Saturday, March 20, 2010

Cricut Tips - save paper - try ghost cutting first

If you are like me and you aren't sure which way the cut you are about to make is going to cut... i.e. you set the dial for 4" but you aren't really sure whether that's vertical or horizontal, instead of wasting paper, try ghost-cutting. Just set your blade depth to 1 and your pressure to minimum, select the size you want to cut, select your image and then press cut. Just watch as the Cricut "ghost cuts" your image. If everything looks good, then reload your mat or just push the load mat, change your blade depth and pressure to the appropriate number for what you are cutting and then proceed as normal. I like doing this especially if I'm using scrap paper for layers just to make sure I've got the correct size.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Secret Sister revealed

so I guess I'm not as sneaky as I thought and my secret sister totally guessed who I was ;-) She seemed to really like her Rooster memo board.

Had a good time and ate lots of good mexican food. I had a pretty good idea of who my "secret sis" was and I was right. Allie was very good to me all year.

Ok signing off for tonite.

My Deal of the Week at Big Lots ;)

I was at my local Big Lots last weekend and while browsing through the crafting aisle I notice these trimmer up on the top shelf. I remembered seeing these advetised on TV and in catalogs for something like $25 to 30 dollars. So at $10 - I couldn't resist. What I totally LOVE is the way you swap out the blades. I don't know about you guys, but changing out the blades in my Fiskars trimmer is like taking my life in my own hands! I've had to have a first aid kit standing by and my hubby finally bought me a little tool kit with pliers to keep me from slicing and dicing my fingers... which can really cause problems for someone who types all day long and plays the piano :) anyway- check out the video if you want to see it in action..... BTW I noticed my videos that I've posted are smaller than the youtube version, after you click the play button, if you click on the video box again it will open a new window and you can view it on youtube where it's a little larger... still learning this stuff.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Have Your Cake and Eat it, Too - Birthday Card info

I used the Sweat Treats Cricut Cartridge for the front of my card- found on page 60. This took several tries to get it close to the example, and there is probably a better way to get to that color scheme, however, by cutting it a couple of times in the different colors it did end up with a dimentional look (without using dimentionals)
I cut the following at 4" setting
yellow cardstock (shift) Shadow/blackout
red cardstock (noshift) normal key
pink cardstock (shift) Layers key
chocolate cardstock (shift) normal key

I think that's it - if anyone can figure out a better way to cut this without so many cuts, I'd love to hear about it :)
thanks again for watching,
Twila

March 10, 2010 3:44 PM

40th Birthday Card using Hallmark Card Studio 2010

Monday, March 8, 2010

Refurbish your Cricut Mats

you may have heard about the Crafter's companion "Stick Away" and "Stick and Spray" solution to extending the life of your mats. I am confirming this WORKS! I ordered them both back in December, got the Stick & spray right away but the Stick Away the removes all the yucky stuff from your mat and creates a smooth surface ready for new adhesive has been on back order until last week. I FINALLY got a chance to use these products. They are super easy to use and it really does work. The gals at Custom Crops says you can refurbish your mats 48 times with just 1 can of each. I can't confirm that but I can confirm that it takes only a couple of minutes for the process from beginning to end. While waiting for my backorder I became impatient and tried to use a Krylon adhesive remover and not only did it take the yuck from my mat it also was so strong it took all the lines and everything else off. The Stick Away is perfect it removes only what you want and leaves your cricut grid lines. I'll keep track of how many times I get to refurbish with the 1 can of each and keep you posted ;)