Shadow Box Frames...

have always been a favorite of mine.  I love the layering and visual depth they create when you use them.  While going through my stash of frames I keep on hand in my craft room I had forgotten just how many shadow boxes I had aquired. They were all styles and sizes and I stopped counting at 17.  But then like any good crafter always be prepared and if one is good then three is better.                            

I guess there is a little (bordering on a lot) of shopping OCD in all avid scrapbooking crafters. I have long ago stopped denying that I have enough supplies to craft through my life time and well into that of my granddaughters. But then an afternoon spent in my craft room with my granddaughters reminds my just how much joy this indulgence of mine brings to all of us.  It will create memories for them like it did for me when I spent time with my grandmother baking and canning in her kitchen.

Last week while in Joann's Crafts I found Spellbinders Grand Nestabilites on clearance for 70% off.  I have a number of smaller dies and the Grand Calibur but had never tried the larger dies. Much to my surprise I have the feeling these will get used more than I first thought and the price was just to good to pass up. Nostalgic stamps is another favorite I have collected but none of them are big enough to fill a 6x9 die cut so I scanned the stamped image and enlarged it to fit.  Printed on vintage color cardstock and a touch of mica watercolor I was pleased with the effect. I added a couple of glittery gilded ferns and this was the end result. Now to find the perfect place to hang them.

Brown and Cooper Accents

Green and Bronze accents.

A Little Motivation (or maybe a lot) ...

 What does it take to get those creative juices flowing enough to actually start being creative again? All those good intentions I have to spend the day or even an hour in my scrap room more often than not seem to  get side tracked. That is not to say I haven't done cards, school projects or baby shower props but not a single scrapbook page has crossed by table.  How sad is that.  My laptop dying was a real wake up call.  When I went to reload all my programs on the new one it brought it all home how much I had been neglecting my craft.  Reloading my favorites Make The Cut and Sure Cuts Alot  reminded me how much Provocraft doesn't play well with third party software.  But checking out another new cutting machine will become a whole different chapter.  Provocraft customer service was more than pleasant and helpful with reloading and updating a new Design Studio though.  Inkscape was like riding a bike, a little rusty at first but you realize it all comes back when you start peddling. Inkscape is like having canvas and paints where the end results are limitless. I can think of so many new things I want to turn into cut files.  

Photo editing and desktop publishing programs were next.  Up date the old standards and/or try new ones? I did add another photo editor, Corel Paint Pro X4 (it has a fantastic easy use plug-in for some great filters) plus I had used a much older version in the past and liked it.  Serif Page Plus X6  Desktop publisher  is another I added (I still have to make time to play with this one). Now I still need to replace my old font viewer with a new font manager to access the growing collection of almost 4000 font files I don't want to actually install in windows.  All said and done I now have a new scrap room laptop ready for business. Here we go again!

This is of course my granddaughter Jayla 

who has always been one of my favorite scrap page subjects

I Can't beleive it'a been so long...

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 months since my last the last post and the last page I scrapped.  Not sure how I got so side tracked or so uninspired to create anything new. It's not that I haven't taken new pictures,  heck I even bought a new Nikon D3100 digital SLR camera last fall.  2010 seemed to be a year of changes and checks and balances, some subtle and some not so subtle, LOL. Then last week my daughter brought me a project she wanted me to make.  She was going to a baby shower for her friend we have known since they were kids.  The baby's name is going to be Noah and the nursery theme is Noah's Ark.  She requested I make a shadow box of the Ark to go with the bedding she had bought from Baby's R Us.  She brought over a shadow box that was 16x20 showed me the picture of the quilt to get the basic idea of colors and style.  With help from my daughter on what colors and animals this is what I came up with. The ark and Noah are from SVG's I made in Inkscape and cut with Make the Cut.  The animals were cut with Cricut using Animal Kingdom. 

I cut individual planks for the bottom of the ark and layered them on a solid piece. I raised the pieces of the top and bottom of the boat off the mat to give depth to the inside of the port holes and windows.

The animal heads were raised with foam dots to give them some depth as well. All but Noah and the whales were cut with the Animal Kingdom cartridge. The ark, waves and cloud were done with MTC.

Well I may be in trouble now.  I found myself in Joann's picking out paper stacks and found a few new EK punches. Did I mention K & Company has some gorgeous embellishments I couldn't resist.  OMG I think the scrapping bug has returned!

Side tracked again...

My grand daughter spent the night last weekend and we rented movies. Twilight just happened to be one of them.  I have seen all the cut files and heard the buzz but had never seen the movies. We enjoyed the movie and  then of course we had to watch New Moon. I find if I enjoy a movie I always end up reading the book as well. Four Twilight books later I am waiting to see the new Eclipse movie in June, go figure.  Well I finally got back to putting together the Alice in Wonderland layout I had spread out on my scrap table for more than a week. I made the White Rabbit about three inches and it was a bit tricky to work with so  many small pieces but he turned out OK after I finished I think.  I want to try a larger one so I can get more detail on it. I did end up removing most of the scrolls on Alice's leaves for the smaller cut version as well. The links for the cut files for the Rabbit and Alice are below for anyone that would care to use them.

