Snowman Luggage Tags

Yes, I've been doing more luggage tags. I just can't seem to leave them alone. These were for Logan (remember Claire's step-son) and Abby (my daughter-in-law's little sister who LOVES snowmen).


HoHoHo is on Very Merry Tags while the snowmen are on Snow Friends.


Although I did not include them in the file, I used Printing 101 for the names.


Logan was thrilled with his, but Abby hasn't gotten hers yet.

Some of those snowman pieces were so small that they did not cut very well at all. I ended up enlarging pieces for the eyes and mouth for the snowman with his arms down. That's the Eyes & mouth page of the file. The correct size of those pieces are also on the Snowmen Pieces page. I would go ahead and cut that page, then cut the other one only if needed. Who knows, yours may cut ok.

Snowman Luggage Tags

I hope that everyone has a very safe New Year's Eve. This is the night that I try to stay home. Be careful and I'll see you next year.

Happy New Year!

Jill

Crown Gift Card

Back in August, we celebrated Angie and Rose Mary's birthdays. Yes, I am rather behind sharing with you. Sorry. Anyway, here's Rose Mary's card.


This test cut shows it a little better. There's one base cut with tic marks to make folding easier.


Then one crown to layer and bling up.


I stamped Happy Birthday with a CTMH stamp, outlined the crown with Stickles and added gems. Just perfect for our Glitter Queen.

Because of the size of the crown, this one has to be cut on an Expression. However, it is set up to use either George or Plantin along with Happily Ever After.

Crown Gift Card

Maybe you have a little princess in need of a gift? :o)

Jill

More Cards w/ Argyle

I hope you haven't given up on me yet.

You might remember when I posted my Mother's Day card that I said the base could be used for any occasion. Well, I've managed to use it a few more times.

Another cousin's daughter had a precious baby boy a few months ago and I needed a card for her baby shower. Then my son's best friend got married and I needed a card to send with their wedding present.


I love the little monkey on Sweethearts and thought he HAD to be used. It's a Boy came from Wild Card, but I wasn't totally happy with it. To give it a little boost, I added a signboard from Storybook.


Congratulations came from New Arrival.


In the photo above, you can see the layers used to make the monkey. I just love layered cards.


Again, I added vellum to the inside and cut an envelope. Remember that this envelope can only be cut on the Expression.


Then it was Josh's turn. Sweethearts came in handy once again with the wedding bells. I used an embossed vellum to cut the top layer of the bells and chalked the clappers. The card had to be turned landscape so that everything would fit properly. I like the change.


Best Wishes was cut from Cuttin' Up. I should have been pickier about where the pop dots went, but I thought the vellum would cover it up better. I was at a crop when I made this card and didn't have the vellum with me.


My friend Kay also used this base to make a baby girl card. I don't have pictures and only created a basic cut file, but I will share the file with you. We used the onsie from New Arrival and the scalloped circle from Mini Monograms for trim on the onsie. I believe she also turned hers landscape.

Monkey Card
Wedding Bells Card
Onsie Card

I hope these give you some ideas and I'll try to do a better job at posting more often.

Jill

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Safe, Healthy and Prosperous 2010.

Love,
Jill

Race for the Cure

Wow! What a month it has been! On top of preparing for our Race for the Cure, I also had a weekend crop with the Divas at Ferncliff the week before the Race. Entirely too early (our fall crop is normally in November), but we had a great time and a beautiful weekend.


However, the weekend did end on a bad note for me. Not a mile or so down the road, a deer hit the driver door of my car. I was able to drive home (cautiously as I had no side-view mirror and my Pilot was crammed full of everything from the crop) and I was not injured, but it meant over a week in the shop. It just so happened that my uncle had gone to Memphis for two weeks and left his car keys at home, so I was able to borrow his car while mine was in the shop. The deer got up and ran off, so I have no idea whether he lived or not. Since then I've been seeing deer EVERYwhere and it's really made me rather skittish.


And last weekend was our Race. The morning started out rather cold, but the clouds eventually cleared and we had another beautiful day and a great turnout. We're still waiting on the final numbers.

While in Branson in August, I made a couple of luggage tags/keyrings using the Pink Promise cartridge. I made one for me and one for my friend, Dianne, who is a Breast Cancer Survivor.



Soon after giving Dianne's to her, her purse was stolen. Among dealing with canceling credit cards, closing and opening checking accounts, etc., she was really ticked off that they got her keyring. But I promised her a better one.


