th of July.  It came from the Hannaford (a local supermarket) magazine.  I doubled the recipe, added summer squash and didn't use the almonds.

Lemon-Rosemary Quinoa Pilaf 
serves 4

2 cups water
1 cup quinoa
2 tsp olive oil
1 bunch scallions
1 red bell pepper
1/2 lb. asparagus
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1 (15 to 16 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 lemon
1/4 cup sliced almonds, divided

1.  Place water and quinoa in a medium saucepan.  Bring to a boil over high heat, then lower heat to maintain a simmer.  Cover and cook until all the water is absorbed, about 10 - 12 minutes.

2.  While quinoa cooks, prepare the vegetables.  Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Thinly slice scallions, reserving 1 tablespoons of greens, and add the rest (including white slices) to the pan, stirring slightly.  Dice the bell pepper in 1/4 inch pieces, add to the pan, and stir to mix.  Break off woody asparagus ends and discard, chop stalks into 1 inch lengths.  Add to the bell pepper, stirring to mix.  Add garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary and stir to mix.

3.  Rinse and drain chickpeas, then stir into the pepper mixture.  Lower heat to medium and continue to saute.

4.  Check the quinoa.  When most of the water is absorbed, stir to fluff it slightly.  Remove from heat and grate the zest from the lemon into the quinoa.  Stir to mix, then add quinoa to the pan of vegetables.  Squeeze the juice from the lemon - there should be about 3 tablespoons of juice.  Add to the pan, stirring to distribute.  Stir in 3 tbsp of the almonds.

5.  To serve, transfer to a serving bowl.  Garnish with reserved scallion greens and remaining 1 tbsp almonds.  Serve hot, room temperature or cold.

something new...

My friend and fellow designer/blogger Susan Edwards is introducing a new DVD set with 18 of her fabulous layout designs.  She just announced this on her blog at THIS POST and has a special pre-release price so be sure to go check it out.

Back to Camp Aunt Diane

It was a record breaking hot day all over the East Coast.  Our temperature went over 100 (depending on which of the weather forecasters you listen to).  It was so hot that Scott wasn't even interested in taking a dip in the new pool our son bought on the 4th of July.  He told me "I'm not really an outdoor kind of person..." (!)

So we kept cool in the air conditioned house.  Scott played with the Duplos that we keep in the sunroom for young visitors and then moved on to the legos in the basement.

But no day at camp could be complete without Cricuting! With just a few simple directions from me, Scott was a whiz with the Cricut and he made some military vehicles from the Stand and Salute cartridge.  In some cases we cut an extra image so he could use it for making more layers for the cuts.

He created this poster with the cuts and some very detailed background drawing.  It was a lot of work and he told me "this should be on your blog after all of the hard work I did" so I wanted to share Scott's project with you!  If you'd like to leave comments for Scott, I will make sure he sees them.

Whew!  I have a few files from recent projects that need to be posted, however, I think I will save them for tomorrow.

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