New Cricut Expression 2

Today is the day of the launch of the new Cricut E2 - the updated and improved model of the Cricut Expression.  I stayed up Monday night to watch the launch on the Home Shopping Network and the machines were selling fast - over 4000 shortly after 2 am (yes, I should get to bed earlier!).

This image is from the Cricut.com website and you can read lots more about the machine HERE.  The E2 is exclusive to HSN and will be shown at 12am, 1am, 2am, 6am, 7am, 11am, 12pm, 3pm, 4pm, 7pm, and 8pm EST.  Here is a LINK to the HSN website where you can purchase the E2 (until supplies of this limited edition run out).

This machine has four cartridges built in - Cricut American Alphabet, Just a Note, Cricut Decals, Cricut Essentials.  The handbooks and sample sheets have not yet been posted in the Cartridge Library or added to Design Studio so you'll need to look at them on the Gypsy if you have one.

All of the winners of the Cricut Cruise will be receiving an E2 - I don't have mine yet but I am looking forward to trying it out when it arrives (soon I hope!).

I want to thank all of you who left comments or sent emails with compliments on the photos I share here on the blog.  I do enjoy photography and digital manipulation of my photos.  Here are some answers to a few of the questions that I have received.

I use a Nikon D40 camera with the basic kit lens that came with it when I purchased it about three and a half years ago.  I don't think that this model is in the current line.  It was the most basic digital SLR when I bought it and I believe the current equivalent would be the D3000.  I generally keep it on the automatic settings but I sometimes get adventuresome and turn those off.  There is a macro setting (the little flower) which I use for close ups of cards and details.

The editing of digital photographs can make an enormous difference in the image.  Some of the photos I share are not changed much but sometimes I do a lot of changes with contrast and light to get the look I want.  I use the Creative Memories Memory Manager 3.0 software to edit and organize my photos.  This software is very user friendly and has a quick editing system but also allows you to get very advanced with your changes to the images.

This was the image of the spiderweb straight from the camera - the contrast is low and the spiderweb is not very obvious in the photo.  

 

I cropped and altered the contrast and the light to produce the photo I posted yesterday - it is much more dramatic.  

Here is another example of the original photo before editing...

...and after cropping, sharpening and adjusting the light levels.

One more example of the before...

...and after.  Cropping in on the most interesting part of the photo makes such a difference.

I use Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus 3.0 to get more creative with my photos and turn some of the images into digital embellishments that I can use over and over again.

I use the cutting tools and the "magic wand" in the program to isolate my flowers, dropping out any background and saving them as PNG files in my digital content.  Then they can be resized, recolored, and altered as I please.

I can take my isolated flowers and resize and recombine them in all sorts of groupings and then save the grouped images as additional content.  It can be very interesting to try different combinations and I find it relaxing to work with the images this way.

I don't have any photographic training but I do take hundreds of photos and work with the software nearly every day - so I have lots of practice time logged!  If you have more questions or would like me to organize an online demo time to show you how I do this please be sure to contact me via a comment or email.  If you are interested in the software that I use, I am a Creative Memories consultant and would be happy to help you if you don't have a local consultant.  The link to my website is in the left column.

What do you think of the new Expression 2?  Will you buy one?

link to Discussion Day 2 - How much is enough?

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Easter Celebrations

We had a very nice Easter and the weather turned out to be fine!  I know that I said I'd have some projects to post for Monday, however, we spent most of the day with family and by the time we got home it was too late to assemble and photograph the things I had planned to finish.  I'll try to post those later in the day.  I thought I'd share a few photos from our day - some of these will be used for digital projects.

It was very foggy at 6:30 a.m. when we went to the Old North Bridge for the Easter Sunrise Service.  There were around 75 people who came out early for the service.  I grabbed my camera on the way out the door because the fog was so thick and I thought I could take some interesting photos after the service.

The fog was beautiful and made everything look soft and muted.  This is the view across the river toward the famous Daniel Chester French sculpture of the Concord Minuteman.

After the service the sky started to brighten up and I caught this lovely lavender and blue sky background.

 

As we walked back over the bridge the sun was starting to shine.

 

There were several spiderwebs on the bridge and I tried to capture their fragile beauty.

 

This view back across the river shows the bridge and the statue.  The atmosphere was very tranquil.

