Tooty Fruity Tuesday - Welding

Welding in SCAL


What is "welding"?
Welding is the act of putting 2 or more images together to be cut as one piece. Cuts that would normally be made where the pieces are joined are not made.

Non- welded images -








Welded images -











Why would I want to weld?
Sometimes, we are trying to create a particular shape, and we can weld shapes together to achieve this task - a card, a card border, double hearts, etc.

In other cases, welding can make the shapes easier to handle - words, for example, are easier to place and deal with if the letters are welded together.

Often, we want to embellish a shape, and we use welding to assist with that - adding a flower shape to a word or letter, for example.

Welding adds another level of versatility to our die-cut crafting.


How do I weld in SCAL?



1 - Choose 2 shapes to weld. I chose a rectangle (5.5" x 4.25") and a heart the same size. These will be joined to create a card.




2 - Make sure the box 'weld' is checked for both images - as shown in the *green* circle below.



3 - Move the pictures together until they touch at the place(s) that you'd like them to join.




4 - Click "Preview." Where the images join, the image lines should be 'grayed' out. If you are joining images and there are NO grayed out lines, make sure you've followed the instructions above exactly.



5 - Cut. Your images are joined and should cut as one piece.

You can do the same with letters - make each letter it's own shape and click "weld" for each one. this method allows you to join the letters at the places you'd like to be joined and skewed the way you'd like - if you don't want them straight.

The images placed to be cut ....

The images welded in the preview ....



Welding is SO much fun and can help you make such fun shaped cards. I hope you find this helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know! :)



Have a wonderful Tuesday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.


~*Shell*~

Mojo Monday ... and BIG News!!

Big announcement today!!!!

I've waited for 13 days to tell all of you about this .... For the months of August, September, and October, I will be a member of the Clear Dollar Clearly Crafty Crew!!!




I will be designing projects using Clear Dollar Stamps' new releases for the months in my term. The fun begins on July 28th when the new release preview starts.

I'm so excited to be a part of this wonderfully talented group and to showcase more CDS stamps here (I think you've figured out that I really love their stamps!!).

So ... my mojo for the weekend? Basically, it's been Clear Dollar Stamps. Here's one of the cards I created with CDS in mind.









Stamps - CDS Farm Critters, SU background
Paper - SU (orange, turquoise, caramel, pink), GP white
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaMark
Accessories/Tools - Copics, SCAL (circles, ovals, and splat), Cricut, white gel pen, linen ribbon (colored with Copic marker), pop dots



I hope you found your mojo this weekend!!

Have a wonderful Monday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!



~*Shell*~

Free File Friday

Did you see this card? Would you like to create a card with the cute, tropical leaf border and tropical leaf accents? The card is specifically created to go with the Monkey Madness stamp set from Clear Dollar Stamps. You will notice that the tropical leaf matches the cut leaf perfectly.





Here's the .jpg of the card ...










Here's the .jpg of the leaf layer (size, resize, stretch, and skew as you wish!).







To use the files, simply click on the image, right click on it, and click 'save as.' Save it in an easy to remember place on your computer so that you can get to it when you want to use it. To get the file in SCAL, use the Trace feature. Click Trace, click browse, find the file, preview the cut, and import it into SCAL. All free .jpgs or .gifs offered on this blog have been previously cut on my machine.



Please let me know if you download and/or use these files. I'd love to know what files are being used and what you think of them!


Have an awesome Friday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.



~*Shell*~

Use Those Thingies Thursday Challenge

Last week, I mentioned that I recently participated in a 6x6 recipe swap. Today, I want to challenge YOU to make a recipe page ... or two .... or 10!

For our swap, each of us made 3 recipe pages to send to 5 other people. For my pages, I used some of my favorite things .... the Cricut, SCAL, and Copics.



The first one is pretty simple. The recipe is for Cream Cheese and Olives, an old family favorite for us. The olives were cut using SCAL and the Cricut and placed randomly around the page.












The second - Nacho Pie - was a little more involved with jalepeno pepper and tortilla chip cuts. The chips were also embossed using the Cuddlbug, and a blacked out background was cut for the jalepeno pepper cut.













The third page, for Peanut Butter Dough, was the most involved because it includes a colored, stamped image, as well as embossing on the peanut cuts.












Stamps - SU
Paper - SU, GP (white)
Ink - SU basic brown (distressing on Nacho Pie page), Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories - Cuttlebug, pop dots, computer (printing recipes), Cricut, SCAL, Xyron


Grab a piece of 6x6 paper and 'scrap' your favorite recipe. Even if you are a card maker - try it!!! This swap was such a great experience for me. I ended up with a great number of wonderful recipes on super adorable pages. I can't wait to make a special book for them all.



Please post a link of your page!! I wanna see!!


Have a great Thursday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.



~*Shell*~

Mojo Monday

What can Vacation Bible School do for you?? Wear you out, provide you with a HUGE number of smiles, work you to death, bring about amazing memories and moments ... and give you some mojo? Yep. Mojo.


Our VBS this year had a western theme - Saddle Ridge Ranch. Several weeks ago, I created a 'brand' that I planned to use for my room and for some of the decorations. The brand was simple, but conveyed the message - 3 year olds ....




As we were leaving church on Sunday evening last week, my hubby was admiring the brand and the way I was able to create it in PSP and import it into SCAL to cut. Then, he said "It would really be neat if you could use that and cut a stamp of it ..." Ummmmm....... WHY didn't *I* think of that?! Gracious!!! I think my brain was overload from working on the VBS room all day.


So .... I was off to Hobby Lobby to get stamp material (Provo Craft makes it for the Cricut) because I couldn't quickly put my hands on what I had in the Haven.

