New LD collection: Get A Job

I just noticed on the Lettering Delights website that they have a new collection out. There are 4 sets to the Get A Job collection and they are basically a "When I grow up..." kiddie theme.

The collection is currently priced at $10 but with the $1 sale, you can actually get this for $1 per set or $4 for the bundle when bought separately! I'm not really sure what I can do with the alphabet set but I like the transportation one a lot. Especially the school bus. I have to pack lunch for my 2nd-graders tomorrow and I thought I would tuck in a surprise school bus note card for them.

First, I opened the image in Adobe Photoshop and CTRL-T to set the size of the bus to 4"x2". I print it out on plain paper. Using MTC I traced the image, make a shadow, then copy, mirrored, and welded it to make a shaped card.

I cut that out with my Cricut, adhered to the page that I printed earlier and printed the bus again. I folded that now-printed cutout in half and my note card is done!

I suppose I could pretty up the card by embellishing it with glitter and adding extra cutouts for dimensions. I was going to make the stop sign stand out on foam tape and the wheels turn with brads but I stopped myself. These are going into the kids' lunch boxes and goodness knows if the card will make it back home in one piece even without all the extra cuts. Remember what my 4 year old did to the popcorn card? With or without the embellishments, I think the girls will get a kick out of finding these with their lunch tomorrow. They love surprises like that. :-)

Boo!

Day 2 of experimenting/pretending/imagining how making a Cricut Imagine card would be like and my desire for the $600  $500 machine has flat-lined.

This card took me a fraction of the time that I took to make yesterday's card. I used only one of LD's graphic set, Boo to You, and the Scribble Pumpkins paper. Again, I arranged the graphics in Adobe Photoshop, then printed on the cutouts that I made with MTC. I adhered the cutouts to the card with foam tape for dimension. Same old formula but this time, I learned something about me.

While card making with digital images is fast and simple, it is not for me. I like to touch real paper stacks. While digital paper may free up the space that is taken up now by my embarrassingly huge stacks of paper, I miss the different textures that the paper stacks offer. I like to feel the different weights and texture of the cardstock and I got bored really fast with the same weight paper that I used for printing out the digital paper. Secretly, I know that I probably even miss the smell of pre-printed cardstock.

Making the cutouts for dimension with MTC got a lot easier with this card. Andy (of MTC) really should consider a negative shadow feature for the next version. The shadow tool in MTC only allows for, well, for lack of a better word, Shadow, of the image. It will always be bigger than the original graphic. I realised that I could easily get a nice print on the cutouts if I make the cutouts a tad smaller than the size of the prints. That way, there will be no need for me to hand cut any excess space (as there will hardly be any!). I can still somewhat do this now with an extra step in Photoshop but MTC could make it so much easier if there is a negative-number shadow.

Most of all, I realize that I actually missed paper piecing. Gluing down the layers may be tedious at times but I do enjoy that. It is almost therapuetic to pick up all those little pieces to complete a cut out image and I kind of missed that.

I'm sure that the Cricut Imagine is a fantastic piece of technology that may bring paper crafting to the next level. I do know that it allows for the user to cut on patterned paper and it also cut different layers but that is no different from what my Expression can do now. If the main reason for the high price of the Cricut Imagine is because of it's capability to print out paper and (print and cut)digital graphics, than the machine is not for me. I am a home crafter. I do not sell my crafts. I cannot justify paying this price for a new feature that I will get bored with easily. It may take some work out of paper-crafting but it may also take the fun and, ironically, imagination out of it. 

The machine currently has a lot of missing features which are personally important to me. It can only cut on the 12"x12" size and not the larger 12"x24". The machine does not have a welding feature. I do not want to have to buy 2 types of cartridges to be able to use it to it's full potential. In addition, it also cannot be used with the Cricut Design Studio and any third-party software. I love my MTC and I cannot imagine (pun intended) using the Cricut without it.  Unless the price comes waaaaaay down, I will probably not be the owner of one. As I sit here watching and enjoying what the other crafters create with it, I know that I will be happy in my little craft corner, flipping through my stacks of cardstock, and piecing bits of paper together.

This post was edited on Sept 15. More content was added and the price of the Cricut Imagine was corrected. The original price of $600 was the MSRP mentioned at the summer CHA show. The new price of $499 was offered at the launch of the Cricut Imagine on Sept 14.

 

Boo to you!

There has been so much talk about the Circut Imagine lately that I can't help but feel like I must have one now too. I'm a gadget girl and I love to have new toys to play with. Despite knowing that it will take up a lot of room in my already cramped craft space, and that it is just a Cricut Expression and a Color Printer wrapped in a single case, it's hard to ignore all the hype that is going on in the Cricut message boards.

Until I tell myself that the base unit costs $600.

It's funny how that thought never fails to stop me from lusting over the new guy in town. (Yes, I do think that the Imagine is a man. Takes up too much room and can't do dishes!) I have a Cricut Expression, a Samsung color laser printer, and Lettering Delights is still having their $1 sales on their graphics, and paper. Armed with my Make-The-Cut program, I set out to make a card that I "imagine" that THE Imagine is supposed to do for me. 

