Cricut cuts with a difference

Well something different and thinking outside the square when using the Cricut.
Katie wanted the quilt for her new born I was making, to have a jungle theme with the colours that made it look 'jungle like' not pretty with silly coloured animals, so therefore the colours were dictated by that.

I immediately thought of my 'Animal World' cartridge but had never cut fabric on the Cricut before, it did present with a problem because I wasn't confident cutting out the animals with the visoflex (sticky stuff), on the back of it. So I changed my applique method, cut them bigger and allowed a 'tuck under' seam allowance so I rolled the edges under as I did the blanket stitching.

I used a different cartridge for the crocodile but I'm darned if I can remember which cart it was from but it was a few weeks ago that I cut them out and have too many carts to search through at this point, but I will do and update this post later.

Well I'll put the animal pics up and the full quilt and hopefully it will help some of you to have the courage to do something different.

Sorry for the long list but I wanted all the pics on my blog to remember it as I'll now delete the pics from the thousands that I seem to pile up on my computer.

Happiness is....

being able to have time to get online again, gosh after family visiting from America, my other daughter having a baby and a very sick pooch I thought I was never going to get around to scrapping again, then when I started and finally did something, my blogger was locking me out, anyway I'm back online and hopefully my blog will start rolling again now, although I have so much to do as I've just finished a quilt for my newest grandson William (Will) and now my other daughter is having a much wanted baby girl so I finally get to scrap pink and pretty, but also make a beautiful pink baby quilt...so where can I get more hours in the day?

This latest LO is of Bob and I with our Grandson William or Will to most and Billy to some hehehe..
We both love this photo of us with him so thought I would practice pretty again in readiness for the baby girl album to come.

For this page I used Cricut cartridges 'Heritage' for the gate, and 'Cindy Loo' for the scalloped circle with the vines and bird...although I must say I think that cute little bluebird that I thought it was on the screen actually looks more like a 'puffer fish' to me in reality oh well its there to stay. I thought I would use a mixture of Glimmer Mist's on this to make it blend in a little more and the blue bird is also Glimmer Mist with the face stamped on using a 'Peachy Keen' stamp. I also used 'Smooch' white spray for the chipboard working 'Happiness is..' and on the vine down the side I used a gold Glimmer Mist. Both of these chipboard elements along with the tag at the top which reads 'holding onto the things you love'...are from Dusty Attic another great Australian company, love their chipboard die cuts.

The whole lot of everything used on this page comes from one of my fav online stores 'Outback Scrapping' which by the name you can tell is also Australian, they have great monthly kits, you probably get 1 LO and a card or 2 from a kit but they aren't expensive at all so I am happy with that.

Well I am going to endeavour to pop in daily from now on and include more of my life in my blog, of course that life revolves around mainly scrapping anyway, along with a bit of quilting and a lot of my grandchildren so nothing much will change probably from what I'm doing.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day...

Layouts for the Cricutworld Blog

In trying to clean up Henry's 1st year album I realised I hadn't scrapped his Halloween pics. So went searching and found them thankfully so here they are.

Today....I've used the October 31 cartridge so much I don't think there is a cut on it I didn't use. We don't really celebrate Halloween much here in Australia so I get to enjoy it through my grandson in America. These pictures are of his 1st Halloween, so was more fun for mum and dad than Henry, sure he won't remember much about it but he will at least have these memories in my album...I thought because it is what I call the 'silly season', that I could go a bit over the top with these layouts and had a lot of fun doing them, hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I had fun doing them.

Very Exciting News!!

Had a great phone call from my daughter Erin yesterday from America. She is having her 2nd child in September, whatever it is a little brother for Henry or a little sister, it is going to be very loved and welcomed into the world by my Bob and I as our 3rd grandchild. With Katie's son due in only 4 weeks now...ooohh!! so exciting to have a grandchild here in the same country that we can actually babysit as often as required....to have it followed by another in only a few months after that brings me more happiness than I can put into words. Our beautiful sweet little Henry is going to have lots of instant playmates and can only dream of the years ahead to see them playing together. I feel we are truly blessed to have 2 such beautiful daughters and now to have 3 grandchildren.

