Three Cricut Things That Work Better With the Cartridge Than They Do With the Gypsy.

1. Plain Old Autofill. When I need a lot of a certain cut all the same size, I just love setting the size and then pushing the autofill button. It's just soooooo fast!!

The two exceptions to this are if I want to keep the negative of the cut for lace paper or a frame, then the Gypsy gives me control over how that will actually look. That's something something that you can't get with just Plain Old Autofill. With the Gypsy it's copy and paste to make a row, then copy and paste the row, etc. And you have to actually know where the physical cart is, not just in a bin at the back of the closet, otherwise, again, it'd be faster to use the Gypsy lol.

2. Endcap Fonts. Endcap fonts are lovely, especially before I had DS or a Gypsy. I could cut out words in the middle of a tag, or make a Mickey Mouse ticket with my favorite rides in it, or make a note in a musical score. It was something that could take so long to make without the DS or Gypsy, not iimposssible, but a lot of room for error lol.

But a plain space simply can not be put between words in endcap fonts using the Gypsy without having to cut the paper above and below the space manually after you take it out of the Cricut.  It's also faster to make an endcap shadow directly on the Cricut. The shadow feature overlay on the Gypsy just has blank shapes. But to make the shadow fit correctly the correct shadow must be used or the shadow will not fit the endcap cut. The "a" blank shape needs to match the "a" for example. On the Cricut the overlay stays the same, so it's easy to see where the "a" is.

3. Markers. The shaking might be related to a lack of speed control on the Gypsy and DS, but that's total guessing on my part lol. I used a cut from Home Decor. The height set at 1.5" and pressure set at 2.

When I used the cart directly in the Cricut, I set the speed to 2.

Confessions of an Audiophile

I love to listen. I love to listen to my kid. I love the sound of my Haldane spinning wheel, which a fellow spinster described as "the sound of liquid wood". I love the sound of my hamster Neptune working hard in his wheel late at night. I love to listen to birds in the backyard. I love to listen to music of a great variety. I especially love to listen to podcasts. One of my favorites, the Craftborg (We are the Borg, lower your shields and surrender your ships) is no longer in existence in its audio format and the last video was in Jan. 09).

So imagine my joy today when I discovered a newish podcast called "Paperclipping Roundtable. You can listen to the lastest podcast at Scrapbook Update (there's a little speaker and an arrow). Or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and you can download all 21. The first one is how the former editor of Simple Scrapbook is scrapping now. The latest one is storytelling in scrapbooking. So if you are in need of something different to listen to while you walk, clean, or just plain sit, give the Paperclipping Roundtable a try.

Also, let me know if you have any podcasts to recommend :  ).

Hello Kitty!

I had to make a door prize for a mother/daughter event, and I was wracking my brain when my talkative cat came in and mewed at me and it hit me, "Hello Kitty"! So I made a picture and a bottle stuffed with Hello Kitty stuff (thank you crafting message board).

It was a snap to design with the Gypsy of course, but the colors were hanging me up. It's fine for me to substitute patterned paper, but I thought true Hello Kitty afficiandos might want more traditional fare. So I took some Club Stamp Basics white cardstock and used ink pads to get the colors I wanted. Ok I did take license with the sun and made the outer bit orange. I had to use terrifically tacky tape on the bottle label due to the heat and humidity. One strip on the top and one on the bottom and it worked like a charm.

I waited until I took the picture to put the glass in to keep the glare at a minimum.

AC Moore used to have a Hello Kitty section that was totally fabu, but not anymore. However, Target had a lot in their dollar section and Michael's had a section ranging from $1 to $5ish. I used a 3-liter bottle I found at a dollar store.

By the way, if you can't find your non-stick work surface, freezer paper makes a pretty durable substitute (as long as you aren't using flames lol) surface that's easy-peasy to clean up for multiple uses.

I just couldn't wait for the new cuttlebug folders!

I've pre-ordered the rose and carnation quilling set for the cuttlebug. But I just couldn't wait, so I made these.

I used my Gypsy and made some variations. Going from top clockwise, I used rows 5, 6 and 2.  The main difference between row 2 and 3 is the width of the quilling band (I know almost nothing about quilling so I have no idea if that's the correct term).

It's very important that you use a thin paper for these to work. This is definitely a project that will not work with cardstock. You can download the file here. Because there is a lot of welding, it is a lot faster to cut if you delete the cuts you aren't working with. If you want to try them all just realize it's going to take about 10 minutes for the "cut" icon to appear on your gypsy after you hit the cut button.

The last tip I have is these are lot easier to make with a quilling pen (it has a little notch for the paper to fit into. I got one at Hobby Lobby for $3.99. I tried wrapping around skewers, pins, piercing pins, but it just slipped too much for me. Let me know what you make!  : )

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.

Let's Get Organized, Organized...

Just so you know I'm singing this to the tune of "Let's Get Physical" as sung by Olivia Newton John. If you aren't old enough to remember it, well, it's probably on youtube, and take this virtual towel to dry off behind your ears, you young whippersnapper lol.

I've been working hard on re-organizing the Craft Room. I have a large piece of heavy-duty plywood held up with two saw-horses and covered with a vinyl tablecloth. The trouble is, the vinyl was too thin (dollarstore) and the saw-horses have a very wide, but stable stance. I found some saw-horses at Sears on sale last year ($12 for two capable of holding 500 pounds). So I cleaned off the table and that's when I realized the new saw-horses are 3 inches taller than the ones I have now. And the ones I have now are exactly the right height to match the work surface the expression is on. And if I use the taller ones, I'm soooo going to look like Edith Ann (reference for younger folk, a Laugh-In 5 year-old character played by Lily Tomlin). So it was a lot of work for keeping it pretty much the same lol.

I did move one saw-horse in so the revolving paint holder can be directly over the saw-horse. And I did replace the dollar store table cloth with some vinyl I bought in the Hobby Lobby home decor fabric section. However, before I thought to take a picture of my new clean work surface, I started a project from Club Scrap (The Academy Club Stamp project to be exact). And while I was waiting for the ink to dry I started sorting through my scrap bin. And then I found a smaller container that was full of cuts I made with my expression, and I was sorting those.

Academy Club Stamp project from Club Scrap.

All those paper cuts were stored in the small metal container to the right. Notice my scrap paper bin aka miscellaneous paper cuts sorting surface is carefully balanced on my craft-cleaning baby wipes. And notice all the space in the table background lol.
But then I remembered DD had found my glass-headed pins. And I transformed my ribbon tree from this . . .

So in summary, new tablecloth, better support to work on, 1 project sorted, 1 boxful of possible embellishments examined, and one very neatly organized ribbon tree.

The ribbon tree is made with a "clock face" from the woody section of a craft store (I think this one is sold at AC Moore and Hobby Lobby). Then I took a long dowel that fit the pre-filled hole in the clock face and stacked ribbons on it.

Spring is here. . .

. . . So it's time to start getting ready for Christmas lol. I've been reorganizing the craft room and oh my the things I've found.

I made this ornament last Christmas using Joys of the Season, but by the time all the stickles dried, the season had passed. I used marker to outline all the interior cuts and then used stickles. But seriously, *this* year, I'm going to get sooooooo much done before Christmas. The ribbon is a thin, wired "crystal" from the bargain bin at Michael's. I just glued it on both sides of the shadow cut and then glued polar bears (one on each side) over the ribbon.