Category: Techniques & Tips

First Video!

I’m so excited. My hubby helped me get his unused copy of iMovie over to my computer and I figured out (FINALLY) how to edit my video. So I have an intro, with music by said fabulous hubby, my video and a lovely ending with more music. Wowza. I feel great having figured all of this out (with some help). Now the video quality isn’t great, but this is my first try so cut me some slack people 🙂 Hope you enjoy!

BTW, I refer to the project I made in the video that has a mushroom on it. You can see the project here.

Gypsy Newbie

I have been playing with my Gypsy and I am loving it the more I play with it.I still have some questions, but so far I am finding it fantastic. I am learning a great deal from YouTube videos posted by other Gypsy users. Just look at the bottom of this post to see what newbie Gypsy videos I found very helpful!

Now the good things about my toy…

  • I love being able to weld images together to create my very own image; this is especially true for making my own phrases.
  • I love that I can spread individual images out over the virtual mat so I can see exactly how much space each item will need to cut. I am finding that this is saving me time and paper because I know exactly how big it will be before I cut. That means no trial and error when cutting my actual paper and having to toss out images that are the wrong size!
  • I love that I can save projects to come back and work on later.
  • I love that I can set up templates for things I might use over and over. For example I set up one file with different card fronts sized at .25″ smaller than the A2 size card. I have a scallop, rectangle, oval and marquee shape.

Okay, so with all the things I love there are still some downsides. I am finding that the search feature is not very complete. For example there may be an image that is a tag that has a butterfly cut in the middle of it. This image in NOT listed in the butterfly category in the search. And if this image is not categorized, how many other images am I missing when I do a word search? Plus, the word I would use to describe a shape, such a flourish or scroll, may not be the word that the Gypsy know the shape to be called. This is some human/computer interface challenge that I mostly knew would be a problem. I was just hoping Provo Craft would have had a more detailed oriented mindset when creating their labels. And a final note on naming shapes… I am not sure how to see what a shape is names once I have seen it and want to use it. It would be nice to see what an item is called so that I could get a better sense of how things actually are labeled so I can adjust my own search style. To solve all this, I wish they had more of a tag feature so that each image could be labeled by the user with different tags. Then they could further the flexibility by allowing users to share tag files so that we could get the benefit of a community of tagger’s data!

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As I learn more about my Gypsy I will let you all know. In the meantime, I have compiled a listing of very useful YouTube videos for the newbie Gypsy user and a couple of videos for when you are ready to take it to the next level. Enjoy!

What to know when you first open your Gypsy is explained by these videos

Once you are comfortable moving around you will want to get to work using all the cool features. This next set of videos goes over all the main features.

  • Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of How to Design with the Gypsy is provided by Cropoholicblog. She covers a little of everything. [TIP: Note that in order to see larger images from the cartridge… push the top left button (top right for lefties) while tapping on an image. I didn’t know how to do this one and it was one of my complaints about the Gypsy until I saw part one of this video.]
  • The above video did not explain the “real dial” size button. However, the Cutting Layers video by Scrapperbug2002 does a nice job of it. She gets to this at about the 2:40 minute mark if you just want to jump straight to it. She has quite a few other nice videos as well. Check out her stuff. Try this feature with lower case text (both on and off) to see the difference it really makes.

Here are some more tips that will make using your Gypsy much more convenient…

  • Using and naming layers is a great feature explained by http://www.JoysLife. Layers are important for cutting different types of paper. Remember the Gypsy will cut one complete layer at a time. You cannot change pressure, speed or blade depth settings during this process. If you are cutting two very different papers, say cardstock and thin pattern paper, for the same project, put each image on it’s own layer!
  • Coping and pasting images between layers is shown by ScrappinGrandma. Note: She has an older version of the Gypsy and so your layer interface will look different.
  • The hide contour feature was explained in another video but I think it is worth repeating here since it can give you much more flexibility with your images. It allows you to tell the Cricut NOT to cut certain portions of the image! Nice explanation by CreativeLadyBug. Remember to use this feature BEFORE you group images. Once there in a group this feature in unavailable.