Cards

Not much of a card maker but want to improve so keep trying different things. This lot of cards was done in a mad rush to supply some for a fund raising event the following day. Pretty basic but thought I'd put them up anyway, nothing special to explain about any of them other than I have used my Cricut whenever possible.

Like I said, just an example of a few cards done very quickly and easily, made for a fund raiser so didn't want to put too much on them so as they could be kept at a reasonable price to sell.

This one was done for a special person, so a little more time taken with the design and beautiful Christina Rea papers which I love. The embellishments were done using my Cricut and the beautiful 'Paper Lace' cartridge...just love it and will be using it a lot I'm sure.

Been busy scrapping

Well been neglecting my blog again. The reason is I have been making a really big attempt to catch up on my friends galleries and leave the comments they so deserve and I am happy that I have caught up on a lot of them but still have a little way to go.

Then yesterday, after an absence of 7 years my Vertigo Attacks returned, of course I was home alone and stuck downstairs, managed to crawl up so I could get the phone, but didn't need to ring anyone as it eventually came right, think I had been pushing myself too hard the night before making cards for a charity fund raiser. Tonight I was thinking I must have trodden on a toad or something because when I was in the middle of making Sushi for dinner I knocked the bottle of Olive Oil onto the floor in my pantry, along with a few other bottles of things, they smashed of course on the tiles, oil everywhere, can't begin to tell you what a rotten clean up job that was....moral of my day today...do not keep oil on the higher shelves because if you drop it, its going to take some casualties with it. To top that off I was half way through cleaning it up and I hear my dog being ill, yes, on the cream carpet so I had to drop one lot of cleaning products and grab a different kind aarghh!!! like I said..must have trodden on a toad. Poor old Murphy has continued to be ill and I am really worried about him....well time for bed and hopefully a happier and much more healthy pooch in the morning.

Tomorrow means I'm back to adding some scrapping items on here, been holding a few back for my group blog 'Cricutworld'.

An Occasional Card

I'm not big on making my own cards but trying to do a lot more by using my Cricut for inspiration.

This one is for my brother's b'day. He is about to retire and has a long held dream of getting a mobile home (RV I think they are called in USA), but is a bit concerned over whether it is the way to go or not, so thought I would them his card along that line and the words inside basically remind him that life is short and you should follow your dreams.

I used the Cricut Cartridge 'Going Place' for the Van and the cases, the cases represent my sister in-law's excess baggage, she is a bit like me and will find it difficult to only take what a van will hold, I used Tim Holtz bits to represent his 'spare parts' for the trip, and have included the key to the door. The Birthday wish is also cut on the Cricut but have so many carts now I can't remember which one I cut it from I'm sorry, could soon find out if anyone wants to know though. Inside the card is another cut from 'Going Places' cartridge which says Happy Trails in a jumbled format.

With this one I've envisaged my daughter looking out the window at her future. She got married on the balcony of a very old heritage building which has beautiful large leadlight windows. So to create this idea I used the 'Ornamental Iron' cartridge to create that window she is looking through at the picture of her with her husband to be.

I cut the heart shape clear so it would circle her face and appear that she was indeed looking out the window. The window was cute using the 'Gate 10a with the window feature'. The dark green wrought iron cutting beside the photo of Katie and her husband was cut using the 'Gate 6c and the 1/2 frame feature'.

Used 'Ashlyn's Alphabet' cartridge for the Title background, Title and the butterfly below it. I cut this with the cream and also in green using the 'shadow' function for the background.

The vine was cut with a Martha Stewart punch while the small flowers on it were cut using a very old and small, Carl punch. The Floral Border along the top was also cut using a Martha Stewart punch.

