Latest round of layouts

Yay! For scrapping time! These are some of the layouts I've been able to work on during the last month or so.

PP: Fancy Pants "About a Boy"; Letters: AC Thickers & Cosmo Cricket

PP: Bo Bunny; Journal Label: Fancy Pants; Letters: AC Thickers; Various Snowflake punches

Here's a close-up of the journaling!

PP: DCWV "Mi Casa"; Journaling block: MM; Letters: My Little Shoebox & "Zoobaloo" Cricut Cart; Ribbon: Fancy Pants

PP: My Minds Eye & DCWV "At Home"; Letters: My Little Showbox & Paper Studio Chipboard inked with Cateye Chalk; Diecuts from "New Arrival" Cricut Cart.

PP: SEI "Moravia"; Most Embellishments from MM "Vintage" collection & K&Co.

PP: Basic Grey "Origins"; Letters: AC Thickers & "Old West" Cricut Cart.

TFL! :o)
~ Vicky Jo

New LO: 15 Months

I worked on this one the other night when my amiga Didi came over to scrap...

PP is from Fancy Pants (Rough & Tough Collection) I cut the title with my Cricut (Hello Kitty Font) and all the concentric circles were made using my Big Shot and a Cuttlebug Die.

Free Dingbat Font for SCAL!

Here's a great freebie font for any of you who use SCAL with your Cricut!

http://cleversomeday.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/new-free-dingbat-font-for-die-cutters/

"Bubbles in Bed"

This was a super fun LO to do! (Special thanks goes out to my bud, Michelle, for showing me how to do the bubble technique!)

PP is from Prima, Journaling was again printed on DS PP, I cut the title from SCAL using a font called "Inspiration." The bubbles were cut from transparency paper using my Cricut (Plantin Schoolbook cart). I cut the scroll frame using the Storybook cart. I got the poem off the internet, but ended up modifying it a bit for my needs.

Here's the bubble technique -in Michelle's words! :o)

"I inked the edges [of the bubbles] with white ink and used the eye shadow applicator to make the highlight. I let it dry for a few then used that powder [it is an irridescent pearl-ex type powder]. Then just be careful not to touch it. I used the liquid glue pen [ZIG ball point glue pen] and traced the edges and voila it shoud stick to your page."

(The only thing I did different was use a white paint pen to make my highlights stick out a bit more. For the white ink on the edges, I used the Staz-On Opaque stamp pad in Cotton White.)

Getting rid of Cricut "Tick Marks"

I decided to post this tutorial because I thought there may be other Cricut users like me who get annoyed with the little "tick marks" that the cricut machine cuts into things like boxes, envelopes and other items that require folding. (These are the little tiny cuts that are meant to show you where to score/fold your projects). I find that frequently, these cuts are a little too obvious and sometimes even tear open when I try to fold. So when I was making all my Easter baskets, I came up with a way to get rid of them, but still have the ability to know where to fold my paper!

Caveat: To do this, you need to have Cricut Design Studio (CDS)!

Step 1: Cut out your design (with the tick marks) on a scrap piece of cardstock paper. This will be your template - so it's best to cut onto something sturdy. Also - since you will be cutting the exact same one later with CDS, it is best to start there and cut your template in CDS in the desired finished size.

Step 2: Using a pointy object (like a paper piercer), carefully "open up" the tick marks on your template so you can fit the tip of a pencil through them:

Step 3: In CDS, go to your original file and right click on each of the tick marks and choose "Hide Selected Contour". As you do this, each of the tick marks should turn a different color, signifying that they will not be cut with the cricut.

Step 4: Cut your design out on the paper/cardstock that you wish to use for your finished product(s). You may want to do a "test cut" on a scrap piece of paper to make sure you hid all the tick marks.

Step 5: Lay your template (with the tick marks) over your "final" project (without the tick marks) lining it up as accurately as possible! (This is where I highly recommend the Basic Gray magnetic precision mat! You can use the heavy-duty magnets to hold your project down and keep it from slipping!).

Note: You should place your final project (on the bottom) wrong side up so that when you mark your tick marks, they wont be visible.

Step 6: Use a pencil to mark through each tick mark on the template:

Step 7: Remove your template, and your should see your tick marks!

Step 8: Use your tick marks to guide where you score/fold:

Step 9: When you are through folding, you may wish to erase your guides if they are too obvious:

Step 10: Assemble your project, and voila! No nasty little cuts in your project! :o)

I got my Mojo back!

YAY! I'm out of the scrap slump!!! I'm sure it's all due to the CK conference in Phoenix (I'll post pics of the trip soon). Michelle & I had a blast! We took our scrap gear with us and scrapped in our hotel room each night. Here's a few from the trip as well as some I started and finally got the willpower to finish!:

I know he will kill me one day... but I just couldn't resist this one. :o) PP is K&Co "Actopus to Zelephant"

I really like this one... I used:

1. Basic Gray "Sugared" PP
2. Cuttlebug "Red Tag Sale" letter dies to cut the felt letters on my Big Shot
3. Heidi Swap Ghost letters lined in white MM paint
4. Bo Bunny "Write On" stamp set (in Yellow)
5. Journal tag is from Fancy Pants "Delight" collection.

Lifted this from a CK mag. PP is from My Minds Eye. Ribbon used is from S.E.I. (Dill blossom), Basic Gray and Martha Stuart.

