I have early recollections of being taught that it was strictly forbidden to draw or write on anything but paper...namely walls, doors, kitchen floors, my sister's chest of drawers etc. I knew what the consequences would be so I refrained from creating beautiful murals and kept my artistic displays on paper. My other siblings did not follow the previously mentioned parental counsel as well as I did. Oh how envious I felt when I entered a friend's home and saw a freshly scribbled masterpiece displayed on the walls of the entry way. But alas, even though I secretly wished I could draw smiley faces, rainbows, and sun faces on the doors and walls of my own abode, I never "wrote on the walls" during my childhood! I had no problem with the "don?t eat the crayons" rule, but the rule about never raising my artistic hand to the "spacious canvas" never made that much sense...until I was six or seven years old.

Adults often have a way of seeking out the things they couldn't have or were deprived of as children. Of course, this is not about running with scissors or throwing rocks at windows. There is no classy and mature way to do that.

It is heart-warming to see that many of you fellow crafters have revived this art in a mature and creative fashion. I have seen a tremendous increasing popularity in the use of vinyl decorations on household surface, and walls...more particularly wall pops. What a classy and beautiful way to add a personal touch to your home. Cricut designs, shapes, and letters are showing up on the walls of more and more homes around the world. So it seems that if you wait long enough, the creative crafter from your childhood emerges again to finish what you wish you could have started. This would even include signing your own name to your work.

Todays clever tip is from Message board member Susan Espinosa. Thanks for sharing your creative ideas with us Susan!

I bought full page mailing labels for ink jet printers to make stickers. I preprinted the label's with the background color I wanted, then cut to the size of my baby bug.

It cut just fine. I used the alpha on George and peeled and stuck onto my background.

Much easier, cheaper and much less messy than glue, or spray, or xryon.

Hope this gives you some ideas!
Try stik2it.com for the best price on the labels.

Good bugging!
Susan Espinosa

This week I continued to play with and explore the Solutions Cartridges because I am so intrigued with all the new images and fonts. This week I decided to explore the Indie Art cartridge and as I looked at the images I thought of a bunch of different projects that these images would look great on. Before I get ahead of myself, let me tell you about the cartridge itself. You get two creative features: shadow and blackout. The images that come on this cartridge are fun and spunky; you get two different types of guitars, skull and cross bones, lips, clouds, ice cream cone, stars, crosses, wings, butterfly, roses, crest, crowns, knife, spider, dice, 8-ball, and some other fun designs. Words that come with this cartridge are trouble, rock & roll, heartbreaker, hardcore, wicked, and parental advisory. At first when I looked at this cartridge I wasn't sure that I would like it but now I love all the different designs and images. They are perfect for your teenager's scrapbooks, high school lockers, school binders...the possibilities are endless.

Some of the ideas that I experimented with this week were making magnets and decorating a boy's clock. With some vinyl you can decorate anything from lockers to book binders, car decals, or music speakers. You could even decorate a boy's room with some of these images. Picture this: 12 X 24 inch guitars placed on one of the walls in your teenager?s room. Of course, the guitars will have to be placed next to their music posters and other fun stuff. I bought a fun clock and decided to add some Cricut images to it, and it turned out really cute. Ok, for a boy, you would say it's cool (can't say cute around a boy-hehe). For this project I used vinyl and cut my images 2 inches high, then added the words "Rock & Roll" at 1 in high. Both sets of images I did the shadow background to help the images stand out. When I was putting the guitars together I had to use tweezers to help me assemble the small parts, because my nails kept getting in the way (see pic). Every boy?s room has some sort of a radio or boom box, so you could cut a fun blazing fireball or a skull to help spice up the boom box. I think I am going to cut a few of these images for my car. I want some fun spunky car decals. I haven't cut any of these yet for my car but with the vinyl you can put it on and if you don?t like it, just pull it off.

My other big idea came with creating and making magnets. I wanted to make some cardstock magnets then add some glue to protect the paper. I went to my local craft store and looked at their magnets; there I found flexible magnetic sheeting that I thought I would try to use on my Cricut. Now if you want to try this, here is what you have to do: the magnetic sheeting must be really thin and it must say "flexible" on the package. The one I used was called "The Magnet Source" that I bought at my local craft store. I put in a new blade to make sure that the Cricut would cut the magnet; I made sure my blade housing was on "6", my pressure was on "max." The first time I did this the Cricut didn't cut through the magnet, so I had to resort to using the Multi Cut. (If you have the original Cricut you will not have a multi cut. This feature only comes on the Cricut Expression. If you have the Design Studio Software, there is a multi cut feature that comes with that. The Cricut needs this multi cut feature to cut through the magnet.) Make sure that you have your Multi Cut on #4, which means that the Cricut will cut the images four times in the same place. Make sure that the black side of the magnet is facing the sticky side of the mat, so you are looking at the white layer before you cut your image. The Cricut doesn't cut through the very last layer of the Magnet sheet but you can separate the images very carefully from the actual magnet sheet. It feels like separating a foam puzzle-that?s how easy it is to separate. Next, cut your images out of cardstock (I used a few designs, see my pic). Then pull the white paper off of the magnet. Make sure that you pull this off very carefully so that you don?t tear the magnet. Glue your magnet to your cardstock, then grab some wax paper, or even the clear film that come on the mats will work. I have decided that the clear film will work great for projects and would suggest that you start collecting some for my next big project. Now for the glue! If you don't want to use the glue then your magnet is done. If you want the cardstock protected, I used "E600" as my glue. (Another glue you can use is the EnviroTex Lite; this creates a stiffer magnet, but if you use this glue, let the image dry over night. Then take a pair of scissors to trim off any excess EnviroTex that you don?t want around the image. ) Here is how I did it, and at first I made a mess till I figured out the easiest way to use this glue: pour the glue into the center of the image, then use a toothpick or cotton swab to move the glue to the edge of the image. I made a butterfly so I pushed the glue to the edges of the wings. If the glue goes over the edge and makes a mess then simply use your cotton swab and wipe it away. I found this part really easy. Don't touch the image for about 4 to 8 hours. Let the glue dry really well before you pull the image off the wax paper or clear film. Once the image is dried, then you are done and the magnet is ready to be used.

Check out my next exploration! Start saving your clear films left over from the used up mats - You will really love it. Happy Cricuting!!

Crafty Kimber

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