And now for some more advanced projects…

Advent

Every year we do advent calendars with the kids to count down the days to Christmas. Our callendars have ranged from the purchased chocolate packs to Playmobile gifts to our make-your-own-advent-out-of-Lego-pieces creation. This year I remembered that when I was a kid my mom had found an earring advent calendar that was filled with holiday themed earrings. I thought that might be a fun calendar for my daughter who had her ears pierced just a couple of months ago. I mentioned the idea to her and we went out shopping to find 24 pairs of earrings on the cheap. We didn’t succeed. But we did come up with the crazy idea to make them ourselves!

With great sales at JoAnn we went shopping and came away with tons of beads and wire and enough findings to make all 24 pairs with plenty of supplies left over for other projects. All for $20! We decided to throw in materials that we already have on hand such as craft wire, polymer clay, buttons and some other goodies. So that increases the cost (sort of) but I think it is well worth it.

My daughter did most of the design work and I did the manual labor while adjusting her designs to the real world. In the first night we made 7 pairs of earrings in about 2 hours. That is awesome considering neither of us have ever really made earrings before! I have to admit that I was feeling overwhelmed when I first sat down to start working on these. I was wondering how many hours I would be sitting in the basement chasing beads that fell all over the floor. After a small learning curve using crimp beads to secure the beading wire, I felt pretty confident in my jewelry making skills! I think we did a great job. I’ll post more pictures as we complete more items.

What I worked on this week…

This week I worked on my Book of Small Thanks. If I were more organized you would have had this idea BEFORE Thanksgiving. But I am who I am! I had this book in mind for about a month but had neither the time nor the supplies I needed until late last week. I rushed to throw it together (and it still isn’t done). I wanted a book where our family of 5 could keep track of the daily, ordinary things. I’m not talking about the big things either, like family, a warm home and food on the table. I am very aware everyday of those big things. I wanted this book to be a moment in time of the things that make us happy right now. It is never too late to make a book of thanks. It is an exercise that you can undertake any time. I hope my project inspires you to make one of your own.

Here is my cover before I did any embellishing to it. I made the whole book with chipboard covered in different papers from the Die Cuts With A View (DCWV) Autumn Stack. The alpha is Thickers (large) and some small letters from my stash.

I formatted the book with smaller inner pages. On the front of the small inner page I plan on putting a photo of each family member. You will notice that the next page is peeking from behind. On the next page is the journaling for each person for each day. I arranged it so that the journaling that shows will match the person in the photo on each and every page.

On the left hand side of the small page I plan on printing and cutting out quotes strips that have to do with thankfulness. I have yet to research what those quotes will be.

And when you turn the small page, the book opens up to see everyone’s thoughts of thanks for that day. I did one day for each weekday during the week of Thanksgiving.

Like I said before, it isn’t done yet. But I had a chance to give the cover some embellishing with leftover ribbons from my stash before typing up this post. Enjoy!

Day 7 Back-in-action

Okay. It is day seven. It was my goal to give you a straight week of projects to welcome myself back to my blog. I hope you are enjoying. My goal is to post things about once a week. But you all know how life gets in the way sometimes. I hope to not go for months without posting again though!

So my final post for this run… Cutting a mask with the Cricut! For those of you who don’t know, a mask in an object that you lay over your project in order to prevent that portion of your project from being inked.

Sorry the picture is bad. Just trying to get photos fast to share with you. This is supposed to be a photo of a 6×6 page protector. I used a scrapbooking page protector as opposed to a regular office 8.5×11 page protector because it is slightly thicker. The page protectors are inexpensive and readily available. To create a mask, trim off the three sealed edges. This will leave you with two sheets of plastic. Place one on your Cricut mat and choose a shape to cut. I set my blade to 6, pressure 3 and speed 3. You may need to experiment with your settings. Here is what my mask looked like after I cut it (it is inked already for greater visibility).

This material is thinner than a commercial mask but it much cheaper, just the image you want and easy to make. Use it like you would any mask. However, if you find it is curling a bit, then add some re-positionable adhesive to the back. I laid mine on the corner of my project and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. This left the tan, uninked shadow of my image behind. I then spayed my mask a little more, turned it over and stamped the image over my misted section. This gives two distinct versions of the same image.

After allowing it to dry I finished my layout. Enjoy!