We went home to bake our cinnamon rolls to take to the larger family get together.  There is a traditional egg hunt hosted by my husband's youngest brother and his family for their neighborhood and we love to watch the fun.  There were hundreds of eggs to make the search easy for all of the children (though sometimes the older children who have graduated to become "hiders" placed them in spots that were just a little tricky).

There are hundreds of eggs for collecting, however there are only a few special, gold, silver or shiny eggs and these are limited to one per child when collecting the eggs.

Some of the eggs substitute for flowers that aren't blooming yet!

 

The end of the street is blocked with these cones and the eggs are hidden in four or five adjoining yards.  If you look closely at the cones you can see that there is an egg perched on top of each one.

When you start to run out of room in the garden, you can always "hide" a  few eggs right on the cars!

Here are the younger cousins - just waiting for the go ahead to start searching for eggs.

 

The day turned so warm and sunny that we actually had a taste of Spring.  With the sun shining so brightly, I took the chance to get some more close up photos of flowers.  Whenever I have the chance, I try to get some clear closeups to use for converting into digital elements for my digital projects.

These tiny purple flowers on the ground-cover are one of my favorites.

I will work with these flower photos to make some pretty flower clusters for some of my pages.  I'll post the results for you to see how a photo can be used in many ways.

I'll be participating in two blog hops this week.  The first is the Creative Charms blog hop on Friday, April 29th (which happens to be the date of the royal wedding).  This is a farewell hop as a number of Design Team members have finished their terms.  There will be some great prizes and lots of inspiration.

The second is a Disney/Pixar hop on April 30th and May 1st - I'll be in the May 1st group.  I don't make a lot of Disney projects so I thought it would be fun to do this and challenge myself a little.  There are also prizes for this hop so it looks like another busy weekend!

I hope you had a lovely weekend and I want to thank you for your patience.  This has not turned into a photography blog - I will be back to posting crafty projects later today.  I'll also have some thoughts to share about the latest cartridge release.  If you've had a chance to check them out, I'd love to hear what you think about the new cartridges.


link to Discussion Day 2 - How much is enough?


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Happy Easter

I hope that you have a lovely holiday and that you will be able to spend it with family and friends.  We hope to watch the younger members of the family hunt for eggs after church - if it isn't raining too hard.  This is my Easter card to you - made digitally with the Reminisce Spring Digital Additions and the Nancy O'Dell Hummingbird Series Digital Kit.

I did manage to clear out a lot of the storage area - it was full of things I had saved to "alter" and it was time for some of them to go!  Later this afternoon I hope to find time to put together a few of the projects that I have had designed in my mind for days - and continue with the clearing out process.

If you are eager to see the new Cricut cartridges (all 17 of them!), the Gypsy update is ready - when I checked late last night the Design Studio update had not yet been posted.  The Hello Thursday bloggers were finally given the go ahead to post the information and their projects on Saturday.    Here are the links...

Joy's blog 
Melanie's blog 
Robyn's blog
Tammy's blog 
Mixology Crafts (new this month)

link to Discussion Day 2 - How much is enough?

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Discussion Day #2 - How much is enough?

We are expecting a rainy Saturday and since it won't be a good day to be outside I am planning to dig in and try to finish the craft room reorganization.  I have been amazed at the sheer amount of "crafty stuff" that I have accumulated over the years.  I am a fairly typical crafter who can't resist items that are pretty or that I think I can use for a "to be determined" project.

Papercrafting supplies are generally low in price as individual items but tend to be part of larger sets or collections.  It is easy to think that you need every color of Stickles or all of the papers in a new line - turning a purchase of a dollar or two into a much more significant acquisition.

I constantly struggle with the balance between collecting or limiting the amount of supplies and tools in my space.  In the past couple of weeks I have purchased two new crafting machines (more about these later) and there are still more that I "think" I want.  Realistically, I only have so many hours in a day and there are other aspects of life that need my attention.  Will I ever be able to use all that I have and find time to work with new items too?

When you have too many options available to you it becomes difficult to make a choice.  It is possible that having "too much" makes you less creative and inventive than you would be if you had to work to make the most of a limited amount of materials.

