I love this season. I love the sidewalks and yards filled with crunchy fallen leaves, children with rosy cheeks in warm sweaters, and crisp juicy red apples. Autumn is also one of my favorite seasons because I can wear layers! Besides the obvious practical reasons for wearing layers, they are fun to play with. I like to coordinate colors and textures that compliment each other. The right wardrobe combinations can add an unexpected classy little zing to an outfit!

A: Curling is common when using a new mat. The curling will lessen as you use your mat more. To avoid curling:

Try pulling the mat away from the paper instead of pulling the paper upward.

Take the shapes off slowly.

Use the tools out of the Cricut tool kit.

Paper shapes can be uncurled by gently flattening them on a flat surface.

This week I've had a wonderful surprise. I received a gift from a friend and when I opened the gift I screamed with delight at the two new cartridges I'd received. I now have Disney's "Tinker Bell & Friends" and "Cars" to add to my Cricut collection. I love Tinker Bell and have fond memories of this character when I was young. Now, with Tinker Bell having friends, this idea is new to me. I quickly opened the cartridge to see what was inside. This style of cartridge is similar to the other Disney cartridges in the Cricut collection, meaning that some of the creative features cut out the clothes, face, hair, etc. If you end up purchasing this cartridge and this is your first Disney cartridge, let me give you some advice. First, open the handbook that comes with the cartridge, and turn to page six, which shows you how to cut out each of the images in the cartridge, along with all the different layers associated with each image. I make sure that I keep this page marked and find that I use it quite a bit every time I start cutting out images from the Disney cartridges.

The creative features that come with "Tinker Bell & Friends" are: Flesh/Hair, Wings/White, Outfit/Outfit, Eyes/Lips/Extra, Shadow/Blackout, and Filigree. You probably wondering what is "Filigree"? I wondered the same thing until I flipped through the handbook. This feature creates a swirly design on Tinker Bell & Friends wings. This means that each images that has wings can be cut out with a unique design to give the images a different look (see pic). A few of the images with this creative feature will give you some extra words or phrases in place of a wing design. For example you get the title "TinkerBell" and with the creative feature "Filigree" you get the same title, but the title is designed differently, so now you have two ways to cut out the title "TinkerBell". Other words that come with this cartridge are, "Believe", (this would look great on a Christmas Card), "Pixie Dust" (you also get a wand image, put the wand and this phrase together on a child's wall--oh so cute), "it's all about the GLOW", "Magical" (this would also work on Christmas Card), "nice Day for Flying", and "think Tink".

The friends and other "Filigree" phrases that come on this cartridge are: "Fawn", "Energetic" and "Pixie Pal". With the "Rosetta" grouping you get the phrases "Beautiful" and "Looking Good". Also in "Iridessa" category you get, "Brilliant" and "Bright & Beautiful". Part of the "Silvermist" category is "Center of Attention", "Friends to the End", and "Pixie Hollow". Other phrases that are included in the cartridge are, "Charming", "Unique", "All Beauty No Beast", "Small is the new Big", "Sweet and Sassy", "Pardon my dust", "You Better Believe it", "Ray of Sunshine", and "A little Sparkle" (this would look so cute on a new baby card).

I love the fairies' images that come with this cartridge, plus you also get some flowers, bulbs, a few butterflies that have some intricate designs, a sparkling star (this would work great for Christmas), and a swirl/squiggle that would make any word design stand out. This image could also be used for a side bar on a scrapbook page.

Check your favorite websites or craft stores to purchase your Tinker Bell cartridge. I will continue to write about Tinker Bell as I explore everything about this cartridge.

Crafty Kimber

A: First, make sure your firewalls and anti-virus programs are turned off before attempting to activate your software. This error message could be a result of your own computer protection programs blocking the activation.

Second, keep trying. Due to the overwhelming success and popularity of the CDS, our servers are receiving increased internet traffic. Just like rush-hour, our web lanes are sometimes bogged down, and this error message could be a result of your activation request being declined from an over-loaded server. We recommend trying to activate during off-peak hours, either later at night, or earlier in the morning. Or if this still fails, feel free to call Cricut Support to have your CDS activated over the phone instead.