Cricut - Paper Dolls

In the last couple years, Cricut has come out with so many cartridges that it's tough to keep track. It's always easy to go for the newest cartride, and sometimes I forget about some of the great older cartridges. For a 2010 Halloween layout, though, I decided to use the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge. Our youngest two grandchildren dressed as Mario (Super Mario Brothers) and a Pumpkin Fairy. By combining different cuts from the cartridge, I was able to create both images.

This first picture is of the grandchildren, and their respective 'paper doll' images follow. The faces are stamped with face stamps from Peachy Keen stamps (www.peachykeenstamps.com).

Cricut - Glitter Cardstock

For the Spring Croppin' Train Scrapbook Retreat, we created a "JOY" banner using a beautiful red glittered cardstock from Hobby Lobby. Here's a couple hints about using glittered cardstock in your Cricut:

1. Buy it on sale! At almost $2.00 per sheet, you'll definitely want to use either a 40% off coupon or wait 'till it's on sale for 50% off.

2. The glitter doesn't allow the Cricut blade to cut through the cardstock. The blade hits all that thick, crunch glitter, and isn't able to cut - sometimes it will just stick, and sometimes it will 'jump' and skip cutting lines. You'll need to turn your glitter cardstock over, so that your cutting blade is touching the reverse side of the cardstock, where there's no glitter.

3. Now the problem is that the glitter won't stick to the Cricut mat. You really need to tape this cardstock down. I was cutting an entire sheet of letters, so I taped down all 4 sides - I did not want that paper to move! I had a brand new mat, but I still used masking tape on all 4 sides.

4. The last clue here is - if you're cutting letters, don't forget to reverse your letters before you cut them. Unfortunately, yes, I do speak from personal experience - that's one sheet of glitter cardstock in the trash (at least I bought it on sale!).

This first picture shows the really pretty, thickly coated, red glitter cardstock that we used for this project.

The second picture shows a completely cut piece of cardstock, where you can see that the letters were cut in the reverse, and all 4 sides are taped. The tape, of course, took a few extra minutes to get off of my mat, but I'd rather spend a couple extra minutes peeling tape than re-cutting and wasting cardstock because it moved. I used my Gypsy, so I was able to get a couple extra letters on the mat.

Finally, you'll see a picture of the completed JOY banner.

Cricut Chatter

The NEW Cricut Expression 2 Anniversary Edition will be highlighted on HSN on Tuesday, April 26, during the following times (all times EASTERN): Midnight - 2:00 a.m.; 6:00 a.m. - 7:00 a.m.; 11:00 a.m. - Noon; 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.; 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Watch the HSN schedule as they will sometimes change these times.

If you want to be one of the first to see it, you'll need to watch your clock on Monday night, April 25. Central time zone - tune in at 11:00 p.m.; Mountain time zone - tune in at 10:00 p.m.; Pacific time zone - tune in at 9:00 p.m.

So what's new about this "new" Cricut Expression 2 (CE2)?

Pre-Loaded Cartridges: It will come pre-loaded with Cricut Essentials, Cricut American Alphabet, Cricut Decals, and Just a Note! The Cricut Decals and Just a Note are exclusive to the CE2. Just a Note was designed by Cosmo Cricket.

LDC TOUCH SCREEN: Larger, faster, full-color LCD touch screen display with stylus.

NO KEYPAD OVERLAY REQUIRED! Mat Preview: See shapes you're cutting and where they fit on the mat before you cut. (Similar to using the Gypsy.)

Materials Profile: Choose a default setting for materials you like to cut OR customize a material setting just the way you like it.

Load Mat: There are now brackets on either side of the loading area to make sure your mat stays in place.

Cartridges: It will use both the regular Cricut and Imagine cartridges. You cannot print the Imagine cartridges, but you can cut the images!

Cutting-area Light: A light under the cutting blade to let you see where you're cutting on the mat.

Layered View: See ALL creative features and layers right on the screen, including shift layers. NO NEED to keep referring back to the handbook!

Wrapping: Fit a sequence of images or letters to a specific length by wrapping them onto more than one line or mat.

Independent Image Sizing: Size each image on a mat on its own. (Similar to using the Gypsy.)

Apply All: Apply all of the edits (scale, flip, rotate, etc.) you do for one image to all images on a mat at the same with just one button.

This machine was first introduced in January, and is just now being made available to the general public.

There are several blogs that have announcements and videos for the new CE2. One of the more informative videos (approximately 20 minutes) can be found here: www.mypinkstamper.com/2011/03/cricut-expression-2-anniversary-edition.html.

I haven't seen any pricing yet, but will keep you posted as more information becomes available!

CRICUT ALERT!

Many of you have asked about 'good places' to buy Cricut products. We can sometimes offer sale pricing, but there's a few websites out there that you want to keep an eye on. One of them - www.allthingscricut.com - is having some great bargains right now. Be sure and check them out today -I don't know how long their current prices will be in effect.

Life Is a Beach Birthday Card

Here's another birthday card I made recently. I used the Life is a Beach Cricut cartidge for the front of the card. The designer paper is SEI (Juliette) and the card base is SU! (Bravo Burgundy). I LOVE the little flower brads on the flip flops - those are from SU!, too. I cut the image twice - once with each paper, and then cut one apart to piece over the other. I really liked how it turned out. Can you guess what the gift was? :) Thanks for looking! Pat

Advanced Cricut Training

We are excited to announce that we will have a representative from Provo Craft at our Fall 2009 Retreat.

He will be here Friday night, November 13th, from 4:00pm until ?? to teach us some advanced features of the Cricut and of course, answer any of your questions.

He will talk about the Design Studio software, Deep Cut Blade with magnet, and many more topics that will be decided on closer to retreat. If you have any topic requests, please leave them in a comment here, we will try to get them all in. (Note: the Gypsy will not be shipping until November, so we may not have it in time for retreat. We can take preorders and we will try to have the best price around - see the Cricut Gypsy post)

This class is optional and FREE. We will have a area set up off to the side where you can come and go to listen and learn.

Simple Layout

This is a very simple layout. This was so long ago... I knew the when and what but not the where, etc. But I still wanted to document the pictures.

The point of me posting this layout is the font. I used the new Lyrical Letters cartridge for cricut. I just love this font.

Cricut Rewards

Did you know that you can get Cricut Rewards for any cartridge that was released in 2008 and 2009? Well, you can (or if you don't want to, I can use your points, just let me know)

Check out www.cricutrewards.com

You can get shirts or cartridges. And the cartridges are ones that you can't buy from a store normally - they are ones that are released with the machines.

There is a listing of the cartridges that have points available. And on the FAQ page, they talk about what you do if you didn't get the certificate to redeem for points.

Check it out then post a comment here telling us what you think.

Glimmer Mist and Cricut

Here are two pages I did recently - these are not left and right pages but more of page 3 and 6 of a series of pages.

I used Dreamsicle and Riptide Gimmer Mist. The "fabulous" came out of the 'Graphically Speaking' Cricut cartridge . I cut fabulous out of that cardstock that comes in your page protectors - I call that scrap cardstock. Then I laid it on my base page, which the leftover sticky from the cricut mat makes this handy. Then I spray the mist over it and pulled the cardstock mask up and there we go. I also sprayed some in the corner to balance the arrow a little.

For this page, I think the arrow came out of the Graphically Speaking cartridge. I laid it on my page just like the "fabulous" but when I got done, I really liked the arrow mask too. So I rotated it and stuck it down. Not my original plan - but I go with the flow. I also put the "mask" arrow on dimensionals. It points at the birthday girl on both ends.