I love doing LOs with me in them - it allows me to get some girly stuff on the page that would otherwise never be used. :o) Here's the list:

1. PP - Prima "Nursey Tales" Collection
2. Flowers - Prima
3. Brads - Paper Studio & Creative Imaginations
4. Leaves were cut from Storybook Cart
5. Metal Embellishments - Tim Holtz
6. Glitter Letters - MM (aqua) & K&Co (pink)

This one was a lot of fun - PP is Crate Paper "Static" collection. Chipboard letters are from Creative Imaginations.

PP on this one is from KI Memories - it's from an Elise collection. I cut the letters with the Stamped cart and filled the inner letter with red stickles.

I love how this one turned out! PP is from the DCWV "Grade School" stack. Yellow letters are vinyl thickers (American Crafts) and the remainign chipboard letters are from the Tim Holts grungeboard line painted with white MM paint and then outlined in my Stampin Up markers.

28 Easter Baskets in one night! :o)

Here was my ambitious effort to get 28 Easter baskets completed it one night... with a little help from the Tags, Bags, Boxes & more cart, I was able to do it! Sorry I'm just barely getting these posted (after Easter)... but just wanted to share!

A few more LOs...

Here’s a few more! They don’t count towards my Scrappin’ Mama’s April Goal, cuz I did them last month… just forgot to post them in the “mad rush” I did a while back…

I really like this first one... "Our Day with Fay." It is about the day hurricane Fay made her way up to El Paso and just parked on top of us for the whole day! I think pretty much all the PP and elements are from the MM "Chloe's Closet" line. My favorite aspect is the clouds - which I cut from the Going Places Cart and then I added "raindrops" coming down from them by using diamond glaze... If you click on the pic and look really close, I think you can see it! :o)

Here's a quickie I did about William opening his birthday presents. The horseshoe is supposed to be a "U", so that it says, "Lucky U" - but I'm not too sure it comes off that way. The background PP is Stampin Up!, the horseshoe paper (which I hand-cut the larger horseshoe out of) is from the DCWV "All About Boys" stack. "Lucky" is from a 7 gypsies stamp set:

Here's one I lifted from a mag about William getting into the Tupperware cabinet. To this day, he still loves to play in there! PP is Basic Gray "Offbeat" (orange, multi & Blue) and K&Co (beige & Black background paper). There's some rub-ons from American Crafts on there as well as Martha Stewart labels and AC Thickers (chit chat):

Holy Cow! Cricut Carts for $10!!!

I will begin by saying I hate Wal*Mart. It almost takes an act of God to get me to go in there. But today I must swallow my pride and admit that I went there. DH needed some things for his new toy ('74 Bronco) and I reluctantly followed with Monkey in tow. As I cruised around their greatly diminished "craft section" while DH was in the auto section, my keenly developed 6th sense ("scrapper sense") caught sight of something unblievable. I saw the cricut logo... then I saw a clearance label above it that said "$10.00". I thought, "No way!" there must be a mistake! I whipped the shopping cart around (poor Wil almost fell over) and made a beeline as fast as I could for the little green cricut dude, fully expecting a mad rampage of other scrap freaks like me to come out of nowhere and fight me to the death for this amazing deal. There were 2 solutions carts - the Sans Serif and the Basketball. I have no interest in the b-ball, but I quickly whipped up the sans serif font and matched up the bar code to the clearance price. It was no joke! 10 bucks! There were 3 left and I grabbed them all. 1 for me, and one for each of my scrap buddies. I don't know why they were 10 bucks, but I wasn't asking any questions. Not sure if this is a wal-mart wide deal, but it may be worth a trip to your local wally world to find out! (Even if you hate it as bad as I do!) I found them on one of those "end cap" isles thrown in with a bunch of random craft supplies.... but if your 6th sense is as keen as mine is, you should have no problem finding them if they are there. Just "Use the Force...."

A few more LOs...

Here's a few LOs I got completed before the big work rush...

This one was using the new Animal Crackers stack from DCWV, and the cute little monkey from the ZooBaloo Cart!

Super easy 2 pager lifted from a mag about our move to the new house. I honestly can't remember the paper right now... but I used velvet thickers and some cool foil chipboard letters from making memories. Niether stuck very well to the paper, so I had to break out the zip dry!

I did this next one right after getting the DCWV Green Stack. The paper worked perfectly! A fun little tidbit of info... I wanted to use this particular paper, but my bathing suit and the towel just didn't match... they were the completely wrong shade of blue. So off to photoshop I went to play, did a "Replace Selective Color" and a few minutes later I had the perfect matching picture!

V-Day Card #2

I wasn’t going to post this, but I got DH to promise he wouldn’t check my blog until after V-Day. :o)

I followed a tutorial in the January ’09 Basic Gray newsletter – but I used Prima paper and used the scalloped heart from the All Mixed Up Cart.

Hello Kitty V-Day Card

Here’s another card that I did with the Hello Kitty Cart. Perfect for Valentine’s day! She’s so cute! The shimmery pink cardstock came from the Prima "First Blush" cardstock stack from Michael's.

My Cricut cut Foam!!!

David got me the Cricut Deep Blade for Christmas, and the first thing I tried it on was foam! You know... those dirt-cheap packs of craft foam you can get at HL, Ms, etc? Yeah, those! And the cricut cut right through them like butter! I believe I had the blade set to a 5 or 6 and the next-to-the-last pressure setting. I used a medium speed and no multi-cutting!

I just had to bling 'em up a little and added some sugar coating glitter to the tops!

FYI - I used Cuttin' Up for the title and the bath bubbles from New Arrival.