Happy holidays to everyone...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  Our family was blessed with a wonderful Christmas day gathering yesterday.  It always seems the more children present the more festive the day is. My three year old grandson, who totally believes in Santa, was a delight to watch.  Today I find myself still full from to much good food and still content for time well spent with family, so I thought I'd relax and spend the afternoon in my craft room.  This year my two daughter's put in their request for presents from my craft room and I must admit I had fun doing these projects.  One was a shadow box for my oldest daughters bathroom.  She wanted a picture to tie into the theme she had used but couldn't find anything she liked that matched in the stores.  So with the help of my eight year old granddaughter as creative consult on  the paper selection and trims this is what we came up with. 

The shadow box is 10x20 inches and the items in it are layered at various heights to make it look 3D, like it is standing in a room. The corset is cut from 2 layers of pearlized paper then trimmed with satin ribbon, lace and flat backed pearls.  I added gel pen stitching and gathering on the gathers to give it a bit more dimension.  My cut file was done in Inkscape and cut with SCAL2.  Although I love the ease of all my Cricut cartridges I find I gravitate back to using Inkscape to get those really individual cuts I need.  I very recently bought the new program called Making the Cut and so far I must say I really like the ease of it.  I have yet to make a cut with it due to getting ready for Christmas but will try giving it a work out this week.  If anyone wants the cut file for my shadow box I would love to share.  Here are the links to the SVG - Corset & Stand, SCAL2 both layers. If anyone would like the MTC version I will be testing that out in the next couple days so let me know. 

It has been far to long since I've posted or just relaxed and crafted these past months.  Life just seems to keep getting in the way sometimes.  You think I would  have learned by now taking time to scrap  is the best stress reliever there is for me.  My doctor should just tell me to take 2 asprin, make 1 layout and call him in the morning.  LOL.

Don't You Just Love Tilda...

I have been playing with Inkscape again this past weekend.  I find late at night when I'm watching movies I love to sit and play with Inkscape.  I have four granddaughters and two daughters so I have plenty of little girl pictures to work with.  Looking for some images to convert I came upon a large selection of Tilda images that were perfect for what I was looking for.  Well one image led to two to ten and so on.  Now I have a whole collection of Tilda's to cut.  I think she is adorable.  These are some of the ones I've finished so far.  I've yet to test cut them because I'm not sure what pic's I am using and need to color coordinate them.  Detailing them will almost be like playing with paper dolls. I will try to get the cuts made and some of the files posted this week.  I still have another bench, a window and awning etc... and more Tilda's.  I will try to post them as well.

Still sorting out cut files...

and it seems to be a never ending process. I am finding so many files I had forgotten about and a lot of them I want to tweak now that I've become more proficient with Inkscape (and still learning everyday). For those of you learning Inkscape might want to check out Mary's tutorials over at Mardenz blogspot. Her tutorials are great and her cut files are never ending. You will be like a kid in a candy store there are so many to check out, LOL. I really do need to stop playing with cut files and get back to working on my scrapbook pages. I'd like to share a couple simple files of mine I found. I love to read and just love the look of books on a shelf. They are a window to the world and imagination without ever leaving the cozy comfort of comfy chair on a rainy day. I always encouraged my kids to read for enjoyment starting when they were small and we bought endless shelves of books. With today's technology it seems so many kids rather put in a DVD. But in doing that they lose the unique feeling of getting lost in a tale that comes alive in their minds eye.

Girl With Book and Comfy Chair links should you care to use them.

Faeries, Pixies and little enchanted creatures...

are such a favorite of mine. I have always been enchanted by mystical creatures. I always loved to loose myself in books like Lord of the Rings when I was younger and let my visual imagination run. Now you can watch all the creatures you imagined come to life via DVDs. Isn't technology grand? The people who create the costumes and makeup leave me in awe. You can almost feel like you are there. Then there are the ageless gems like Tink who is loved by all generations. Faeries seem to hold the ability to bring enchantment and lightness of the heart to anyone who can let them into their imagination. With four granddaughters imagination is never in short supply at my house. The grandsons seem to lean more toward the trolls, go figure. All this being said I'd like to share these files from my fairy collection with everyone.
















These were done with Inkscape and imported at 12x12 into SCAL. There are a lot of pieces and I cut my shadow in black and all the rest in white card stock and used Cats Eye chalks to color them. They were cut about six inches high. The wings with highlighted with matching glitter. Every fairy needs fairy dust. Click here for the file.


