A brief post!

Ohhhhh! I'm so excited. I've been really busy lately, and so haven't posted much. But today I got a very good reason to post -- I won a Cricut MB contest! WOW! I have had my new Gypsy about 2 weeks (love love love it!) and made a sample of a little winter-themed word book for donation to my school's winter raffle. Just for fun, I entered this contest, and was successful! The competition is so talented, I'm so happy just to have competed. I hope you'll take a look, and I'll try to get the gypsy file up for download later this week. Thanks for visiting!



The Contest entries

Cricut Messageboard

Thanks, Enfys!

Apparently I was having problems with my comment submission, and it's now fixed (I think!) Thanks, Enfys, for letting me know. I always wondered why I had so few but a relatively popular download rate! Thanks for all who take the trouble to leave a comment, I love reading them and feel appreciated!

Two new Precious Moments

I really like my first PM for this posting. It's a little family, with newborn baby. Included in the cut file is hair to match both mother and father. I've chosen to create a family to match my own, with my youngest daughter Teagan as the baby. This set seems slightly less complex than usual, but will still need to be cut fairly large. My sample is cut at 7". It would make a lovely card, I think.





The second little one is a little girl holding paper or artwork. I plan to use her for a scrapbook page of my girl's colouring. She's a little doll, but lots of little pieces in her hair -- always the case with these curly haired girls!





I sincerely hope you take the time to comment. My blog sends me notification when I have a download, and some of my files have been downloaded close to 1000 times, but I receive very little comments. Make me smile today, and leave me a little note. :-)

Celtic Knot

I'm workin on a few pages to celebrate my father's 60th Birthday, and as we are Irish, we had Irish dancers at his party. The following pages have lots going on. The girls were made with Paper Doll Dress-up and Everyday Paper Dolls (cricut) the font is Medieval Scribish and Edwardian Script, and the knot running down the side I created in Inkscape. The knot is available as an svg file after the pics.






Some comments on creating the knot: It's lots of little pieces that need to be placed exactly. I did this by scoring my base paper with exactly the same cut by changing the pressure to "medium" and blade depth to "1".
This way, I able to line up the cut part exactly. The score lines are somewhat hard to see in the pictures, but you get the point.





Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for all the comments!
Celtic Knot border

Massive Computer Failure

For the second time this year, I'm recovering from a complete computer failure. About 2 weeks ago, my brand new in May computer froze during start-up and nothing would make it GO! Fortunately, it's now fixed. Unfortunately, all my files are gone. Totally. Except the ones hosted on box.net, so that's okay I guess. No photos have been lost (those are all kept in two separate places -- one external drive, one partitioned drive) but I'm so sad to have lost so much of the other files I'd started.

Cay sera, sera...



Oh a happier note, JustMe on the cricut MB has sent me some awesome materials to work with, which I should be able to share with everyone in the upcoming months. I've been asked to do some of the PM wedding, and I want to work on the PM birthday train figures.

Thanks for stopping by! Let's hope I can keep this 'puter going....

Baby Guess Book

My friend is having a baby! This guess book is for her to share with friends and family, to guess the baby's birthdate & time, gender, weight & length, and a special wish for baby. The book is 6" square/ The cart for the cover is New Arrival and A Child's Year; Bind-it-all for the binding; ribbons are cheapy dollar store ones; paper is DCWV Nana's Kids (covers) and pastel cardstock (inner pages). Font for inner pages is Mandingo BTN. Chipboard is Shreddies cereal! Thanks for looking!

Rainbow Dash

No cut sample for this one yet, but it looks like it'll be good. I should have the live version later this week, but didn`t want to miss the weekend to post this little girl. I think she's gorgeous! The jpg below doesn't include the rainbow on her bum, but it is included in the scut as a tricolour -- red/yellow/blue. As always, if you download (and I know you do!!!! LOL) I would appreciate a comment or your linking to me on your blog.





I'm trying a new way to download; here's an easier way to access that shouldn't take you away from my blog. Let me know what you think (better/worse) and I might change over the other files, too!

StarSong My Little Pony

A sweet little purple pony! This one has a few more combined cuts, so a few less pieces than Scootaloo, but still requires a patient hand! Hope you enjoy!





StarSong's files

Something different -- My Little Pony

Scootaloo!





Lots of little pieces. You'll need a sticky mat and some patience! Make sure you grab the jpg, it includes the scootaloo coloured in so you can place bits correctly. This one's not for the faint of heart -- there are many pieces to the mane and tail -- but she looks really nice in person! Sample is cut at 6".



Scootaloo files

As always, a comment is appreciated.

Welcome back to school letter

Well, school starts in 2 and a half weeks, and I'm busy trying NOT to think about it! But, I have lots of new kids entering my special needs classroom this year, and quite a few with anxiety about the transition. I've met all the new ones, but thought they could use a little reminder of me (although some came and took pictures of me during my presentation -- that was new for me!). So here's the card I made and sent out. The girl is PDDU, cut at 5.5"; the mouse is from Animal Kingdom cut at 2.25", and the top border is the new Martha Stewart "Mice" border punch. The hardest part was deciding 3 weeks in advance what I'm going to wear that day!





Thanks for visiting!

Wow, so much to do! So many files....

Well, I've been away off and on for the last three weeks, and haven't managed to scrap anything, but I did finish some cut files a week ago! So, here's a few more PM's!

This girl was made for my Tutorial, but I forgot to post the final cut file. Ooops. Enjoy:



Girl Kneeling files

A girl on her bike. This file includes a little turtle she's looking at, but somehow I've misplaced him. He's super cute though!



