Hats Off (Graduation)

I was asked by one of my Gypsy students from Michaels to make this. She saw a die cut online but it was only offered in black. She wanted something that we could design on the gypsy and cut out in other colors. I chose red because my son's preschool graduation cap is red.

I used George for the rectangles. I made one 0.3 width x 8.0 height and the other at 0.3 width x 2.5 height and welded them at the corners.

I used Plantin Schoolbook for the letters and A Child's Year for the graduation cap. There is also a graduation cap on Paper Doll Dress Up, but the tassel is separate. I used the rotate button to twist and turn the caps.



I welded the letters to the rectangles, then welded the caps. Once you weld everything, you can change the overall size of the cut from the Basic Menu if you need it bigger or smaller.


This is just one more example of how I have saved money on buying embellishments by using my gypsy instead!

Princess Box

I am a Guest Designer today for Sassy and I made this Princess Box from the Sweet Treats cartridge.






I opened a 12 x 24 mat on my Gypsy and grouped the box & crowns and sized them 3" tall. I ungrouped them and moved the crowns under the box on the mat. I changed the size of the mat to 12x12.




I added a second page and copied the crowns onto it. I flipped one crown (side to side) and added the hearts and swooshes sized to 3 inches.





I cut out the box using double sided paper from a Heritage style of paper that I bought a long time ago. One side is black with small grey and white flowers and the other side has words and signatures (from mail) in creme, black and gold.




I used a metalic gold paper to cut out the crowns and the handle. I cut the heart out of hot pink and the swooshes out of black. My pink paper did not stick the first time. I made sure my file was saved THEN I deleted everything from the page except the hearts and re-cut. I did not save these changes.





I scored the box but kept it flat so I could glue on the crowns.



I ran the crowns through the xyron and stuck them on the box.



I used Golden Rod stickles to add details to the crown and outline the heart I used diamond stickles on the swoosh.





I originally planned on using hot pink ribbon for the handle. The ribbon would not stay up and the gold paper looked better, so I switched. To cover up the hole on the side of the box, I put a hot pink gem.






I added part of my hot pink boa inside the box, since that was my inspiration for using pink instead of red.

Many of you know I have all boys (dirty, stinky boys ~ he he) and I don't make many sparkly, feathery projects. This was fun!

Contributor Showcase Project

I am one of the Team Fairies for Audrey Frelix's BLOG Weekly Contributor Showcases. The showcase is a great place to show off your projects, to receive positive feedback and to potentially win a blog design award. We are providing a larger audience to view your work, as well as view your blog. The showcase starting May 3rd will be an open theme like the previous showcases.

Starting May 10th, the Team Fairies will be selecting a theme and posting a sample for the showcase each week. You can enter a card, layout, altered item, fabric, etching, vinyl or any other project within the theme. I was thrilled with my debut week because it my birthday week!!

So, in honor of my birthday I am selecting my two favorite colors and addding a flower as my theme: Green, Purple & A Flower. You can have either green or purple, or both colors included in your color scheme.





Since I am debuting a week early (to give you plenty of time to create) I made a simple Mother's Day Card with a paper flower on the front. I am making something similar for my daycare moms with my kids this year. I love these flowers because the kids can crumple them up by themselves. I am making their flowers into pins so Mom can wear it if she chooses.




From my Cricut cartridges, I used Plantin Schoolbook for all of the flower layers and cut them out of cardstock and decorative two-sided paper. I cut the card from A Child's Year, and the words from Mother's Day 2010. I inked the edges of the flower and the card with a Chestnut Bean fluid chalk inkpad.



So remember, this week's Showcase can be ANY project. For the May 10th week's showcase, please include the colors green and or purple as well as a flower. This project can be a card, layout, altered item, vinyl, fabric, painting, magnetic or any other project. We want see your work and show it off to others!!!

Sibling Rivalry

Here is an example of why I always use my Gypsy with my Cricut ~ even if I am not welding or designing something intricate. I love being able to place letters and shapes on my mat where I want them to appear on my scrapbook page.

I was inspired by a layout in this month's Scrapbook Etc. magazine about birth order. I decided to do this simple layout of my birth order as well as my only girl status. I could not find a photo of us the the proper order (me in the middle) but this one does have all three of us!



I used Lyrical Letters for this font and for the oval frame. I love that the dot is connected to the "i" because I am constantly losing those little dots! I used Going Places for the people.

I needed a page to go opposite this one in my scrapbook (my only scrapbook obsession) so I came up with Sibling Rivalry. I love this photo because my mom asked my brother and I to watch the baby (the brother who later tormented me on a daily basis) while she picked some tomatoes in the garden. Well, we watched him alright ~ watched him wiggle and flip himself off the table and onto the chair. There were no cushions on the chair either. Don't worry, he was strapped into his seat and was fine, just a bit unhappy!!



I wanted to do the title as a crossword puzzle. I used Lyrical Letters again and lined them up on my gypsy using the x coordinates. I frst put the word "sibling" using 2 inch letters on the mat and then checked the x coordinate for the first "i". It was 1.60. I lined up the letters for "rivalry" using 1.60 as the x coordinate. I did adjust the "v" and the "y" because they looked a bit off to me.





