DivaInPink's Thoughts and Ideas

Sarah's First Christmas

2012-01-14T20:15:00.001-06:00

Last year I shared a preview with you of a project I had been working on.

Well, it took me forever to get it in the mail and for my niece to actually receive it. And then I forgot about it. For some reason it came to mind the other day and I thought I would share it with you.

First of all, let me give you a little advice. When you make something for someone and have to mail it, go ahead and send it certified or whatever where it can be tracked. I sent Shannon 2 packages at the exact same time by USPS using the flat rate boxes. Then I sent her a facebook message to let her know they were coming and to please let me know when they arrived. Six days later, I got a nice little message that a package had arrived and blah, blah, blah. Well, I could tell that it wasn't THE package.

THIRTY-THREE days later (yes, I'm going out of my mind by now but had plenty of Race for the Cure related things going on), Shannon's neighbor decided to return from vacation and brought her 2nd package over. Yes, it was delivered to the WRONG house and just sat there for a month! UGH!

OK, it may be out of my system now. Maybe not though.

Anyway, I had been doing so many ABC albums that I wanted to do something different for Shannon's daughter, Sarah. I thought a Christmas album would be cute. After much debate, I decided to go with the 12 Days of Christmas as the theme. From there I had to come up with 12 items that I could make with my cricut and would fit. Thankfully, I had plenty of suggestions from friends. Another friend (thanks, Gayla) suggested that I send her all of the items. I sent the stocking before Christmas so that she would at least have it and told Shannon more would be following. I just had no idea how long that would be.

I managed to get the album made and most of the items obtained. However, by procrastinating in getting it mailed, Sarah outgrew some of the items. Bad aunt!!!! I also included extra papers from the album for Shannon to use for mats, etc. So Shannon was really confused when she got the first box with odds and ends of multiple items including scrap paper. Sweet thing never asked if I had gone stark raving mad, but I'm sure she thought it. I mean really, SIX rubber ducks?

OK, ok, here it is:

Well, when I view the slideshow on the blog, it is only showing part of the layouts. If you click on the slideshow, it should take you to my photobucket page where you can look at each layout. Sorry.

The paper was an 8x8 stack I found at Hobby Lobby. It had lots of glitter. I used 3 CTMH cardstock colors for the solids and rotated them. I tried to keep the format fairly consistent throughout the book by putting the number ornaments in the same place on most of the pages. I also used Stickles, google eyes and ribbon to girly it up.

For the cover page, I used Design Studio to cut 1st Christmas into the pink ornament. I ran the pink paper through my Xyron where the adhesive would go on the back and then, leaving the backing on, I ran it through for the adhesive to go on the front. I took the backing off the FRONT and covered the ornament with CTMH Prisma glitter. Once it was well covered and the access glitter shaken off and poured back into the bottle, I took the backing off of the back and placed it on a darker ornament which had already gone through the Xyron to adhere the back to the page.

I also included a copy of One Baby Jesus: A New Twelve Days of Christmas book. I hope that Shannon was able to find pictures to fit the pages of her album. I can't believe she's already had her 2nd Christmas.

I hope you and your family are enjoying a nice weekend. I'm spending mine scrapbooking with the Jammers. Yes! Actually scrapbooking!

Jill

Stocking Banner

2012-01-02T17:14:00.012-06:00

Happy 2012! Hope you have had a happy beginning to the New Year. I also hope to be able to scrapbook, create and share with you more this year. 2011 was k-razy! Here's to a quieter 2012 for me.

OK, I did not manage to share this with you before the holidays, so let's just pretend that I'm sharing early for Christmas 2012. :D

Seems like everyone has been making banners lately and I wanted in on the fun. I wanted one on my mantle for Christmas but didn't want to use pennants. As we use a stocking hanger for our stockings instead of hanging them from the mantle, I thought stockings might be cute. But I also didn't just want to say Merry Christmas. Finally--Happy Birthday Jesus.

I used stocking1 from Christmas Cheer for the base and its shift for the detail (both cut at 5 3/4"). However, I only needed the top cuff so hid the nail, toe and heel pieces. I also hid the toe, heel and cuff lines on the base stocking as I didn't want these to cut. I probably could have welded those instead of hiding.

Calligraphy Collection has become my favorite font cartridge lately. I didn't want a lot of layers and wanted to be able to see the letters from across the room, so I just used the shadow of the basic font for my letters cut at 2 1/2".

I would have added glitter or cut from glitter paper for the white except for the fact that my son has a glitter phobia.

For his sake, I try to avoid glitter when I know he is going to be around.

Here's the fireplace on Christmas Eve after Santa made an early stop to fill our stockings and before everyone arrived. If you click on the photo, you can see the silver letters I found to attach to our stockings. Everyone loved the banner.

I plan to add something at each end next year to "hold" the string. I just ran out of time this year and couldn't decide what I wanted to use.

Have a great week!

BTW, while not using my blog in almost a year, I have lost the connection to upload my files. You should be able to recreate this file on your own if interested, but you can comment on this post and leave your email address if you would like for me to email it to you.

Thanks,
Jill

Holy Smokes!

2011-01-22T07:50:00.004-06:00

Holy Smokes! I knew it had been a while, but had NO IDEA it had been 2 months since I posted. So sorry! I really need to get away from Facebook. It's evil!

Actually, I have been working on a project that is finally completed. Now I just need to get it in the mail to the recipient so that I can share it with you. Here's a sneak peak:

I hope everyone is doing well, had wonderful holidays, is surviving this crazy winter, and has managed to get more crafting accomplished than me.

Once again, I'm asking for your assistance to help Diane. She won the Cricut Cruise and is now working to become a Design Team member for Cosmo Cricket.

Happy 2011,
Jill

Help Diane

2010-11-19T16:07:00.002-06:00

Yes, I know I haven't posted in forever. Life is really busy, but I promise I'll get there eventually.

In the meantime, please go help Diane win a Cricut Cruise if you aren't already doing so.

Thanks,
Jill

Ariel Card

2010-10-02T09:46:00.000-05:00

Our trip to Dallas in August was also intended to celebrate Layla's 4th birthday. Unfortunately, Layla was running a fever and her birthday celebrations had to be rescheduled. Anyway, above is her card. I thought she would really like Ariel.

I didn't want to just plop Ariel on the card, so I decided to layer some of the sea plants. And what's a little girl's card without glitter?

I had a lot of trouble with her eyes but finally used Stickles for the pupils and took care of that. I selected the Wish on Gypsy Wanderings for my sentiment cut at 1.25.

I wanted some dimension to the card, so I used the 3-d glue dots to pop Ariel and pop dots for Wish.

We were able to spend some time with Layla and present her with her gifts and card, all of which she loved. Along with the gifts Denise and Brian got her, they kept her busy most of the night.

I'll have to remember to make Avalee a special card next year. Her birthday was a few weeks ago. We knew we wouldn't be able to go back but gave her gifts to her while we were there. Although she loved her first very own Barbie, she really wanted the cars we gave Ben. Sure do miss all of them!

Jill

Little Bo Peep

2010-09-05T22:11:00.003-05:00

What a beautiful weekend! Great temperatures, beautiful weather, winning Razorbacks and lunch with Matt, April, Josh, Tosha and Uncle Herman. Awwwwwwwww.

We finally made it to Dallas two weeks ago so that I could deliver Alyse's nursery rhyme album to Darci. Well, we did other things, but I was glad to finally make delivery.

The inside of the back cover on her album has a plastic pocket intended to hold a cd. I decided to use it to hold a card instead.

Since the pocket was square, I opted for a square card and decided on 4.25. I probably should have made it a bit smaller with all of the layers, but it fit.

I like the design of the monogram cuts but needed mine to be square, so I used Design Studio to alter the solid one found on the WlcmBaby key.

The 6" cut was close to the width I needed, so I started there. I then changed both the width and height in the Shape Properties box to 4".

My second issue was that I wanted the design to reflect the scallop along the bottom edge instead of being straight. To get around this, I first created my cut page with the design and it's shadow together as they would appear on the card:

Then I placed the adjusted mat where I wanted the scallops:

And finally I moved the design so many spaces to the right using the arrow key on my laptop, clicked on the mat to make it active, copied it, pasted it and moved the new mat the same number of spaces to the right.

So all of the scalloped edges lined up just right.

We had a great time in Dallas with lots of kid time (although never enough), visiting with friends and a little bit of shopping thrown in.

Here's my cut file if you're interested: Bo Peep Card

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend,
Jill

Envelope for 3 x 3

2010-08-14T12:07:00.004-05:00

I need to get this on the blog before I mess around and throw the paper away that has this information. It's amazing that it has made it this long on my scrap table.

When I made Rose Mary's cards a few weeks ago, her envelopes were a bit haphazard as my score board didn't have the dimensions to fit and I was out of time. I plan to make more 3 x 3 cards and didn't want to go through that with the envelope again. So after we got home and I had a bit of time, I experimented until I found a good size.

Cut a 5 1/2" square and score at 2 1/8" on all 4 sides. Clip, fold and add tape.

Working at my table today and hope to have more to share soon.

Hope you're somewhere nice and cool.

Jill

Back to School

2010-08-13T17:38:00.000-05:00

It's about that time once again. I am so dreading next week as traffic will be horrible once again. Since I no longer have one in school, I don't have the other issues of back to school. Yea!!!!!

I hope to get some projects accomplished this weekend but thought I'd just remind you of my school related projects from last year.

There are the luggage tags I made for Logan and Bella here.

And the sign for first day of school pictures here.

Gosh, looking at these, I sure wish we were back in Branson. We haven't been back since that trip and I'm really missing it.

I think I need to go make a list of the projects I need to work on so that I don't forget something.

Have a great weekend,
Jill

Hello Kitty

2010-08-11T07:00:00.003-05:00

Hmmmmm. Maybe that's why I never shared the Hello Kitty luggage tags. I can't find a picture of them. I think I made these for Abby sometime last year, and I helped Rose Mary make some for Emma a while back.

Here's the picture of Meadow's.

And a print screen of all three.

The cut file includes a Paper Setup page for the Cut Page and a separate one for the Rainbow. The setup page for the rainbow includes some instructions. Because the rainbow parts are grouped with only 2 "contours" to a cut, it is impossible at this time to "hide selected contour" part of it and it still be hidden when you reopen the file. Therefore, you'll either have to hide the parts yourself or just cut all of the parts twice. Make sense?

To "hide selected contour", click on the part you want to hide to make it active, right click anywhere on the mat and click "Hide Selected Contour" on the pop-up menu.

Just a rerun of Miller, Sebastian and Meadow's tags.

Are you or a little friend a Hello Kitty fan? Thinking of you on this one, Susan.

Hello Kitty Luggage Tags

Where's Friday,
Jill

Fire Breathing Dragons

2010-08-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

OK, so they aren't fire breathing, but they sure are cute.

When I created Aidan and Maddy's birthday cards (link here), I started work on tags to match but ran out of time. Then I needed a tag for Sebastian, so I decided to do his and Aidan's at the same time. I'll see Kay in a few weeks and hope to have Maddy's made by then too.

I cut the dragons but then remembered how much better they looked using the Cri-Kit pens. So I started over and drew with the pens before cutting.

Doesn't it make a world of difference! I need to remember to use them more.

Since I was working with Nursery Rhymes for Miller, I went ahead and used that font for everything. I rather like it anyway.

Now, I need to get Maddy's done along with making some for Layla, Alyse and Avalee.

Dragon Luggage Tags

Have a good day,
Jill

Miller Time

2010-08-09T07:00:00.001-05:00

You may or may not remember James and Ashley that got married last year. Well, there has been an addition to the family. A bouncing baby boy, Miller. We are all so excited for them!

Reorganizing Rose Mary's scrap closet last week got me motivated to come home, clean my desk and get busy. So I made more luggage tags. No, there is NO end to them.

I love the Cow Jumped Over the Moon element on Nursery Rhymes and knew that I could get by with using it for Miller since he's still so little.

I tried to use colors to match his room. Isn't it precious?

Of course, I didn't want Meadow and Sebastian to feel left out, so I made tags for them too. I thought Meadow would like Hello Kitty and a dragon for Sebastian.