Browsing through the Lettering Delights store, I decided that I would make a Halloween card with the Owl-oween, Bootiful Overlays, and Fangtastic Frames graphics sets with the Scaredy Cat paper. I opened up my Adobe Photoshop and arranged the elements until I liked what I saw. Something like this:

I printed it out on the Recollections brand of white cardstock that I bought from Michaels. By toggling the "eye" on the Layers window in Photoshop, I also printed out on plain printer paper, just the owl and the frame. By using MTC, I managed to get the cut outs for the owl and the sentiment.

I adhered the cutouts to the printed paper (not cardstock) and printed the owl and the frame again. Now my cutouts are printed.

Perhaps it was the choice of graphic (the owl has a sketchy outline) but I was not totally pleased with the printed cutout and so I did the unthinkable. I trimmed out the bit parts of white with my Honey Bee scissors! ("Gasp!" but a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do and the scissors did not cost me $600. )

To put together the card, I wrapped a black sheer ribbon around the Basic Grey cardstock followed by a silver ribbon. I trimmed down the printed cardstock and adhered that to a Basic Grey patterned paper with my ATG tape after layering it with some spiderwebs that I had punched out.

I love these Martha Stewart Border and Corner punches. Going over the webs with some Gun Metal colored Stickles made them stand out even more.

The card base is white so I gave the edges a distressed look by brushing my brown and black inkpads against it.  I used foam tape to attach the owl and frame and then taped the whole card front to the base.

I put on some Stickles on the owl's hat and the card is done. Even though I'm not 100% pleased that I had to resort to the limited use of scissors, I don't think that the card is that bad. Besides, I only trimmed a little bit off the owl. Totally worth that $600 saved!

Library Record Book

This post has nothing to do with the Cricut but I'm posting it anyway just in case another mom who reads this blog can use the idea.

My twins just started 2nd Grade last week. They love to read but I am concerned about their horrible handwriting. I have been looking for excuses to make them write more. After all, practice makes perfect, right? I've bought them diaries so that they can write short entries of their days. I also make them write as punishment for doing something that they shouldn't. (" I will not tell lies." x 100 times). Now I have another idea.

When they came home from school last week all excited with their library books, I decided that I would make them write the title of every book that they borrow this year. If they like, they can even draw a picture and write a sentence of what the book is about.

To encourage them to write in their "Library Record Book", I took a 70-sheet spiral notebook and dressed it up with some printed graphics from Lettering Delights. Using images and papers from the Class Act Collection, and the School Rules and Kindergarten graphic sets, I arranged and printed the finished page with Adobe Photoshop to get this:

The font used is LD Chalky which is available only in the School Spectacular Font Set.

I had to trim down the page slightly to fit the front cover but after running some tape with my ATG gun, I was happy to see the newly dressed-up book.

The girls were excited to see their new books and I'm impressed that they didn't even balk at the idea of recording the book titles. I take that as a good sign and I can't wait  to make them start writing in it. 

"Muahahahaha!" (evil laughter. :-p)

FREE Bundle from Lettering Delights

I hope that everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend. Here is a Labor Day freebie from Lettering Delights. Click on the picture below to claim it.

Pop Corn!

School started yesterday and while the twins were happy to see their friends again, their baby sister A was miserable! Even though they bickered everyday of the summer break, she misses her playmates. Her non-stop sighing drove me nuts but I really thought that she would get over it fast.

Today is Day 2 of the new school year. Instead of getting back to her routine of playing with her toys, I found A lying on the middle of the staircase at 10am. I asked her to go take a nap in her bed and all she could muster was a meek "I'm sad."

Ack! Can anyone say "DRAMA!" ?

Anyway, I thought I'd try to cheer her up. She likes to peek over my shoulder when I am working on my laptop and the other day she saw me looking at the Lettering Delights' Sugar Rush clipart set . She loves that Pop Corn image and has asked me to make a card for her. I never got around to it and so I thought that I would make it for her today.

Using the cut-and-print trick, I printed a 4.5" x 2.7" image. With the help of MTC, I made a shaped card the same way that I made the one from yesterday's post. Since the clipart set came with the non-colored popcorn image, it was very convenient to trace that in MTC. I made the shaped-card front in mere minutes.

The resulting card looked fun but rather flat and boring.

To add some dimensions to the card, I layered some "Pop Corn" with foam tape.

I used the same black & white popcorn image to cut the popcorn out with MTC and the Cricut.

I think it looks so much better this way.

Baby Sister A was excited to see her card and kept it with her all morning. Sadly, her attraction to it didn't last long. :-(  As soon as her sisters got home from school, I found the card on the stairs "pop corn-less"! All that is left was a shadow of the foam tape!

I confronted Baby Sister why she has "eaten" all that pop corn. To my surprise, she flipped the card open and said "But mom, I was saving them for another day!"  :-)

Sigh...what else would a 4 year old think of? What will I do with myself when she goes to preschool in 2 weeks?

**shudder**

Cut-and-Print Shaped Cards

The twins went back to school today and before I dive into the kiddie mess that they have left behind for me to clean up, I will show you quickly what I did with the cut-and-print technique this morning. 

I made this mini card from using LD's Around the World graphic set and MTC. All the steps are the same as my cut-and-print tutorial but instead of stopping after I made the shadow layer in MTC, I made a shaped card by welding a mirror image of a duplicate of that shadow. Then I adhered that over the printed image and run the paper through my printer.
 

There are days when I love to create and put together layers, and then there's today when a quick printed card will do. ;) Even though this post is short, I hope that it inspires you to create something cool and new.