I grabbed the beach children from A Child's Year because we spent so much time on the beach at our cabin. We were actually getting ready to go to the cabin here. I moved the children up so I would have a good chunk of paper left as a scrap. I cut out the page in black paper.



I then paperclipped the negative to my background paper.



I ran the letters through my 5" Xyron and stuck them on the page using the negative as my template.



I pulled up the negative.



And presto.....the page is perfectly aligned!!



I used the scrap paper to mat my photos for both layouts.




For both layouts, I cut out a circle at 7.05w x 6.58h to use as a background. I also added journaling.

In Remission LO

I am slowly but surely working on my very own scrapbook all about ME for the first time since I started scrapbooking 13 years ago. Why do we do so much for others and not for ourselves? That would be a whole separate blog post LOL!!

I found these photos of my mom taken in 1987 when she was in remission from lymphoma. Her cancer came back in December of 1988 and she passed away in March of 1989. She was given a bit more time with us and mom and dad took advantage by taking several trips.




This layout is loosely based off of the LID challenge from the week of April 23rd. I did not finish it in time to submit it. I did not add many details as I really did not want to take away from the photos. This is not how my mom normally looked. Here she has on a wig and she looks so fragile ~ but her smile brings her whole body to life! I used this paper from a K&co pad because she loved butterflies. I used my new cartridge Nursery Rhyme for the font.




The second layout is also from the LID challenge. This is a photo of my parents on a cruise after mom's hair grew back and she gained some weight back (she looks less fragile here). They both look so happy here ~ I just love her smile!!




I used Home Decor for the hearts and swirls. One of the recent Gypsy challenges was to mirror and weld images. I put one heart on the mat, copied it and flipped it so it would mirror the first one. I grouped them together and copied another set of hearts and flipped them. I welded them all together to make this embellishment. The swirls were done in a similar way. The swirl is also from Home Decor. I copied and flipped a swirl. I then grouped the two together and copied again. This time I rotated the second set of swirls to 90.00 and welded the corners together.

I cut out a circle from the same paper and used the reverse side with the butterflies. I inked the edge of the circle in black chalk, added a little ribbon and a flower to match the other page.

I just realized that I have lived half of my life without her. She was a very crafty lady and I am glad that the apple did not fall far from the tree!! Happy Mother's Day (a little early) Mom!

Gypsy Get Real Challenge

On the Gypsy ChitChat forum of the Cricut message board, we have weekly challenges. These challenges are great because part of the challenge is to use a specific feature of the gypsy. So we are learning and creating!! This challenge is to use the Real Dial button on the Main Menu page. It is a box with the letter "a" and an up & down arrow in it.

Real dial is a weird concept to grasp at first. When you select a size for your shapes or letters, not everything will cut at that exact size. For example, if you select 2" height for the word Love using the Gypsy Font, only the "L" is actually 2" tall. The "o v e" are less than 1" tall.

Another example of this is when you are working with paper dolls or a Disney character. You select your size (let's say 3 inches) and that size will be the shadow of the character. All of the other pieces will be cut at 3 inches as well, but they will be the correct size to fit the 3 inch character. You don't want 3 inch eyeballs for a 3 inch Mickey Mouse!!

Every now and then, we do want a specific size of a letter or piece of a character or layered item. We sometimes use pieces to make cards or designs by welding them with other pieces. In this case, by selecting the Real Dial Size button the letter or shape you select will be that exact size. If you want a 7" lower case "e" you can get one much quicker by using the Real Dial button.

For some fonts, the shadow feature is not an option, so this is a way to make a shadow. I selected Don Juan because it does not have a shadow option. I put my name on the mat and sized it to 2.0 ht with the Real Dial button on (yellow). I grouped and copied my name onto the mat. I ungrouped and moved the letter L over my first letter L. I then unlinked the chain so I could adjust the height and width separately until I found a good shadow. I repeated this with the remaining letters.




Then I took the star and made a total of 5 stars, each one a bit bigger than the one before it.



I arranged them on my mat to cut out by color and cut.

This was "Real" educational and a bit frustrating to get just the right size on the shadow layers. Depending on the shape or letter, you could only go so much taller or wider to keep things proportionate! It is very much a trial and error process.

Wall Decor with Home Decor

I have been waiting for the perfect artwork to hang above my bed for a while. I have HGTV on while I scrap and blog and I have seen so many awesome ideas, but have never found exactly what I wanted from a store ~ until now!

I found 3 wall frames at Michaels 40% off and snapped them up. They are a close match to the color of my headboard and mimic the shape and size of the design. I originally wanted to put a black and white head shot of each of my boys as an infant in them, but changed my mind after looking around the rest of my house. Their beautiful faces are plastered everywhere!!

I finally got the Home Decor cricut cartridge a couple of months ago and found some twigs and vines that looked very similar to the pattern on my bedspread. So I used cardstock in colors to match the bedspread to cut these out.

I made a 8x10 rectangle on my gypsy to use as a template. On pages 2,3,&4 I added one of the branches and sized it to fit inside the template. I cut them out and put them in the frames. I hung one frame on the nail that was already centered over the bed. I wasn't sure if the picture was too high or not. I liked it more every time I saw it, so I added the others.

Let me know what you think and what Wall Decor you have made with your scrapbooking supplies!