WOYW?W 97 - John Henry was a papercutting man

Today my workdesk has a contradiction lol. Like that's a stretch? It's handmade vs. machine, or using a machine to make different handmade or where does machine made differ from hand made lol.

I love my Cricut (this is the Champaign [sic] Expression Cricut. For those of you unfamiliar with it, an electronic Die Cutting Machine. While I usually use the 12 x 12 inch mat, there is a 12 x 24 inch mat available too. It's kinda wonderful :D. I bought it for making titles to scrapbook pages and now I'm doing scrapbook pages, making cards, home decor, boxes, tags... well you get the idea. But I also make projects without it. And I made projects that give me some hand making time supplemented by machine cut things.

Add to that my Gypsy which is sort of a design studio in a handheld device which allows me to weld images, hide cut lines, design in my car, waiting for DD in various after school events, skew images. This is 4 of the same image welded into one new image from my new favorite cartridge Paper Lace.

I've also been having a lot of fun with these two books: Zentangle Basics and the Doodle Formula. Zentangled is a bit too structured for regular usage by me, the Doodle Formula is more my style. But both are very informative.

So I cut the image in the Gypsy on kraft cardstock, but not all the way through. Then I cut off the edge with a craft knife (lots of time for reflecting whilst I did that lol) and opened some of it up. Then I put the kraft cardstock frame on a piece of vintage Anna Griffin paper. And I used some Distress Crackle Paint (need to use Tim Holtz products lol) and lightly brushed it over all the cuts and when the paint dried I glued it to a piece of black cardstock. The kraft cardstock frame was decorated using a Fine Line Sharpie. The black cardstock was decorated using a Signo Uniball Gel Pen. I haven't decided what to do with the papers yet, still mulling over some ideas.

Now if you are wondering, "What's all this WOYWW then?", head over to Julia's Stamping Ground and have a gander. Better yet, take a picture and join in the fun :D.