Oops! I had plans for a post regarding the dragon, but I thought I had already shared the Hello Kitty tags. I can't find it, so I guess you'll be seeing her again too.

Anyway, Sherrye was thankful for an "excuse" to go see them, and everyone loved the tags.

I just love this cartridge!

Cow Jumped Over the Moon Luggage Tag

Enjoy,
Jill

Lollypop, Lollypop, Oh Lolly Lolly Lolly

2010-08-08T06:23:00.000-05:00

Had another crop with some of the Divas last month. Actually, for this small group, we call ourselves the Jammers because we love to crop and can just spend the day in our jammies.

Anyway, our plans included the celebration of Angie's birthday, but we were the ones surprised. haha We're not sure who had their days mixed up, but Angie's family made plans for the same weekend which included family photos. So .... However, we did enjoy her birthday cake and strawberries! We even took pictures of us enjoying it and texted to her. Yes, we can be evil but all in fun.

Her absence gave me time to make her birthday card. Yes, always behind. I did have her gift card ready but hadn't had/taken the time to make the card. I had it in Design Studio, just not cut.

Remember that Angie is the one with the new grandson, Eli, and her and her husband's grandparent names are Lolly and Pop? So, naturally, her card HAD to be (wait for it) ...

a lollypop. (Yes, I know it should be lollipop, but she's Lolly.)

Pull on the stick and you have the card

with the gift card attached.

Of course, it had to be a fairly large lollipop for the gift card to fit inside. There are several cartridges with a lollipop, but this one was from Mickey & Friends.

I used the base of the lollipop element to get the size for the stick but just cut circles since I needed the stick to be attached to the card and not the sucker. I used George and Basic Shapes for the circles, stick and card elements and used Mickey and Friends just for the swirl layer of the lollipop. I cut out additional "sticks" and just glued them all together to make it stronger.

I think it turned out pretty cute. I probably should have added Stickles, but too late now. Happy Belated Birthday, Angie! (She received her card last weekend when Rose Mary got hers.)

Lollipop Gift Card

Later,
Jill

Road Trip

2010-08-07T08:30:00.000-05:00

Rose Mary gave us a scare last week when her husband replied to one of our emails that she was in the hospital. Yikes! Angie and I decided it was time for a road trip. None of the other girls were available. I asked Rose Mary if we could come and told her that we would vacuum her floors, clean her toilets, or whatever she needed done. She said we could come but couldn't clean her house.

I left the house a bit after 9:00 Saturday morning, picked Angie up, drove, drove and drove, took the wrong exit (A instead of B or B instead of A or whatever), got turned around, picked up lunch (if you don't live in Arkansas where you can go to Market Place Grill, I'm so sorry), and made it to Rose Mary's house. I'm glad my house isn't that close to Market Place! We finally got to meet her husband, John, and we all had a GREAT lunch. Food was great; company was even better!

After lunch was present time! We'd gotten Rose Mary the I-rock tool, setters and set of gems as a GET WELL.

I had an email from Archivers last week about the 3 x 3 cards. I thought they were such a cute size and decided to make some. Here's Rose Mary's get well card using an element on Love Struck 2010.

And her birthday was coming up, so we added that to the celebration. Here's her birthday card. I just couldn't get this design to fit on a 3 x 3, so I fudged a little. I believe it's 3 x 3.5. This element is on George and Basic Shapes.

And both cards with the tin containing her gift card. Don't you just love the Hobby Lobby tins?

I was trying to match the cards to the tin. I used Vanilla Cream for the bases, Chocolate for the shadows and Twilight for the designs (all papers CTMH). Once the cuts were put together, I pop dotted them to the bases. I used Waterfall Stickles with Yellow on the candle flame.

Even though Rose Mary wouldn't let us clean house (like it really needed it--NOT! She has a beautiful home that is very neat and tidy.), she did have a few projects lined up if we were willing.

Ha! After 2 real quick projects, we dove in on project 3, reorganizing her scrapbook closet. Yahoo!! With her approval, we threw away, we made a box for Arkansas Children's Hospital and we made piles. Then we left Rose Mary to rest while we made a trip to Hobby Lobby and Michaels. Love shopping and spending other people's money! haha

Then we came back and put everything in its place. Wonder if she'll ever be able to find anything? And believe it or not, we didn't even take a before or after picture, but here's one of the three of us--left to right: Jill, Rose Mary and Angie.

By the time we finished our project, drove back to Little Rock, dropped Angie at her car, and stopped for gas, I got home about 10:20. Long but GREAT day with lots of laughter. And, yes, Rose Mary is on the road to recovery and doing great!

I'm not attaching files. Just put a 3 x 3 square on your Design Studio or Gypsy mat and make your element fit inside.

And, NO, we're not coming to clean your house or reorganize your scrapbook area, so you might as well just stay healthy.

Hope you have a great weekend,
Jill

Nursery Rhymes

2010-07-19T11:50:00.002-05:00

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

2010-07-13T17:45:00.001-05:00

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

2010-07-08T12:03:00.002-05:00

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

2010-07-07T12:02:00.000-05:00

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

2010-07-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

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

2010-07-01T20:58:00.002-05:00

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

Diva's Ribbon Storage

2010-06-30T20:36:00.004-05:00

Tammy at Creative Critters Cricut Club has shared her ribbon storage and is asking others to share theirs. So, I thought I would join the fun.

I like to have my ribbon portable so that I can grab it and take it to crops. Therefore, the racks or rain gutter type storage doesn't work for me. I tried the little craft boxes with the individual flat cards like I stored embroidery floss on years ago, but that just downright drove me crazy. When I only had a little bit of ribbon, I looped it on a ring and hung it from a hook. But that didn't work when my supply grew.

Now I use the ribbon wrap cards from Magistical Memories. They're made for 1/2", 3/4", 1" and 1 1/2" widths. Each package comes with 8 cards. I use these for ribbon by the yard or a whole roll. I need it all together in one place.

I've been using this system for several years now and haven't felt the need to change, so it must be working. I can either grab the whole box or just some select cards and off I go.

I usually wait for an abundance of new ribbon and sit in the recliner watching tv as I wrap it on the cards and use straight pins to secure. As a matter of fact, it's probably time for a ribbon wrapping session. I'll have to go to a second box with the additional ribbon.

Some ribbon does need to be ironed when I use it, but that's no problem with the little iron Virginia gave me for my birthday a few years ago. Thanks, V! Wow! That was 3 years ago, so I have been using this system for a good while.

How do you store your ribbon?

Jill

Scoring, Cable & Celebrate

2010-06-29T18:50:00.003-05:00

Several things going on today.

SCORING
I'll start with scoring. Have you seen Diane's post about the Martha Stewart Score Board? She gives a review on it and is giving one away! I've wanted a Scor-Pal for some time but couldn't ever bring myself to order it. When I read her review, saw the price on it and knew that I had a Michaels coupon in the car, I was sold. I bought one on the way home today. $12.95 with coupon and tax. I almost missed them. The space for them in the Martha Stewart area was empty, but I found a whole display of them in the main aisle. Thanks, Diane!

CABLE
And have you seen Susan's post about the six foot extension cable at ScrappinCricut? I read her post last Thursday and immediately ordered one. Within a couple of hours, I received an email that it had been shipped and it was in my mailbox yesterday. What great service!

Now, I have to admit on this one that I wasn't exactly sure what I was ordering. For some reason, it just wasn't computing even though Susan showed a picture of it plugged up to her Gypsy. You may understand it completely, but I thought I'd show you a few more pictures.

OK, the end on the left is exactly like the end of the Design Studio cable that connects the computer to the Cricut. That end plugs into the back of the Cricut.

And the end on the right is like the back of the Cricut. I can now plug the Design Studio cable into the extension cable.

Or I can plug my Gypsy into it.

So now I have plenty of cord for either Design Studio or the Gypsy AND I don't have to go to the back of the Cricut to change them out. I can just unplug one from the extension cord and plug the other one in.

Thanks, Susan and Kendra!

CELEBRATE
Well, the Celebrate part of the post isn't a celebration and you may already be aware of this, but I wasn't. When I was working on Maddy and Aidan's birthday cards, I had problems with the Celebrate with Flourish cartridge. Sorry I forgot to mention it in that post.

The part of the cards using that cartridge was the "happy birthday" on the inside. When I cut that page, Design Studio asked me to insert that cartridge even though it had read my Jukebox. I clicked ok and it did not cut that part. After much playing with it, I finally cut those parts the "old fashioned way" (without Design Studio).

I tested my other two Lite cartridges and had no problems with them but could not cut anything from Celebrate with Flourish using Design Studio. I stayed home this morning waiting to hear from my appliance repairman about my clothes dryer, so I called PC while waiting. Lindsey had me uninstall Design Studio, clear the settings, reinstall Design Studio, update my firmware and run the latest font update again. Nothing!

Well, I heard from my repairman in the meantime, so I needed to get to work and didn't call PC back until I got home this evening. This time I got Ashley. As soon as I told her the problem, she said that they are aware of the problem and that IT is working on it and hopes to have a fix for the next Design Studio update. UGH! But at least they are working on it.

Hope you're having a good week,
Jill

One

2010-06-28T21:15:00.004-05:00

Kay and Angie came to my house a few weeks ago for a weekend of cropping. Virginia joined us on Saturday for a while too. It was rather a crazy weekend as I was hostess for our CTMH group and we ended up having it at my house instead of the school where we usually meet. And then I had to leave for a little while for a hair appointment I couldn't change because it was the last day my hairdresser was working before his 3 week vacation. See, I told you June was busy.

Anyway, Kay was working on the portraits from Aidan's first birthday. Can't believe he'll be 2 this week. I told Kay that I thought she needed a One mesh. She loves the mesh pages, and that's the main reason she wanted an Expression. However, she hasn't played with Design Studio enough to want to tackle making one, so guess who got volunteered.

I grabbed my Gypsy on the way out the door for my hair appointment in case I had a few minutes to wait. I started a page with a bunch of 1's, but then I stumbled across the design on Graphically Speaking where they have already made a mesh of 1's and one's. By taking 4 of these and doing some welding, stretching and scrunching, I made a great full page mesh. Sure made it much easier.

I didn't get pictures of her layout, but she used one of these on the left page and just one strip of it on her right page. Too cute!

Wish I had time to learn the cartridges. A couple of years ago I could pretty much tell you what was on what cartridge. I don't even know what all is available these days. Thank goodness for Linda's cheat sheets and our keyword search ability on DS and Gypsy.

One Mesh

If you use this, I highly recommend cutting it twice in order to get a cleaner cut with all of the corners and stuff.

Jill

Prince and Princess Birthdays

2010-06-27T20:36:00.007-05:00

Kay and Kate were kind enough to combine Maddy and Aidan's birthday parties into one this year, so I just had to make one trip. AND they were kind enough to also plan the party theme around the darling frames I found at Hobby Lobby. :o)

Well, with everything going on, I didn't do so well at getting things done ahead of time this year. But at least I got them done.

I wanted Maddy's card to be girly, so she got the castle, the princess and the bling.

Stickles on the flags and gems all over.

But I wanted Aidan's card to be more "manly", so I had to stay away from the castle. He got the dragon, the knight and just a little bling.

I first cut the dragon but wasn't happy with it. So I pulled out my Cri-Kits to give them a try. I drew the dragon with green ink and the knight's armour with black. I ordered the gel pens a few months ago but hadn't taken the time to use them. Now I'm ready to order more. I have the Reg. and Neon set.

After all was said and done, I still wasn't happy until I added some stickles to the dragon's spots and gave him a google eye.

Aidan's present was this cute little castle. There's also a knight, a dragon and a catapult that goes with it.

But Kay used them on the cake.

And a little bling for the envelopes:

Oh, and Maddy received Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat.

I made 2 files for each card and a file for the crowns that I put on the envelopes. You only need to cut the pages with "cut" on the tabs. Everything else is for previewing the designs.

Crowns
Castle Card
Inside of Castle Card

The Dragon Card also has 2 pages to draw if you are using the pens. One page is for the dragon and one for the armour. Remember to load a pen, load the mat, draw one or the other, change pens, draw the other, load the blade housing, and cut all without unloading the mat between.