Alice

White Rabbit

A Beautiful Sunny Sunday...

It was such a gorgous day out today.  Sunshine always lifts my spirits and I just love the smell of spring.  Today I went to see the Time Burton and Johnny Depp movie, Alice in Wonderland. I went with my one of my daughter's and four of my grand kids. We did the 3D version and it was all I could do not the laugh during the movie looking over at my three year old grandson.  He was wearing those big black plastic 3D glasses trying to keep them up and eat popcorn at the same time. I loved the movie but then I always enjoy Johhny Depp in Tim Burton's movies. The movie gave me an idea for an Alice layout. So I went through my my digital color book pages and pulled out a couple Alice in Wonderland images to break down with Inkscape. I want to cut them in soft colors and use paper from Prima's Nursery Tales stack. I will try to share the cuts in the next couple days.  I just want to make the cuts before I do.  I find sometimes when there are alot of smaller pieces you have to make some adjustments and I want to make sure they cut before I post them.

Staying out of the craft stores…

My challenge to myself this past month is to stay out of the craft stores. It is quite impossible for me not to come out with a roll of ribbon, a paper stack or some little something that caught my eye. I’m like a magpie with shinny objects. I seem to have accumulated more paper and crafty things than I will most likely ever use in my life time LOL.  I have a habit of spending my lunch hour at Tuesday Morning, Michael’s, Joann’s or the LSS that are all five minutes from work. I have come the conclusion that my brain is not wired to just window shop. It has the over whelming desire to buy. In the effort to break this habit I have been bringing my laptop to work and spending my lunch hour creating or cleaning up cut files. So far so good, I have only slipped once last weekend. I found Fisker’s 7x7 inch clear stamp sheets at Dollar Discount; I bought 5 sheets because even I couldn't pass that up. This is today’s lunch hour file, hope someone can use it. The file contains the double heart mat and all the items on it, click here to open the download.

Happy Easter...

Well it's Easter Morning in Michigan and the sun is shinning so it looks like it will be a great day for an egg hunt.  Nothing worse than hunting eggs in the rain, or even the snow LOL.  So I guess I need to get my two most important things done for today. The ham in the oven and my batteries charged for lots and lots of pictures.  Each year around this time my daughters take all the kids to get group pictures, with a theme.  Last year it was madras shorts and polo tops.  This year the theme is going to be preppy boys and the girls are an 80's version of Madonnaesqe outfits.  Can't wait to see how these gems turn out. They always are scrapbook heaven for me.  My daughter deciding she needed over shirts with sparkly cupcakes on them couldn't find the right ones anywhere. We ended up making them ourselves.  I made patterns using cupcake cut files and appliqued them on.  The girls had fun coloring their patterns for test placement.  All and all it was a fun afternoon yesterday and we even had time to make Peep pops from dipped pretzels and marshmallow peeps.

Yo Gabba Gabba...

 I remember when my children were Sesame Street enthusiasts. Then came my youngest (who is thirteen years younger) and it became the Rug Rats.  Well I watch my three year old grandson on Friday's so now it is Yo Gabba Gabba.  Funny how the names and characters change but their enthusiasm for them remains the same.  Now instead of putting in a VHS tape so we can watch anytime it's  push the DVR button.  Time passes but kids remain a constant, LOL. I ran across a request on the message board looking for these characters and I remembered a couple of months ago my grandson and I sat at my computer and I made cut files for him.  He loves to pick characters from his favorite shows and watch me create the cut files to make for him.  I haven't cut these guys yet but did plan to use to make a book to incorporate my grandsons pictures with the characters using my Your Story.  So many projects never enough time in the weeks lately. I thought someone else might enjoy doing a project the these cute little critters so I'd like to share.  I would love to see what anybody does with them. Just click their names for the files.

FOOFA

TOODE

MUMO

PLEX

BROBEE

YO GABBA GABBA

Forever Young...

There are so many recent releases for the Cricut as of late, I am forever lost to keep up buying the ones I like.  Forever Young is one of them I just can't resist.  I love the cuts from this cart.  Heritage is another that was hard to resist and my granddaughters love the new Princess cart.  So much for cutting back on my spending there are just way to many. Thank you so very much Provocraft for keeping the dust from gathering on my Visa, LOL.  I have finally come to a solution that I am only going for the ones  that tie in with my style of scrapping.  OK and maybe just a few that the grand daughters seem to think I can't do without. This layout was done with cuts from the Forever Young cart, one that both the girls and I found to be a must have.

Files a little old, a little new...

Well two days and hopefully that darn groundhog will see no sign of his shadow. I am really tired of winter no mater how pretty fresh snow looks. It has been so cold out lately here in Michigan. So its seems I have been doing more making cut files than cutting them the last couple weeks.  I love to sit on on my couch on the cold nights at the end of a long day with my lap top and play.  I really don't know what I ever did before Inkscape, LOL.  When I was saving a couple cuts I found the file for 'Love Opens All doors'.  I had posted the layout on December 28th but didn't share the file because I thought I had mistakenly deleted it. So for anyone who still would like to use it you can find the link Here. The door knob was made from a large gold button I found in my stash

This is a new cut file for a layout in progress so I thought I would share it now for anyone who might like to try it. I have been using silhouettes long before Cricut came out with A Child's Year and Heritage.  Silhouettes have always been one of my favorite cuts. The cut file for all seasons and titles are HERE.