Girl on Bike files

And finally, a little girl with a new friend. This one will come in handy for my camping photos!



Girl with Deer files

For those looking for my next tutorial on Inkscape, it will be on the topic of making smoother cuts. Look for it in the next week or so!

Thanks for visiting! I hope you'll leave a comment!

SCAL 2!

Oh, such excitement! Craftedge has released a major upgrade to it's very cool software, now called SCAL 2. There's lots of neat new features! Here's my first two reviews:

I'm back!

Wow, what a great vacation! The family and I live in Alberta, Canada, and we usually camp in Montana (love that state!), but this year we wanted to see more of "the world" and decided to go to Mount Rushmore. It's GREAT there, and if you've never been, I'd definitely put that down on my list of must-sees around the world. Lots to do, lots to see! But crossing the border was funny -- the American border guard asked us what "a bunch of Canadians are doing going to see dead American presidents?" I had to laugh ....

A couple random pics:

At the beach:


About to enter a gold mine, Deadwood, South Dakoda:


Mout Rushmore:


Hannah catches a fish. Then cries. It's a scrapbooking moment:



My favorite picture of me. I don't think I'm photogenic, but this one looks like me :-)


So much to scrapbook, so many pictures. 771 pictures in 8 days.

Inkscape Tutorial part 2

Well, I hadn't planned on making Part 2 until the weekend, but a surprise trip has been sprung on me and I'm off for nearly two weeks camping, so I thought I'd better get it done and online. If you're working on your own files but having some concerns this next tutorial will help you fix the most common problem: original image line gaps. They're easy to fix. If you're interested in GIMP, please visit http://www.gimp.org/ but any graphic editing software will work, including Windows Paint. I hope you find it helpful, while I'm off in the Black Hills finding more reasons to scrap. I hope there's some nice LSS on the way....

Inkscape files

Some people would like to follow along with the tutorial, using my original gif. So, here it is! You should be able to "right-click" and save directly to your computer.

Hope this helps! And thanks for all the feedback!

Inkscape Tutorial

Wow! Today I made my first tutorial -- I really hope it helps you! Please leave a comment if you found it useful! The associated svg/scut/jpg files will be available for download on the weekend!

ETA: This is the medium-quality video, and is a bit blurry in places. I'm still trying to upload the HQ, but it's taking forever! Two things will help you watch successfully: watch "full screen" and click the "HD" button beside the volume to watch in high definition.

Precious Moments girls

These girls are my family girls: The darkest hair girl is Hannah, my DD#1 who is 6. She loves "all creatures great and small".



Girl with Mouse files

This is a girl from my last post, who represents DD#2, Wiggles, who is 18 months. A happy child, just learning (and LOVING) to run!



Girl Running files

Finally, this is me as a child. It's funny how we're all so different! Wiggles is blonde and blue eyed; Hannah is dark brunette with hazel-blue eyes, and I was a light brunette child.



Girl with Rainbow files

Hope you enjoy! These are my bigger files, with scut, svg and jpg to support your use!

A Brief Overview on cutting my SCUTS

You know, I really enjoy complicated things! While I try to simplify the PM cuts from the original, I don't change too much if I can avoid it. This week I worked on the little girl running, and got concerned after I had to cut out her hair THREE times to get all of it. But, it's so cute and would take away from the final product if I changed it, so I've left it. However, a few things to consider if you're cutting my files:

1. Cut them big. The smallest I cut my samples is 5 1/2" for the base. Bigger = better!
2. I'm including in my newer downloads a screenshot of the layout on the mat with labels.
3. I'm also including the svg file in case you want to combine parts of cuts or squish things together or further spread out.
4. I would strongly encourage you to cut everything off one mat.
5. Recut portions (like hair) if they don't work the first time. Sticky mat and good cardstock!

Here's how I make my cuts:

Open Sure Cuts A Lot, then open the file:



This one looks pretty easy (Hair`s a bit tricky!) and self explanatory, but if you`re not sure, open up the jpg (or svg) to see the labels:



Back to the SCAL mat. Make the cut the size you want, then trim out your paper to be bigger than the cut area. Arrange on the mat:



Cut:


When I assemble, I do it right on the mat. The black base stays where it is, and I leave the excess attached for now. Then I start where it seems simplest, usually the biggest piece, and glue with a zig pen. For the eye, I colour directly on the base with an opaque pigment marker. My earlier cuts included the white highlight, but later cuts do not (they don`t really work, they`re too small!). Layer:



She's done! This is my baby, Wiggles, running. Hair is tricky, and it did take me multiple times cutting it, but she's worth it!



Girl Running files

The other 3 Precious Moments scuts!

Last weekend I made up 7 files for PM, and posted 4 of them. This weekend I cut the last 3 and realized I should add another. So, here's the next four scut files:



Girl Angel with Ballon files



Boy with Flower Scut file



Seated Baby with Teddy Bear Scut file

After cutting the above baby, I realized I liked the baby and wanted one separate from the teddy. So, I added diaper and removed Teddy. This one I haven't cut, but here's what baby looks like:



Seated Baby Scut file

I am moving my downloadable files to Box.net which provides and easier downloading experience. Some of the older files are still on Mediafire, so please be sure you're downloading as "save as type" -- "all files".

I hope you enjoy and leave a message if you find the files useful!

Teacher Present!

My DD Hannah is finishing Grade 1, and just loves loves loves her teacher! We participated in the class present, but she wanted to give Miss L something special. So, we made the following little box together. It's stuffed full of Bernard Callebaut chocolates! Paper is K&C Urban Rhapsody, flowers are Prima, and tag is Making Memories tag curler.