In the meantime, I have made several more for our 2009 Race Chair, 2010 Race Chair, our Affiliate staff members, a dear sorority sister who is also a survivor and a couple for our sorority alumni Make It, Bake It, Grow It, Sew It, Sell It fundraiser.



I also used this cartridge to cut several signs for our Race Space. Kim said they looked great, but apparently the damp (we've had ENTIRELY too much rain) got to the paper and it refused to stick to anything after several days. I haven't gotten into cutting vinyl yet but plan to work on that before we open next year.

This file is set up with a few variations. The Size and Designs... tabs are basically there for preview. Cut Backs tab will cut 4 backs; copy, paste and move or delete as you need. I use 2 backs per tag. Cut 2 Designs... will cut 2 sets of ribbons, a Race for the Cure and a Survivor with shadow. Cut Survivor Designs... will cut one ribbon with shadow and one Survivor with shadow. The ribbon is smaller on this cut and the next because I added the recipient's' name on some. Cut Race Designs... will cut one ribbon with shadow and one Race for the Cure.

I used Cursive 101 for the names that I did but did not include any of them in the file. Enter your name as a single item at 1" and get all of the letters in place and welded. Then resize it using the lower right arrows making sure that it fits in the box for one of the backs.

Those Race for the Cure cuts are very delicate, so be careful taking them off the mat if you decide to make some.

RFTC Tags

Happy Fall,
Jill

Elmo Border

My original plans were to cut this out of glitter paper, but the red paper I had was having none of it. I tried a new blade, the deep-cut housing with a new blade, various settings and a new mat. It might have worked with multicut, but I was already having enough trouble keeping it in place on the mat for one cut. I finally relented and went back to cardstock.


I think the layout turned out pretty darn cute myself. But then, I did have a precious subject.


This file needs some explanations.

I used the baby bug for this file because I wanted the border to be as wide as possible without rotating the images. I created one border and then copied, pasted and flipped it to create the second border going opposite.


Cutting Directions:

Cut 1: Place your paper on your mat by looking at Cut 2. You will want black for the faces and orange for the noses before you start cutting anything. Once paper is in place and mat is loaded, cut Cut 1. This will take a while but will cut all of the details for the faces. There are actually two layers to this page. The only way I could hide the face outlines (and keep them hidden) was to hide another line in each face. Remember that you have to hide two elements within an image in order for it to stay hidden when you save the file. So I did one layer hiding the face outline and one other line and a second layer hiding the face outline and all of the other lines. This won't matter to you except if you start trying to move the design on the mat. Do NOT unload your mat.

Cut 2: Leave the mat in the Cricut from Cut 1. The top section will cut the outline of the borders and you want the noses to cut from the bottom section. Therefore, you will need to hide the eyes. (There was no way to hide them and keep them hidden since 3 elements are required in an image in order to do so.) And cut. Unload your mat and remove paper.

Cut 3: Reload mat with red and white paper and load in machine. This time, hide the noses. And cut. Unload mat and remove paper.

Cut 4: If you want a shadow for your border, cut this page.

Hope I haven't totally confused you.

Here's the cut file.


Happy cricuting,
Jill

Continuing with Elmo

Yep, returning to Maddy's birthday. I can't handle one-page layouts, so Maddy's title page needed another page to go with it. I went to Sesame Street Friends for this page and selected the jumping Elmo. Isn't he cute?


The only things I did to this page was to flip all of the elements since he was jumping in the wrong direction to begin with and rotate the shadow so that it would cut on the baby bug. Everything is placed so that it will cut on any of the machines.

Here's the complete layout. (Click on it for a larger view.)


And the cut file.

Hope you enjoy,
Jill

Visual

Where does the time go? I'd like to say that I'll do better about posting, but our Race for the Cure is October 17. That means that we start processing our teams next week and I'll be tied up with that for about 2 weeks.

In the meantime, Stephanie posted a comment recently asking questions about the wireless connection to my cricuts and requesting a picture. (Here's a LINK to my last post regarding wireless use of the cricuts.) I thought maybe several pictures would help others understand as well.

This is my basic setup. I tried to take one picture or stitch the two together, but it just was not happening with the allowable space I have behind my table. (Remember that you can click on the photo to open a larger view.)


Next is my lamp which sits on top of the hub (Belkin F5L009 Network USB Hub). Set up this way, the hub doesn't even take up any space.


Here's the hub from the front with the lamp moved.


And the back of the hub.


I thought maybe labeling the cords would help a little. The black one is the power cord for the hub; the blue one connects the hub to the bridge; the gray one is the USB cord to my baby bug; and the white one is the USB cord to my Expression.