Here is the file for the Reading fairy as well from July 21st post as well.

Organization can lead to obsession...

well I seem to have gotten lost in organizing my cut files as of late. About five weeks as of late LOL. It seems to have all started when I couldn't find a cut file on my laptop and from there I was knee deep in virtual files. I decided to add a jpeg file to match all my saved Inkscape files so I didn't have to open them to see what the were. At least with Design Studio files if you open them up in DS you can look at the file. So I was on a mission and have yet to complete it all. I think I'm at somewhere around 1500 files and counting between all the programs. I have been trying to tag the ones I have gotten from other people so when I use them I can give them credit due for their hard work. I will say one thing I have gotten from this is I have become much more proficient in Inkscape and that in itself has been worth it. So today I decided to test cut 5 of the files I had made and I will try to post all this week along with the file should anyone care to try them. Well here is my first cut file and it's done with SCAL. I love vintage and this reminds me of warm memories of my girls when they were small with books and stuffies and wonderful imaginations. It is set for 12x12 to be imported to SCAL. Here is the link to the cut file if you care to use it.

Reading Fairy Tales...

is a joy at any age. I have always loved to sit and read with my kids and grand kids when they were small. Fairy tales have always been a favorite. Now I seem to have found a way to bring them to life at least with paper. What could be more adorable than a little pink fairy on a stack of shinny books and a pastel picture of my beautiful granddaughter reading. My fairy was cut with my Cricut Expression using SCAL and Inscape, She originated from an online coloring book page by E Dulemba.

I want to say thank you...

to Lesley of http://las-cricut.blogspot.com/. So many times I sit down to work with Inkscape and and just end up frustrated. I finally give up because I can't get it to do what I want when I want it to do it. There are two videos on her blog, part one and part two for Inkscape. They are simple, informative and easy to follow. Now I have watched videos and read instructions but Lesley's just clicked for me. I sat wondering just how I struggled some days at what now seems to be so easy. Although I must say I still can not get two nodes to join, LOL, but going back and cleaning up the jpeg works just fine for the most part. Well needless to say I spent my whole weekend playing with Inkscape and I ended up with lots of new cut files to play with. This is the first file I cut but I am not quite finished with the layout she goes on. I made her about ten inches to go on the side of my page. I will post the layout hopefully in the next day or so.

Roll On...

Finally this is the first layout I have finished since May. It felt good to sit down and play with paper again. My grand daughters take skate lessions every Saturday and last month was the recital. They have such fun, even my two year old grand son puts on skates and gets pulled around. When I went to look for a cut file for skates I found I really didn't have one that matched the rolladium style skates. So I hit the web for pictures and opened up SCAL and came up with these. I cut two skates and just layered them. For some extra dimension I punched holes and laced them with ribbon. I set up a 4 shared account and will post the cut file there for anyone with SCAL that would like to use it. Just click here for download. This will be a first so I hope I can get it to work. Thanks for visiting.

A little challenge for motivation...

Do you find yourself more motivated when you do a challenge. I know for myself it always seems to give me a little direction to channel my creativity in or a little boost when mine is at a lull. This is a challenge from Visual Designs by Chris. This layout was done with SCAL. I used his embellishment cut for my hinges. I cut the first one attached to the frame and layered the second with pop dots and brads to give it a dimensional look. My intention for this page was to resemble an old book cover. The picture is one of my grand daughter regally posing in one of the gowns I made for her dress-up trunk.

Family history albums...

A family history album is one of the most important scraping projects you can do. Since last fall I have been working on a family history heritage album. It started one afternoon when my grandson was spending the weekend with me and we were going through old family photos. My grand parents and parents have passed from my life and with them a many pieces of our family history. It made me realize that so many of the family memories I hold will be gone as well when I am no longer here. If I don't save them for my family they will be lost forever. It's a much bigger undertaking than I had originally thought when you start adding in great aunts, cousins etc. Heritage style layouts have always been my favorite to work on, they seem to be the ones I always gravitate back to. I love all the antique looking bits and pieces that can be added. In a way they are not unlike an antique dresser top fill with assorted treasures. This is another cut using my Expression and SCAL. I love the way that the Expression allows you to cut an entire 12x12 page.

Silhouettes done with SCAL...

This week I have been playing with my SCAL program again. These are a couple of silhouettes I found among the down loaded fonts on my computer. Butterflies and fairies have always been a favorite of mine. The cuts turned out so well I didn't want to waste them so I made cards. Both cards are cut 5 1/2 x 7 1/2.