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