GROW, MOW, AND GROW SOME MOW!

I love the smell of freshly mowed grass and the look of well kept yards. (Sure, it sounds extra silly but for me, the smell of freshly mowed lawn is right up there with the smell of roses and the smell of the air right after a rain storm.) I am a mere amateur in this area but have always admired beautiful landscaping.

In an effort to step up the appearance of my own yard, I asked for advice from friends with lush verdant lawns. They freely shared their wisdom with me and promptly set out to fertilize and water the pathetic patch of vegetation around my house. It has been a few months since the new yard keeping schedule began and I am happy to say that I am enjoying the fruits of my labor. Every Saturday morning I put on my green shoes, roll the lawn mower out of the garage, and mow a lovely green carpet of great lookin' grass!

This desirable outcome would never have happened if I had not sought out the wisdom of those with more yard keeping experience and put it into action. Likewise, many new crafters find themselves intimidated or feeling like their projects are lacking or plain. The Cricut message board is full of helpful and friendly fellow crafters who share great ideas and crafty wisdom with each other on a daily basis. Many newbies of yesterday who entered the world of Cricut crafting, have benefited from the great ideas and resources available in the many forums of the Cricut message board. They are now some of the most clever crafters on the message board.

This week, be sure to read Crafty Kimber's cartridge exploration of the Lovely Floral, Cherry Limeade, Wildlife, and Carousel Cricut Lite cartridges. Enjoy a clever tip for using the Cricut message board to provide you with crafty inspiration and glean savvy wisdom from our customer support Sweeps as they share technical advice about Cricut products. As always, I wish you well in your crafting adventures.


Happy Crafting!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Say hello to our new cartridges:
French Manor
Simply Charmed
Country Life
Rock Princess
Happy Hauntings
Winter Frolic

Say goodbye to:
Baseball
Basketball

And don't forget to check out the new Cricut Cake^TM Martha Stewart Crafts^TM Edition cartridges:
All Occasions Cake Art
Elegant Cake Art
Seasonal Cake Art

Follow this link to see the email announcement.

SWARM WINNER

How exciting to win my birthday swarm!

While our swarm is small (but growing by the month), if you decide to stop by, you will find we are the most enthusiastic bunch about Provo Craft that you have ever seen! This Swarm was made up of Kourtni (Kourtni's son Malakai - 8 months old), Christy, Inna, and I on the day after my birthday. We put on chick flicks in the background, laugh like you wouldn't believe, and when we're done it looks like a paper bomb has exploded in my house! We have three more people coming to the next Swarm--which should be even more chaotic as I just got the Cricut Cake!

Thank you so much for the opportunity and you'll see more Swarms from us in the future!

FEATURED PROJECTS

MESSAGE BOARD HIGHLIGHTS

This week's highlighted threads are:

• All American BOY
• Oh Happy Day!
• Birds of a feather
• SUNFLOWER GET WELL CARD
• 50 years of Love

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

Name: Terry and Belinda Donaldson
About: My husand, Terry, is a trained artist. He has explored the uses of the Cricut even more than I have. This project is a mixed media portrait with inspiration from "A Boy Sleeping" on the Sistene Chapel Ceiling. It makes use of acrylics and altered Cricut cutouts. They are used in the background, the midground, and as the frame. It is lovely and a great example of how versatile Cricut cuts are.

Terry and Belinda's Project: Boy Sleeping on the Ceiling

YOUR NOTABLE TIP

Today's tip comes from message board member Sweetpea1030. Thanks for sharing your clever tip!

Q. "I've had my Expression almost a year now and I love it. I went crazy and purchased a lot of carts (almost 80 so far), and I find myself not knowing what to do with them. I have all the tools I can get to help me become more creative, but is it something you are just born with? Most of my layouts are plain and I would love to create things I see on the message boards sometimes."

A. "About a year ago, I felt the same way. I didn't want to just make cards, I wanted to make good cards. I went to the Cricut Card forum. After lurking and looking around for awhile, I started doing the RAQ weekly card challenges. There was lots of help and feedback. You can see the different papers and techniques used, inks and gel pens and different papers, and lots of people ready to answer questions and help you learn! So if you want to do cards, that's my suggestion.

"There are also pictures of projects people have done under the 'photo gallery', listed on the left side of the page. You can also go to All Forums and look through to see what interests you. Look at the forums: there's one for Cricut DesignStudio, there's one for Cricut Crafts, for Cuttlebug, Create, Expression, Gypsy, Cricut Inks, Cricut Cakes, and there's one for newbies! There are even forums for each of the cartridges. It's all here. At some point you just have to jump in!"