Dragon Card (This is the corrected file.)
Inside of Dragon Card

The solid black dragon goes over the knight because he shows through the spots on the green dragon.

The kids didn't care about their cards, but they'll look nice in their scrapbooks. And we had a great time at their birthday party. Happy Birthday Princess Maddy and Prince Aidan!

Later,
Jill

Jungle George

2010-05-30T20:40:00.005-05:00

Behind as always, but this one has no season. hehe

Our friend, Christy, is preggo!!!!! The Divas decided to create some scrapbook pages for her baby album and present them to her at our crop at Ferncliff in March. (I told you I was behind.) Of course, I waited until the last minute and ended up working on mine AT Ferncliff. Thankfully, Christy wasn't sitting next to me and she went home at night, so I had plenty of time. And, no, I wasn't the only one.

She's done the nursery in Calvin and Hobbes. You should see it! She painted a mural, and it is absolutely adorable. Didn't know Christy was an artist. She even made her own mobile. But she's also doing it kind of jungle too. As I never really got into Calvin and Hobbes (don't hate me) but LOVE that cute little monkey on Sweethearts, I decided to go with the jungle motif.

Wow did this take some doing. Lots of hiding contours! Isn't it great when you have something in mind and it actually works out. (Remember that you can click on the picture for a larger view.)

That little boy is going to have one awesome scrapbook. Everyone did such a great job on all of the pages. Cute, cute, cute!!!!!! Not to mention what Christy will do with them after he arrives.

For her shower last week, I made the monkey card again but added a few leaves. I also put the "congratulations" on the front and "It's a Boy" inside. I used the same colors that I used on the layout. (I didn't take a picture since I had already shared one.)

Anxious to meet the little bundle but hoping he stays put for a few more weeks.

I'm attaching 2 files. If you have a 12 x 24 mat, you only need the first file. However, I only had a 12 x 12 mat when I was doing this, so I needed both files. The second file is only the right page border. If you are using a 12 x 12 mat, you will need to change the View to a 12 x 12 mat on the first file. This way takes just a little cutting with scissors or craft blade, but I think we can all handle that. Cut only the tabs labeled Cut on the first file.

Most of the file uses Sweethearts. The grass was done with ZooBalloo and the title with Printing 101.

This could be used for baby in a swing, a child on a swing set, a trip to the zoo or to the park... Change the title for a Wild Child, Wild Ride or just a Wild Day or Monkey'n Around...

Jungle Layout

Jungle Layout Right Page

Happy Memorial Day! Thanks to all who have served our country!

Have a great but safe weekend,
Jill

Santa Hat

2010-04-24T11:02:00.009-05:00

Yes, I am a little out of season. Sorry for the delay.

Rose Mary was working on a cute layout of her granddaughter back at our crop in January. The lighting wasn't great in the photos, but the pictures were precious.

She had bought a Santa hat embellishment but didn't like it after all, so we proceeded to see what could be done. I found the Santa with suit on Christmas Cheer which was close to the hat she had. I hid everything we didn't need and cut the hat in Cranberry and the trim in Colonial White. Rose Mary inked the edges and added Prisma Glitter to the trim. Then she removed the decoration from the one she bought and added it to the one we made.

But the layout still needed something. Rose Mary really wanted a 12 inch border, so I used the same elements only smaller to make a border. I created it with the view on 24x12 mat so that I could get it long enough and then rotated the design to fit on a 12x6 mat. Lots of hiding selected contours! Again, she inked the edges and added Prisma Glitter.

We thought it turned out pretty dang cute!

You just might see this design again if I ever get around to scrapping my Christmas pictures. I hope you can use the Santa Hat file.

Jill

Southwest Travels

2010-04-07T21:02:00.003-05:00

Ok, who took 2010? Where in the world is this year going and can I please get off this merry-go-round for a while?

Well, I did kind of get off for a while and it was GREAT! Our nephew, James, got married a few weeks ago in Tucson, and we decided to make a vacation out of it. We basically had four requirements: Dallas (I had a new baby to cuddle), El Paso (Dave grew up there and I still had not seen it after 12 years of marriage), Tucson in time for the Rehearsal Dinner, and the Grand Canyon (Dave had never seen it and made that request). So once we survived Christmas, I started reading travel books, deciding what cities to visit, looking everything up on the internet, requesting info from Chamber of Commerces and such, making reservations, checking weather, watched Cars again and....

OMG! What a great time we had! The only downers of the trip were not enough time in some places to see the sites and visit friends. Eleven days and ten nights with perfect weather, great accommodations, delicious food and wonderful people. We did Dallas, El Paso, White Sands, Tucson, Sedona, Grand Canyon, more Sedona, Winslow (Standin' on the Corner), Holbrook (Wigwam Motel), Painted Desert, Gallup, Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, Checotah (didn't plan this one but happened to exit looking for McDonalds--home of Carrie Underwood) and HOME.

Everyone has asked me "What was the best (or favorite or prettiest) part of the trip?" My first reponse was that it was all so wonderful that there wasn't a "best". However, on second thought, the "best" was crossing the Arkansas state line coming home. It's true, there's no place like home! And Arkansas was turning green while everywhere else was not. We do have a beautiful state!

All of that to come to my little project. I knew ahead of time that we would have lots of receipts, postcards, pamphlets, etc. from the trip. And I wanted to keep them organized: 1) for when the credit card bill comes (yikes!) and 2) for when I get around to scrapping our journey. So, I designed a book of pockets.

I wanted it tall enough for those brochures you find at hotels on all of the local places and the pockets deep enough that everything would stay. I started with a piece of 12 x 12 cardstock and scored and folded it at 10 inches. I then took another piece of 12 x 12 cardstock in another color and cut it into three 12 x 4 pieces. I adhered one 12 x 4 piece to the 2 inch section of the scored sheet, making a 12 x 14 piece. I then scored and folded it in the middle at 6 inches. Thank goodness for Linda's ScorePal! With everything folded, my pages are 6 x 10 with 4 inch pockets.

I cut chipboard to 6 1/8 x 10 1/4 for the front and back and covered with cardstock and pattern paper. I borrowed Virginia's bind-it-all to put it all together and started adding things to coordinate with where we were going.

It was perfect! And believe me that it is now full.

If anyone is interested in the file, I'll get it cleaned up and posted. It was a fun project and fun to use.

Oh, I must mention that my great friend, Virginia, created the files for the Route 66 sign and the kokopelli using Make The Cut. She did an awesome job!

Jill

Christmas Wonderland

2010-01-16T20:47:00.007-06:00

I hope that all of you, your family and loved ones are safe and well. It's so sad what the people in Haiti are going through. Certainly makes you stop and think.

It's been a while since I've actually completed a layout. It seems like I'm always working on a project. Well, this morning I decided that I wanted to do something with the pictures of our yard during Christmas. Dave always does such a wonderful job decorating it for all to enjoy.

I was rather lazy and thought I'd do a digital layout for a change. I've had this Peppermint Kisses kit from Scrap Girls for some time, LOVE the paper and thought it would be perfect. I guess the only other thing I used was a font from my computer, Amazone.

Everything but the snowmen and penguin came down after New Year. What's left will come down tomorrow for Teddy to come out for Valentine's Day.

I've added several blogs to the list on the right column lately. One I added today was What's the Scoop a division of Paper Popsicles. It's a new one and has some cute ideas.

I really need to get everything together so that I can share some Cricut projects with you. I spent most of last weekend covering Target mailboxes. However, I got my original file from someone else and can't figure out who she is or how to get in contact with her. Does anyone know Leann that did a Target Mailbox file?

OK, off to figure out what I've done lately and get some pictures downloaded.

Jill

Reindeer Tags

2010-01-02T19:39:00.010-06:00

Well, most of the Christmas decorations are down. Just have to pack some of them away tomorrow and make a trip or two to the storage unit. What happened to December?

I do have a file to share with you today, but it's a very straight forward one. That's to say that I did not make any adjustments to it.

In November, I decided that I wanted to have a Christmas Luncheon sometime in December. I thought it would be difficult as everyone is always so busy at this time of the year. I set the date and sent out an email inviting five of the divas for a Saturday afternoon. To my surprise, they ALL accepted! Then my hopeful Saturday afternoon grew into a full weekend crop with some coming on Friday afternoon, one coming Saturday morning, one only coming for Saturday and everyone else leaving on Sunday. Wow!

Somehow, my idea to make an ornament for each of the girls grew and grew. I made round glitter ornaments and etched their initials in the heart shaped ornaments. My mother had found some heart shaped candy dishes. I came across some Christmas magnetic notepads. I added a Scentsy travel tin, a packet of peppermint cocoa, some peppermint and chocolate candies, a Christmas pencil and a little Christmas game.

Of course, I had to have a nice way to present all of this to them and found these bags at Hobby Lobby just the perfect size. The etched ornament was wrapped in tissue and placed in the candy dish. The glitter ornament was placed in a small Christmas cube box that I got at Michaels. Everything else was placed in a Christmas goodie bag I got at Hobby Lobby. I added red sparkly filler and topped with tissue paper. Then I made tags to match and tied it all up with red ribbon.

Here they are under my pink tree all ready for the girls. Can you see the reindeer tag hanging under the red bow? It's from Very Merry Tags. I cut the tag in black and the layer in red. Then I used Winter Woodland to cut their initial in red and put it on the back of the tag. Why did I not take a close up of the front and back of the tags?

Here we are gathered around my big tree before our ornament exchange and before they received their party bags. Some of the dearest friends a girl could ever hope to have. On the left side is me standing and Kay kneeling. On the right side is Angie in the Arkansas shirt standing next to Virginia with Dawn kneeling and Rose Mary sitting.

We've had our ornament exchange and set those aside. Now it's time to dig in once again. What fun!

All of these goodies and what did they play with? The little toy mazes. You know, the ones that you flip the little thing and the ball ricochets around kind of like a pinball machine. Kids!

It was a wonderful weekend and we had a GREAT time. We all have beautiful ornaments and memories, and we're making plans for next year.

Here's the file for my tags. Again, I didn't make any adjustments to the images. I love this cartridge and hope to make more tags for my Christmas presents this year. I seem to have run out of time last year.

Reindeer Tags

We had another beautiful day here, but COLD. Ok, cold for us. Chance of snow flurries tonight and tomorrow but no accumulation.

Loving 2010,
Jill

P.S. Yahooooooooo! I just found out that the Razorbacks won the Liberty Bowl. Way to go, Hogs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Not sure why I didn't watch the game. I forgot about it when we got home from dinner.)

Pink Tree

2010-01-01T17:48:00.008-06:00

Happy New Year! I hope that all of you have safely made it to 2010 and have had an awesome first day. It was absolutely beautiful here!

Dave took down part of our outdoor decorations today. More will come down tomorrow. But our snow related items will remain another month. I hate driving home after Christmas when all of the lights have come down and it's so dreary. But then I get home and my house is still bright and cheery.

I've also decided to leave one of my trees up for a while. This tree was added new this year. A few years ago, our Race Committee thank you gift was a Christmas ornament. Mine hangs from an ornament holder all year on an end table in the living room, but I decided that I wanted a pink tree to hang it on for Christmas. Pink decorations weren't the easiest thing to find, but between finding some and making others, I think it turned out great. It's fun and has made me very happy.

It sits on a table in our foyer. Back in 2005, I decided it was time to remove the wallpaper in there and paint. I taped paint samples up and took them down as they were eliminated as a possibility. I finally got it down to THE color. Well, 4 years later, I decided that really was THE color and proceeded to remove the wallpaper. Then I had to contact the painter and get him out here. No, I don't always take that long. I decided as long as he was coming, I'd have him repaint the hallway also. It just took me a week to finalize that color. Anyway, most of the following shots were taken after wallpaper removal and before painting.

Above is the ornament that started it all. The opposite side says "This One's for the Girls" which was our theme that year.

The ornaments above Love above and above and below and to the left of Joy below are some that I made with the clear ornaments and acrylic paint. None of the pictures show the ones I made with glitter or with alcohol ink.

Don't you love my tree topper and the angel wings?

I love it with the lights on.

