Yes I know that it isn’t even Halloween yet but I thought I’d share a couple Christmas cards that were just published in Just Cards Holidays!
I colored these with my trusty Bic Markits and Made the shaped cards with my Cricut, Accent Essentials Cartridge and design Studio software, easy peasy!
Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
I popped in to JoAnns Fabric Store the other day with a couple of coupons burning a hole in my pocket and what should I see but the Cricut Deep Cut blade and housing and packs of the Cricut Stamp Sheets. Since JoAnn lets you use coupons an cricut accessories (not the machines and cartridges) AND they will let you use multiple coupons I grabbed both to try! Here are my results, the birdcage and chandelier were made with the Cricut Stamp sheets.
I have wanted to try the stamp material for a while but reviews of the product weren’t great and I hadn’t bothered to get the deep cut blade yet also because the reviews were lukewarm but I gave it a shot and I am one happy cricuteer…is that even a word? For my trail I used a new deep cut blade and deep cut blade housing (the blue one), a fairly newish mat, and a 6″x6″ sheet of stamp film and Scal software( one sale 10% off with this code: 1266018 until 4/12/09) but you could use Design Studio. I recommend the software so you can arrange it and pack as many images as you can fit in the 6″x6″ space and so you don’t make errors and waste the pricey film. BTW the price of a 2 pack of 6″x6″ stamp film is $10 but you can use your coupon at JoAnns or shop around on-line for a good deal. Here is what to do. Firmly press the film to the mat, put it in the stickiest area of the mat, if you have a brand new mat use that. As an extra precaution I taped along the edge with masking tape. Put the blue blade housing with a deep cut blade set at 4.5 in the machine and load the mat. Set the pressure to high (#4) Arrange the images to cut in your software and click cut. for best results don’t cut anything with too much detail or lines thinner than 1/8″ or the stamp will be too flimsy. Solid or silhouette images work best. See how many images I got from one 6″x6″ sheet. They are stamped on a 8 1/2″x11″ paper for reference.
Take care when removing the images from the mat. Keep a pair of sharp fine tip scissors handy in case you need to make a snip here or there as I did with the chandelier stamp. The film is also available as a kit with clear blocks which is a good deal if you need the acrylic stamp blocks but if you have some already I would just get the stamp sheets. One disadvantage of the sheets is that they are very thin, be careful not to get ink on the block when inking up your stamp and keep a tissue handy to wipe away and rogue ink on the block before stamping.
Another tip, make sure you preview you image before you cut, if any part of the image looks too thin you can fix it now, for example the boy icon and robot dingbats had no neck so I welded a rectangle on so it could cut in one piece.
Bottom Line: I love this, I just grabbed another pack of the stamp sheets this morning (yes, with a coupon 😉 ) and I can’t wait to make more lovely stamps!
BTW If anyone knows whos blog I downloaded the beautiful chandelier SVG from please leave a comment so I can credit her. The bircadge come from DB Ladybird (scrapnfonts.com) and the boy, girl, flower and robot are from the free font Efon. Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!
I was thinking that it be great to be able to rent cartridges for your Cricut machine. You could try it out before you spent $40-$100 on it to see if you really like it, or, if you just need a cart for a particular project like a baby shower you could rent it for as long as you need it. Cool idea right. Why didn’t someone think of that before? Well Someone did, I found this site: crabbycrowcartridgerentals.com. they work like Netflix, you pay a monthly fee to rent 1 or two carts at a time. When you mail the one you have back you get the next one on your list. Cool Huh. I have not used this service because I can do pretty much anything I want with my SCAL software but if you love the Cricut carts you may want to give them a try.
Speaking of Cricut cartridges, see what I made with Wild Card and my new Rubber Cafe stamps. Deal Aleart: free shipping code for The Rubber Cafe: HNY2009
I love how the dew drops sparkle! You can buy them at the rubber cafe or if you have a glue gun you can make something similar, read how here.
To make the card I laid all of the parts out in design studio. I kept it all on one mat and cut it out in several different colors so I can mix and match to make different valentines cards, there are candles in the design too that I will use on Birthday cards! I stamped Happy Valentines Day on the inside of the card with brown then stamped Trailing Hearts with clear embossing ink and then dabbed on red and pink Pebbles chalk. I ran the bottom layer of the cupcake through a paper crimper (OK that’s a lie, I didn’t have a paper crimper so I used a tube wringer, a devise used to wring out tubes of paint so you get every drop, there I go saving money again!) then I inked it to show the texture. I tied ribbon around the bottom later before adhered it to the base. TIP: tie your ribbon upside down for a perfect bow every time! Then I added pink dew drops and adhesive pearls for sprinkles. I like them but then again I’m especially fond of cupcakes, vegan ones that it!
If you are using the Wild Card cartridge without Design studio just set the size for the card base and keep the dial set there and all of your layers should come out the right size. Do not use the “real dial size” feature. If you want to try out wild card before you buy check out Crabby Crow! BTW Cricut Carts are on sale for $40 and accessories are 40% 0ff at Jo-Anns January 11th-31st!
Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend and as always, happy crafting!
Don’t you love all of the new deco-edged scrapbook supplies out right now?
My favorite is the paper ribbon. Bazzil has “Just the Edge” card stock strips and there is Paper frills by by doodle bug but at $10 a pop it can get pricey especially when you can custom make your own in any color that you want for pennies! Here’s how:
Take decorative edge scissors (everything comes back around doesn’t it, I bet your glad you kept them…or you kicking yourself for purging them from your stash when they became passe) and cut long strips of paper or card stock. Use hand punches to make them “lacy” if desired. Voila paper ribbon! You can also use your cricut to make this. The green and lavender strips I made with my Cricut and SCAL software using a lovely font called “DB Pretty Borders” available at Scrap ‘n Fonts. I got it on sale for a buck, yay! I just chose the border I wanted to cut, re-sized it and hit “Cut” easy peasy. If you don’t have (or don’t wan’t to buy that font you can still make it easily using Cricut Design Studio (trial version or paid version), or SCAL. Here’s how: Open either program and select the shapes option. you will use the George cartridges with the shapes keypad visible or if using SCAL under the font library choose shapes.)
step 1 click on the rectangle and drag it the length of the mat. click weld.
Step 2 click on the circle and keep adding circles until they are the same length as the rectangle. Drag the circles up so they overlap the rectangle halfway. click weld.
*note in DS you might have to type and weld each circle seperatly, I’m not sure. Please leave a comment if you know 🙂
step 3 under the cutter menu hit preview and you will see if your shapes are welded, in DS click on the eyeball. Hit cut and you are done! Since I made one I will share it with you. Click here to download my scallop boarder…dang, I could of saved a dollar!
Till next time, Happy Crafting!