So let's talk about it - do you ever feel overwhelmed by your supplies?  What is a "reasonable" amount of paper to have on hand?  Do you need to have every color of solid cardstock from a certain company to feel prepared to craft?  How often do you actually use the colors in a series that complete your collection but don't really appeal to you?  What method do you use to try to keep the acquisition of new things under control?  Is it possible to have so many "toys" (whether they are cartridges, SVG files, ribbons, paper stacks, etc.) that you can't reasonably expect to use them all - no matter how hard you try?

You don't have to "confess" to the amount of papercrafting accumulation in your life unless it helps you to work out your answer to the questions.  I will add a link for this topic to the tab at the top of the page so you can gather your thoughts  and join the conversation when you have time. 

A note about new cartridges...   "Hello Thursday" did not become "Good Morning Friday" and the new cartridges have not yet been officially announced.  There have been a number of personnel changes at ProvoCraft this week and these may have had an impact on the usual schedule.  When I plugged in my Gypsy and ran Cricut Sync to transfer a file tonight, I discovered that the Gypsy updates with the new cartridges are in place.  There are four segments to the update and it will take quite a while (over two hours for me) to complete them all.  You will be able to see a number of new cartridges once the update is completed.

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Happy to be home at last...

After being away for a week it is good to finally get back home.  It was great to see our son's performance and to have a nice visit with my Dad.  The drive home was long but uneventful and I arrived to find a few packages that were delivered while I was away.  Unfortunately, the new power supply for my laptop isn't here yet but I am able to use my desktop to start getting some photos edited and posts organized.  "Hello Thursday" did not make it out on Thursday.  I suppose it will be "Hello Friday" this month due to some changes that are taking place at ProvoCraft.  With the Easter weekend arriving, I am sure many people are busy with other things. I have a lot of pent-up crafting energy and some new toys to try out...  I still want to decorate some more eggs - tomorrow is almost the last chance for that!

I had to post these photos for my Massachusetts friends.  When you travel through Worcester on 290 you usually see this bear on the roof of the Polar Soda plant.

 

This is a newer model of the bear and some of my friends think he looks a bit too "buff" with his nipped in waist!  It was terribly windy today and I am surprised that he didn't blow away.

Here are a few of the things I'll be working with over the next few days...

In one of the boxes (from Oh My Crafts) there was a lot of sparkly vinyl.  Just a little bit goes a long way to make a project special.  I have used this for ornaments and for cards.  The current code for saving 10% at Oh My Crafts is "SPRING10" - you can sign up for email to get notice of discount codes.

I also found some interesting trims and lace in one of the charity shops that I check when I go to Pennsylvania.  My Mom used to love finding "treasures" here (and also donated a lot of "treasures" when it was time to move them along and make space in the house).  I have a few vintage projects in mind that will put these to good use.

I have a lot to do to get organized.  I'll be participating in a couple of blog hops at the end of next week and will add more details about these tomorrow.  I also know that many of you are patiently waiting to see the "new and improved" craft room.  I hope to get it past the "old and untidy" stage and finish moving things into the new bookcases over the next few days.

The Lettering Delights Dollar Days sale is in the final week.  This sale only comes twice a year so if you were thinking about ordering, don't miss the chance.  You can use the code "easterbasket" and take $10 off a $25 order.  With most items only $1 (SVG sets are $2) this will give you a great savings off the usual prices.  You can click the affiliate link above or in the left side column to go to the site.

The new online design tool - the "Cricut Craft Room" is gradually becoming available.  You can find out more about it at this LINK.  I am not sure when it will be open to everyone - so far access has been by invitation only.  You can request an invitation if you haven't received one already.  I will have a lot more information about the Craft Room over the next few weeks.  It does not completely replace Design Studio or the Gypsy but gives you an additional design option that addresses some of the issues with Design Studio and the Gypsy.  I wish that the best features of all three could be combined in one program that could be installed on your computer and used anywhere.  The need to have an internet connection to design could be a problem for many people in certain situations.

I want to wish you all a lovely holiday weekend.  After sunrise services on Sunday, we will be with family for an Easter egg hunt and I hope to get some good photos of the excitement.

There are nearly 100 replies to the first Discussion Day topic - thanks for joining in! There is a lot of interesting reading if you have time to go through all of the responses.  The posts are linked in the "Discussion Days" tab at the top of the blog so, if you are interested, you can read and reply whenever it is convenient

link to Discussion Day 1 - Why do you craft?

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