Yes, it definitely looks better since the walls have been painted.

The penguin and things on the shelf behind the tree are Pink Palooza that I found at Hobby Lobby. So cute AND pink! And the photo is our Race Committee from 2009.

There's really nothing Christmasy on the tree, so I think it's good through Valentine's Day. Other than my snowmen, rest of my decorations will come down tomorrow. I've really enjoyed my decorations this year, so I'm sad to be putting them away.

And, yes, the foyer's color is pink but the hallway is blue.

I'll share more cricut tomorrow but wanted to share part of me to start 2010. I hope you don't mind.

Hugs,
Jill

Snowman Luggage Tags

2009-12-31T16:15:00.003-06:00

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

2009-12-31T14:20:00.002-06:00

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

2009-12-30T14:37:00.015-06:00

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!

2009-12-24T23:06:00.003-06:00

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

Love,
Jill

Race for the Cure

2009-10-24T18:33:00.003-05:00

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

2009-09-13T15:17:00.003-05:00

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

2009-09-13T13:30:00.008-05:00

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

2009-09-12T21:20:00.005-05:00

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

2009-08-30T13:30:00.007-05:00

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

2009-08-26T16:41:00.004-05:00

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

2009-08-26T13:13:00.010-05:00

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

2009-08-25T22:03:00.008-05:00

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

2009-08-25T07:43:00.017-05:00

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

2009-08-24T14:26:00.013-05:00

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

2009-07-06T11:11:00.007-05:00

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

Strawberry Card

2009-06-07T15:45:00.013-05:00

Who wants strawberries? Yummmmm! Well, you wouldn't want to eat this one, but it sure makes a cute card.

Friday was Linda's last day of teaching. Well, as a career anyway. After 25 years, she has retired! This is the card several of us sent her along with a gift card. Elizabeth told us that she loves strawberries and red.

This is a card from Hello Kitty Greetings. I do love this cartridge and have yet to cut a Hello Kitty from it. Anyway, I cut the card base in red and then the strawberry blackout in black, the strawberry layer in red and two sets of leaves in green. I ran the strawberry through Virginia's Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder.

I layered the strawberry and one set of leaves onto the black using pop dots. I then layered the second set of leaves on top of the first to make another dimension. I attached the black layer to the front of the card using 3D glue dots as they are not as tall as my regular pop dots. You can see the difference as well as all of the layers below.

I then stuck the tip of my Black Diamond Stickles into each hole and got some sparkle inside. I used Xmas Red Stickles on each of the dots on the strawberry and added a little highlight with Green Stickles to the leaves.

Elizabeth said that she had a great party and loved the gift and card. We weren't able to make it to her party, but we were there in thought. :o) Congratulations, Linda!

The card will cut on any Cricut, but you'll need the Expression for the envelope. George was used to add more overlap to the envelope for the layers. You can score along the regular score lines and then again 1/4" further out to make more of a boxed envelope.

There's also a page in the file for a small strawberry to add to the inside of the card or on the envelope. I lost mine before I got it attached and ran out of time to make another.

Strawberry Card

Enjoy,
Jill

Wedding Cake

2009-06-07T11:22:00.009-05:00

Thanks to Susan, I have fallen in love with layered (pop-dotted) cards. Lots of work, but so pretty! Here's her post that got me started. I've also fallen in love with Wild Card.

Thanks to the cards, fun with family and friends, and becoming a Farm Town addict, I've been rather busy lately. Hopefully, I can start catching up. I've even gotten behind reading other blogs. (hanging head in shame)

I was at a crop when I started work on the wedding cake cards and only had my baby bug. Therefore, I had to do some adjusting, but here's the one I've completed so far. The bride and groom are graduates of the University of Arkansas and HUGE Razorback fans. Sorry my colors aren't too great in the photos.

I had problems getting the icing to fit right on the bottom, so I cut a "platter" instead. However, that caused it to NOT fit in the envelope.

Here's a bit of a side view that kind of shows the layers.

And inside I used a couple of my CTMH stamps for a sentiment.

Seems like this is the year for weddings!

I have a couple more that I'll be sharing soon, but I have to clean up the files. One is for graduation. This one you'll have to go visit Susan to get the file.

Hope everyone is enjoying the first part of summer.

Jill

Circles

2009-05-24T10:40:00.012-05:00

You know, sometimes we forget about the simplest designs and what they can do for us.

While trying to design a title page for my latest Minnesota album, I wanted to use some chipboard letters that I had but also wanted to use a particular piece of paper. My problem was that they were both rather busy. I finally decided to remove all of the letters and place them in a circle and work from there. My large CutterBee Curvy Cutter circle template turned out to be the perfect size. I placed them on a solid piece of paper (CTMH Vanilla Cream) to help neutralize the patterns.

After placing the letters, I realized that the CutterBee wouldn't allow me to cut the sizes that I needed. Back to my trusty Cricut.

As I had already placed my letters, I had to do some test cuts and adjustments. My suggestion to anyone else doing this is to cut the papers first and then work on placing the letters. I've readjusted the file so that the circles cut directly in the middle if you place your paper without offsetting it for the cut lines. I was very pleased with the results. (Remember that my scanner cuts off the bottom edge.)

I also used circles on a layout in the album.

Again, nothing but circles making a great design. (I believe this layout started with a sketch in Imagine.)

I don't know that anyone needs the files for these, but I'm including them just in case. I'm also including a file of circles that fit the round coasters. I don't have an example for this as I've given away or packed away all of the ornaments I made with these.

Title Page Circles

Layout Circles

Coaster Circles

I hope everyone is having an awesome weekend,
Jill

Doily Border

2009-05-19T19:06:00.018-05:00

Way to go, Kris!!!! Our new American Idol!

When I got my Expression back in November, the first thing I cut was Diane's George Doily. I figured it was a good cut to make sure everything was in working order. lol My husband swears it took 45 minutes to cut and 45 for me to get it off the mat and the pieces out of it. I cut it in a color that I knew I would be using for my next Minnesota album and set it aside.

My husband's mother was born and raised in Minnesota. Most of the family is still there near the farm where they were raised. They have a picnic/family reunion once a year come rain, shine, snow or bugs. We go when we can and I make an album for each of our trips. Our last one was 2007, and I decided it was time to get it done as we had hopes of going again this year.

Aunt Fran writes a picnic summary afterwards and sends it to everyone that attended that year. This one is going to take care of most of my journaling. However, by the time I remembered it, I had already pretty much used all of the pictures that I planned to use but had to have a 2nd page to go with it. (I can't handle one-pagers other than the title page and last page and had already completed the last page.)

Then I realized that I had not used my doily either. Yikes! So I started working on a page for the doily. I decided it would be neat if I could find enough small shots to fill the circles with as many faces as possible. So I had some photos reprinted and put some into collages to make them smaller and started punching out faces using one of my circle punches that just happened to fit perfectly. After punching and laying them all out, I worked my way around the frame one face at a time applying adhesive (glue pen) to the back of that circle and positioning the photo. Then on to the next one until all 19 were done.

SO what goes inside? I had originally intended to use it for a group shot. Oh well, best laid plans.... I decided to do a collage of "special" aspects of the picnic--sign that we have every year proclaiming which picnic, hayride stuck in the river, bonfire, and barn stating the "beginning of history". Although I had the collage printed on 5x7, I needed to cover up just a little bit of border and decided a black border would help it pop a little. I used my circle cutter to cut the photo and the black border.

OK, that page looked great but sure didn't do anything for the summary page. Now what? Finally decided that this was going to require some creativity. I opened Diane's files to find out what elements she used and at what size. I then started my own file using those elements and created a border. I didn't want the two sides to be the same, so I started cutting, pasting and moving to make another border using the same pieces. I cut them out, added them to the page and OMG!

This is now one of my favorite layouts! (Please pardon the cut off pages. My scanner scans to 11 3/4", so the bottom gets cut off.)

Doily Border

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Jill

Vote for Kris Allen

2009-05-18T18:40:00.000-05:00

Sorry, no cut files today. I do have quite a few things to share once I slow down long enough. In the meantime, I'd like to encourage you to vote for Kris Allen as the new American Idol. If you are an AI viewer but don't vote, please make an exception Tuesday night and vote for Kris. If you are not an AI viewer, please also make an exception to watch and vote for Kris. If you are an AI viewer and have voted in the past, PLEASE vote for Kris Tuesday night. If you're an Adam fan, please don't hate me.

I received an email this morning that said it better than I can:

Ok you guys, this is it!!!! Please watch American Idol on Tuesday, May 19th, AND vote, Vote VOTE for Kris Allen!! You can vote by calling toll free or by texting (there is no extra charge for texting by American Idol just At&t; if you have a texting package, then it goes by that. I encourage you to get an unlimited package, at least for this month to use to vote.)

You can go here to Kris Allen Nation for ALL the details for voting and events happening this week for support!!!!

Voting will be open for 4 hours this Tuesday instead of just two--8pm to 12am. Please vote as long as you can, as many times as possible...voting is unlimited on how many times you can vote. I know this seems like a long time, but this is the last night! If you can’t vote the whole four hours, please vote as many times as you can...some people have been able to get 4000 texts done in 2 hours so with 4 we will get so many more!

Remember to think positive on his winning and visualize Ryan Secreast saying “Kris, you are our New American Idol” and it will come to pass!!!!

Please pass this on to your friends, family and co-workers!

Thanks!!!!!!

There's also local information at B98.5 and Fox 16.

Don't forget--VOTE!
Jill

Mother's Day Card

2009-05-10T10:23:00.003-05:00

Finally some time to spend with you. Last weekend was so crazy, but SOOOOO much fun! Claire's wedding was Friday night and absolutely gorgeous! Although it was cloudy and had rained in Little Rock, it was clear skies and nice in Hot Springs. This is Anthony Chapel in Garvan Woodland Gardens where they were married.

And a shot from inside.

In honor of National Scrapbooking Day, Kay, Angie, Christy and I had registered for a crop in Russellville. Kay and Angie were able to be there when it started at noon on Friday. I drove up Friday night after the reception in which the last 20 minutes turned into about 35 after hitting a rain wall. I was wondering whether I was going to make it in one piece rest of the way, especially when lightening hit a transformer just in front of me about 1/4 mile from the house. But I made it safely if a little rattled and looking like a drowned rat. Christy came up Saturday morning and said it wasn't much better but at least daylight.

But we had an absolute blast!!!!!!!

OK, on to my card. One of the blogs that I check out daily is Susan's Busy with the Cricky, and Susan is a member of the design team on Bitten by the Bug. Their challenge this week was to use two cuts from Beyond Birthdays--the vase and the word Mom or Mum. Since I had not made a card for my Mom, I decided to work on this challenge. I think it turned out pretty darn cute myself.

I love the Argyle design on Wild Card and decided to start there. I welded the diamonds to the card as the base and layered with the lattice, vase and Mom. All of the papers are CTMH (Creme Brulee, Juniper, Sorbet, Tulip and Black). I added Stickles (Diamond) to the the flowers, Mom and dots to the intersections of the lattice, and Dew Drops to the center of the flowers. Oh, and I stamped the vase and stickled the top to give it a little personality.

I stamped the inside with a CTMH set using Sorbet ink. I also added a piece of vellum to the inside. It was some that just happened to go with these colors.

I also like the envelope detail on Argyle-s so used it for the envelope. However, I didn't like what showed through the holes but also didn't want to cut the liner and use it. Instead, I used the Argyle with no shift and hid everything except for the jagged strip.

Once cut, I had to trim the strip a bit on each end to make it work but was happy with the results.

I didn't take another picture, but also cut a small Mom in Tulip and put it on the front. The envelope was cut in Sorbet and the strip in Creme Brulee.

My Mom gave me the bears in the above photos last year on Mother's Day. It plays "In My Daughter's Eyes".

I've done the cut file so that the card can be cut with any of the machines. However, the envelope can only be cut on the Expression. As usual, several of the pages are for a nice Preview. The card has 2 cut pages for the Expression and 3 for the smaller machines. I only created a page layout for the Expression. I labeled what was being cut instead of the colors as you will probably be using different colors. Others can use that page as a guide for setting up their other page. I did not set up a page layout for the envelope.

