HARVEST HOME

Enjoying the fruit of the late Summer and Autumn harvests is a highlight of the season for everyone. There are a number seasonal outdoor farmer's produce stands located along my route to and from work. I like to frequent them and purchase yummy fresh produce to consume at my leisure or share with family and friends. Peaches, tomatoes, apples cantaloupe, watermelon, pears, corn, peppers, onions, and of course a plethora of potatoes. I love it! Tomatoes are a particular favorite of mine. I love those fresh and juicy heavenly morsels! I believe my Cricut and I shall create a layout dedicated to the wonderful harvest we are having this season.

Provo Craft has had a great harvest this year as well. Drop by and check out all of the wonderful Cricut products at our website under the products tab. You'll be sure to find something to satisfy your crafting appetite and plenty of helpful information to boot.

Be sure to check out Crafty Kimber's cartridge exploration of the Flower Shoppe and Vintage Damask Cartridges in today’s Chirp. Read about helpful Cricut tips and glean great crafting ideas from Cricut message board members in this week’s newsletter.

As always, I wish you success in your crafting adventures!

Lonna Joy Smoot- Editor, Cricut CHIRP!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

TIPS TREASURE CHEST

Today’s helpful tip comes from message board member JenniferPalmer.

Q: Hi, I have a Cricut Expression and a Cricut Expression 2. Anyways, I am trying to cut vinyl and using the Disney/Pixar's Cars cartridge. If I cut the shadow, it doesn’t line up the layers. How do you cut, the base with lines? I find it really hard to see the original picture of what you are cutting out. Why can’t they make that picture bigger? Is there an easier way to layer these layers?

A: The base layer is the main layer - basically the one where you would push the button without having any of the feature keys lit (layers, shadow, etc) or shift pushed. It is the layer that gives you all the little hash marks to show where to line things up. I wouldn't try layering on just the shadow because the shadow layer is always going to be bigger than your base and nothing will line up right.

As for the size of the picture you can always pull up the cartridge digital handbook on the computer and use that for a guide. At least then you can zoom in and get a better idea of where things go.

When you are layering I would try layering the smallest parts and moving back to the biggest if that makes sense. So instead of taking the base, adding the first layer, then the next and so on take the last layer, put it on the next to last layer until it is all assembled. That way when you go to place the finished product it is all layered and ready to go.

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

Name: Renee Cooper

Materials Used:

• Sweet Tooth Boxes ~ pg. 15: ConeLy1, ConeLy2, ConeLy3 all cut @ 9.5"
• Cricut Thanksgiving Seasonal cartridge ~ leaf with vine and layer @ 1.5" and again at 1.75", pumpkin stem @ 4.53" x2
• Elegant Edges ~ pg. 70: Desgn2 shadow-s @ 2.06 and 2.29
• card stock
• twine
• Old Olive Ink
• Forest Moss distress ink
• Misc. raffia in fall colors

Instructions: This 3D pumpkin in a crate is created utilizing the Cricut project cart, Sweet Tooth Boxes. Yes, it is actually the ice cream cut!

Once I cut and assembled the pumpkin top and bottom, I bent the scallop edges of the bottom down so it would look more like a crate. I then cut my leaf and vine pieces in two different green colors and sizes, inked them in Forest Moss and gave them some dimension utilizing a dowel for the vines and a metal rounded end for the leaves. I then adhered the vines and leaves to the pumpkin using a glue gun (but other adhesives would work). I attached the stem by bending the bottom portion and slipping it under the top slit of the pumpkin. I then added the stem, raffia around the crate base, stamped my sentiment in Old Olive onto my double layer tag and then added the tag to the pumpkin using the twine. I plan on filling the treat box with the harvest blend of candy corn (the one with pumpkins, gourds and multi-colored corn) that my daughter and hubby love so much for a fun fall treat.