Remember that Dave attached my power strips and everything to the bottom of my table. This is the bridge (Linksys - Dual-Band Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge. Model: WET610N Best Buy SKU: 9213861) which is also attached under there. You can barely see the blue cord which attaches it to the hub.


This is our wireless internet router (ours is a Linksys) which sits on top of our entertainment center across the room. Dave also has another bridge two rooms over that controls all of his X10 equipment. I'm not sure what all he has connected to it.


On the ladder, you can see the router between the pictures of our respective families a few Christmas' ago.


From the floor, you don't even know it's up there.


To recap from the previous post, my laptop talks wirelessly to the router which talks wirelessly to the bridge. The bridge is attached to the hub and the hub is attached to the cricuts.

If you can only afford one piece at a time, you want the hub first and connect it directly to your internet with a cable.

I'm blessed not only with a wonderful husband, but one that is a computer tech and loves gadgets!

I hope that answers your questions. If not, please let me know.

I'll try to share a file or two with you before we start processing.

Later,
Jill

Elmo Birthday

We are HOME! Vacation was absolutely wonderful, but it sure is good to be home! My own bed, my own recliner, and my own FAST internet!

I wanted to share one more photo from our trip. We had dinner Friday night at Branson Landing's White River Fish House which is actually out on Lake Taneycomo. This is the Lake Queen that went by while we were waiting for our dinner. I think we'll have to take a lake cruise on our next trip.


OK, back to Cricuiting.

You might remember that Maddy's birthday party theme was Elmo. In case you missed it, here's the link to her Elmo card. We had Elmo plates, napkins, cupcakes, hats, games, pinata,...

With all of the photos I took, I had to have some great Elmo embellishments to scrapbook them. (With Kay so busy with the party stuff, I kind of become the photographer of the parties.)

I wanted the first page to be the title page, Maddy is 2. Very original, huh? Sesame Street Font has a SS character attached to each letter of the alphabet. These are TOO cute! I was fortunate that most of Maddy's letters were Elmo. But what to do for the Y? Then I remembered the foundation keys. Sure enough, there was Elmo holding a chalkboard. So I just took that and added a Y to it.


I liked the idea of the 2 being inside of a shape, but then I had the problem with shadowing it. Since the shape is a character key, there is no shadow for it. However, there's those foundation keys again. Yep, I found a silhouette rectangle shadow that I could adjust for the rectangle and weld a shadow of the 2.


Then I decided that the 2 just didn't stand out enough. I finally discovered that the Sunny Day characters fit those in the shapes, so I used it to cut just the 2 in red so that it covered the white 2.


Once I selected red as my background paper, the black base of the characters just didn't give it enough pop. That's when I decided that they needed a white shadow.


Although you probably won't be wanting a file for Maddy, I'm including the file so that you can click around on it and see what I used for different things. As usual, some of the pages are for previewing. The pages that would be cut for this are labeled Cut... I have a ? on Shadow and 2 because you may or may not want a shadow or another layer for your number.

If you do use this file, you will want to hide the noses before cutting page 1 and the eyes before cutting page 2.

Elmo Title Page

More to come.

Have fun,
Jill

Bumble Bee

A while back, Scootingranny sent me a message on the Cricut message board asking if I would reshare a bumble bee I had made using Plantin Schoolbook and Base Camp. Unfortunately, I'm not on the message board much lately. I hope she can still use it or maybe someone here can.

It is patterned after the bee on Pooh and Friends. I had never cut it when I shared it on the message board, so I just cut it to make sure it works. I just grabbed a couple of colors to test. Not exactly bee colors.


Hope someone can make use of this bumble bee.

Jill

Awards Continued

Yes, I got a little sidetracked.

The next award was the Honest Scrap Award. I received this from Amanda at Cricuit Creations by amkscrap. If it weren't for Amanda, I'm not so sure that I would have a blog for you to be reading. She patiently answered each and every question I could come up with for blogging. And she is sweet enough to share her account so that I am able to share files with you. Not to mention her talent! If you haven't already done so, please go visit Amanda's blog.


The rules are to state 10 honest things about oneself and then pass this on to 7 other bloggers. Here goes:

1) I love strawberries. (I thought of that because I just ate a chocolate covered one. Yum!)
2) I'm a wimp in the heat. (However, I think it's the humidity that kills me.)
3) I am not a good passenger in the car and would rather drive.
4) I don't like to fly since 9/11.
5) I need to scrapbook more.
6) I enjoy creating things for others.
7) I love pink. OK, you knew that, didn't you.
8) I was blessed with amazing parents.
9) I spend entirely too much time on the computer.
10) I appreciate all of you for reading my blog.

