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Monday, March 25, 2013

Happy Easter, Challenge project

Happy Monday and welcome to another challenge at Exploring Cricut.  This week's challenge is to create a card, layout, or other paper craft that celebrates Easter.  This week I decided to create a layout of our TNT Easter Egg Hunt from last year.
Cuts:
Sports Mania:   using the shift key for the grass at 1.5"
Create a Critter: carrots at 3.07"
Art Philosophy:  eggs at 1"
Easter 2010: bunny at 2"
Pooh Font at 2", the letters are welded together using the gypsy

I hope you get a chance to play along with us this week.  Remember to link your project to the Exploring Cricut site!

Happy crafting!
Thursday, March 21, 2013

Congratulations

Happy Friday Eve!  If you're looking for the daily project for Exploring Cricut, then you're in the right place. Today for my project I've created a card for a baby shower.  I've decided to start challenging myself with the daily projects as well as the challenge projects.  My goal is to use at least 2 cartridges for each project.

My project for today uses the cartridges Something to Remember and Elegant Edges.
Cuts:
Elegant Edges:  oblong feature at 4.25x5.24
Something to Remember:   at 2.53 I used the main key, shift as well as the layer and shift.
I added some clear sparkles to the "buttons" on the onesie and pink sparkles to the flower centers.

Thanks for viewing my project this week.  Happy crafting!

Monday, March 11, 2013

Luck of the Irish Challenge

Hi everybody and welcome to another challenge at Exploring Cricut.  The challenge for this week is to create  a card, layout, or other papercraft that celebrates St. Patrick's Day.  I decided to bring out a cartridge I've had for the longest time and never used, Spring Holiday Cards.  St. Paddy's Day is a holiday I usually overlook and don't really send out cards.  This cartridge makes creating cards for many of the spring holidays a breeze.

For my project I chose two different colors of green. I used the lighter green to cut a background at 5.24".  This was glued onto a white base.  The darker shade I used to cut "Luck of the Irish" at 5.24".  This second cut I ended up trimming a little to fit the base then adhered it to the background.  I used green glitter glue from studioG, added rhinestones to the corners and a ribbon.

A very simple card for a simple holiday!  Hope you're able to play around with us this week, but don't forget to link your project back at Exploring Cricut.
Thursday, March 7, 2013

Accentuate the Positive

Happy Thursday everyone!  I have to admit I love the snow and cold weather, but I am definitely ready for spring.

We recently started a new "project" at church called Accentuate the Positive.  It's just as it sounds; we've all agreed to try to eliminate all of the negative thoughts so we'll be more open to the positive.  I was asked to make a couple of banners for the sanctuary for the occasion so I thought I'd make a project out of the project.  I've done applique before with quilts, but I've never tried to cut fabric with my Cricut even though this is something I've been wanting to try for a while.
The first and one of the most important things to do before you start cutting fabric is to start with a new mat and a new cutting blade.  I have one mat and a cutting blade aside that's just for cutting fabric.  If you cut with a blade that you've used for cutting paper you run the risk of ruining your fabric with a cut that's not complete.  The same with the mat, if you've used the mat many times on other projects the sticky is liable to be disappearing.




Next iron the fabric you'll be using.  I do this after cutting the fabric down to the size I want to use.  I admit I'm a little lazy and hate to iron so if I don't have to iron the entire fabric I'm all for it.  Once the fabric has been pressed add the stabilizer onto the back side of the fabric.  I cut the stabilizer to the size of the fabric to avoid a huge mess on the ironing board.  Make sure the stabilizer is adhering well to all areas of the fabric, any loose stabilizer will again cause the fabric to not cut correctly.



Put the fabric onto your mat.  This is where I was worried because I had heard to do it both ways (stabilizer up or stabilizer side down on the mat).  I'll admit I only tried it with the stabilizer side down because I didn't want to have to bother with flipping all of my letters. (I will do anything to avoid making more work for myself).  You are now ready to cut.






Load the mat into your machine as you normally would.  I use a Gypsy so I load my mat through that.  Cut the letters/design as normal.











Once you've cut the letters out and removed them from the mat, remove the paper from the back of the  fabric/stabilizer, center the design on the main fabric and iron this down completely.  I used the heavy duty stabilizer in the red bag (heat n' bond).  I don't think the banners will be moved around a lot, but I didn't want the design coming off.  After I ironed the design on the fabric I sewed the words onto the fabric.




All the letters were cut from the Alphalicious cartridge at 5".  I welded all letters together using my Gypsy.  I did add the Disciples of Christ chalice, but it's a little different from the chalice on the Inspired Hearts cartridge so I had to use a design I found on the computer.







Once I had everything sewn onto the fabric I pressed it once again, the added a back as well as two sleeves (one on the top and one on the bottom) to slip curtain rods through.  This could possible be left off the bottom, but I thought that would add weight and help the banners to hang correctly.






The two finished banners!  Hope you find the inspiration to craft today, and remember to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.