Scrapbook class and leftover scraps for cards...

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked by our Relief Society to do a 2 page layout for the ladies in our ward. I must admit, it was harder than I expected. LOL. I scrapbook all the time, but I scrap around my pictures not just a layout to use sometime. The other challenge that I took upon myself was that we had a My Minds Eye paperstack that hadn't been being used. I wanted to show everyone that we could all do a similar sketch but also use the paperstack. That meant that each persons papers would be different, but the layout the same. Now on a small scale, this isn't so bad. I have a cricut so being able to cut embellishments per layout with individual colors would be a snap. However, trying to get 12 people's cutouts done and their layouts completed in only 1 1/2 hours presented a different challenge. Anyway, I ended up NOT using my cricut at all except to cut out in advance the teddy bears and the word summer. By using brown, I could then cut them out for them to use on whatever color of paper they choose. All in all, it turned out fun and it was neat to see each person's personality come alive in the paper they chose and the finished layout. Here is my layout and some cards I made with leftover scraps from their layouts. Fun fun...

Susan Bluerobot Blog

Hi. As you can tell, I am fairly new to this blog business. I was visiting one of my favorite blogs the other day, and she is offering these really neat stamps as prizes for hitting 500,000 hits on her site....can you imagine.... Actually, if you have been to her site, you CAN imagine because I visit it often. She is really talented and has amazing videos and ideas to learn from and I have appreciated her talent and her willingness to share. One of the reasons I started a blog is to be able to tell my friends about SCAL (although I admit I haven't been that good about it yet...) but on the bright side, I am linking you to a site that HAS way more information on it than I could hope to create in my lifetime. LOL.

Susan Bluerobot issued a chance to win some blog candy by either linking to her blog from my blog or by answering her questions up on her blog. Since I watch her blog often and have just started this blog, I thought it couldn't hurt to give this a try. So...if you want to see a fantastic blog full of creativity, helps and ideas...jump over to her blog here: http://susanbluerobot.blogspot.com/ and by so doing, maybe I can win some blog candy myself! Seriously though...blog candy aside, for those I've talked to about SCAL, her site is a must see for helps, amazing patterns and just all around wonderful! Be warned though...once you visit, you'll be there for hours and return often!

Enjoy!

Moving Ice at Wild Rose on Henry's Lake May 2009

This was truly amazing. I loved watching the ice move. In total, the ice moved about 10 feet in the 1/2 hour I watched it. It even eventually covered the rock that I was standing on and I had to move. When I moved, this is the video I took. I have another one (the first one) that is about 10 minutes just watching and listening to the ice move. This one I think actually shows the ice moving better because Doug is standing there. Kaden actually threw a rock out on the ice and we watched it creep slowly to shore. Amazing. I also love the sound it makes...kinda like breaking glass. Maybe I'm strange, but I found it truly fascinating... I imagine this is how a glacier might move but on a smaller scale. They say it was moving because the wind was pushing the ice off the lake onto the shore, but...there wasn't any wind so???? Anyway...I have no idea why it was doing it, but the ice on the lake was about 6 inches thick. The kids kept coming back to me and wanting to know what I was doing. LOL....I was just watching the ice move while they ran around. It was one of those wonderful "Mom" days that all was right in the world. I feel very fortunate to see the Lord's hand in the beauty all around us and especially in my family. Enjoy!

Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) Software to use with Cricut Machines

Hi. Four months ago I stumbled across some software called Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL). It is a software that you can use with your cricut machine and your computer that eliminates the need for additional cartridges unless you want to buy them. The software is GREAT. I've had several friends ask me about this software, so I thought I'd try a blog to see if I can answer some basic questions. I'll try to cover some other helpful tips as I go along also. But...back to SCAL.

First off, you do NOT have to have any other programs to make SCAL work, but if you download a free program called Inkscape, then the possibilities are endless. You will need to have the trial version of Design Studio which is the Provo Craft cricut software (which in my opinion is a waste of money.) I'll go into some of this later in another post. For now, I'll tell you why I bought SCAL.