Paper used was one of my fav's Basic Grey Capella (chorus sheet). The ribbon along the bottom had wire along the outside edges and I gathered this up.

Thanks for looking.

Cricut World Blog

Quite a few years ago I started submitting my layouts on the 'Scrapbook.com' site and eventually joined a couple of group threads on there. One of those is a Cricut group where we share our work and ideas and get much needed help when needed, I was a late starter in this group as far as getting my Cricut goes because they came to Australia a lot later than they were available in the USA. Have to say I have had so much help from these girls and am happy to be part of the group creating our own blog called 'Cricut World' to help and encourage others to use their cartridges as much as possible.

My first contribution to this blog follows and is based on another of my 'fantasy' ideas I occasionally have.

PRECIOUS little man

This layout is based on a shot I was lucky to get. As everyone would know, it gets harder to get good pictures of our babies as they become toddlers, so I was very happy with this sweet picture

I used an old technique on this layout that I haven't done for years. That is creating a stamp using bubble wrap. What I did was paint the black Making Memories paint on to a piece of Foil. Then I gently pressed the bubble wrap over that, by doing it this way rather than painting directly on to the bubble wrap, it is more like stamping and you avoid getting blodges of paint on your layout, and get more of a distressed look.

I used the 'Birthday Bash' cartridge for the font and also used the 'shadow' effect. This is a really cute cartridge that I would recommend especially for anyone with young children's layout's to do.

Double clicking on the last photo is worth it to see the challenging look on Henry's face....it's like 'go on I dare you' .... this cat had never seen a staircase before.

Been rather busy around our house and yard the past week so not a lot of time online or scrapping. I have produced a couple of things for our Group blog though so I can relax about that, can't say any more at the moment but all will be revealed in about a week and I will then be publishing and talking about my project.

Well Australia Day here today and the weather has really been beautiful, despite that Bob and I have spent a productive day around the house and garden getting things back up to date. After being overseas for nearly 5 weeks it was amazing how quickly things had become over grown in the garden and how many household tasks needed doing after having a wall taken out while we were away, this meant changing some of the furniture which has been fun and given our home a lovely refreshing feel about it.

Tomorrow is definitely a scrapping day, until Katie arrives that is, she is coming up to spend the night with us which will be lovely. Counting the weeks now of course until her baby is born, it will be so nice to have a grandchild here in Australia, but of course it won't limit us from visiting our sweet little Henry in America as often as we can so he grows up knowing us.

As I haven't got a layout to publish I think I will just give you a look at Henry and the cat which they were cat sitting for Xmas week...trying to out fox each other with the stairwell....the cat won hehehe..

How Exciting!!

In following my favourite artist's blog I discovered that she is coming to Australia to teach in October...I can't believe she is coming and as long as I'm not in America visiting my daughter...then I don't care what it costs me, my friend and I are determined that we will be there for lessons.

The wonderful artist I'm talking about is Ingvilde Bolme...wow!! her work is awesome.

Had a busy couple of days in the kitchen...not my favourite place, not that I'm a bad cook, just hate the cleaning up and the time it takes to prepare things when it could be spent scrapping ah!!!

Blanching vegetables from Bob's garden yesterday for a few hours, it was nice coming home to our own vegetable's after our trip to America. Also had to cook up a couple of Mutton Birds for Bob yesterday which he had for dinner tonight...boy are they fatty birds, can't explain how much oil is in the pan when you finish, I have to boil the kettle so the water is hot enough to ensure the pan is fully free of it and the smell it leaves behind, he loves them though.

Then today, rabbits, soaked them overnight then fried them to brown them up a bit this morning before I left for the hairdresser's. Then home to put them in the slow cooker, made the sauce and all the vegies to go in it and now I'm sitting up waiting for it to finish cooking as I don't have a timer on my cooker...why didn't I think of that when I bought it? down in Hobart all day tomorrow for doctor appointments so at least dinner is already cooked ready for when we get home.

