Happy-Go-Round

Isn't it funny how happy children get when they are put on a pretend horse, that goes up and down a pole, that goes all around a circular platform while some ridiculously happy music is being played non-stop? Nothing brings out the happy like a carousel and it is no wonder that when I first saw the Cricut Lite Carousel cartridge, my eyes were drawn to that merry-go-round image. It even has three horses (for my 3 kids)!

When I bought my cartridge last Friday, I knew that the carousel has to be the first image that I will cut. I also knew that I have to make the horses move. It is a simple mechanism. First, I cut the 1st layer of the carousel image and then trim off the poles (and horses). Using Cricut Design Studio, I cut a narrow rectangle inside each pole on the 2nd layer. I trim off the horses on the 2nd layer too. 

  

To make the three horses, I actually used the image of the single horse.

I cut out the horses and again snipped off the poles. To make the horses slide up and down the poles that are on the 2nd layer of the carousel cutout, I attached a brad to the horse and fix it into the narrow rectangular gap.

With that done, I can now make the horses go up...

....or down....

.... or stay in the center!

I think I like it best when they are in different stages of going up or down. 

Something like this:

While I had a lot of fun putting this card together, I have to say that I was a little miffed that there was a flaw in this image. Unless you are cutting this image out at a fairly large size,  the top left part of the roof will break from the tip. I had cut my carousel out at 6" and the left strip still tore when the image was being cut on the mat. I managed to cover up that separation with a large rhinestone but I thought you all should know about the design flaw.

  

You can probably also tell from CDS how narrow that cut on the tip is.
 

Anyway, despite that boo-boo, I still do like this cartridge a lot. The images on it are quite different from Provo Craft's past offerings and even though I did not use the font cuts, I'm glad that the cart came with it.