Flower Soft

Ok....so I couldn't stand it. I had never heard of flower soft until about a month ago. On one of the groups I belong to, they started talking about flower soft and how great it was. At first I wasn't interested because I mostly scrapbook and I didn't want it flaking off all over my albums plus it was like $6 a jar for 1 color. Well, then this group of enabling women started talking about how they made their own out of dollar store styrofoam balls. That caught my interest so next time I went to town you know I had to stop at the dollar store for some styrofoam balls. When I got home I rubbed them together over a paper plate, took an ink pad and rubbed it onto the plate with a tich of water, mixed them together and voila....homemade flower soft. Then I asked myself, "What in the heck are you going to do with that?" Well, since I made it (I even got my kids involved rubbing the styrofoam balls together) I had to make something with it. Well, it's snowing right now and wouldn't that make "cool" snow. YES it DID! LOL. Wanna see? Look close at the snow title and you can see the flower soft on it. My hubby even said it looked cool and that's saying something! LOL. So I have now added homemade flower soft to my arsenal of scrap stuff. Which I might add is piling up and my dear hubby had to add a couple more shelves to my scraproom to accomodate all my treasures! Thanks dear! I LOVE it!

Cartridge Storage

Someone asked how I transported my cartridges when I took them places. For starters, I don't use my cartridges much unless I'm hanging out at the cabin (no computer there). I have really been spoiled as I find using them tedious now. I like my computer software and for my birthday, my sweet hubby bought me a laptop for scrapping and family history so I can now take it with me on those trips. Anyway, here is how I store and travel with the cartridges I do have. I haven't bought a new cartridge in over a year and I don't forsee buying any in the future either. But, I do use the ones I have occasionally. I really like how I can keep the cartridges and the overlays and books together for easy use. This is actually a christmas ribbon container that I got for $7 or $8 dollars. A perfect fit for the cartridges and books and for those with more cartridges, you can buy more of these and "snap" them together. Anyway, just FYI!

Make the Cut

To all my friends that I originally started this blog for...to share some info about SCAL, if you haven't purchased SCAL, you may want to wait! Yes, you heard me! LOL. There is a new program that has just hit the market called Make the Cut. I have downloaded and played with this new software a little bit and so far I'm really impressed. There are some things that they too need to work out...no shadowing feature, no way to "keep proportions" locked so the shapes match, but overall, this program has REAL potential. Since I upgraded to SCAL 2 not long ago, I probably won't be purchasing this anytime soon, but if I ever need another license to cut with, I may jump over to this program. It eliminates most of the need for Inkscape which is wonderful because the learning curve on that program is so intense. This program is easier to use than Inkscape and SCAL and does the same things.....or at least it will in a short amount of time! Go check it out!

If you want to check it out, look up on the right hand top corner of my blog and there are some links to the Make-the-Cut website to purchase or just learn more about it.

There is also a free download so give it a try! The free download does cut a line across your image, but you can try it to see if you like it!

Have fun!


****Update*****They have fixed all the issues that I mentioned above and added so much, much more! It's awesome! Woohoo.....********

Vinyl.....lots and lots of vinyl....

I am so excited. I've been wanting to try vinyl for a long time now, but the cost (9.99 for 4 feet) at my local scrapbook store scared me off. On the SCALHints forumn, one gal suggested that I contact a local sign company to see if they would sell me any scraps. When I called and told him I was looking for small scraps from 3 inches to probably around 12 inches, the man said he had a couple of boxes of scraps and to come in and take a peak. Well, his idea of scraps and mine were TOTALLY different. What he considered scraps is what I considered roll ends. I got 52 rolls most of them 15 inches wide in a variety of colors and some marked as long as 10 feet for a whopping total of $30.00. I was THRILLED! That's less than .60 a roll and some are as long as 10 feet but none less than 1 to 2 feet. Most are around 5 feet or so. I told my husband it was like Christmas morning and he just laughed trying to figure out why I was so excited about all this stuff and then promptly asked me if I intended to leave it in the middle of the floor! LOL....so anyway, do check with your local sign company. This one was awesome. I must admit though, that the first company I called said they would sell me vinyl but it would be 2 to 3 dollars a foot - even their scrap vinyl. I can buy it cheaper than that at my local scrapbook store. The guy I got this from says they always keep it to use, but they never do so he wanted to just get it out of there because for him most of it wasn't long enough (under 10 feet) for him to use. Woo hoo! Anyway, just wanted to share!

ATG gun....

I had someone ask me the other day, what type of adhesive that I used. Well this is it! Check out the size of this hummer. It took a little getting used to, but I love it. Why would I want something this big....cost....plain and simple. As those of you who know me know, I love to scrapbook, but I also love to do it on a budget. I'm all for the best bang for my buck and I carefully evaluate each item before I make a purchase. This gun was a little pricey (25.00) but WELL worth it when you take as many pictures as I do and scrapbook 95% of them and besides, they asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day. LOL. The cheapest adhesive I had found was the kind they sold at Walmart in this little holder. You've all seen them. They held around 8 feet of adhesive and the refills cost $2.50 or so. Well, this baby holds a whopping 36 YARDS....yeah.....you heard me right. 36 YARDS, not feet, but yards and how much does this 36 yards of adhesive cost me.....about $1.15 (and that includes shipping to my front door saving me a trip to the craft store where I would find something else to purchase while I was there.....) You do the math....it doesn't take a rocket scientist or an engineer hubby to figure out that in the long run, this is a huge savings. Plus, when I ordered it, it was backordered by two weeks and they told me if I waited, they'd send me an additional 3 rolls of tape plus give me free shipping. Well, I had waited a long time to purchase this, what was another couple of weeks. Anyway, this is what I use. I put the pen in the picture to give you an idea of how big it really is. Once I got used to it(just a couple of days), I LOVE it.....size and all. It never gets lost on my workspace, I can see how much adhesive I still have, and the tape is actually a little thinner (I ordered 1/4 inch instead of the standard 3/8) which makes it great for smaller items, plus it is really strong adhesive. And one more added benefit for those who would be interested, you can buy tape for this in lots of sizes without any adapter at all; so for those that like thicker adhesive, this works for them as well. If you are interested, you can go to http://www.thetapedepot.com/ or check on ebay, they sell them there now also. All in all, would I do it again, you betcha in a heartbeat!

Ebay find.....cricut blades,trimmer, tool kit

Hi. Well some days you just HAVE to LOVE ebay! Look at what I got all for a grand total of $41.00 and that included shipping! There 7 packages of brand new cricut blades, 4 packages of cricut trimmer blades, the cricut tool kit, and the cricut trimmer! Woohoo! For those of you who might be reading my blog that aren't familiar with prices....at my local scrapbook store, each package of cricut blades (both kinds) cost 9.99. That means that even with their standard 40% off coupon, each package still costs me $6.00. Plus the cricut tools kit is 18.99 or 19.99 by itself! That means that if I divide 41 dollars by the total items (including the tool kit) each item only cost me $3.15! I'm doing the happy dance here and I've got my years supply of blades.....oh.....I guess that's suppose to be food????? LOL....

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!