Watching the TV stories on the devastating floods in Northern Australia, really hard to comprehend just how bad they are, and so many people loosing their lives, and Brisbane our countries third largest city has been inundated with water, amazing conditions, scary to say the least.

What a lovely day!!

Had a phone call from Erin this morning, it was so nice to hear her voice and little Henry in the background, Erin had to say goodbye to Katie as she headed home yesterday and I know how sad she would be feeling, thankfully only 3 months before they come home and hopefully we will see them lots while they are here even though it is always hard when you have relatives and friends to catch up with as well, everyone wants to see you so it is hard to make sure you enjoy everyone's company without losing too much of yourself...i.e. get tooo tired to enjoy coming home. Henry will be 21 months old, not a good age to travel with but I'm sure they will work things out and hopefully have no problems on that horrible long plane trip.

Then I spoke to Katie as she sat waiting in Sydney for the plane to bring her back to Hobart, she had a good trip home despite her advanced pregnancy so that really topped off my day, I'm sure she will sleep long and hard for a couple of days but she has had a wonderful holiay with Erin.

Then I got busy...I hate house work, but isn't it funny how you always feel so satisfied when you have achieved a big job around the home. Bob and I had decided it was time to clean out underneath our stairwell as we had accumulated a number of excess bags...wonder why!! ... hmmmm...maybe because we over shop when we travel and have to buy extra bags all the time...anyway, at least they are going to a good cause, over to the St Vincent De Paul Society tomorrow, for my American friends that is the same as your 'Goodwill' stores. I was very pleased with myself at what I actually threw out, of course I still have kept things that should go, and will do in time, but small steps for a hoarder like I am...today it was a few large steps with lots of trash as a result.

So, I've cooked a nice dinner, updated my blog like I intended (unusual for me hehehe)...and now off to browse some of my favourite scrapping friends blogs..

Erin, Jarrod and Henry came into Seattle to spend the day with us as soon as we arrived and we visited the Space Needle where this pic was taken. Of course the background is courtesy of the centre's computer imaging fortunately because it was a freezing cold and bleak day.

Another trip to America come and gone

Well this latest trip seemed like the longest we'd ever done. We had 4 days in Seattle in a Hotel which was great, it allowed us time to go on the Underground Tour, seeing in a small way the way Seattle was 100 years ago, I loved it, full of history and interest. Also did the 'Duck' Tour part on road and mostly on the Harbour. What a great way to see Seattle from a totally different viewpoint, something else I would thoroughly recommend.

We had a trip on Amtrak down to Portland Oregon with the intention of seeing and feeling just a little of my Ancestry. Unfortunately without driving it was impossible to get to see the town which was actually laid out by my g-g-uncle in mid 1800's. It was still nice to just be in the area which they arrived in by covered wagon via the 'Oregon Trail' all that time ago. The Coastal area of Oregon is absolutely stunning and we really loved the scenery and I found a new 'I want to live here' place...right on the beach at 'Cannon's Beach' simply stunning.

Then back up on the train to Seattle where Erin picked us up and we got to spend Christmas with her family and also our youngest daughter Katie and her husband who arrived on the 22nd, it was wonderful to be able to do this as we don't know when we will have a Xmas all together again.

Henry of course had changed and is a healthy, cheeky and gorgeous little grandson whom we both adore and love dearly. The only problem with these trips is they just make me realise how much I miss my daughter, each departure to come home hurts more and it broke my heart to leave her this time...not sure why but it really upset me, hope this isn't a 'sign' of the year to come...why did she have to move to the other side of the world is something that is constantly in my mind now.....of course I know, she followed her heart...but!!!!!! she is so missed here.

Again poor old blog has been neglected and another determination rolling around in my mind to make sure I keep it up to date more in the future. I now have unloaded a few of my online responsibilities which in turn cuts back on my computer time therefore freeing up more time for doing more of what I really love and that is 'scrapbooking'.