I can hear you all now saying, " oh dear, she's getting all excited about a fish cut out of completely inappropriate background paper; what's she so wound up about?" Before you mock me anymore, I'll put you straight. I'm so excited because, it's not a paper fish, it's a cotton fish!! It's my very first cut of material with my Cricut. The world of easy applique is now mine! I found a fish shape on the Boys will be boys cartridge as I want to make a cover for the fish tank (to stop the sun shining in on it at certain times of day as that causes disgusting green hairy moss on the glass). It was easy peasy despite me not quite putting the material in the right place on the mat. I'm so chuffed. I used heat'n bond on the back of the cotton material as I've seen a few people do on youtube videos and it does work!
Ok, I'm off to iron some more (you iron the heat'n bond on the back of your cotton material before cutting it). I wonder how long the fun of getting the ironing board out will last :-)
Take care out there
p.s no I won't be using this fish on anything; he'll be my prototype :-) I've just found some gorgeous material in one of my material bags which looks like water, so that'll be perfect and perhaps use a dark blue for the base material.
Hi
My nephew has his birthday next weekend. He's 9 then. He loves loads of things in life but one of them is fishing, so I've made him this frame for a photo of one of his great catches, of which I'm sure there have been many. I also made him a banner the other week but I forgot to take a photo of it and I posted it to him today, so you won't get to see that. It was created on Craft Artist but I didn't make it fancy as I wasn't sure what he or my sister would make of it. I did mention it to Claire the other day and she seemed to think it would be great for a trip out he's having for his birthday, so I'm hoping he won't mind it being attached to the back of his chair. If not, maybe Claire will put it up on his door somehow; I'm sure she'll come up with an ingenious idea.
Hello
What a sad time we're experiencing lately in regards to pets. One of my daughter's friends has to give her spaniel away as they have to leave their current rental home and the new house doesn't accept dogs. Also a few weeks ago, another friend of my daughter lost her last rabbit. She had two rabbits for ten years and they lived outside all the time. The first one died a month or two ago and then the second one died a few weeks later. They got two new rabbits almost two weeks ago now and unfortunately yesterday one of them died an awful death only to be found by this young almost 12 year old (it's her birthday on Wednesday). An awful thing for her to have to experience, so I was moved to send a card. A coincidence was that earlier in the week, I had read a facebook post by an American lady; Katrina Hunt (she does the most amazing scrap pages and allsorts of crafty items like banners, oh and you should see her 'Beatrice tree'!) and she used the term 'over the bridge' in regards to a dog of hers which died a few years ago. I hadn't heard the term before and asked about it and she told me that it is from a poem called 'The Rainbow bridge', so I looked it up online. It's rather a lovely and romantic idyllic poem, which some would say isn't realistic and against the Christian beliefs but I don't worry about that. I just want this girl to feel better about the pet losses she's had to deal with lately.
Anyway, here's the card. It took me alot longer than it should have done but hey, that's how it normally is with me. I got the inspiration from a blog entry on 'Cards, cards, cards by Cricut and me'. The backing paper I created on Craft Artist from the Easter digikit. I could've added ribbon and other finishing touches but it took me longer than I should've really with some of the cuts on the Cricut and also, I don't think it's particularly tasteful to make too fancy a card for an event like this.
I put a copy of the poem inside- I took a photo but you're better off looking online for a copy of it, as that'll be easier to read than my poor quality photo. The rabbit is a decorative one from Gypsy Wanderings and I was somewhat concerned that the swirl pattern might be misinterpreted as a scar on the rabbit (considering the circumstances) but the girl has text my daughter to say that she loves the card, so I can stop worrying about that now. The rabbits on the backing paper make it rather too busy but I didn't want the feature rabbit standing out too much or it would be far too poignant. I just typed the word on the computer and printed it on the purple paper. I love the 'rounded edges' function on my Crafter's Companion Clever Cut.
The friendship has been shared and that's the important thing to remember.
Take care out there.
Hello again
This entry is for Chris's son Alex who has already passed the computer part of his driving test but he just has to pass the actual driving part now. He's in the middle of his A level exams though, so I think he'll not sit it until July, so I'm well prepared. I was chuffed to bits to find that the red plaid paper was a spare from a previous project. Leigh Mitchell was the person who designed this card though as I saw it on her blog. I had trouble finding a car cut on my Cricut cartridges, so I emailed her to ask where she got hers from and she was very very helpful and has even put me onto http://www.ukscrappers.com/ which is a mindfield of inspiration, help and shopping for crafty stuff. Leigh used an Ellison die for her car. Thanks so much Leigh.
I used my brand new 'boys will be boys' cartridge (bought especially) and cut the car at 5cm to fit in the space. The card base is 6in square. My card is obviously slightly different to Leigh's as the tyres have ended up red on my car and the red 'gems' along the bottom have glue marks all around them as I'm rubbish with keeping glue in it's rightful place - black is very unforgiving as well of course. Normally Pinflair glue can be rubbed away when dry but this time it isn't budging. Anyway, all errors aside, I think it's pretty good.
n.b - I can't remember which cartridge I used for the text. The stars were cut from Plantin School book but I can't remember what size I did them at. The embossing folder was divine swirls as I don't have the dots one which Leigh used and is much better as it looks like tyres - yet another thing I 'need' to buy.
Take care out there
Well, I've gone and done it; my first scrapbook page! I've bought other people scrapbooks and I've got an 8x8inch one myself but I haven't done an official scrapbook page myself. That actually is a lie in reality as when I was younger I had a colourful A3 type size scrapbook but there wasn't anything crafty about it; it was literally just full of photos and memorabilia of my youth. Goodness only knows what happened to it. This scrap page has similiar things on it but I used Craft Artist to help get me started with a layout and I've personalised it and added the wrist band that you need to go on rides in Blackpool these days apparently. The awful Valhalla skull photo is one of Maggie's favourite rides apparently. Maggie loves fairground rides but I really don't, so it's a good job she's been able to go with the Youth for Christ group here. Most of her school mates went too, so there were loads of people around that she knew. She went on Thursday June 2nd 2011 which is pretty obvious when you look at the page.
Anyway, it is what it is- the flowers aren't suitable really as they don't match the subject but they're pretty. It's from the 'Spring in your step' digikit.
I've just found out about a Cricut lite cartridge called Carousel so I'm going to try to get that for cheaper than £45 as shown on ebay. The Cricut website shows them for $39.99 which is about £24 but I don't know how much postage will cost and then tax, so that's a work in progress really. It has allsorts of fairground rides on it so it'll be great for future pages or cards I make.
Here it is:
Take care out there
