Winners and Imagine Face Lift

Thank you all so much for celebrating with me this week!  I wish I had prizes for everyone, but alas there are only three - one for each year of blogging.

The winner of the Nursery Rhymes Cartridge is Jessica (who) said...

"Happy Blog-iversary!! Your get-together looks like fun and that salad...yummy!

Thanks for letting me celebrate with you!"

The winner of the Yourstory kit is Theresa (Scrapper69 who) said...
"OMGOSH Susan! I LOVE that book that was made! It's sooooo pretty using the Lori's Garden Cartridge! I Gotta make one! :o) Thanks for a chance to win a YourStory! :o)"

And finally, the winner of the CGull Cricut Tool Kit is Scrappin Dhilly (who) said...

"I'm going to steal that recipe from you, it looked delicious in your picture! What a fun week of giveaways and celebration! You are too generous, I really appreciate the opportunity to win!"

CONGRATULATIONS WINNERS!!!

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I mentioned an Imagine Face Lift in my title.  I was referring to the Cricut Imagine getting a face lift, not me imagining a face lift!!   The first photo below is the Imagine as it comes from the factory.  Note the grey trim on the white machine.

I took advantage of the new Imagine trim sale at Cricut dot com and purchased the pink trim set.  Check out my Imagine machine now!!!!  How cute is that pink trim on my Imagine machine???

Even better, look at the Imagine on the desk next to the Expression 2.  I have a splash of cricut colors going on in my scrap room!!!

Again, thank you for being here with me this week.  I really do enjoy blogging and sharing my love of paper crafting with you and I appreciate that you take the time to visit my blog and leave you thoughts!!!

You're Bewitching Digi Stamp Card

I would like to introduce you to Cassandra!  Cassandra is another of the Simply Betty Stamps (this version was another digital stamp) that my design team sister Donna enabled into my life.  You do know it is all Donna's fault that I purchased these digi stamps, right?  That is my story and I am sticking to it!!!

Cassandra is a bewitching little cutie wielding a magic wand and a black cat.  She is flirty in her curvaceous witchy garb and her flowing green locks.  Her eye shadow highlights her big blue lash rimmed eyes.  Cassandra is not one of those women with self esteem issues, she knows that she is simply BEWITCHING!

And with that sentiment in mind, I created a little tag to emphasize Cassandra's status, You're Bewitching!  I used Microsoft PowerPoint to create the circle sentiment with its witchy center.  The tag was cut out with a 1.5 inch circle punch.  The bottom layer of the tag was cut out with a 2 inch scalloped circle punch.

I used the Cricut Imagine to create the card layers.  I placed the colored stamp on the Imagine mat and with careful placement I cut out the digi image using one of the Imagine's basic shapes.  I then printed and cut the purple and green print layers using the Imagine More cartridge.  The bottom border layers were recolored and printed and cut also using the IM cartridge.

I completed the front of the card by adding a stamped flower, black rick-rick and a button to the bottom edge.  I mounted the purple layer onto a dotted Halloween paper before adhering the card front to the white card. 

The card was finished with a simple Happy Halloween stamp and a little happy spider.

Thank you for coming by today!!

Mini Monster Name Tags for the Office

Halloween is slowly working its way into our office area at work.  I have put up orange mini lights, a fall leaf garland and a few other odd and ends.  But this weekend I decided to make name tags to cover our door name plates.  Outside of each office is a plate that contains the office number and the first initial and last name of the office occupant.  For those in my area I crafted new name plate covers.

The little monsters should attach over top of the name section and leave the office number visible.  Our office is divided into quadrants and I did not feel obligated to make a character name plates for the rest of the office personnel, that would be far too many.  My area only has six people at the moment as some are on assignments out of the office and two people recently left.

The four Mini Monster characters here were cut using Mini Monsters with the Imagine cartridge on the Imagine machine.  It is possible to insert two cartridges into the Cricut Imagine at once, a regular Cricut cartridge (in this case Mini Monsters) and an Imagine cartridge.  You can then select an image (and the image layers) to cut and edit each layer.  For example, the Imagine provides to the opportunity to click on each layer of an image and change the color or pattern.  In the image above I cut the Susan tag in three layers - the base cut was colored goldish-orange, the second layer was colored white, and the top layer was colored black.  The Imagine printed and then cut my selections. It is a lot like the Cricut Expression, except instead of placing your color/pattern paper on the mat and cutting, you select your color or pattern electronically and the Imagine prints then cuts the image layers.

This final name plate was assembled then colored with Copic markers.  I also added discarded pieces from the previous characters, like the ribs and pelvic bones as well as the bones on which he is munching.

I will be back tomorrow with another new project to share.  Thanks for stopping by today.

What do you Mean I am Creepy?

