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Do you Doodlecharms?
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As I was planning a couple of spring craft projects I pulled out Doodlecharms to see how I could use it. Although I've played with this cartridge many times, I'd forgotten just how fun it is! IMHO, it's one of the must-haves for everyone that has a Cricut.
While each shape is perfect at face value, if you look at them, flip them over or turn them around, you'll soon see other uses for them. Here are some alternatives I've found for the shapes in this set:
Use the one of the snowflakes (cut in multiples) and circles as a bouncy ball and jacks game
Turn the waterglobe upside-down, flatcut the rounded bottom and you have a shapely vase or pot
Cut multiples of either heart and layer in a circle for a 3-D flower
Trim the bunny ears to a point and your bunny looks like a cat (not to be confused with the cat on page 113)
Trim the handle off the Easter basket for a pot o' gold or flower pot
Cut 4 bugs (page 92) and line them up in a row, all facing the same direction.
Cut off the antennae of three bugs and glue the heads of those three underneath the bottom of the bug in front of it. You should end up with a centipede-like creature. If you use brads instead of glue, you'll have a bug with a movable body.
Turn the scoop of ice cream upside-down, add ribbon handles, and you have a darling cinch sack for your
layout.
Cynthea Sandoval, the designer behind Doodlecharms, has given us a fantastic collection of shapes that is versatile and inspires creativity. Do you have your Doodlecharms yet?
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What in There
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Every holiday season, we go out driving as a family to see the light displays found in many neighborhoods. One of the games we like to play is to determine what kind of decorating style was used on the homes and yards we see. The categories we use are: All-in-the-box (no set style... they used everything they had), Next-in-the-box (everything is concentrated in a small area), Not-enough-for-a-box (only one strand of lights or one inflatable used), No-box (a home with no decorations in a very decorated neighborhood), and finally, my favorite, Outside-the-box. This particular category is used when we would see a display that truly shows its owners’ flair for decorating that is worth a second or third look.
Doodlecharms is a cartridge that inspires us to create “Outside-the-box”; but first, it helps to identify what is in the box. Here is the way I organized the shapes so I could remember what I have to work with:
We have the four seasons represented:
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Winter: |
Snowman, Snowflakes, Globe |
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Spring: |
Flower 1, Flower 2 |
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Summer: |
Sun, Popsicle, Watermelon |
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Fall: |
Acorn, Leaf, Basket |
We have special events:
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Baby’s Birth: |
Baby Face, Ducky, Baby Bag, Teddy Bear, Bottle |
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Back-To-School: |
Bus, Apple, Backpack |
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Birthday: |
Ice Cream Cone, Cupcake, Present, Hat, Confetti |
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Christmas: |
Tree, Reindeer Head, Santa Head, Stocking, Star |
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Easter: |
Bunny, Easter Basket, Egg |
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Halloween: |
Pumpkin, Spider, Candy, Bag |
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Thanksgiving: |
Turkey |
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Valentine’s Day: |
Heart (scalloped edge), Heart (clean edge), Envelope, Mailbox |
Finally, we have other fun stuff:
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Bug, Dragonfly, Ladybug, Jar, Stick & Leaves |
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Castle |
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Seahorse, Palm Tree |
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Dog, Doghouse, Cat, Mouse |
Sometimes, just looking at the pictures on the box doesn’t tell the whole story so it helps to identify and separate what is actually there. In order to use these shapes outside the box, remember, for example, that while I listed the Ice Cream Cone under ‘Birthday’, it can also be used for other projects, such as a ‘Summer’ one. The Bag and Basket can be used for so much more than something ‘Halloween’ or ‘Fall’.
Doodlecharms, by Cynthea Sandoval, is a fun, well-balanced shape set we can all enjoy.
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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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Key Height Character, Revisited
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In relation to a font set's Key Height Character, there are uses of Key Height found within the Shape Cartridges as well. One example is within Doodlecharm's Card Creative Feature and the respective Envelope image. When an image is cut using the Card Creative Feature, it will cut smaller, in proportion to the larger and associated Envelope Image (found in the lower right corner of the Overlay). This is so the larger envelope, when folded down, will enclose around the card (see picture).
This is the basis of Foundation Shapes and their associated Companion Shapes. A Foundation Shape is the base shape of a Creative Feature. In this example, it is the plain card in the very bottom right corner of the overlay. A Companion Shape is any image that is specifically "linked" to that Foundation Shape, such as the Envelope in this sample.
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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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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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