Mother's Day Card 2009

Replace Mom with a sentiment to match your occasion (or just remove) and this card could be used for just about anything female related. Replace the vase and it could be used for any occasion.

I started this post yesterday but got busy running errands and finishing my card before we went to dinner last night. As we did our celebrating last night, I should have a pretty quiet day today.

Happy Mother's Day! and my prayers to all that have cause not to enjoy this day.

Jill

Coffee Anyone?

2009-04-27T20:00:00.002-05:00

This is a gift card I made back in March but wanted to do some revisions to get it ready for you. And I wanted Sherry's OK to post it.

A small group of us get together when we can, and we were late celebrating Kay's birthday because "when we can" hadn't happened in a while. So we celebrated both Kay and Dawn's birthday at the same time, and I was in charge. haha As usual, I had waited until the last minute to get it all together and was trying to make cards and pack for Ferncliff at the same time.

Kay's gift was a gift card to Starbucks and needed an appropriate holder. I remembered Sherry's from our gift card swap (http://www.cricut.com/messageboard/tm.aspx?m=3592445 - post #67) and emailed her requesting the file. Once received, I realized that I didn't have any acetate and no time to get any, so I proceeded to revise her file to work for me. See Sherry's blog here.

I was very pleased with the outcome. More importantly, Kay loved it!

The base of the card is a blackout coffee mug flipped for the back and a coffee mug for the front. I used 2-sided paper so that the inside of the cup and the back both looked nice. Be careful how you glue the pieces together so that the card can slide in and out.

I needed the steam and the coffee to be attached in order to use them to pull the card out of the holder. And we know how I like to have an additional card to fold over for the sentiment or what have you. Between the steam, the coffee and 2 cards, it was longer than the mat. Since I didn't want the steam to be the same color as the coffee anyway, I chose to cut the top of the steam off. I then cut a front and a back (flipped) steam in white to lay over the attached steam and cover up the missing part.

That's the only way it works on the Baby Bug. I've done another file for the Expression and included 2 different pages for the card. One will cut the top off as explained; the other is laid out diagonally and will cut the whole thing. You'll only need to cut one or the other.

You can place your paper so that the swirl cuts in a different color.

George was used for the cards and Plantin Schoolbook for the flowers. You can substitute as needed.

Dawn's card was much quicker as I decided on Debbie's cell phone gift card holder (http://www.cricut.com/messageboard/tm.aspx?m=3592445 - post #51). She received a Hobby Lobby gift card but had just gotten a new Blackberry, so I thought it was appropriate.

I think they both turned out pretty cute!

Cut file for Expression

Cut file for Baby Bug

Latte,
Jill

Pooh Card

2009-04-26T11:29:00.007-05:00

I'm on a roll. Aidan's card is also ready, and his birthday isn't until July. Of course, I still have Mother's Day, graduations and who knows what else between now and then. lol

Front:

Inside:

Envelope:

I probably should have explained my file on Maddy's card, so I'll try to do better on this one. But then, you might be accustomed to my files by now.

Several of the pages in the file are for preview. I tried to provide some instruction on the tabs. Cut the Details page first and leave the mat in the Cricut. Then cut the Shadow page. The sign will not cut any details. I wasn't using Hundred Acre Wood (HAW) but couldn't get all of the lines to hide, so I welded it. If you're going to use HAW, you might want to unweld that image.

Paper Layout shows where to put the paper on the mat so that you can cut the layers using the Cut Page. I had to enlarge the image that cuts the antennae in order to get a cut that didn't fall apart. And there's a rectangle from George that will cut off the bottom part of Pooh. If this is not cut off, he will show through the log layer. If you do not have George, you can replace with another rectangle or just cut the part off with scissors. You may have to do some trimming anyway.

Oh, and I also hid HAW on the sign on the Cut Page and replaced it with Aidan. You'll probably want to delete Aidan and put another name or unhide HAW.

And I put the Honeypot on a separate page in case it's not wanted. Left to right, it's the shadow, honey and pot.

Winnie the Pooh Card

Enjoy,
Jill

"That buzzing-noise means something. If there's a buzzing noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee. ....
And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.....
And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it."

Elmo Card

2009-04-25T15:08:00.006-05:00

Did you figure out the purpose of that last cut file? The one with the two's? Maddy's birthday is coming up in June, and I'm actually accomplishing something ahead of time--her birthday card. Dave figures I'll lose it before her birthday gets here, but we'll just have to wait and see.

The theme of her party is going to be Elmo, so I used Sesame Street Friends but decided on Hello Kitty for the font.

Front:

Inside:

And the envelope:

No, I didn't cut the envelope itself. It's from a box of pastel invitation envelopes that I got at WalMart.

And the cut file.

Now to get busy on Aidan's card.

Have fun,
Jill

Update! Update!

2009-04-19T18:28:00.014-05:00

With Easter last weekend and us going to Branson on Monday for a few days and some of the girls coming over Friday night and spending ALL week celebrating my birthday, it's been rather busy around here. Dave told me today that my birthday has GOT to end--a week and a half is quite long enough. I tend to disagree though. lol

Here's the beginnings of a card that I've started. Can you guess it's purpose?

"Jill, what's the update?" you ask. Well, Dave's been busy once again, and I am now using my cricuts completely WIRELESS!!!!!! While I was headed out the door this morning to check out Michaels' cartridge sale, he asked if I would be willing to stop by Best Buy. What am I looking for? A bridge. A what? A bridge. At Best Buy? He printed it off which was a really good thing since the Best Buy guys knew less than me.

Dave removed the cable which was connecting my USB hub in the last post to our network and replaced it with a Linksys - Dual-Band Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge. Model: WET610N Best Buy SKU: 9213861 Cost: $99.99 (thank goodness for tax refunds). The bridge now does the talking to the wireless router. The cricuts are connected to the hub; the hub to the bridge; and the bridge talks to the router. Well, I guess it's actually the other way since my laptop talks to the router which talks to the bridge which talks to the hub which tells my cricut to cut my file.

Limitations? Whatever your wireless limitations are. If your laptop will work there, the bridge will work there.

Dave did want me to let you know that according to Linksys, it will connect to any router; however, we are connecting to a Linksys router. Therefore, we can't vouch for any other router.

I also wanted to share that Dave has attached my power strips to the bottom of my scrap table and hooked and tie-strapped my wires so that all of those wires aren't hanging down and laying on the floor. And I don't have to sit on the floor or do exercises to plug things in. Laurie, if you're reading this, I thought this would be great for you if you're able to do so. Of course, it helps that my table is wood.

I'll finish up my card later, but here's the file for this part in case you have a use for it. It's made with Hello Kitty Font and George (but any rectangle could replace George). And it will cut on either size.

2 Card Front

Take care,
Jill

Remote Cricut Cutting

2009-04-11T14:45:00.010-05:00

OMG! I am totally in Cricut/Design Studio heaven! Well, as close as we can get right now. lol

Last year, I asked Dave if it was possible to make my Cricut wireless. (Someone had discussed it on the message board.) He thought it could be done but would require additional equipment. I decided my laziness did not justify the cost of said equipment.

Laziness? you ask. Well, DS is on my laptop, and I like to sit in my recliner to design, do email and read the message boards. It's just a pain to unplug my laptop, find a spot for it on my scrapping table, plug it in over there, plug it into the Cricut and test a cut file. And then reverse to come back to my recliner. I know, I could let it run on battery; however, I always end up over there longer than expected and run low on battery power.

Heikenn recently brought the subject up once again on the message board, and I asked Dave what he came up with last time. He found the info and printed it out, but I never got around to posting it to the board. What he didn't tell me was that whatever that was did not get good reviews.

After stopping by Michaels and to get gas on the way home yesterday (basically, dawdling), Dave seemed a bit excited when I got home. He said he had something to show me. He said it was the first of many birthday presents. (My birthday is Tuesday, and I never know what he's going to come up with for it and Christmas.)

It's a Belkin F5L009 Network USB Hub. Description: Wireless access to USB printers, media readers, external hard drives and more using your existing wireless network. Reviews: excellent! Cost: $99.99.

The hub has to be plugged into the network and the Cricut has to be plugged into the hub. But then my wireless laptop can cut from wherever I am in our house. If I had Design Studio on my pc, I could also cut from there.

See scan below:

I tested some cuts last night and was able to cut on the Expression but not on the Baby Bug. This morning, I had a thought. I loaded a mat on each machine and connected a jukebox to each one. I knew that Jasmine was connected to the Expression, so I selected J on it but didn't pay attention to what mat I had on the screen. It was the 6x12. I was partially outside of the cut area for the E, so it did not completely cut (top strip left edge--click image for larger view). Then I selected the moon on New Arrival since I knew it was in the Baby Bug and moved my J over behind the moon. I clicked Disconnect for the E and then clicked Cut in DS. It cut both the moon and the J on the Baby Bug even though Jasmine was connected to the E (bottom strip). I then added Hello Kitty to the Baby Bug jukebox, disconnected the Baby Bug, connected the E, moved the moon and J over on the virtual mat, added a design from Hello Kitty and clicked Cut. The E cut the moon and J but not the Hello Kitty design since it had not read that jukebox since adding the cart. I then closed the file, selected the J from Calligraphy Collection and the moon again from New Arrival. When I clicked on Cut, it read the jukebox connected to the E and cut only the J.

Through trial and error since last night, I have learned:
1) I can use both my Baby Bug and my Expression, just not at the exact same time
2) Both machines can be connected at the same time but one takes priority and I haven't figured out for sure what determines that (my Expression currently takes priority)
3) I can cut on the Expression, disconnect it (clicking a button--NOT unplug), and cut on the Baby Bug and reverse
4) Design Studio allows me to cut on the Expression even if the virtual mat is the 12x6 but not cut on the Baby Bug with the 12x12 virtual mat
5) Cut areas for each machine are still the same as before
6) Cartridges in the jukebox read on one machine will cut on the other machine as long as the file is not closed between cuts--I'm thinking I should technically be able to use 6 jukeboxes

I don't know whether you have any use for this, but I am absolutely thrilled with this ability. You can connect up to 5 devices to the hub, so you may find other uses for it as well.

I hope you and your families have a Happy and Blessed Easter Sunday,
Jill

Two Peas in a Pod

2009-04-05T11:37:00.008-05:00

My second event yesterday was Ashley and James' wedding. OMG! It was absolutely beautiful; they were beautiful; the day was beautiful; everything was perfect!

This is Marlsgate Plantation. The ceremony took place on the front porch with us sitting in the chairs along the walkway. The musicians were in the balcony above the porch. This picture is a bit washed out because the sun was so bright when I first arrived.

You may remember from my Busy, Busy, Busy post last month that I was working on a project for Sherrye. Since the wedding has now taken place, I thought I would share with you.

Sherrye had been telling me about the wedding preparations as they went along, and one day she told me about the favors she had planned. As usually happens with me, one thing lead to another and I offered to cut 100 pea pods for her to put together and make a card for the favors.

Ashley had written on their blog about the two of them being like Two Peas in a Pod.... Sherrye took that and had it on the table along with the favors. The back of the card has an excerpt from it. What were the favors, you ask. These little salt and pepper shakers! Aren't they precious? Although I don't actually collect s&p shakers, I do like them and have an assortment, so this was right up my alley.

I also have to share this little story. Remember that I had gone to Nicki's baby shower prior to the wedding? As I'm sitting there visiting with two of my aunts and just told them that I have to leave early because of a wedding, another lady across the room says that she has to leave early. I said, "Me, too." She said, "I have a wedding to go to." I said, "Me, too." She said, "In Scott." I said, "Me, too." Yes, total strangers together at one event going to the same second event. She use to work with Ashley's mother and I "work" with James' mother and use to work with him. It's a small, small world!

I doubt that anyone is going to need 100 pea pods, but I'll share my files with you just in case. There are two different files because I originally did not plan to cut the lining of the pod. Also, it's set up on the Expression for cutting on 8 1/2 by 11 paper.

This is the sun setting on the lake across the road from the plantation as I was leaving the reception.