My friend Donna is an enabler!  She introduces me to all sorts of fabulous paper crafting products and I end up loving each and every one.  Donna's latest enable are these fabby Simply Betty Stamps!  I discovered a sale at SBS and purchased four or five of the digital stamps.  This card features stamps from two different catagories, but I like them together.  This is Spiderella and James!  (Doesn't James look like a snoot next to our flirty little Spiderella)?

Before I get too wrapped up into today's project I need to interrupt myself for a moment!  I have been aware over the last week or so that my number of followers was near a new milestone.  But yesterday, Monday, the coveted 1000th follower clicked to follow my blog!!!  Thank you Stacy Armer for being my 1000th follower (you will be receiving a cute set of printable stamps from The Cutting Cafe).  AND - a BIG thank you to the other 999 of you for helping me reach this milestone. 

So now back to the card.  In the photo above I would like to introduce you to Spiderella.  She is a sassy little Halloween elf with a hefty does of flirtatiousness and personality!  She was colored with Copic markers, which were great for bringing out the green highlights in her complexion as well as defining her girly curves.

And this dear fellow is James.  James is a nearly perfect Victorian gentleman with his green locks and snooty stature.  What James was doing in this grave yard we will never know. But we do know that he is playing hard to get with our little Spiderella. 

The digital stamps were cut out and matted on to labels printed and cut with the Cricut Imagine.  I am really starting to love my Imagine... So many options; so many fun features!!  I affixed the matting layers to a black 5.5 x 5.5 black card.

Spiderella seems not to understand why James would have a less than stellar opinion of her asking, "What do you mean I am creepy?"   The sentiment was printed on white card stock them punched with a 2 inch scalloped punch.  The back layer was punched in dark, dark gray cardstock with a 2.25 inch scalloped punch.  The flower in the center of the sentiment was hand trimmed and stamped with a swirl stamp prior to being finished with a dark gray button.

This card and its unfolding story was so fun to make that I decided to dress up the inside also.  I added a white inset card and a strip of Halloween paper across the top of the card.  A black tag embellished with another button centered stamped flower was added.  I finished the card with a Happy Halloween sentiment stamp and a cute spider in the signature area.

Thank you for dropping by today and I will be back with quick project tomorrow.  While you are blogging, how about going by Regina's Cutting Cafe and checking out her printable stamps??

Birthday Bag and Tag set for BBTB2

 
Happy Monday!  Today I am sharing my latest Bitten by the Bug 2 project, a Happy 3rd Birthday gift bag and tag set.  The challenge cut this week at BBTB2 is the barn from the Old West cartridge.  As I do not own Old West I used George & Basic Shapes to build the barn in Cricut Design Studio.  I do this occasionally when I do not have the correct cartridge.

The barn was built using a square, a triangle, and several rectangular shapes from George all welded together in Design Studio. The barn doors were build with a square and welded rectangular strips.  Bazzill teal cardstock was used to cut the roof and door trim. A rusty brown Bazzill cardstock was used for the barn doors and decorative strip.  The barn was cut on a piece of Imagine printed cardstock.  I placed white cardstock in the Imagine and from the basic shapes I selected a large square.  I edited the shape to fill-in with this great orange print from the Imagine More cartridge.  I then cut the barn bottom layer from the orange print.

Using the Cricut Imagine More cartridge I cut this adorable cow in two layers, body and head.  I printed her and added her to the edge of the barn using pop dots.

I printed and cut the phrase Moo-mories from the Imagine More cartridge twice.  I trimmed away the "-mories" sections and only kept the word Moo.  I attached the words to the upper section of the barn.

Again using the Imagine More cartridge, I cut three pieces for the tag above.  I selected the colors/patterns and then cut the three shapes.  I used the Cricut Expression to cut the "Happy 3rd Birthday" and name phrase from George.  The letters were first welded in Design Studio. I used liquid glue dots to affix the letters to the tag.

I made a quick trip to Target and purchased a gift bag in shade of blues to blend with my barn, tag and cow colors.  I affixed the the barn and cow layer to the side of the bag and used two of the ribbon streamers to tie the tag to the bag.

I will be back tomorrow with a quick Halloween project to share.  Have a good Monday!

Epic Card with Imagine and JT

I know this is not my usual paper craft style, but I am putting this out here anyway.  This Epic card was created with the Cricut Imagine and the Cricut Imagine JT cartridge.  I also used an Imagine pre-loaded shape as the background mat.  And in keeping with my theme of Imagine elements, I also printed the background paper from the JT cartridge.

There are so many things I could share about how wonderful the Cricut Imagine is to work with, but today I am going to focus on just one particularly appealing aspect of the Imagine.  My friend Susan from Seneca said that she loves the Imagine because all of the papers and colors on a single cartridge are already coordinated for her!  She likes knowing that the selections she makes will all look wonderful together in her completed projects.

