Jeanie's Birthday Cake

I created a roller skate out of paper using two kits from SVG Cuts.com. 

One kit has an ice skate and the other has round gift boxes - 

put the two together and created the roller skate I needed.

My daughter had her 8th Birthday Party at the local roller rink with some friends and family.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment!
Sincerely,
Mary Eisen

October Stamp of the Month - Very Merry Christmas

Here we go again hopping, but this time to the holidays!

If you came from Shirley's blog, you are on the right track, if not, keep hopping and you will do a complete circle.

I DON'T WANT TO THINK OF CHRISTMAS YET!

But I will for this Hop!

 Here is the stamp set!  

CTMH likes to put their stamp sets out 2 months prior to the events - like Christmas!

 Remember, all the red outlines are items that can be cut out using our Cricut Cartridges!

This one works with Artiste!

 I went one step further in the Cricut Craft Room and 

welded mittens back to back and made mini present tags! 

(There is a vertical and a horizontal flip button)

(if this came out of the oven, I'd be a head chef!) hee hee

 I used 3 of the stamps for the inside - YES the TO and FROM are part of this set!!

 I stamped the pink stamp onto the front of the card and then stamped the blue

on an extra piece of Colonial White cardstock and cut off the cuff.

 Add some glue and sprinkle with Prisma Glitter and TA-DA!

 I did a dozen of them - stocking up for the future!

Thanks for looking!  Please leave a message.  

Also, you can get this stamp set for $5 with a purchase of $50! 

See my shopping page for details: CLICK HERE.

Now head over to Elizabeth's blog for more great artwork with this stamp set!

Christmas Wish List Item No. 3:

Next on your list should be software!

The Cricut Craft Room to be exact!  And it's Free!  You should download it and play with it even if you don't plan on attaching your computer to your machine.  (By the way, machines are on sale this week Friday - that Black Friday Sales are going to be HOT!  Menards has the Expressions for only $119!

Enough about Friday -

I've been playing with this software and it's a work in progress.  They have it in what's called beta mode which means ALL OF THE BUGS ARE NOT OUT OF IT YET.  I've gone in a few times over the last couple of months and every time they have changed something - mainly for the good.  To hook it to your computer all you need is the same cord that most printers have - the kind with the USB Port hookup.

Here is a few snap shots for you to see what I've been doing:

 The post prior to this one was for cards and 2 boxes that held the cards and candy.  

Here is what the boxes looked like on the screen. You can see all the tools are located at the top.  All the cartridges are at the bottom.  Extras are to the left.

 You are looking at a 12 x 24 inch mat the long way.  So where ever I set that box, is where it's going to cut that shape.  WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). Since these are over 7 inches long and my paper is typically 12 x 12, I put them on their own pages - one above the 12 inch line and one below.

 Above is the envelopes and the Crystal Blue layer of the thank you cards. I put a 12 x 12 White sheet on one side (top) and the Crystal Blue on the other end so that I cut both at the same time.

Above shows the White fronts for the cards and the circles for the candy.

See on the left the different colors are for different layers. You can add different layers to each project.  Layers are like stacking mats on top of each other and saved on the same file.  When you go to print you tell the software which "layer" or mat to cut and it only does that layer.  It's a great way to keep everything in one file.  This software can do quantity - where you tell it to give you 10 of one item and it spaces them out evenly, from top left to right, until the mat is full.  

I did find a few bugs and Provo Craft sent me a survey and so I updated them with my opinion - for whatever that's worth!  Thanks for looking and I hope I didn't confuse you.  You can download this without even owning a machine.  You do need to have internet access to work on this software.  I'm trying to figure out a way to demonstrate this for a class in the future.

Vinyl and the Company Truck

I was tickled when friends asked me to do their company truck.  Here are the pictures:

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

 We did it in reverse on the hood:

 Me goofing off for the camera, we were hot - it was a bad day to be doing this.

 Then the rain came and cooled us off - had to run the vinyl into the house so the paper backing wouldn't get soaked.  Then I sat out in the rain to cool off.

 Here is the finished Van - all 4 sides are done! Here is Driver's side below

 

The Passenger's side:

 I did Tracy's SUV too!  This is the back windows on both sides

And if you ever need a HVAC person, they are the ones to go to!

Make The Cut - Rush To Buy

There was a lawsuit settled against Make the Cut and they now have to turn off the drivers for the Cricut - so if you ever thought about purchasing this to use with your Cricuts now is the time to get it. They have 30 days to remove drivers.

Once Make the Cut updates their software, you won't be able to cut to your machines.  I love the program and mainly use this to cut with my machine - loads fast, works with any fonts on your computer, overrides the cartridges and you can load any SVG, PDF and JPEG's into your software and cut them on the Cricut.