Pea Pods

Pea Pod Liners

Jill

Ladybug, Ladybug

2009-04-05T09:22:00.012-05:00

Yes, more tags. I think I'm addicted. lol

Yesterday was a busy day for me. First was a baby shower for the daughter of one of my cousins. Nicki is having a girl and doing the nursery in ladybugs. I found several gift items with ladybugs and also made her a set of luggage tags. I think they're my favorite. Nicki loved them and even knew their purpose. ha

The tag on the left was made with Doodlecharms and the other two were with Walk in My Garden. I used Calligraphy Collection for the name.

And it seems that I am getting better about making cards instead of buying all of them. After all, I definitely have enough supplies! And what better design for Nicki's card than a ladybug? What fun things we're able to create with Design Studio!

The ladybug on Doodlecharm is my favorite, so I selected it for the card. I added google eyes and stickled the spots with Black Diamond.

Too cute if I say so myself! I had a vellum piece with the What are little girls made of? nursery rhyme and added a couple of punched flowers to dress it up a bit.

Then I was able to find an envelope that fit perfectly on Wild Card. Added a larger punched flower to it, and I was done.

It's all compatible for all machines. You might want to double check the envelope before cutting it on the baby bug as I cut mine on my Expression and it looks like a close fit for the baby.

Ladybug Luggage Tags

Ladybug Card

Have fun,
Jill

More Luggage Tags - Pooh

2009-04-03T20:05:00.010-05:00

No, I didn't get Aidan's luggage tags made before I saw Kay. But I gave her Maddy's with a promise that Aidan's were coming. And I did get them made and to her last weekend, so he wasn't without for long.

I only made one set of these, so I did the file different than the ones for Sesame Street. Everything can be done in one cut, and I provided a page to show you how to arrange the paper on the mat. It should cut fine on either size mat. Again, nothing special, just size that fits.

Pooh Luggage Tags

More coming up.

Jill

With This Ring

2009-04-03T19:40:00.033-05:00

Where does the time go? I had a great time cropping last weekend with friends and spending some time at Angie's cabin (so peaceful

up there) and even saw a few SMALL snowflakes. (Yes, I know some of you are SO tired of snow, but we really didn't have any this year. Did we last year?) I still have those RFTC name tags to cut out, but I wanted to stop long enough to send you this file. I actually did this back in November at Ferncliff and completely forgot about it until Angie was working on her daughter's wedding album this weekend.

This is from the album I am working on of my son's wedding. Maybe I'll get it finished by their 10th anniversary (2014), but let's not make any bets on it. This was very simple using Opposites Attract and Wedding but turns out so pretty. Angie did hers in black, white and silver and stickled the word RING and the diamond.

Since cutting this one last fall and Angie working on it last weekend, I made some revisions for you. My original file did not have a shadow for RING. Chances are that I thought there was no shadow for the Opposite feature. Well, think again. Sooooo, RING is now shadowed in the base.

If I did this again, I think I would either pop-dot the word RING or shadow it again (between the ring shape and the word). Yes, I added a page for that in case you would like to do so. Or another color in the mixture would bring it out more too.

There are extra pages in the file for the sake of a pretty preview. Just cut the pages that say Cut. Anything to be cut is placed where it will work on 12x6 or 12x12.

I think I'm in wedding mode with Ashley and James and Claire and Chris' weddings coming up. Be watching for more wedding cuts coming up and who knows what might pop up in the meantime.

With This Ring

Happy Spring,
Jill

2009 Race for the Cure

2009-03-23T20:45:00.002-05:00

Our Race for the Cure season is in full swing for 2009. You may remember that the name tags for our Race Committee last year were paper dolls and that I used the Cricut to design my name tag and those for the staff. Well, I was asked if I could be of help with the name tags this year. Ellen wanted to use a bra. Of course, my first thought was JenC's bikini card.

I found Jen's post and sent her a comment requesting the file and telling her why. It wasn't long before she sent it to me. I cut a sample that night and took it to the office. Everyone LOVED IT! Sherrye picked out a stack for the bras on Tuesday and I made my name tag that night. Our color this year is Plum and Sherrye chose The Paper Studio's Serendipity stack. The first meeting was Wednesday, so I didn't have time to cut them for everyone but had mine ready. I promised Jen that I would share my results, so here goes:

I cut the card in half, adhered the bra, added some punches (Family Treasures border punch from the circle set) for trim, cut my name using Jasmine and adhered it. We laminate them because they will be used until the middle of October. Emily laminated mine before I added the bling. Bling, bling, bling! I used The Paper Studio Gemstones (pink on the trim and middle of the "flowers" and clear heart to dot my i). We still have to add the clip.

Now to get busy cutting all 135+ for the next meeting. I was able to copy and paste so that I can cut 5 bras at a time and 4 bases at a time. Committee members get to put their own name tags together.

This was fun! Contact JenC if you're interested in her file.

Jill

Odds and Ends

2009-03-22T15:16:00.012-05:00

I finally took the time to scan the Monkey'n Around page title. The scan is so much better than the picture!

Did you check out what Carol did with my baby bottle gift card holder? Absolutely darling! I may have to rethink the shower gift for my cousin's daughter. lol

I've been working on several projects this weekend but haven't stopped to cut them yet. I hope to get some samples cut this week so that I can share them with you.

Have a great week,
Jill

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Just stopping by to wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope you're wearing your green.

Jill

Luggage Tags

2009-03-16T21:45:00.005-05:00

I don't remember who on the message board first posted a luggage tag, but I do remember that it was of Minnie Mouse. Too cute!

I made some back during the summer but didn't get a photo before they were packed. And now that file has gotten corrupted. How in the world does that happen? So irritating to have a darling file you created and unable to open it.

My daughter-in-law is currently visiting her parents and little sister, and I wanted to make Abby something to send with April. She'll be two in June, and I thought she would like Sesame Street. So while at Ferncliff last week, I borrowed the Sesame Street Font cartridge from Kay and made two sets each of Elmo, Cookie Monster and Big Bird. I forgot to take my holders with me, so I waited until I got home to do the names and put it all together. This is the set for Abby. All of the names are with the same font because I was rather in a hurry.

This weekend, I finally cut the other set of names for Maddy and put them together. With a little more time to work, I used a different font for each tag. Kay may want to go back and redo them with the Sesame Street Font though. Of course, Maddy may not care for any of them except Elmo. She does love her some Elmo.

I hope to have time this week to make a set of Pooh ones for Aidan. After all, we don't want to show any favortism.

There's nothing special about the file except the correct size to fit in the holders, but here it is. The file also uses George but just to show the size. I cut the rectangles just using my paper trimmer. And it uses 3 fonts, but you can use whatever you have.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. If I ever find a resizable Cricut head, I'll be making one (or two) for me.

Later,
Jill

Monkey'n Around

2009-03-16T20:24:00.005-05:00

Yea! Cut file included. Sorry it's taken me so long.

Well, I half storied in my last post (Dreaded Red X). On the title that I did for me, I did what I said in my post. However, in the title for EA, I included the quote mark within my word and didn't kern, just nudged.

EA created a darling page of her kids just goofing off and wanted this title. She just used the words and their shadow since her background paper already had monkeys on it. She even managed to accidentally place the title so that it looked like one of the monkeys was climbing up the M.

I've since added another page to shadow the words with a monkey included and pages for the monkey and his layer. I bought this Animal Crackers stack for our trip to the Memphis Zoo a few years ago. The monkey border under the title is part of the paper. Anyway, I think I'll use this for my monkeys too. Sorry the photos aren't very good. I think I should have scanned it but wanted to get it to you. Remember that you can click on the picture for a larger view.

Remember to hide the first half of the quote mark on the words and whichever shadow you use.

Hope you have some little monkeys running around or a zoo trip that you can use this file on.

Jill

Dreaded Red X

2009-03-12T19:25:00.004-05:00

Wow! I accomplished a great deal this weekend and had a wonderful time doing so! My 2007 Minnesota album is almost complete. Just a few odds and ends to add. Oh, and to pick out an album for it. That might help. My husband's mother was from Minnesota and the family has a picnic every October. When we were there in 2007, we promised to try our best to be there this year. I wanted to get our last visit done before we go again.

I didn't do as much with my Cricut as I thought I would, but I will have a few things to share with you as soon as I get them cleaned up.

However, I did want to go ahead and pass along a little information. Or should I say a warning? Remember the dreaded red X that we sometimes get when we stretch a rectangle or square in George? (Like anyone could ever forget?) Well, it roared its ugly head this weekend in the most unexpected place--fonts.

I was creating a page title for EA using ZooBalloo that should have taken a couple of minutes. It took FORever because I kept getting the X and having to start over and over and over again. I finally started saving at every little change and got it done. (Darling page!) Later I was creating a title for me using Cursive 101 and got it again. Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I weld words, I type the word, hit Apply for the kerning and then nudge whatever letters need adjusting. I finally figured out that the problem with both of these titles was the apostrophe. I could kern up a storm until I added an apostrophe (quote with one of them hidden). As soon as I clicked Apply after typing that dang apostrophe, I was hit with the dreaded red X.

As we can't go back and add letters between letters we've already typed (other than typing them at the end and nudging them into place), I finally decided to leave room for the apostrophe but to add it as a separate item and weld the two items together.

Morale of the story: Don't Kern Apostrophes/Quote Marks! Or at least save your work before doing so.

I hope my experience saves someone a big headache down the line. Guess it goes to show that you never know what's going to pop up in this program, so SAVE, SAVE, SAVE.

Jill

Busy, Busy, Busy.

2009-03-06T10:13:00.004-06:00

With my lack of posts lately, you would think that I have not been creating. Well, think again. It's just been with help from others. lol Remember that you can click on the photos to see them larger.

My friend Claire is getting married in a few months, and I wanted to do something in honor of her engagement. It took me a while, but I finally got it together. And I must thank Diane for her awesome talent. I used Diane's Aperture Card file to make Claire some note cards. I made a set of 12 with her current monogram and a set with her soon-to-be monogram.

I then used Diane's directions to make boxes to hold the cards and envelopes. Claire loved them, and I have since made additional cards for her.

Next project was another of Diane's creations--the two monkeys. I added a shadow layer and plan to go back and try another one using the pens to draw the details before cutting it. This was for another friend, Ashley, who has twins in NICU and has referred to the boys as two monkeys in her journal posts. They are doing well and will hopefully be home soon. Yea!

Next up was a project for my friend Sherrye. One of her sons is getting married next month. I'll wait and share that project after the wedding but wanted to share an offshoot from it. Maybe I've been spending too much time "with" Diane because I'm beginning to think like her. (Of course, that could be a really good thing!) One page of this project cut 100 baby heads. My first thought as I'm pulling the paper from the mat is that the leftover would make a great page for a baby layout.

Babies 12x12 File

The remainder of my project sharing will have to wait. I'm scrapping with the Ferncliff Divas this weekend and having a great time. I hope to have lots to share when I get home.

Have a great weekend!

Jill

New Look

2009-02-22T14:57:00.009-06:00

Sorry, no cut files today. I've been busy this weekend working on my new background and title. Since becoming interested in blogging, I've really wanted to create my own background. I finally found the information I needed and have accomplished that goal. Ta da!

My cheetah theme is in honor of the Ferncliff Divas. The Divas are a great group of friends that I scrap with twice a year at a long weekend crop at Ferncliff Camp near Little Rock. Of course, several of us can be found at other times of the year just about anywhere there's a nearby crop. We try to never miss a chance for fun. Anyway, that's where I got DIVAInPink.

Over the years, we've had crop t-shirts, demin shirts, etc. Then several of us decided last fall that we needed something different--crop jammies. So most of us made our own pajama bottoms (or had them made) and ordered a t-shirt to match (Scrapbooking Girls Gone Wild). Some of us also made other items to match--pillowcases, flip flops, Cricut covers, etc. (Yes, my husband thinks we're crazy.) The base of this background is the pants material that I scanned. I tried to scan the ric rac but ended up finding digital files for it and the crown.

The photo above is everyone who attended the crop in November--Virginia, Angie, Kay, EA, Elizabeth, Christy, Elisha, Liz, Linda, Mickey, Rose Mary, Jill, Angie, Alicia and Dawn. The photo to the left is of my roomies and me--Mickey, Jill, Angie, Kay and Rose Mary. Both photos were taken by our friend Dawn.

