Getting the juices flowing

I know I have not posted in awhile. All this rain is making my depression worse. I have upped my meds and gotten a Happy Light.....yes, light therapy.....it works.

So I finally got back to my crafting table. I still have no desire to scrap yet. I need something to spark my creativity there. But I did create something. Something that I truly love. I think you will love it too. This has definitely got my creative juices flowing.....

Beaded Floral Mug: "Bloom"Each stem is individualy beaded and twisted with a beautiful glass bead. A couple floating butterflies flutter around this little floral arrangement.Added to the mug is the word, "bloom." It was designed using the Cricut Gypsy. The word is from the Gypsy Wanderings cart, and it is colored using a pattern from the Nursery Tails Imagine Cartridge. Then it was cut and print on printable vinyl using the Imagine. A small paper flower and another glass bead are attached.

I will be adding these to my Etsy shop and they will be customizable and go for $20 each. They are the perfect Mother's Day gift, birthday gift, etc. They can hang on a wall, I have added mine to a my bulletin board, or they are available with magnets to hang just about anywhere. A clip to add a picture can be added as well.

Please let me know what you think!

A project for the day after the party.....

Hi there! A little note before I get started:
Excuse me if this post sounds a little off. I have had a half a bottle of Champagne to myself. Of course a great project came out of this so just bear with me! ;o)Isn't this just the cutest??

Day after the party:
Step one: Find the discarded cork from the wine or Champagne. If needed, shave the bottom so that it lays flat.

Step two: Create little things to adorn your cork. In this case I used a flower that I made using the new Mother's Day Bouquet Cricut Cartridge and colored the flowers on my Imagine using the Nursery Tails Cartridge. I added a little ink to the edges for some dimension. I also used a word, "smile," from a chipboard sticker set.
To the back of these items I attached a piece of wire. Using my paper piercing tool, (ouch,) I poked 3 holes in the cork and put in the wired objects.

Step three: Tie a cute little bow around the the cork, and voila! DONE!! Isn't just too cute.

I think this this would make a nice little present topper, or a teacher gift. Something the kids could make for Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, a birthday! You could add a little photo to put on your desk at work......the possibilities are endless!

Thanks for stopping by!

Does it change anything?

Oh, I think it does.

What in the world am I talking about? The Cricut Imagine of course. It changes EVERYTHING. I no longer have to search for the perfect embellishment, I just print and cut it. Need a particular color card stock? Yep, I just print it right out. With patterns and colors that coordinate completely, and the fact that I can add those colors and patterns to any one of the 1000's of images and fonts on other Cricut cartridges, the possibilities are nearly endless.

Will I scrap like this all the time? As much of a time saver it is, the answer would still be no. I still like the "hunt" for the perfect page finisher. I still LOVE to shop. There are still plenty of lines out there to love, and until I can download them to my Imagine, I will forever be buying.

(this layout was design from a sketch from pagemaps.com)

Both of the above layouts have great dimension to them, but achieved in different ways. One of the reasons I love the Imagine is the fact that the layers can be broken down and printed and cut seperately. In the first layout above I layered the individual pieces with pop dots for dimension. In the bottom layout I used items that already had dimension, such as the Thickers, Chipboard, and the felt border.

So yes, the Imagine does change everything. For me though, everything is never enough!

Happy Scrapping!

My New Addiction

Ok after looking around the Cricut Message Boards today, I was totally inspired to give the printable vinyl a try. There were so many fantastic applications with this material. I wanted to start simple as I only had 1 12x12 sheet. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I hate decision making! LOL

I have been in the process of totally taking over our office in our house in an attempt to make the whole thing my scrappy safe haven. I have started taking my husband's things down and adding my own little touches. Bye bye NASCAR, hello little cute critters!

For my project today, I used the Nursery Tails Imagine Cartridge. In order to use as much of the page as I could and still get a few images I changed the paper size to 12x6 and only had the bird and branch on my screen. Then I clicked the 'fit to page' and it resized it to fit with in the 12x6 area. Then I did the same with the pond and the frog together so the relative size would stay the same for them. Next I cut the scraps down from the

usable vinyl that was left and had a sheet that was 5x3.5 and added the butterflies and dragonfly and again used the 'fit to page.' This worked really well and I would say that I used about 90% of the vinyl sheet.

I can't wait to have some more fun with this great material. Off to find somewhere cheap to get me some more! If you have a link to a cheap place, please share it here!

Just Imagine...

Just Imagine a layout coming together in minutes instead of hours. Just Imagine having everything you need to complete a layout in one place. Just Imagine everything coordinating perfectly. If you can Imagine all that then you have used the Cricut Imagine!

I love this new machine. I attempted my first layout last night using ONLY the Cricut Imagine. It can be done, and with awesome results! I used the Nursery Tails cartridge to complete this layout:
I cut the scalloped background from one of the images that come with the machine, and filled it with a patter from Nursery Tails. Then I cut the scalloped mat and also filled it with a color from the machine. I cut the "Sweet Dreams" out in layers at 3 inches, and multiplied the sheep x5. Next I cut the tag at 2.5 inches. I popped out a few of the pieces for added dimension. A little ribbon and a couple buttons and I was done. Literally in under an hour!

Can't wait to play with this amazing machine some more!