I bought SCAL because I hated to individually cut the letters from the font cartridges on the cricut and then cut the shadow for each letter and then glue each piece together. Then turn around and glue each now shadowed letter AGAIN to the actual layout I was working on. Way to time consuming for me. With SCAL I can cut my word in one piece, shadow it with one piece and glue to the layout in just 3 steps. Not 3 steps per letter, just 3 steps per word. LOVE it! With SCAL, I can also use almost ANY TTF font (some are really too thin to actually cut). That means that I can literally use a different font for every scrapbook page that I create because there are thousands of free fonts everywhere on the internet. In SCAL, you pick your font and you can "weld" the letters together creating a word in one piece. The snowflake in this picture is also a "dingbat" font so it is "free" too. This font had 26 different snowflakes that I can now use. So basically any font and any dingbat that are in the TTF format are now available for me to cut. Just for fun...do a search for dingbat fonts and see how many "cartridges" you now don't have to buy.....(I should warn you that some dingbats do need some cleanup in order to cut but many cut just as they are.)

I paid 64.99 for my SCAL here - (https://www.cutterscreek.com/store/) which included free shipping and a disk copy. It is available for download on the original Craft Edge website http://www.craftedge.com/index.html, but I found that it was cheaper a couple of other places plus I wanted the actual disk and I'm glad I did because my computer crashed and I had to reinstall everything. Boy was I glad I had it.

Anyway, take a peak at this picture. The white is one cut and the blue shadow is one cut. So two total cuts for the word snow. Sorry I didn't use a different example, as this one was posted before on this site, but it's time to put the kids to bed so....this one will have to do. (As I mentioned on the previous post, the penguin was created from an image that I got sent to me in the mail. I thought he was cute so I scanned him and turned him into a cut file. That also is something for another post!)

On the Craft Edge website is also a forum. You can learn just about anything there about SCAL plus you can get hundreds of free files that can be used directly in SCAL. Hence, no need for any new cartridges. The sky is the limit and if you learn Inkscape, you can literally create anything if you have the time and the skills but if you don't there are TONS of blogs with free files. I'll also share some of my favorites on another day too. So keep watching and hopefully I can help you learn a little of what I've discovered along the way and point you to my favorite spots for free SVG files.

Have fun and let me know if there is anything specific that you want me to share with you.

Cricut Mat tip....

Recently I was talking to a lady I know and she had just thrown away two cricut mats and bought new ones. I told her that I have had my cricut for over a year now and have never bought a new mat. I heard about using Krylon Repositionable Spray to "refresh" your mats on the cricut message board and so I have never bought any other mats. It's a huge cost savings! I love to scrapbook, but I also love to do it as inexpensively as possible. For those of you who have never done this, give this a try.

First take your old mat and squirt straigh dish detergent on it. Gently rub the dish soap around loosing up the paper particles and dirt stuck to your mat. Once you've gently scrubbed the mat with your fingers, wash the mat off and let dry.

Once the mat is dry, take some masking tape and tape the edges of your mat covering all the areas that are not suppose to be sticky. This is really important because if you get adhesive on the sides of the mat, it can gum up your rollers on your cricut. These machines are way to expensive to have troubles like that!

Take your taped off mat outside and spray with Krylon repositionable adhesive spray. I bought mine at Michaels with a 50% off coupon and it cost a little over $3.00. However, I've had my cricut over a year and never bought new mats so... I prefer to use 2 or 3 light coats versus a really heavy coat. It just seems to make the stick more even.

Anyway, for those of you with a cricut machine, give this a try. I've also heard of people using the Zig glue pen, but I watched a video on this and it seemed to take too long for me. I'm a spray and run kinda girl!

So...if you haven't heard of this tip, give it a try. I works great and I've never had any trouble with it!