I hope you like the new look. I think it's here to stay a while.

Jill

I've Been Tagged & Kreativ Blogger Award

2009-02-15T18:45:00.013-06:00

Two posts in one day? Something must be wrong! Ha. Actually, I'm just trying to get some things taken care of that I should have already done.

Amanda tagged me a couple of weeks ago. If you haven't already done so, go visit her great blog--Cricut Creations by amkscrap. In this tag, I'm supposed to go to my photos and pick the 6th folder and then the 6th picture in that folder. I then post it and explain what it is all about.

Well, as I use my laptop for blogging, that's the files that I am using for this. The 6th folder is Matt Senior. Hmmm, wonder what's in there. Yep, you guessed it, some of my son's senior pictures. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. Here's the 6th file:

What a handsome guy if I say so myself. Yes, it's been a few years. He'll be 26 on Friday. Happy Birthday, Matt!

And I'm supposed to Tag 6 other blogs that I visit and see what is in their 6th of their 6th. Now I remember why it's taken me so long to do this. There's so many great blogs out there! Here goes with a mixture of family, friends and craft blogs: Virginia, Dawn, Kim, Shirley, Jerri Ann & Tammy and Robyn.

And continuing right along--Tammy of Serendipity Sisters (another great blog) honored me with the Kreativ Blogger Award. Thanks, Tammy! However, since I've recently done this one, I'm going to refer back to my post from that time--here.

Thanks to Amanda and Tammy for these fun adventures and to all of you for reading my blog.

Hope you've had a wonderful weekend and the coming week is good to you. Yea for those of you on holiday tomorrow. Have fun! And sorry that doesn't include me--off to work we go.

Jill

Thanks, Capadia!

2009-02-15T17:15:00.011-06:00

Diane has come to our rescue once again. She found a work around for the Hide Contour problem that I have been having. See her post here for explanation.

She was kind enough to fix the Class of 2009 Mesh, and I was able to fix the Baby Bottle Gift Card files. I have replaced all of the file links with the new ones here and in the previous posts.

Class of 2009 Mesh
Baby Bottle Gift Card
Baby Bottle Gift Card w/ George
Baby Bottle Gift Card w/ Plantin

Thanks, Diane!

Jill

Class of 2009

2009-02-08T17:10:00.019-06:00

Grrrr! I really wish I knew why my hidden contours sometimes save and sometimes don't. Anyone else having that problem or know the answer?

I'm so excited over this mesh. And I'm sure you'll note that my example is Class of 2002; but I promise that the cut file is 2009. My son graduated in 2002 and I thought maybe it was time to start on his graduation photos. (hiding face in shame-where are those smiley faces when I need them?)

Cut-Shadow is the base page. I cut mine in black.

Cut-Vines. After cutting mine, I revised and welded the touching vines together. I've also moved them as close together as I felt was safe. Be careful removing the cuts from the paper as these are delicate. I would also advise against using white cored paper.

Cut-Caps, Tassels, Words. If your caps and tassels are the same color, place your caps color on the top of your mat, words color on the bottom and cut. If your caps and tassels are different colors, I would delete the tassels from this page before cutting and use the next page to cut them.

Cut if Tassel different-hide button/tassel. Here's where my issue comes. If your tassel is a different color from your cap, there's no reason to cut all of that twice. That's why I set up this page. However, I've tried everything I know to get the file to save with the Hide Selected Contour items hidden, and it's just not happening. So you'll have to work a little and hide them once again yourself. At the top of the page, the buttons need to be hidden; at the bottom, it's the tassels that need to be hidden. If you need help with this feature, please visit Narelle's blog.

I made a few cuts on the end of the tassels with my scissors and bent them slightly for a little dimension. It may not make a difference by the time it's in a page protector, but I tried.

With all of these thin pieces, I mainly used my Sakura Pinpoint roller Quickie Glue to adhere.

My son's school colors were maroon and gold. I look forward to seeing what you do in other colors.

(Note 2/15/09--Hide Contour problem has been resolved and file should be problem free. See next post.)

Class of 2009 Mesh

Jill

2009 Card

2009-02-07T09:10:00.003-06:00

Thanks for all of the great comments. I hope everyone is enjoying my blog and the files I manage to design.

I created this as a graduation card, but I guess it would be good for any event this year. There are two files: one using Base Camp with George and Basic Shapes and the second with Base Camp and Plantin Schoolbook.

You do have to be careful where you place your message on this one. Otherwise, it will show through when the card is closed. Except, of course, if that doesn't matter to you.

The card base is what you see in black--the back and shadowed numbers. On 2009, the 2-0 and the 0-9 are each welded together and cut to trim off any excess created from welding the shadow numbers to the back. Depending on the color you select for the base, you may need to cut an inside piece. I think it really made the numbers pop when closed on this one. You don't need to cut the numbers on the Preview page. That page is just to make the preview look pretty. :o)

Have fun and good luck to all of the graduates out there.

Cut files:
2009 Card w/ George and Basic Shapes
2009 Card w/ Plantin Schoolbook

Jill

Up Up and Away

2009-01-31T13:26:00.012-06:00

Last gift card holder. This one doesn't conform to the guidelines for the swap, but it is one that has actually already been given away. Because of the size, it can only be cut on the Expression. I used George and Basic Shapes along with New Arrival, but you could revise for Plantin Schoolbook (explained later).

Our friend Katie is adopting, and I needed something for her shower. I didn't want to go real babyish since he will be 20 months old. I decided the airplane on New Arrival would be really cute if only it would work. It turned out perfect! I did it in our company colors and used his birth date for the tail number. Not only that, he's coming from China, so he'll be coming home on an airplane.

Cut one Plane in your main color. Don't worry when it cuts off the top wing. We don't need that one. Cut two of the Plane Solid in whatever color you want to show through the windows. This will also cut off the top wing.

Check your Parts page before cutting to make sure everything is still hidden that needs to be hidden. You need the bottom wing, tail wing and propeller in one image. The other image should have the top wing welded to two rounded rectangles. Check out Narelle's blog if you need help with the Hide Contour feature. And cut the Parts in your accent color.

You may want to cut the full plane out to help you align the wing in the correct place (May want... tab).

Go ahead and attach your gift card to the middle section of the card (glue dots work great), add your message on the bottom section and fold. Glue your two solid planes together making sure that you do not glue where the card goes in. Watch where the bottom of the card will go because it is a tight fit and you don't want to close it up. Glue the detailed plane on top, add wings and propeller, insert card and add tail number if desired. I was running late and used my label maker for the tail number.

My card looks different in the photo as I have redesigned it since then. Also, I used George to make the card because I prefer the rounded corners. However, you could replace those two George pieces with a rectangle from Plantin Schoolbook if you don't have George.

Yes, Katie LOVED it! And we can't wait to meet Luke!

Airplane Gift Card

Happy flying,
Jill

Welcome Baby

2009-01-31T08:48:00.023-06:00

I actually started this one before the rattle but got stuck and had to come back to it. Once again, it can be cut on any of the machines. It's come down to 3 files; it was just easier. One is for George and Basic Shapes, the other for Plantin Schoolbook and the third has all of the pages for both. They also use New Arrival.

Cut the bottle in your main color. It will cut the nipple and ring from the bottle itself. Cut two bases in the color you want to show through the slits of the bottle. The base will also cut off the nipple and ring. All you need is the bottle.

Click on the card page and look carefully. How many nipples do you see? If you see two, use the Hide Contour feature to hide the left one. For some reason, the hide is not staying when I save the file. To be on the safe side, make sure the right ring and its slits are still hidden too. If you need help with this feature, visit Narelle at Cricut Lovers Guide to Design Studio.

Cut the card in the color you want for the nipple.

Click on the Neck page, make sure the nipple is hidden and cut the ring.

OK, assembly time! Glue the two bases together ONLY along the edges and NOT at the top. Make sure the bottom part of the card will fit between the two bases. Glue the bottle onto the base (including at the top). Layer the ring onto the card. Attach your gift card to the middle section of the card (glue dots work great for this), write your message on the lower section, fold and insert between the two bases. Embellish as desired. All done!

(Note 2/15/09--Hide Contour problem has been resolved and files should be problem free.)

Baby Bottle Gift Card
Baby Bottle w/ George
Baby Bottle w/ Plantin

Jill

Shake Rattle and Roll

2009-01-31T07:57:00.011-06:00

Ok, let's back up about 18 years. This holder is for a new baby. Again, it was designed to be cut on any of the bugs with your choice of base in either George and Basic Shapes or Plantin Schoolbook. The other cartridge needed is New Arrival.

There are actually two versions of this one. If you click on the picture for a larger view, you should be able to tell that the inside of the circle at the bottom of the rattle and the left loop of the bow are cut out in this sample. Thinking some people might not want those cut, I covered that space up best I was able on the other version.

Again, you only need to cut your base and the Cut Page. The layer for the rattle embellishments is designed for two versions--a squiggly line or the flowers--and a small bow. I didn't need the bow and wanted this one for a girl, so I hid the parts that I did not need to cut. If you are not familiar with the Hide Contour feature, you might want to go visit Narelle's blog, Cricut Lovers Guide to Design Studio. (She has some other great tips too.)

Before giving this card, I would bling it up with some glitz in the center of the flowers and probably some Stickles glitter on parts of the bow.

Rattle gift card holder Version 1 - No holes (at least VERY small)

Rattle gift card holder Version 2 - With holes

Enjoy,

Jill

Congratulations Graduate!

2009-01-30T21:07:00.016-06:00

CarlaSchenk from the Cricut message board issued an invitation to join a swap for gift card holders. How could I resist with all of the great designs people were sharing at that time. I didn't want to miss all of the fun. (http://www.cricut.com/messageboard/tm.aspx?m=3592445)

The way time flies these days, I realized that graduation would be here before we knew it and decided to start there. This is the card I came up with.

This can be cut on any of the bugs using either Plantin Schoolbook or George and Basic Shapes along with Base Camp and Locker Talk. I would do it in their school colors if known and pop-dot the cap. I also inked the edges for a little more color on this one.

Click HERE for the cut file. Although there are several pages to the file, there are only two that you will need to cut: whichever base you want to use and the Cut Page with the layers.

Good luck to all of the 2009 graduates in your life.

More holders to come....

Jill

Kreativ Blogger Award

2009-01-16T12:56:00.007-06:00

Wow! I've been given an award by Kristina at Moonrose's Musings. Thank you SO very much, Kristina! I feel so honored. (Actually, I feel honored just to know that some of you are visiting my blog.)

It appears that with receiving this award, I am to name 7 of my favorite things and nominate 7 creative bloggers and ask them to do the same.

My list of 7 favorite things would currently be my:
1. God
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Job
5. Pink
6. Scrapbooking because of all of the wonderful friends it has brought me
7. Cricuts and all of their related stuff (which has to also include my laptop)

The 7 bloggers I wish to nominate are:
1. Amanda - Cricut Creations by AMKScrap
2. Kris - blankety blank blank
3. Brenda - Brens Designs
4. Diane - Capadia Designs
5. Susan - Busy with a Cricky
6. Linda - Just for Sharing
7. Jen - Brain Things

Kristina, thanks again for this honor.

Jill

Storage using Plantin Schoolbook OR George Only

2009-01-11T16:36:00.008-06:00

What a great weekend! Dave and I went to Plainview yesterday to visit our friend Kay and her family. Although the drive up was rather dreary with no sun, we had a great time there and the drive back was nice.

I had a request to redesign my storage using different carts as the requestor did not have what I was using. Well, I figure everyone has either George or Plantin Schoolbook, so I added on to my latest version of the boxes with dividers so that everything is made exclusively with George.

Then I recreated what I could using Plantin Schoolbook only. However, I was only able to make the score marks for the first box. Every time I try to add to it, I get the dreaded X. The first box can give you an idea of where the marks go and just use your scoring blade on the others. Yes, it even happens on Fit to Page AND with Plantin Schoolbook. Ugh!

I also added a page to both of them just giving the general size for the tags. I just select an image I like on the cart the tag will go on. Watch what you're selecting. On some images, you might want to use the blackout or shadow feature so that the tag doesn't tear with use.

