Oh how lovely it would be to be able to go to the beach right now. I envy those of you who are a hop, skip, and a jump away from the beach. My dentist recently returned from a trip to Hawaii just in time to pull the wisdom teeth out of my head. He must have still been thinking about the beaches when I attended my appointment. I overheard him talking to the dental assistance about his vacation. At that moment, I fervently wished for a vacation to a beautiful, warm, sunny beach. I will of course need to save up my money again before I do this as I recently gave a big wad of it to a dentist that I know.
But no matter, I will have something to scrap about as I sit by my Cricut pals with my chipmunk cheeks sipping a shake and drinking plenty of liquids. Cricut has loads of great cartridges for me to choose from. I'll simply make the layouts now and take the pictures to complete them when I visit the next beach. I've decided to create this type of layout instead of one dedicated to dentists. I wonder if the tooth fairy vacations in Hawaii as well.
Happy Cricuting :-)
This week I spent most of my time getting ready for my big scrapbook day with my sisters. It was really nice to spend time with them combined with scrapbooking. We each had our own projects that we worked on and watched or listened to movies. We also talked a lot as well. I spent most of the morning working on my YourStory project. I just got my YourStory machine and I couldn't wait to use it. I have this little book fetish, so I made a bunch of individual little books and I used the Cricut to decorate the outside of the book. I used one of the Swirls from the cartridge
Calligraphy Collection under the creative feature: Gratitude, then added some extra bling to the vinyl. I was really happy with my little project; once my sister saw my project she decided that she wanted some of those books for her kids. They are going to Disney World in a few months for vacation and my sister wants the kids to have autograph books. I made some Disney autograph books for my nephews--I even added a red vinyl Mickey ears to the front of the book. They looked so cute.
In my Cricut exploration this week I want to talk about another of the creative features. As a review the creative features in Calligraphy Collection are: Gratitude, Celebrate, Matrimony, Inspiration, Shadow, and Inspiration Blackout. Today I will be discussing Gratitude. In this feature you received a full upper and lower case alphabet, numbers, and some symbols. The images that you can cut under this feature are: a swirl, leaf, solid journal tag, and a leaf journal tag, some combinations of swirls and leaves together, a flower, a flower envelope, and diamond curlies. Phrases that you get with this cartridge are: "To: From:", "the", "and", "many thanks", "much appreciated", "so grateful", "with Sympathy", "get will soon", "you are in my prayers", "me you", and "so glad you came".
The creative feature "Gratitude" has solid lines, with some straight ends attached (see photo). This font style definitely fits in the calligraphy family. The upper case letters are accessible with the shift button on your Cricut. You will get the lower case letters when you first touch the button.
Last week I mentioned that I would walk through how to use material with the Cricut. This process is not an easy project and will take some practice and patience. You will want to experiment first and take notes on where your pressure and speed work the best. Items you will need are: an iron, fabric interfacing that is used with the iron (make sure you ask your local craft store what the best fixative is for your type of fabric), your Cricut, a new mat, a new blade (if you have one on hand), a Cricut cartridge, and your material.
-The first step you will do is iron your fabric fixative onto the back of your fabric. This makes the fabric stiff so that you can place it on your mat.
-Next set up your Cricut as if you were going to use cardstock with it. Choose your image, and adjust your speed dial to a lower speed. Make sure your blade is set to a number 6 on the blade housing.
-Place your fabric on the new mat and load into the Cricut machine.
-Enter image desired and then press the cut button. Choose an image that is more solid and less detailed and you will have a better experience in cutting material with the Cricut.
-Pull image from mat and iron onto your project; if you are using material in your scrapbooks then glue the image to your scrapbook page.
-WOW! Your project is finished. I had some throw pillows that I wanted to add some Cricut images too. I used one of the flowers from
Storybook, because this flower looked the most like poppy. My bedroom is full of photos and silk poppies. I love this flower.
Well, that's it for this exploration. Check back next week as I continue to explore the Cricut cartridges. Happy Cricuting!
Crafter Kimber