OK, that part is done. I'm afraid you'll have to wait to see where I send these awards.


Then came the One Lovely Blog Award from Tina at Tiggers Scrap Place. I had not visited Tina's blog prior to being honored with this award, but I can guarantee that I will be a regular from now on. I think you will agree when you visit Tina's blog.


Here are the rules:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.


And last, but by no means least, I received the I Truly Appreciate Your Blog Support Award. This award came from Susan at Busy with the Cricky. Another lady with amazing talent. I don't know how she keeps coming up with such beautiful cards and projects. Please go visit Susan's blog too.


This must be passed on to five blogs that I find inspiring.

When I get home where I'm able to blog hop a bit faster, I'll pass these awards along and let you know who is receiving them so that you can check out those blogs too.

Thank you SO much to Diane, Amanda, Tina and Susan for these awards. I apologize for not acknowledging them sooner. I appreciate all of you so much.

Thanks everyone,
Jill

Class Sign

I recently read that someone made a big poster with the year and grade for their child to hold for first day of school pictures. Sure wish I had thought of that all those years ago. A few weeks ago, I was going through all of my photos from Matt growing up and thought how nice it would be to know what year all of those were. I'll sit down one of these days to do a better job of sorting them and figure it out, but it would be so much easier if I had a clue.

I was too late to help Claire with Logan's pictures, but thought I could at least help Amy. Instead of a poster, I made a cut out with the year and a K for Kindergarten. Who knows, maybe I'll manage to be a good aunt and remember to do this each year. It could happen.


Of course, I had to do Bella's in pink with a purple shadow. Should Amy decide to start scrapbooking, she also has the perfect beginnings to a title page. I used Base Camp on mine, but you can use whatever font you want.

Here's the cut file for the Kindergarten 2009 sign.


Here's a little taste of our vacation. This is Table Rock Lake and Dam. My dad helped build the gates on this dam. That's why we lived in Branson when I was 9 months old. Every trip to Branson includes a stop by the dam. My friend Kay's dad also worked on this dam. They had already left Branson by the time we came though. Yes, it is a small, small world.

Jill

School Days

You may remember that my friend and co-worker, Claire, got married back in May? When she married Chris, she got a precious step-son in the bargain. Logan started Kindergarten last week.

Bella, the granddaughter of one of my double cousins, and her mom came for a visit last week. Bella starts Kindergarten next week.

Since I don't have grandkids of my own, I decided that Logan and Bella needed something for their new adventures. And we all know that I love making luggage tags.


I started with Locker Talk and selected the school bus and crayon. After looking at all of the apples available, I decided that I liked the one on My World best for this project.


Next was the colors. I knew that I wanted to go with primary colors for the school bus and apple, but what about the crayon. I found out that Logan's favorite color is red and confirmed that Bella's are pink and purple. Sorry for the glare below; it was that or blurry.


As usual, I was doing everything at the last minute. Logan's was so last minute that I didn't have a chance to take pictures of his. Of course, his crayon was red, so all of his tags were in red, green, yellow, blue and black. Being a boy, I figured that he most definitely would NOT want ribbons on his.

I had a little extra time with Bella's and got them done after she and Gram went to bed for their sleepover. I wish I had some of that child's energy.


Each item has it's own tab. I didn't try putting everything on one cut tab. With all of the pieces, it was easier for me to work with each item on its own. The School Bus sign has its very own page because I used my Cricut markers on this one so that the letters would show better. They're a bit blurry, but you get the general idea. I think the gel pens that Diane has been working with would have been better, but I don't have those yet. If you don't have the markers, you can just use a pen or chalk or leave as is.

I started the project using one font for the names but changed when I found Printing 101 on sale at Wal Mart. I doubt you'll need these names, but I left those tabs anyway. You can use whatever font you want for your names.

Due to a glitch in the calendar, Logan didn't have his until the second day of school. Claire said he was so excited about his tags that she couldn't get him out of the car that morning. It seems that his PreK teacher was helping him out and Logan was telling him about the tags instead of getting out.

I think Bella was excited. She gets pretty quiet when I give her things, but Gram said that she was telling her mom all about them later.


I think these would be great for anyone in the younger grades or elementary teachers. Locker Talk has some other items that would be better for higher grades. Hope you find a use for them.