RECIPE
cardstock, flower punch, ink: Stampin’ Up

pattern paper: Scenic Route
spray ink: Tattered Angels
die cuts: Cricut (Storybook cart.)
marker: marvy
from stash: stamps, silk flower, crystals

Day 5 of back-in-action

Okay, day five of my planned week-long back-in-action eye candy. This treat bag was created for another magazine call. I really had fun with this one. I don’t tend to use a bunch of flashy embellishments but the Valentine’s day them of the call got my bling flowing. To creat the heart I simply hand drew a heart shape and covered the drawing over with gems. And I enjoyed the color scheme. One of my favorite color palettes is rich brown with pops of vibrant color. I reversed this one a bit and went with vibrant pink with a pop of brown. In the past I hated pink, but in the past few years I have come to really like it! It is funny how tastes and styles can change. So pretty, but one of the things I realized is that I don’t really like working projects out of season. I admire the magazine industry for preparing all the holiday goodies 6 months in advance! I used to want to work in magazines, but doing these winter season calls in the summer left me feeling a bit out of sorts.

RECIPE

envelope: Office Depot
cardstock: Stampin’ Up
alpha stickers: Cosmo Cricket
spray ink: Tattered Angels
gems: Want 2 Scrap
hemp twine: (can’t remember!)
punch: Ek Success
adhesive: Terrifically Tacky Tape (Provo Craft), Tombo liquid glue (for gems)

HOW TO…

To create the pouch, seal a regular A2 size envelope along one short side and the two long sides at about 1/2 inch. Trim off the remaining short side to create  the top of your bag. Use the score lines to fold the envelope into a bag shape. This will leave two little triangles at the bottom of the bag that must be adhered down. I used a very sticky adhesive to keep it in place.

Day 4 of back-in-action

I love my crafting time. And this Love card is one of those things that came out of that time. I had made this card for a magazine call but did not get a response. So it gets shared with you! The call was a sketch based on a pennant design. I had turned the design on its side and added extra touches such as the circles over the pennants and the stitching which extends the pennants. It was a fun and relatively simple card. Enjoy!

RECIPE

cardstock, circle punch: Stampin’ Up
pattern papers, alpha stickers: Piggy Tales

Day 3 of back-in-action

Here is another layout from my calendar layouts. I had been wanting to do a layout split down the middle and this subject fit perfectly. It shows two opposing emotions. Flowing the title down the middle both separates the two emotions AND brings the two images together. I also had an ulterior motive for placing the tile as I did. The pattern paper under the word “courage” is actually hiding some distracting elements in the photo to the left. It is a good way to use an photo with problems.

Day 2 of my back-in-action posts

Here are some more older projects that I have worked on. These are from my kids’ calendar scrapbooks. I wrote about this style of scrapping in an earlier post. You can see here how I incorporate my calendar record keeping into a companion page to go with the main layout. In my current calendars the right hand page is always my calendar (blanked out here for privacy).

I have found some things I didn’t like about this approach to my calendars. First, I used too small of a format of calendar for my older kids. I thought I would need less room to record their lives since they aren’t growing and changing as rapidly as the little one. But I ended up really cramming journaling onto a small page. Apparently, I have just as much to say about them! I used a larger calendar for my youngest and now I know I would like this larger size for the older kids as well. Secondly I felt like making an entire companion page for the calendar became boring. I felt like I was wasting supplies just to glue a calendar down to a pretty page. Finally, I did not keep a general family calendar, which I have done in the past and I missed it very much. I missed recording tidbits of life for my husband and I as well as larger family events.

My approach for the coming year is going to be different. I am going to make the larger size calendar for everyone, including a family calendar. I am not going to make companion pages. Instead I am going to build pockets in behind the main layout with a tab at the top to pull out the calendar. This will save materials and space in my albums, but still preserve all the information. I will report back in the new year to see how I like the changes to my system!

I’m Back!

So you may have noticed that I took a hiatus for several months. Life and health have been crazy which had kept me out of my scrap space. But I have been doing projects again and feeling motivated again! I am glad to be back. I will be posting several items over the next few days, beginning with a few things I worked on before my break.

Let us start off with this older item. I made this for a magazine call and never got a response. So I am sharing it with you! Since the weather has cooled off here I thought it would be a fun one to share. I used yarn to braid a scarf-like heart and used a few other sewing notions to complete the look. Hope you enjoy!

RECIPE

cardstock, inks: Stampin’ Up
stamp: Technique Tuesday
yarn, safety pins: stash