Terrifically Tacky Tape is GREAT for putting these together.

Here's the file for George ONLY. And the file for Plantin Schoolbook ONLY.

Click on Storage under Labels to see all of my posts regarding storage.

Have a great week,
Jill

Word Books

2009-01-09T20:58:00.007-06:00

Oops! I forgot to upload the word book files that I recently created. Both of them were made with George. The softball one also uses Sports Mania.

Here you go: Softball and Nana.

Thank goodness for Friday! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Jill

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T15:51:00.001-06:00

Just wanted to say Happy New Year to everyone. I hope you and your families have a safe, healthy and happy 2009!

Jill

Updated Storage

2008-12-28T17:29:00.013-06:00

Happy Holidays!

I hope that everyone has had a marvelous holiday season so far. Hard to believe that there's still a holiday to go before it's all behind us for another few months.

Finally, I was able to sit down this weekend and cut out the revised storage boxes for my Cricut cartridges. And I'm SO happy with the outcome!

I take my cartridges to crops and share them with friends who have their own Cricut machines. When they return the cartridges, they're never sure where they go. (Yes, I do have tendencies of OCD and keep them in alphabetical order.) I added a back so that I could label the boxes. Now, all of us will know what belongs where.

Here's the whole set for ZooBalloo.

And the top layer of cartridges filled. Doesn't it look great!

If you are interested in the .cut file for the new boxes, click here. This file was done on the Expression (Christmas present from my husband and my uncle!), but it would be easy to convert for use on one of the other bugs.

If you're looking for the dividers or tags, see my post from August 24.

Thanks for checking in.

My wish is that you and your family have a safe, healthy and happy 2009! Happy Cricuting!

Jill

ABCs of Baby

2008-12-07T08:38:00.009-06:00

My friend Kay got me started making ABC books for a few gifts that I needed for some special little ones. I made three in one weekend along with three of us organizing another for six of us to make for a mutual friend. That was a whirlwind weekend!

Although I included capital letters in the file, we used some of the glitter chipboard letters that Michaels carries. I'm sorry I don't remember the brand. Otherwise, all letters were cut on the Cricut along with some of the embellishments.

For this project, I ran my letter and embellishment papers through my 5" xyron before cutting. I placed my paper on the mat with the xyron side up (upside down to what you would think) and flipped my letters on the software mat (so that they cut backwards). That way everything already had adhesive and the paper stuck to the mat for cutting. This was much faster and easier than cutting and then running all of those letters through the xyron. AND I didn't have those adhesive buggers all over my books!

My books did not use the same words for all of the letters. It just depended on the child/family as to what I used. You can google "abc album ideas" to get some great lists. I put the sizes on one tab of each letter type I used to help you customize your project. The books we did were 8 x 8 and 9 x 9. And you'll want to add the child's name as the title page only says "ABCs of" right now.

The mothers who have received these gifts have been absolutely thrilled! I'd like to make a Christmas book, but that will probably be a project for next year. There are so many things you can do with an ABC album.

Here's the cut file.

I used Cuttin' Up for the font. All of the other cartridges used were for embellishments. You can change embellishments to match the cartridges that you have. Have fun and please let me know what you come up with.

Poinsettia Mesh

2008-12-01T19:28:00.009-06:00

We had a mesh swap several months ago and I opted to work on Christmas. Since December has arrived (can you believe it's already here?), I thought it a good time to add it to my blog. If you followed the thread at the time of the swap, you may already have it.

The first 3 pages of the file are strictly for viewing the design. I would not cut those pages. Leave the mat alone after cutting the mesh and hit load paper. This will take the mat back to where you originally started. Then go to the border page and cut it. This will clean up the edges of the pieces that are in the non-cutting areas. You'll have to work with the leaves (cut green) and blooms (cut red or pink) to get them in the right places after cutting as some of them are trimmed off to fit the pieces trimmed off on the mesh.

I love the design and was very pleased with my trial cut. When I cut one to use, I think I will cut it either with the mesh in gold and the blooms red or the mesh in silver and the blooms in either pink or blue. And, of course, I'll have to add stickles.

Here's the cut file. Enjoy!

Jill

Sand Castle Card

2008-11-30T20:28:00.014-06:00

I made this card for Maddy's first birthday in June. (Well, this is actually a remake as I didn't have time to scan it before we left for her party.) I shared the cut file with the Cricut messageboard soon after I designed it. However, Ladyscrapper tried to use it recently and something has happened to the file. It is totally unusable. Yikes! I hope this doesn't start happening to other files.

Sooo, I created the file once again. I think this one will be better anyway.

Of course, the pink layer will actually go on the front. The palm tree is designed to cut off so that, when attached, it will look like it is behind the castle and not through the middle of it. And the coconuts go on the tree instead of falling onto the castle.

A number can be added to the flag on the pink layer to personalize it. I tried cutting her name into the same layer, but it worked better to cut the letters out and attach.

I hope someone can put this to use and enjoy. Here's the cut file.

Easter Placemats

2008-11-23T19:50:00.015-06:00

Hello once again! Yes, between busy, lazy and not feeling too great, it's been a while.

One of the Cricut message board members is currently hosting a placemat swap using Design Studio. As I was too late for the Thanksgiving and Christmas deadlines, I decided to work on Easter. I came up with one using bunnies. Then I decided that some might prefer to go more religious and did one using crosses. Of course, that lead to the possibility of not liking one font over another. I ended up with one file with two designs and two fonts so that the creator could decide for themselves.

Here's the cut file for anyone interested. I hope you enjoy. Oh, the basic shape and the print Happy Easter are Plantin Schoolbook; bunnies are Doodlecharm; crosses are Wedding; and cursive font is Jasmine.

RFTC and Awareness Ribbon

2008-10-12T19:37:00.018-05:00

Wow! Where does the time go? I've been busy the past several weeks working on the Komen Arkansas Race for the Cure, cropping with friends, working on some projects, going to Dallas to help celebrate a friend's new marriage, and I'm not really sure what else. Anyway, the Race was yesterday and things should get back to normal around here. The question is, what is normal?

I have a few things to share with you after I get them cleaned up, but I wanted to go ahead and share the awareness ribbon I designed. There are several versions out there, but none of them were what I wanted.

The theme for our Race this year was "This one's for the girls" and they used paperdolls for the artwork. At our first committee meeting, we were given a paperdoll to decorate and cut out for our name tags. Well, I wasn't happy with a couple of crayons or markers for my creation. I brought mine home, recreated the doll in DS, cut her out on my Cricut and started decorating. When complete, I took it to the Komen office for lamination. They loved it and asked me to make some for them. I cut all of the pieces with extras so they would have choices and made them put their own together. Not a good scan, but here's mine along with the original.

We have a Pasta Party the night before the Race and their committee always comes up with some great ideas for the table centerpieces. This takes place outside near the river, so there's always at least a breeze and sometimes more depending on the weather, so they have to come up with things that won't blow away. This year they decided to put some of the paperdolls on long popsicle sticks in flower pots painted in this year's Race colors (brown, pink and a deeper pink). When Ashley said that they were going to be cutting out all of these paperdolls, I offered my services. Then we came up with some other ideas. Of course, we wanted a pink ribbon, so I finally sat down and designed one I would be happy with and would look good with the others. Ashley decided on the 3 colors for the dolls, darker pink for the 15s (our 15th race) and pink ribbons.

And now that you have suffered through the whole story, here's the cut file. It was created with George and Tags, Bags, Boxes and More. George alone would make the ribbon, but the center would just be a tiny hole.

Razorback Fans

2008-09-01T14:25:00.017-05:00

GO HOGS! I've designed two word books perfect for Arkansas Razorback fans but have not cut either one yet. The first one (on the left) uses George for the pages and Base Camp for the letters; and the second (on the right) uses George for the pages and Jasmine for the letters. Not sure when I'll get around to working on one of them but thought someone out there might be able to use them. Here are the cut files using Base Camp and Jasmine. Have fun!

And GO HOGS GO!!!!!!!

Bride Book

2008-08-30T07:56:00.024-05:00

I thought I knew who gave me the idea for this project, but I can't find the post on the message board. They made a name book for BRIDE and used a princess for the I. I scraplifted their idea with a different princess. If this was you, thanks so very much for sharing your idea.

My nephew (actually double cousin's son) got married a few weeks ago. As his beautiful bride is a fellow scrapbooker, I thought she would enjoy filling this book with memories.

Other than the parts on the princess, I used Bazzill for the the solid papers and Doodlebug Design for the pattern paper. Although it does not show well in the scan, the dress is a swirly textured paper and the necklace and crown a silvery vellum I bought at Hobby Lobby. Otherwise, the princess was made with Close to My Heart papers. The pages were made using George, Jasmine for the letters and Happily Ever After for the princess. I had a horrible time with some of those tiny pieces, so I ended up using my pens to make the eyes.

I hope Alaina enjoys it. I gave it to her with a few matching embellishments along with scraps of the paper used for matting, etc. Here's a scan showing all of the pages. And here's the cut file for anyone interested.

Thanks, Amanda!

2008-08-26T19:22:00.004-05:00

A special thanks to Amanda K for her kind heart! Thanks to her sharing storage space, my files are available through a direct download. Amanda has also been helpful in getting me started with my blog. THANKS, AMANDA!!!!!!

Be sure to check out her blog.

Wizard of Oz - Tin Man

2008-08-25T19:45:00.007-05:00

JenW of the Cricut message board has a daughter with Down Syndrome. They are part of a new theater group, Angels on Stage, and their first play is Wizard of Oz. As a fundraiser, the kids are making angels. Jen wanted to make the characters of the play into angels and put out a plea for help with her project.

What better way than to use our Cricut Design Studio and the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge. Jen asked each person willing to help to design one character as a 5 inch paper doll. By the time I read the post, everything was spoken for except the Tin Man. I went to work on him, and here he is. I'll post another picture when I cut him out and get him assembled. I wanted to get the cut file to those who have been asking for it.

We're sending the cut files to Jen. She will cut the pieces and the kids will put them together. Won't they have fun! I'm sure they'll have a very successful event.

Cricut Storage System

2008-08-24T17:58:00.013-05:00

My first project to actually design something with my Cricut and the Design Studio software was a storage system for my Cricut cartridges and their overlays. It was getting rather cumbersome to take everything to crops. I needed a system to get them out of the boxes but still protect them.

Thanks to other members of the Cricut message board, I discovered that the Snapware Ribbon Dispenser was a perfect size for the overlays and the additional tray would hold the cartridges. However, I did not like the idea of the cartridges jiggling around all over the place. I tried several different things to hold the cartridges in place but wasn't happy with anything. I finally decided to design my own little boxes.

Of course, that led to designing dividers for the overlays and tags to identify the cartridges without taking them out of the boxes. The boxes, dividers and tags were cut with my Cricut from colored file folders. I felt that the file folders would hold up to use better than cardstock. The tags are attached to the cartridges with ribbon by removing the top screw in the back of the cartridge, tieing the ribbon to the screw and replacing it.

Here are the cut files for the boxes and dividers. The boxes file was created using George and Basic Shapes; the dividers file uses Fabulous Finds and George. The tags are cuts from each cartridge. I have them divided into 3 different files: Tag 1, Tag 2 and Tag 3. I do not have a cut for all of the cartridges. You can design your own, but this will give you an idea.

The ribbon dispenser holds approximately 35 overlays with dividers and the shorter tray holds 45 cartridges in the boxes. I've been using this system since February and have been VERY happy with it. It's now so much easier to take my Cricut supplies with me--and SO much lighter. To the left is a picture of the system all put together along with an extra tray holding Stickles, paint and some of my Cricut tools.

Beginnings

2008-08-23T21:04:00.004-05:00

OK, I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. I don't really have anything to say, but I've been looking for an avenue to share my Cricut cut files and other projects. Other people have been so helpful with their knowledge and sharing their files. I may not be as creative or know as much, but I hope maybe I can help someone out along the way. As soon as I figure out how to share files, I'll get a few posted so that my blog won't look so bleak. In the meantime, at least it's no longer blank. :o)