CARTRIDGE EXPLORATION

Why does time fly by so fast? I often find myself asking this question as I rush to finish a crafty project, only then to turn around and begin another project. This week I wrapped up Operation: Bedroom. I also played with my Cricut, exploring the Cricut Lite cartridges. Today I will share what I have discovered in the Lovely Floral, Cherry Limeade, Wildlife, and Carousel cartridges.

These cartridges have a new plastic case and trifold design. Each of them also come with reward points that you can collect and redeem on the rewards website. The handbook is a trifold with each of the images and the complete layer feature shown, so you know exactly how to assemble the artwork. For examples, click here.

Lovely Floral's creative feature is a font, so not only do you get a cartridge full of images, but it includes both upper and lowercase letters, plus numbers 0-9. The style of font is a curvy, outline type; there is a very feminine look and feel to each letter. Some examples of the images that come on this cartridge are: doilies, tags, flowers, swirls, word phrases, circles, mushroom, vine, bird, and a butterfly. Most of the images on this cartridge can be used as accents, frames, or tag boxes to describe a picture's story. I love a lot of the flower designs as well. I can't wait to pull out my Cricut Cake and use this cartridge to decorate some goodies! A few examples of the word phrases are: "Thank You", "Beautiful", "Family", and "Scatter Kindness". Ameri-brit-gal from the message board created this card using Lovely Floral (see pic or click here).

Cherry Limeade is a delightful font cartridge that gives you both upper and lower case letters and some symbols. This cartridge also comes with some images that surround the idea of limeade. The images that you will receive are: limes, limeade glass, flowers, bird, cherry with a lime, cherries, lime tree, and a 3D flower. The creative feature that comes on this cartridge is the Font Shadow/Layer. DonnaLieb from the message board created this cute card (see pic or click here).

Wildlife is a cartridge that is designed for those hunting pictures that have stayed in a box waiting to be scrapbooked. I would say that this cartridge was designed for me and any other family who likes hunting. I have a lot of family pictures that surround hunting and now I can finally give them the paper cuts they deserve. Some examples of the animals on this cartridge are: caribou, mountain lion, bear, geese, duck, moose, fox, elk, buck, fish, mountain goat, eagle (don't shoot!), wolf, deer, turkey, quail, and pheasant. The creative feature is words that complement this cartridge. For example: "Elk Hunt", "Trophy Mount", "Great Outdoors", "Decoy", "Duck Calls", "Little Fish", and "Gone Hunting". CraftJunkieToo created a duck card using this cartridge and it turned out really cute (see pic or click here).

Carousel is the last cartridge I explored this week. I think I'm in love with the images on this cartridge. I feel like I want to go find a fair or a circus, the images are just so cute! A few examples are: rollercoaster ride, circus tent, cotton candy, blank ticket, lion on a ball, strong arm man, tiger, clowns, carousel, dancer, dancing poodle, train engine and four train cars, canon, banner, soda, and dancing elephant. The creative feature that comes with this cartridge is a font. The style of this font is very old English and just uppercase letters, although there are numbers and some symbols. This font would be perfect for banners or sign presentations. CreativeCritter-Tammy from the message board used this cartridge with pie crust to decorate her chicken pot pie (see pic or click here).

Well, that wraps up this exploration. Check back next week and see what else I explore of the new exclusive Wal-Mart cartridges. Have a fabulous crafting week!

Crafty Kimber

WEEKLY SURVEY

Don't forget to take this week's survey!

Click here.

HELP FROM THE EXPERTS

Here are the top topics in Customer Support this week:


Cricut Message Board Issues

For those of you who live and breathe for the message boards, we are very aware of the lagtime issues. Please know that Provo Craft is working to correct this. We know many of you share and gather ideas from the boards. Bear with us as we work to get these boards flowing. We know that this is frustrating to our members. We are right there with you. Hang on!

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Q. What is Cricut Circle?

A. The Circle is an exclusive Provo Craft club.
Members can join for 275.00 yearly. They will receive 4 exclusive cartridges, a charm bracelet, a discount on Cricut products, a monthly .pdf magazine, and much more. Presently the club enrollment is closed. Watch the website and our newsletters for any information.


Have a great week!

From your Customer Support Sweeps:
Mark, Colby, Brittany, and Becky, "The Floor Sweeps"

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I always thought a yard was three feet, then I started mowing the lawn."
~ C. E. Cowman