Catching Up with Cards

The Cricut Lyrical Letters cartridge is one of my all time favorites, but it's a difficult cartride to use for smaller embellishments. However, CutMates paper is made to use in die-cutting machines. Megan Elizabeth from Above Rubies and Club Ruby Designers (which is why I was sent some to play with) has a line called Paper Layerz printed on CutMates that has one 12 x 12 color and on the other side, 9 4 x 4 co-ordinating colors which makes it easy peasy to cut layers without digging for scraps. So I can make embellishments for A2 cards without having to use my craft knife to clean it up.

Another A2 card embellished with the Lyrical Letters cartridge. Paper Layerz for the embellishment, mats from stash. Glittered. Twenty minutes to make the card, another twenty to clean up the glitter lol.

Pagoda cartridge. Card bases all made with Stampers Select white Papertrey Ink cardstock. Now I just have to write messages in them and get them out in the mail. Bonus for me today, I got an envelope addressed to "Current Resident", no return address. Turns out it was a letter from my daughter, she got me lol.

Cupcake Card and Broken Gypsy

I lined all the layers for this cupcake from Create A Critter out on my Gypsy and arranged the paper on the mat, inserted the cord in the Gypsy... nothing... tried again and the port fell in the Gypsy. I think I blinked at it in disbelief for about 5 minutes. All day long, I've been having "My Gypsy broke!!!" moments. It's almost a physical pain. I know there's way worse things that could happen, and I'm grateful it's only the Gypsy, but it's still a shock to my system lol.

The good news is that I bought the extended warranty last year. Provocraft is sending me a shipping label. The bad news is my gypsy is broken lol. And I have quite a few files I never backed up which are now irretrievable. On the plus side, the gypsy is still working (except for the port) so I can take some digital pictures and write down all the carts, sizes etc. Thank goodness I saved all the calendar grids! It's going to be a longggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg 3ish weeks. Looks like I'll be making my Christmas cards Ole Skool. Thank heavens for Above Rubies Cricut A to Z!!

OK so back to the card, DD requested a yellow and pink cupcake with a face. So Create A Critter to the rescue :D. I used black diamond Stickles in the eyes and mouth, cotton candy around the pink wrapper and crystal around the frosting. The stickles on the frosting were intentionally flattened with my finger (a technique I learned on a Two Peas in a Bucket video class).

So tonight we're going to watch The Ghost and Mr. Chicken ("They even used Bon Ami!") and have Tuna Noodle Casserole and peas for dinner and maybe tomato soup since it's such gray Almost November day.

BTW I'm thinking HSN is the place I'll be buying all my PC machines from now on as long as they have those lovely extended warranties!! And PC's customer service was awesome.

Teacher Thank You Gift

 

This is a thank you gift for one of DD's favorite teachers ever. What you can't see in the picture is that there are two small cards on the inside that slide into pockets. I left them blank so there would be room for all the kids to sign them.  The Venetian Blind Book is the project from Club Scrap's Jubilee Collection, except the embellishment on the front is made with the Cricut.

To make the embellishment, I rocked the Cricut Old Skool, aka no Designer's Studio nor Gypsy (of course I forgot to take a picture with the Fit to Length button activated, but you can see it above the Center Point Button. As a P.S. let me add the amber glow is from my Champagne Expression). The mat and the sentiment are both from the Calligraphy Collection. Above Rubies Studio's Cricut A to Z is awesome for learning about these features by the way.

First, I measured (first things first, eh? lol). Ok, first I had to dig out my Calligraphy Collection cartridge from the giant bin in which most of them are now stored since I bought a Gypsy).

Since the first thing I was going to do was make the mat, I moved the cutting blade to a central location on the paper and hit the center point button and the fit to length button. I set the height to 4 3/4 inches (which the Cricut will transform into the width of the cut), replaced the cutting blade with the Cricut marker (with a piece of scrap paper under it in case of accidental dropping onto the paper). I set the speed to 2 and the pressure to 2.

In Calligraphy Collection I used Image1-s on page 70, so I hit the shift button, the Matrimony feature and the image button. When it was done calculating the height, I pressed the cut button. After the image had been drawn, I replaced the marker (again with the scrap paper) with the cutting blade (change the pressure to the appropriate to what is to the paper) and hit the repeat last button. I could have drawn the sentiment, but then I would have wouldn't have been able to use the repeat last button and I would have had to remember to reset the fit to length button.

Then I replaced the cutting blade with the marker (remembering to change the speed and pressure), and turned off the Fit to Length button (but leave the Center Point button on). Again using the Calligraphy Collection cart, set the height to 1 1/4, double-checked to make sure the Matrimony feature button was selected I used the Thank You sentiment on p. 74 and hit cut.

After I took the cut off the Cricut mat, I used a Sakura Glaze pen to write the Thank you in the middle of the marker lines so the marker makes a shadow effect for the glaze pen.

It was fun to do everything "manually", but I really had to focus on what I was doing. I've been rather spoiled by the Gypsy lol. The Gypsy is more the set-it and forget-it (except for the pressure and speed which it prompts you to doublecheck) in that all the design work is done before I get to my Cricut so I don't have to recheck the shift button, feature button, height, etc.

I'm a Guest Designer!

Ok, I might be a little superstitious, but I didn't want to say anything until I saw it for myself. I am a guest designer on Above Rubies Studio's Gypsy A to Z DVD.  I admit, I totally skipped to the guest designer gallery just to check. BTW, if you order now you get a free Tipsy for the Gypsy, be sure to check your envelope for it lol.

My cute as a button mat is featured in it's basic form.

Then I cut it out of fancier paper and used it in a layout and it became what I call my momma bird layout.

The cut file is available here. Ok, now I can settle in and watch the entire DVD : D.