I think ProvoCraft made a mistake going after these softwares. SCAL is next to be turned off.

Here is the link if you want to purchase:

https://www.iportis.com/buynow.php?pid=5g7b5s8w3myn3v0p9qyl&affid=4547&noshop=1

You can download it to more than one computer, and designing is so much easier than Design Studio.

Design Studio Meets Spongebob & Gang!

I promised Jeanie for her birthday I would make cutouts of Spongebob and the gang to decorate the house.  These will be great for showing at classes but I think I would fair better by just putting them on her bedroom wall after the party and make more later.  The picture below is how I laid several colors of paper down on the mat at the same time so I could cut more than one at a time.  I have Lilac Mist in the corner, red, white and black for the base. I could see on the screen where I placed the pieces so I knew where to put the paper and how big.

 When using layering cartridges like this you need to cut the base first and then layer the colors on top.

 Here's Patrick the starfish, then I added eyes, and mouth parts.  The black becomes the "black outline" around the colors.

 The base has all the lines so you know how and where to lay all the pieces - the bad part is, the cuts also make the base a little flimsy.

 his pants flowers.

 I love how the little holes are cut out instead of having to add a little black dot!

 love those pants!  Citrus Leaf and Lilac Mist cardstock!

 Spongebob himself!

 When it came to Gary the snail, I reduced his size so he fit, but the machine wouldn't line up when cutting out the shape itself.  First it cuts all the details inside and then cuts the outer edge.  Every time it never met up at the end (see picture above) 5 cuts later I just used one and you can see Gary below, his bottom colors don't line up. I think it's because there is a line going around the shape that extend outside the cutting area, but the cuts didn't extend beyond the cutting area - think this cartridge has a flaw.

 Squidward above, Gary below

 The blue and green don't match the base on Gary.

And angry Plantain!  Thanks for looking.

For the Dogs

As this posts, I'm setting up for my weekend retreat, so I scheduled some things to post while I'm gone to keep you company.  I found this picture and remembered I did a few things I forgot to post prior to Christmas.  I did 11 vinyl projects with my friend Teri and her daughter Melissa and forgot to take pictures!

Patti came over and needed a picture frame dressed up for a Christmas present.  I took out some Silver and Black vinyl and added the puppies names and HAPPY TAILS to the frame. Quick and easy but turned out pretty good.

WhOoO Lives Here?

 I hope you can see these pictures! I took them with my cell phone so they might not be perfect. You can click on them to make them bigger.  Yesterday's post I showed how I cut the owls out, today I'm showing you where they live!

 This is a photo of one branch coming off the window - hence the glare

This is an extra branch coming off the closet.  We had a few extra flowers so we decorated the light switch too.  I think the 2 tone green leaves look great and the owls were the cutest!

Thanks for looking!

Meet the Owl Family

A FaceBook friend asked me to create some owls for her baby-to-be's room.  She gave me a sample of what she likes and I created these for her.  Above are the pieces I cut out. 

 Above is how I cut out all the pieces.  I lay them all out on my mat using MTC and cut all in one pass.

 I have clear one inch transfer tape - very good for small pieces and you want to line up things - and I picked them off the vinyl backing here and below is what it looks like off the sticker backing . . .

 I then carefully lay it down on the base of the owl like below

Walla!  Owl has wings and belly decor!

 Here is Mrs. and Mr. Owl all decked out.

 Here's the whole family! 

Wait til you see where they live - that's next post!!!

Cricut getting me in the Mood!!

 Can you guess what I'm making these for? 

I needed a little some'n some'n on the house so . . . 

 Here's the pumpkin in our foyer window and a few bats above him. 

Below is the living room window.

And then I went crazy and did this:

She's taller than my 2 foot Cricut mat because she looked too small when I did her only 2 feet. So I put her as high as I could go and took extra black pieces on black vinyl and pieced the bottom of her dress together to create a longer witch - this is taken from the outside in the dark. She's in my foyer side window. Let me know what you think!

Square Vase Glass Etched

 Patti needed a quick gift for  a house warming and so we had bought this vase at IKEA and I did some real glass etching on it!  Above: that is me picking up the vinyl with transfer tape so I can stick it onto the vase.

 This is the back of the vinyl once I've lifted it with the transfer tape.

 This is the finished product with tissue paper inside.

If you click on the photo it will get bigger and give more detail.

I put a piece of red paper inside so you can see it better. The vase is 10.5 inches wide  and 6 inches high and 4 inches deep.  This is a picture of it on it's side (above).