Nursery Rhymes

Hello! Is anyone out there? Not hearing from many and just wondering if I'm sitting here talking to myself these days. Hope I don't run you off with this long post.

I am so excited! I completed my album on Saturday. Now, I just need to plan a trip to Dallas to deliver it. :o) Darci, you better get some pictures ready.

A few years ago, I made ABC albums for Layla and Avalee as well as a few other little ones. Layla and Avalee are daughters of very special people in my life and they are cousins. Well, in February, we were blessed with a baby sister for Layla, Baby Alyse. They are all beautiful little girls, and I love them and their parents very much.


This is a photo of the three girls (left to right: Avalee, Alyse and Layla) in our living room last month when they all came for the weekend. Their uncle's girlfriend gave them these darling matching dresses. I had to use three different photos to get this one. Thank goodness for digital! And thank goodness I took so many.

Anyway, my first thought was to make another ABC album for Alyse. Then I bought the Nursery Rhymes cartridge and fell in love. However, between our trip to Arizona, finding paper and trying to get an album done for the bride and groom (I'll share part of that soon), I was delayed getting started on Alyse's album.

Here's the paper I finally selected. I found it at Michaels and used a coupon. I used CTMH cardstock for the solids. I'm using a bright pink album with a place on the cover for a photo to be inserted, also from Michaels.


I had in my head exactly what I wanted it to look like and I DID IT! So many times I have a certain way I want something to turn out and, no matter what I do, it just won't happen. Well, this one turned out perfect!!!!!!! Here's the title page.


I wanted to include the words to the nursery rhymes, the base design and the phrase and leave room for photos to be matted and added. All of this in an 8x8 album?


I used The Real Mother Goose as the basis for getting the words correct for the rhymes. However, some of them just weren't what I remembered, so I went to the internet on those. I'm still not sure about Pat-a-Cake as I do it different, but I like the one I used. I'll change later if Darci wants.

Since I wanted the nursery rhymes to wrap around the pages, I used Microsoft Word and text boxes. I have converted these to pdf files for you and zipped them. I tried to put them all into one document, but the pages were doing weird things and some of them would come out in portrait while others would be landscape. As a matter of fact, one of the rhymes is in two pdf files because I couldn't get both pages to come out in the same direction.

I set up a template file for the Cricut designs. Since I was making an 8x8 album, I set it up on a 24x12 mat with the two pages centered on the mat. Other than welding on the Title and End pages, I did not alter the images. However, using Design Studio and the template made it easier to determine the sizes to use. Hopefully, I have included the sizes on the Notes tab in each file which might help if you are working in a different size album and need to resize.


As I wanted the previews to be available and to make it easier to concentrate on one rhyme at a time, I made a separate cut file for each rhyme. As usual, most of the tabs in the files are for preview. Most of the files have one Cut Page and that page is set up where it will cut on any of the machines. The exceptions are Hickory Dickory which has separate 12x6 Cut Page and 12x6 Paper Placement tabs for the smaller machines and Ring Around which has a 12x6 2nd Cut Page (small machines need to cut both cut pages on that one). Does any of that make sense? Click on the graphic below for a larger view.


Unfortunately, those using the smaller machines will not be able to cut the Cut Shadow pages on the Title Page or the End Page the way I have them set up. My only thought is to cut the shadows in separate pieces and glue them together.


This is the last page of the album. I will give Darci another circle the size of the inside circle as well as one 1/4 inch smaller that she can use for templates if she wants to cut a photo into a circle to place over the LOVE YOU.

I did not use all of the rhymes on the cartridge. I selected 14 for the body of the album and then included 8 more of the designs only in the Title and End pages. There are 17 cut files including the template file. With so many files involved, I zipped them into one zip file to share with you.

Cricut Cut Files

PDF Nursery Rhyme Files

I have a feeling that I'll be doing several more of these albums. Would love to see your creations.

Oh, I also used the font on Nursery Rhymes for the Title and End pages.

Enjoying a nice day at home,
Jill

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Had a great weekend with some of the Divas. And I actually managed to accomplish a great deal on my current project. After everyone left and we got the house back together, I sat down and continued to work. When I went to bed Sunday night, the album was complete with the exception of the back page and a few Stickles. Yea!!!!!!

It'll probably be the weekend before I have everything ready to share. (Besides, I want to share the photos with the recipient first.) But I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what I have been up to.


I am SO loving this cartridge!

Hope you're having a good week.

Jill

Summer Tags

Yes, I'm on tags again. They're just quick, fun projects. I've actually designed several that I just haven't quite gotten to the production stage.


Bella and her mom came in a few weeks ago long enough to spend the night and leave for Memphis. Then they returned on Monday to fly out on Tuesday. Monday afternoon I remembered that I wanted to give her a new tag before she left. I had started working on these, so I finished designing them and cut them before we went to dinner. Then I put Bella's together when I got back and presented it to her (below).