So far, another beautiful day in Branson. I think we're going out to the dam in just a bit.

Oh, guess I better include the cut file.

Have fun,
Jill

Awards

Greetings from Branson, Missouri! We are on vacation and loving every minute of it. The weather is absolutely beautiful and the temps are awesome. We went for a late lunch at IHOP this morning and it was 64 degrees! Our condo is below ground level in the front, so I decided earlier to go blog hop on the balcony and enjoy the lovely scenery out back. Ha, no internet connection out there. So I sat out there and read my book for a little while. Other than the singing neighbor, it was GREAT! Not even a bug to swat away.

I hope you haven't given up on me yet. I've been creating, just not making the time to post. Plans are to do some catching up this week and let you see some of my recent projects. I think you're really going to like some of them.

First on my agenda is to acknowledge some blog awards that I have "recently" received from some awesome bloggers.


The first was the Kreative Blogger Award from Dianne at Capadia Designs. If you have been following my blog for long, you know that I think she is awesome. And if you haven't already done so, go check out her blog.

Diane's post said that I share a few things about myself and pass the award along to seven other bloggers. Let's see if I can come up with 7 things:

1) I am an only child and have an only child.
2) I attended the same school all 12 years (no kindergarten back then).
3) I completed college in 3 years.
4) I was a high school business teacher.
5) My mother's brother married my dad's sister and I have 2 double cousins.
6) I have always lived in Arkansas except for 9 months that we lived in Branson when I was 9-18 months old.
7) I am married to the most wonderful man.

OK, I started on this in the afternoon. It is now 10:36 p.m. and I'm beat. We went to an Owners Party which was a buffet dinner and previews of lots of shows around town. After coming back to the condo, we decided to go see Harry Potter The Half-Blood Prince. Not sure what we'll end up doing tomorrow.

I'll try to get a project posted tomorrow and then continue with the awards. I feel honored to have received these and already feel bad that it has taken me so long to acknowledge them.

See you then,
Jill

Tractor Card

I hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July. We had a nice family lunch and later watched some of the fireworks at the air base.

Best made plans! Sometimes it just doesn't pay to plan ahead. ha Remember the Winnie the Pooh card that I made for Aidan's birthday? Well, first of all, contrary to Dave's prediction, I still know where the card is located. But second of all, Kate changed the theme of the party--John Deere. yikes!

I considered just using the Pooh card but couldn't quite bring myself to do so. Dang OCD! Sooooo, out comes My World!


Pretty cute if I do say so myself. Below are most of the pieces used.


And here's the beginning of the layers. The blackout tractor was adhered to the front of the card. Remember--do NOT put adhesive on the left edge of the back tire as it hangs off when the card is folded. The blackout tires were adhered to the tractor and the yellow tire centers to the tires. The centers were made with George, but any circles a little larger than the original middle of the tires would work.


I wanted to pop the other layers but not as high as my pop dots, so I used Zots 3-D glue dots. I put a layer of Zots between the card and the tractor and another layer between the tractor and the tires.


Then I decided that the back tire needed more dimension since they do come out farther on a real tractor. So I cut another back tire. (That's the missing part on the pieces image.) I then attached it using more Zots. There was one delay in this as I ran out of Zots and had to make a run to Michaels. (I now have an extra box.) The view below shows all of the layers.


I found some John Deere pattern paper at the lss. I used it and Wild Card for the envelope and used a CTMH stamp to make a postage stamp. (I had another delay here as my Expression quit cutting. Provo Craft was great and got another shipped to me quickly.) I hid the tick marks on the envelope as I don't like them. I scored the normal 4 folding lines and then scored again about 1/4 inch from the original lines on the top and the bottom.


I printed a sentiment, attached it and stamped Happy Birthday.


I even managed to find a John Deere gift bag at WalMart. His gift was, of course, a tractor. And my mother found a John Deere bucket, milk can and utensil holder. He can use them to hold his toys and we thought the utensil holder would be a great for his tools. Happy Birthday, Aidan!


The file is set up so that the card can be cut from any of the machines. The Expression would have 2 cut pages and the others have 3. However, the envelope can only be cut with the Expression because of the size. Sorry. As usual, some of the pages of the file are for preview only and don't need to be cut.

After I had already assembled part of the card, I decided that the tractor needed a little help with the detail. I used my green Cricut marker to go over the cut lines by hand. If I were to do this card again, I would "cut" with the marker first before actually cutting it out.

John Deere Tractor Card


Have a great day,
Jill