MESSAGE BOARD HIGHLIGHTS

This week's highlighted threads are:

• Plant Smiles, Grow Laughs, Harvest Love
• Cornucopia Give Thanks
• Haystacks Meets Damask Decor
• Star Fold Birthday Card
• Moo-velous Day Card
• Goodbye To Summer

CARTRIDGE EXPLORATION

The theme for this week was “Harvest”, which got me decorating around the house. I have a ton of home decor decorations that fit all the fall months, but I always try to make something to add to my collection. Some of my favorite memories every year are coming up with projects that I can create to use as decorations around my home. The hardest part of creating is narrowing down the list of projects that I want to make-if only I had tons of time on my hands and all I had to do was make craft projects, lol. This week I also explored “Vintage Damask” a Cricut Imagine pattern cartridge and “Flower Shoppe”, one of the new Cricut project cartridges.

“Vintage Damask” is a new Cricut Imagine pattern cartridge that is full of fun vintage styles. This cartridge comes with 20 patterns and 20 solid colors that coordinate with the patterns. Colors that you will find in this cartridge are: reds, blues, black and white, orange, blue grays, mauves, and greens. This cartridge is perfect for use with any projects from scrapbooking to wood projects. I found a 3-D cardstock pumpkin project that I knew would look great using two of the patterns from this cartridge. I used my Cricut Imagine to cut out the pumpkin shapes (which I pulled from “Pumpkin Carvings”) with my coordinating patterns. I cut out 8 images of the pumpkin facing the right way then 8 mirrored images. This is the tip, to make sure that you cutout the same number of images using the flip feature so the images are opposite of each other. Then you fold all the images in half and glue the shapes back to back. I originally had cut out the stem of each pumpkin but after gluing all the shapes together I didn’t like the cardstock stems so I cut them off with scissors. Next I took real tree branch and placed in the center of the pumpkin to make the project more stable, I also used some hot glue to glue the pumpkin to my tree branch. I used a brown paper sack for the stem, wadded it up and then wrapped it around the branch, used some hot glue to keep everything in place. I made leaves using green pip cleaner because that’s what I had in my craft room. I simply rolled the pip cleaner around itself and glued the end, the using my fingers shaped the pip cleaner to look a leaf (see photo).

“Flower Shoppe” was the other cartridge that I explored this week. I had tons of fun cutting out all the different layers of flowers. Everywhere I look, flowers are so popular in any project from wreath projects to hair bows, and you can also find them on jewelry. Lately it seems all I purchases are necklaces that have a flower attached to them; I can’t even count on how many necklaces I own-lol. This cartridge is one of the new Cricut Project cartridges; you can mix and match the 10 standard flowers, 10 different style of leaves. The instructions and cutting process are easy to understand and follow. Another note I want to point out, each of the flowers come with a button that will cut out a single flower pedal. At first I thought this was weird, but after I cut a few flower pedals I realized that you could create your own flower pedal by pedal. For my hair band project I only cut out a few layers than hot glued them to the hair band. I friend gave me the idea that if you didn’t like the color of hair band you could always wrap ribbon around it to change the color- that’s exactly what I did. I love using buttons in my projects, which is why I used them as center pieces to add some dimension to my project. After playing with this cartridge I have decided to add it to my personal favorites list, I can see so many uses and projects using this cartridge. If you love to craft with flowers then this cartridge is must have pick on up on www.cricut.com while you can.

This wraps up my exploration for this week- hope you have enjoyed it, see you all next week. Let Cricut inspire you in your creations? Happy Crafting!!!

Crafty Kimber

HELP FROM THE EXPERTS

Need some help? Provo Craft Customer Support is here for you! Never hesitate to call in (1-888-922-4725 or 1-888-92ccircle for Circle questions); we have people ready to help you! We are currently open Monday through Friday 7am to 6pm Mountain Time. If these hours do not work with your schedule, please send an email to support@provocraft.com.

Have a great week!
Customer Support

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted”
- David Bly