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Animal Kingdom Sayings
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Here is a sample of some of the many silly sayings you can make using the Animal Kingdom Cartridge:
Good "Moo"rning.
Life can be "Ruff".
Sorry you're having such a "Baa"d day.
I'm "Quack"ers for you.
Welcome "Neigh"bors.
Thanks for being such a good "Neigh"bor.
You are so "tweet".
You're such a "tweet"ie pie.
Home "tweet" home.
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Features Explained
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Recently, my daughter came to me for help in asking a young man to her Sadie Hawkins Dance at school. She wanted something rather clever with an Australian theme. After looking through the Cricut cartridges, we saw the kangaroo and her little joey in Animal Kingdom. They were perfect for what my daughter had in mind!
Artist Marie Cole has included 48 animals, reptiles, and birds in this wonderful set. When you add to that the 2 bookmark foundations and the fishbowl, it’s easy to go ‘ape’ and find something to use almost every time you pull out this cartridge.
Some of the more unique things about Animal Kingdom are the Creative Features. You can cut out the head of the individual animals or the words/sounds that the animals make. Some of the animals don’t make a sound that can be written (i.e. the moose or the skunk) so words associated with that animal are used (“cabin fever” and “wildlife”).
The Border option could be the most creative of all the features. Pressing the Border key prior to cutting your animal out will give you three of those shapes, in different sizes and facing opposite directions. As a result, you can have a family of frogs or a gaggle of geese for a school report. Keeping the negative (the paper you cut the shapes out of), you’ll also have a stencil to use for another project.
Whether you’re down on the farm, living in the Outback, or your life is a zoo, Animal Kingdom is a shape set that will bring a smile to your face and adorable fauna to your projects.
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Cartridge Overview
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All of the cartridges have two Creative Features in common. They are Shadow and Blackout. The function of these two keys are exactly the same in all circumstances: Shadow perfectly mats the original graphic and Blackout gives you a general shadow of the original but with no interior cuts (such as the two holes in a capital letter B).
Discovering the rest of the individual cartridges Creative Features is like embarking on a scavenger hunt where you shriek "ah ha" every time you try out a new one. Doesn't it make you excited to find out what new ones the Cricut team will come up with next?
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Shifted Layers
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Animal Kingdom is a great example of the "Shifted Layer" images found in many of the Shape Sets. These Layer images are sized perfectly to fit it's base shape. For instance, cutting the shifted version of the Penguin image will cut out an exact set of penguin "wings" and feet. Just cut these in a different color and you have an instant 3-dimensional creation! Keep in mind that you need to keep the size dial the same and NOT select Real Dial Size with each cut to make sure the sizing stays proportional.
So keep in mind that there are often combinations of images within a cartridge that are meant to be used together, just like the example above. It's fun and rewarding to discover these as you dig deeper into each collection.
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Shaping Up
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Now that we have a plethora of shape cartridges to sort through, it's time to find a way to organize them. It takes precious crafting time to flip through each handbook, looking for the perfect piece to finish a project when we can have that information right at our fingertips, in a single binder, box, or maybe even a cd.
I love simple organization ideas, and for me, that starts with big, black binders. With each shape set, I looked through the handbook to find a single page that shows the Creative Features for that cartridge in full use, such as page 102 (elephant) in Animal Kingdom. Online, under the products tab at Cricut.com, I found the corresponding page from that handbook and printed it out. This gave me a brief overview of the artistic style and content from the cartridge, as well as an example of the Creative Features. On the bottom of the page, I wrote the title and artist name as a reference for that page. In my binder is at least one printed page (8½ x 11") for each shape set.
The next step in my quest for simplification included cutting out samples of specific shapes, using Linda Scott's Cheat Sheet by Alpha. She and others have posted about this list often on the MB and I find it a valuable organizational tool. Using the list, I chose items that I would be using a lot, such as bookplates, butterflies, cards, hearts, and "I love you". Setting the size at 3", I cut samples of each one, some with shadows or other Features. On a single page, I glued all of the bookplates, referencing the cartridges used, the Feature, and the size (3"). Then, I inserted it into a page protector and added it to my binder. Repeating these steps for the other items previously cut, I ended up with over 20 pages of frequently used shapes. When I have a couple of free hours, I'll add pages that show shapes that I think are particularly awesome, such as the 'hydrangea' in Walk in My Garden to this section in my binder.
There have been several posts on the Cricut Message Board about alphabetizing precut shapes, keeping a running list of all the Cricut shapes, and even cutting out ALL the shapes a cartridge has available, gluing them onto paper and filing them away. Find what works for you, then adapt and streamline as your library grows with each new cartridge. Feel free to share your ideas and pictures with us - we'd love to see what you do for craft spring cleaning!
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Features in Common
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Many Cricut users have purchased all of the cartridges currently on the market. Using coupons, sales, the internet, LSS’, and TV shopping shows, the country’s going buggy in a big way!
Not including the special cartridge available through QVC or George and Basic Shapes, there are six font cartridges and six shape cartridges. The fonts include: All Mixed Up, Base Camp, Jasmine, Mini Monograms, Stamped, and Teardrop. The shape cartridges are Animal Kingdom, Beyond Birthdays, Celebrations, Christmas Cheer, Doodlecharms, and Tags, Bags, Boxes & More.
All of the cartridges have two Creative Features in common. They are Shadow and Blackout. The function of these two keys are exactly the same in all circumstances: Shadow perfectly mats the original graphic and Blackout gives you a general shadow of the original but with no interior cuts (such as the two holes in a capital letter B).
Discovering the rest of the individual cartridges’ Creative Features is like embarking on a scavenger hunt where you shriek “ah ha” every time you try out a new one. Doesn’t it make you excited to find out what new ones the Cricut team will come up with next?
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