Some changes were made along the way, so the DS file preview may not look exactly like the finished products. Like the sun; those layers just were NOT working at that size. There's not a tab for it in the file, but I drew the suns before I cut them which helped since I didn't use any of the layers on Bella's. I did use one piece of the layer on Mary Claire's (the first photo).

I think I revised the file to only cut that piece on one sun and no layer on the other sun. If you want to draw the sun (or any other piece) before cutting, just click on that piece, copy it, add a new tab which will automatically take you to that tab, and copy. You'll have to save the file and reopen it if there are any parts that you want to "hide contour" so that they don't draw. Remember also NOT to unload your mat between drawing and cutting.

Tuesday night I put together tags for Logan and his cousins, Kate and Mary Claire, and gave them to Claire Wednesday. Now that Logan is 6, I wanted something more boy and less cutesy for him.


Kate's is from the file I made for Lilli a few years ago. She's not a year yet, so I thought something big and bold would be better than a beach scene. Here's the post with Lilli's tags. I did cut one of the other ladybugs in black, cut off her antennae and attach to this one. She just looked a little plain to me.


There is a tab for drawing the sand. I cut everything once but was NOT happy with the sand. You really couldn't see any of the detail, and it looked so plain. So I started over and drew everything before cutting. Since the large piece of sand is made up of 4 pieces welded together, I didn't want the outline of each of those pieces to draw or cut. In order to save that into the file, I had to "hide contour" 2 sections of each piece. So I hid the outline and one speck in each piece. I sure wish they could fix that little snag.

Once again, names were done with Printing 101 and not included in the file. Yes, I did go back and add ribbons to Kate and Mary Claire's tags after taking the photos.


Summer Luggage Tags

I hope you are having a wonderful summer and that someone in your life might enjoy some of these tags.

Jill

Susan's New Product

Have you checked out Busy with the Cricky today? Susan has announced the release of her new product--It's a Kid's Life. Awesome!


Susan does amazing projects with her Cricut and Design Studio, and I bet these are extra special. I know I'm loving what she has shown in her previews. She's taking orders now for $19.99 plus $1.50 s/h, but the price will go up after the official release on July 20.

I wish Susan all the best in this new adventure! Love ya, girl!

Now, go check her out if you haven't already.

Jill

Jungle Eli File

Happy Weekend! A long one and I've already accomplished a few things. Yippee!
1) I had a ribbon wrapping session last night and got all of my ribbon wrapped. It actually all fit in the one box!
2) I cleaned off a counter of clutter in my washroom. That stuff has been there WAY too long.
3) About 1/2 of the laundry is done.
4) And I finished cleaning up the file.


This file is basically the same as the monkey card except that it was designed for a 5 x 7 base and I added a couple of leaves. Note that one of the leaves is flipped. It is set up to cut on 12x12 but can be cut on 12x6 as I have included a 2nd cut page for the smaller machines. I also included a page to draw the faces before cutting. Remember NOT to unload the mat between drawing and cutting. I did not cut the base with the Cricut and that preview page is not in place to be cut. It's just a 5x7.

I did not include the name and date as yours would be different anyway. I used Printing 101 on mine.

Monkey 5 x 7

The photo at the top? That's hubby and me at the Grand Canyon in March. What a great vacation!

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend,
Jill

Jungle Eli

Yea, it's July! Happy Birthday, Aidan!

I am happy to report that Christy had her baby! Eli had to spend a few weeks in NICU, but he is home and doing great now.

While he was in NICU, Christy wanted a sign for his incubator thing. (I know they have a name, but I don't remember.) Angie called and asked if I could make one using the little monkey. (Oh, my friend Angie is Christy's mom and now Eli's Lolly. And her husband Jerry is Eli's Pop. Isn't that cute--Lolly and Pop?)

So off I went to Design Studio and my Cricut to revise the monkey card into a name plate. And I got to see Eli when I delivered it! Such a precious bundle.


Well, I thought I had a file to share with you, but it's going to have it wait until I can get it cleaned up. Sorry about that.

Personally, I'm just glad that the file is still there. When I went to check it out, I went into panic mode as IT WAS NOT THERE! Remember when I uninstalled Design Studio the other day? Well, I didn't even think about my files. Thankfully, the process made a back up but put them in another place.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you that I've made some changes to the labels on my blog. I kind of followed the way Diane is doing on her blog, Capadia Designs. I also included a key above the labels as they are listed in the column on the right. I don't know if you have trouble finding certain posts, but I certainly do. I hope this will help. I'll update the key as I add more groups, but here it is as of right now:

Blog - items about this blog
C - Cricut cartridges
DS/G - Design Studio or Gypsy
H/T - Holidays or Themes
P - Projects
PR - Products
S - Storage

I'll work on the file this weekend and get back to you on it.

Be safe,
Jill