August is an exciting and fun month. It's true we are right in the middle of Summer, but before we know it, the weather will have changed and the colors of autumn will have arrived. Many crafters and scrappers have begun to switch gears and are producing projects with adorable autumn motifs. School will be starting soon. Parents and children are buying school supplies and clothing for the upcoming school year. This year we also get to finish out the summer with a special treat. The Summer Olympics begin in one week!! A special kind of buzz or excitement and good will is in the air. For many August is a time to increase the number of backyard barbeques and swimming parties and camping trips as well. My family will be enjoying all of the above. August's summer lazy days are an enjoyable part of the year. Be sure to enjoy them in whatever fashion you are accustomed.


Happy Cricuting :-)

Today's clever tip comes to you from the witty mind of our very own Cricut message board member, Patty.

Just a few Cricut puns to cheer you up when you have a difficult scrapbooking moment...
1. My Cricut is a real Cut-up.
2. The power went off in the middle of a cut, and the shock left me in Cricutal condition.
3. With a Cricut you are never cutting bored.
4. The Cricut provides an easy way to unload paper.
5. The Cricut is cutting edge technology.
6. Every Cricut cartridge is a font of possibilities.
7. Jasmine is just my type.
8. Cricut makes scrapbooking overlay easy.
9. With the Cricut I will scrap until i die cutting.
10. By George, I love my Cricut!!

Where did the week go? It feels like just the other day that I was writing about a Cartridge in the Cricut Library. This week, I want to continue on my exploration of Graphically Speaking. As a reminder, the six creative features in this cartridge are Phrase, Word, Jumbled, Type, Icon, and Icon Blackout. Last week I explored the Jumbled and Icon features, this week I explored the Phrase, Word and Type features. This cartridge hasn't been added to the DesignStudio software yet so I don't have any cut files created with this cartridge, I can't wait till I can start using the software with this cartridge.

The phrase feature is full of simple phrase that will make wonderful accents to any scrapbook page. Along with the phrases some buttons will also give you backgrounds that can be used in other ways. For example, one of the phrases is "Best of Friends" and the background would make a great background for your photo or a journal tag. Other examples of phrases that are included in this cartridge are: water works, state of mind, good ol' days, life's little moments, the real world (this has a beautiful flower that is gorgeous), teach me, sweet little thing, most important, the real deal, she's all that, built tough, fourth of July, Queen of everything, and new addition (this could be used on a baby card or scrapbook page). WOW! There are so many great phrases that I didn't even list all of them. I am just about done with my scrapbook room so then I can start to scrapbook some of these phrases with my dogs pictures. All the extras images that come with this features are great and will make great accessories to whatever they are used with.

The other feature "Type" details out the different type of categories that are in this cartridge and this gives you additional words that can be used in projects, school presentations, scrapbook pages, or any title that they will fit in. Examples of what I am referring to are: nature, together, water, memories, imagine, time, experience, comfy, learn, innocent, need, genuine, girl, boy, discover, freedom, new, friend, precious, intensity, journey, content, journal, attitude, delicious, favorite, enjoy, fragile, travel, direction, fabulous, and everyday. Plus you get all the numbers written out incase you want to accent a certain number on your project or scrapbook page.

The other feature that I played around with this week is the "Word" feature. Again, you get words and images that complement each other. For example, there is a flower with the word remember that should be placed over the flower on your project or scrapbook page. Another word example is "This is" all in capital letters with "life" in a circle, "My Angel", "True Blue", "Fine", "Found" both with a box around the words, and "independence" is in a circle and "day" would be placed next to the circle. There is a couple of leaf designs, an arrow, and "snow" in a box with a snowflake (this would look great on a Christmas card). When you come to the numbers section one of the great word selections comes in Spanish- "yah". This feature brings so many additional words and images to the table, now you have a ton of additional choices to choose from when you are creating your projects.

Check out next week as I continue to explore the Cricut Cartridge library. Happy Cricuting!!

Crafty Kimber

A: Possible Solution 1 - Does the power button itself glow green? If this is the case, but nothing else boots up, the Cricut machine will need to be serviced.

Possible Solution 2 - Make sure the power switch has been firmly pressed.

Possible Solution 3 - Make sure the power adapter is plugged into a live outlet, both parts of the adapter are plugged together, and the adapter end is completely plugged into Cricut machine.

Possible Solution 4 - Check the power adapter is plugged in. There should be a green light glowing on the face. If not, it may be defective and needs to be replaced.