Happy Belated New Year...

I should have been toasting but instead I was just wishing to be toasty 'warm'.  New Years Eve around 6 pm sitting in my scraproom I was thinking my feet were getting a bit nippy.  My first thought was maybe I need to put my fuzzy slippers on.  I got up to get my slippers and check the thermostat and it said 62.  I keep my house on the cool side but not that cool.  Now mind you I had been on vacation for the previous ten days, could it act up during that time?  No it has to wait til a holiday, and according to furnace repairman a three day holiday at that.  My three grand kids were due over at 9 pm to toast in the new year, or should I say to chill out with me, LOL. Luckily I did have a large ceramic heater that we use for the garage or emergencies when needed.  I live ranch style home so we just closed of all the unoccupied rooms, put on extra socks and a sweatshirt and toasted the New Year in with a pajama party in the middle of the living room.  Kids are so resilient, they had a ball and I got lots of pictures to scrap when my scraproom is warmer than 56 degrees.  The repairmen didn't come until Saturday morning so I spent half my weekend under my snuggy on the couch playing with my files on the laptop.  Seeing as I didn't get to post new any files I found this one.  It is an older layout I had posted before but had never posted the cut file to go with it.  I cut my Reading Fairy at about 8 inches so the pieces were fairly easy to work with. She is one my favorite pieces I think I have done this past year. I hope you enjoy her if you should decide to use the cut file. May 2010 be a wonderful year for everyone.

Ever have one of those days...

when nothing seems to go right in your scraproom.  The cuts don't go right, you drop the little cut that's about the size of a micro dot under the table.  You know those days, we all have them.  I had a digital stamp that I had started to convert to an svg sitting in my to do folder.  I decided today I would finish it up so I could use it in my layout.  It took some work to get it cleaned up the way I wanted it but I really love the finished cut.  Lots of tiny pieces always seem to go better on a day when everything else isn't messing up though, LOL.  I even pulled out my Tim Holtz stamp pads and glimmer mist and did a couple tags.  I had made my own glimmer mist a couple of months ago and this was the first time I used it. It's to pretty even though it doesn't really show in the picture.  So after playing with a little bit of this and a little bit of that in the scraproom most of the day this is the only layout I ended up with. The mess I made is a whole other story, It looks like I should have gotten at least five layouts done.  Click here for the svg for the suitcase.

Testing, Testing...

A week ago there was some new buzz on the Cricut message board about a new program called Making the Cut.  It appeared to be along the same lines as SCAL (Sure Cuts Alot) a program I use currently use to cut all my SVG's with after putting them together in Inkscape. I down loaded the trial version and was impressed with the early stages of the program, it looks quite promising and easy to use. Needless to say I bought it due to the fact Andy the guy behind this program seems to be really on his toes and working diligently to get his new product up and going with all the bells and whistles everyone is looking for.  It imports SVG's and other image formats right into the program so they can be moderately adjusted and then cut.  This will work great for a large number of my library images and SVG's I have compiled.  I love that it lets me view the SVG files within the program prior to opening them on my mat. The same with viewing the fonts and moving, adjusting and welding text is a breeze.  Already in the works is the ability to shadow text, which is a must for me.  I know alot of the buzz is people are excited to be able to bypass Inkscape or a simular program but I don't find that the case for me.  I love Inkscape and the ability to rework entire images to get what I want and then save as an SVG to be cut within programs like SCAL or MTC.  This is a quick layout I cut with MTC to give it a test run.  The cuts were precise and it did well on the more intricut filigree pieces.  Kudos Andy I think you've got a winner!  The cut file for the pieces used have been saved in both SVG and MTC formats.

Following time...

I have become our family's unofficial photo journaler.  The keeper of our photographic memories.  This small piece of tradition was started purely by accident.  I was doing a birth announcement for my granddaughter Zoe. I love the look of black & whites,  I think black & white photos have a way of taking away the distraction of color and emphasizing the content of a picture.  I had matted the 5x7 photo I used for the announcement in an 8x10 frame and my daughter loved it.  After that I would go through the pictures taken on Zoe's birthday each year, choose one, make a black and white 5x7 then frame it. This year when I asked my daughter what was on her list of things she wanted for Christmas she included her yearly photo of Zoe.  Looking a the previous years hanging on her wall I had an idea.  The first photo was done before I owned my Cricut Expression so it was just plain black matted and the subsequent years followed the same format.  This year I wanted to try something different so I added a bit of design to the corner of my mat and added one word in white that the picture brought to mind and used a diamond jewel for the dot on the i in beautiful.  I liked how well it turned out so I 'borrowed' the ones off her wall and redid all the matting.  She loved them, so I guess now my tradition has been officially updated.  I had to laugh when my daughter said Mom you are going to run out of words.  I told her not a chance, with a wonder like my sweet Zoe there will never be enough pictures to even begin to use all the words.