 

In this specific project I chose the flourish accented skull and the wing accented word Epic as my main elements.  Using the layers feature on the Imagine, I split the skull cut into layers and recolored the top layer, the face, with the skull print paper on the JT cartridge.  I thought it would be more striking if the skull had skull print.  I will say that you loose a few details when you cut the skull alone, but it is worth it for the layered effect.

 

I cut the word Epic using only two layers.  You can actually choose to cut this piece in four layers, but I liked the overall print better.  I cut this in two layers so that I could layer to two pieces.  The headphones were cut as a single layer.  I did not want the headphones to over power the skull. 

The photo above shows the inside of the card.  I used just a top layer of the skull with a larger set of headphones.  This leaves plenty of room for personalizing the card.  I see this card as a potential birthday card for one of my sons (both have birthdays in the next 60 days).  While one son is very into music the other often uses the word Epic!  Alas, there will be choices to make....

After layering the elements together I added think black and white gingham ribbon over the tag matting, but under the skull flourish.  I tied the to strips of ribbon together with rough twine.  I added a touch of the twine around the i in epic.  I actually tried using wire as an embellishment for this card, but it blended together too well and there was no POP effect.

I will be back tomorrow to share an on-going project with you.  See you tomorrow.

Imagine Out of the Box Party

What a fun evening!  MFK (my friend Kathy), Suzanne, Beth and I got together to open the Imagine box.  It was so difficult to ignore that big box in my entry way all afternoon!  But I knew they would be disappointed if I started without them so I waited. 

Most of the scrapping girlfriends had busy evenings, but three of them managed to make time to see the Imagine.  Peggy was busy with the Greek Festival and Pat was off to the Tenn vs GA football game and Toby had a date with her hubby.  Poor Beth came over after teaching all day and then working the homecoming carnival.  What a woman!

We started by unpacking the Imagine, and then the software needs an update.  We followed the instructions for set up and inserted the printer cartridges during the wait time.

 Finally we got down to business.  I loaded the Imagine's JT cartridge and selected the guitar cut.  I made several other selections and then we tried our first print and cuts.

 I glanced up to find MFK fixated on the Imagine and just had to get a quick photo of her intrigue.

 

 Of course she got even in spades!  There were a lot of less than flattering photos of me playing with the Imagine.  In the photo above Suzanne is reading the manual and I am reading the LCD screen.

Loading the second sheet of cardstock to start the word cuts.

Showing off our first cuts, two guitars and a tag (I chose the tag paper from the JT patterns).   And what did we do with those elements? 

 My first Imagine card!!  I layered the cuts using pop dots.  I scored the printed tag and after trimming, wrapped it around my base card.  I added gold trim, a touch of ribbon and gems using the I-Rock tool.

 Above and below are close ups of the cut elements.  The photo above shows how I used a micro tipped pen and added a black outline to the guitar.  I also used my white pen to add doodles to the card.

I am so looking forward to playing with the Imagine today... I may even read the manual myself first!!  :-)

News Flash!

I have to interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post to announce that my CRICUT IMAGINE machine that I received at the Provo Craft Gala in Chicago was just delivered via FedEx!!!  You do know what that means don't you??? An "Out of the Box" Party with  my scrapping girlfriends!!

Electronic invitations have been sent and the girlie-girls are RSVP-ing.  I am planning pizza and beverages and lots of Cricut Imagining!!! And yes, there will be photos.  Check back tomorrow for a full update on the Out of the Box party!!!

Introducing 24 New Cricut Imagine Cartridges

Have you been to the Cricut shopping site and viewed the 24 (!!) new Cricut Imagine cartridges?  I am quite impressed that there will be twenty four cartridges for the Imagine right away.  Good job, Provo Craft!!  In the interest of time and space, I am not going to share images of all  of the cartridges.  I am going to share a few of my favorites!!  Ohhh by the way, one of the cooler aspects of these cartridges is that you will have all of these paper patterns on hand to print anytime you want them!!!

There are 12 Art Cartridges:

Imagine More Cards, Snow Angel, Enjoy the Seasons, JT, Blast Off, Yummy, Nursery Tails, 

Lori's Garden, Country Carnival, Better Together, Best Friends, Imagine More

Enjoy the Season

Best Friends

Imagine More Cards

JT

Nursery Tails

Snow Angel

And here are 12 Color and Pattern Cartridges: 

Industrial Glow, Berries & Cream, Snapshot: Texture, Snapshot: Everyday, Snapshot: 

Nature, Mr. Frosty, Mystical Garden, Hopscotch, Elise, Audrey, Ancestry, Blossom

Mr. Frosty

Hopscotch

Audrey

NOTE: After Gaby's comment (thank you Gaby) I did some investigating. The facts are that the Imagine can print some Archival quality images on certain HP photo papers, but not on plain paper. I do not currently have an answer regarding the use of archival paper in the machine. Hummmm.