The .jpg file of the stamp was imported into SCAL and sized. Then, I put the stamp material on the mat and cut.





The result?

















I wanted to do something fun with the stamp, so I made a card with it. I believe that I'm going to make several more and send them to the wonderful people that helped me during the week.







Stamps - Cricut cut 3 brand
Paper - SU Creamy Caramel, Old Olive, So Saffron, and Chocolate Chip, GP white
Ink - SU Basic Brown
Accessories - Cricut, SCAL, silver brads, pop dots
Techniques - distressing (creamy caramel layer)








It's great fun to be able to create my own stamp just for an occasion like this. Obviously, I can't make really detailed or etched stamps, but this can work well for special projects.


Have an awesome Monday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!

~*Shell*~

Free File Friday

Today, I'm offering up a scalloped heart bordered card. The .jpg is below. Simply import the image into SCAL using the Trace feature. Size the card to what you wish, cut, and score in the middle.

Please let me know what you think of the free files, and let me know what you do with it!





Have a great Friday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!! :)


~*Shell*~

Use Those Thingies Thursday (a little early)

Need a challenge today? Recently, I participated in a 6x6 recipe swap. We each made 3 recipe pages for 6 people. What fun! And ... what a challenge! The biggest challenge we found, though, was not the recipe pages, but the "About Me" page that each of us did for the other participants. Yikes. That's so difficult to do.

My challenge to you today is to make an "About Me" page for yourself. Why, you say, would I EVER want to do that?! :) Well, honestly, it's a very cool 'photograph' of your life *right now*. I know that in 10 years, I will look back at my page and smile at some of the changes - and cry at others. What a great way to remember your life at a particular moment. As hard as it is to do, it would be a wonderful thing to do every 5 years or every 2 years or even once a year. Things in our lives change so fast; take a moment to remember TODAY.


Include a picture, a little about yourself, and some fabulous scrapping items on your page to demonstrate your style and things that you enjoy.

What did I do for mine?? Well, here ya go ....




Now ... get to work on yours!!!! I WANT to see them. Post a link in the comment lines below ... please. :)



Have an awesome Thursday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow. I only have ONE day of VBS left after noon today!!! :) It has been a GREAT week, though.


~*Shell*~

Tooty Fruity Tuesday

Using any image available on your computer in SCAL ...

*** This tutorial is primarily for PC users. I do not know how to copy a screen on a Mac, but if you do, then just adapt this using that instead of the 'print screen' instruction.

If you find an image on your computer that you just love, wouldn't it be nice to use it in SCAL and cut it with your Cricut?? Well .... here's how you can do it. *Remember the functionality of your Cricut. Choose something that won't be too complex for your machine. Other than that detail, you can choose any image.

1- Get the image on your computer screen. You can email it to yourself (I often do this with punch images that I want to import - to make various sizes and/or shadows), upload it to Photobucket or the like, find it on the internet, or find it in a program on your system (graphics program, Word, CDS, PrintMaster, etc). A good contrast (between image and background) is essential. A black image on a white background is best.


2- For some images, you can right click on it, and it will allow you to save the file on your computer. If that's the case with your image, great! Right click on it, save it as something you can remember on your system, and follow the instructions for the Trace feature ... found < here>.

You may, also, be able to right click on the image and 'copy' it. If so, copy it, and then, 'paste' the image in your choice of graphics programs (I use Paint Shop Pro). Save it as a .jpg file type and use the Trace feature (instructions) in SCAL to import it.

If you cannot right click and save the image or copy it, continue with these instructions.

Hold down the key and press the key.







On my system (a laptop), this key is near the top of the keyboard toward the right-hand side. Holding these two keys down together will copy, or take a picture of, everything on your screen at that moment.


3 - Open your graphics program of choice - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Paint, Gimp (available *free* online < here >.

4 - While inside the graphics program, hold down the key and the "V" key at the same time (paste). This will paste the whole screen shot inside your graphics program.





5 - Use the crop feature within your graphics program to to crop around ONLY the image you want to cut. You will want to crop out, cut out, delete, or erase any items that you do not want to cut.



6 - Save the cropped image (should be just the item you want to cut) as one of the file types supported by SCAL -

.bmp
.gif
.jpg
.pict
.png
.psd
.tiff
.tga

7 - Open SCAL, and use the Trace feature. Instructions can be found < here >.


8 - Enjoy the fact that, in SCAL, you can cut ANYTHING you'd like to cut. :)


Have a fantastic Tuesday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow! (Day 3 of VBS for me!!!)



~*Shell*~

Mojo Monday

Whew! VBS this week, so I'm running on adrenaline. :) Sooooo, did you find your mojo this weekend?

Father's Day ... Yep. That was my inspiration. My inspiration for this weekend. I wanted something a little different - not the typical 'masculine' Father's Day card. I wanted something whimsical for him this year.

I started with the Monkey Madness stamp set from Clear Dollar Stamps. I wanted to give the card dimension, so I imported a couple of the images into SCAL, welded them on to the edge of the card base, cut extras, and layers, and made this card.
















The card stock is all SU, except the white (GP). Leaves of different sizes were cut to use around the card. The small ones at the bottom were cut to correspond to the cut-out edge on the card.













Some of the bigger ones were stretched a bit to add a little character and variety. VersaMark was used to stamp the little flowers in the background. Pop dots were used to add more dimension to the card, and the image, of course, was colored with Copics. :)













Another leaf was placed next to the sentiment inside the card.













I'm also using this card for my entry into the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge for this week. It works out great that the theme for the challenge is Celebrate Dear Dad. :)


Let me know what you think of my card! :)

Tomorrow - how to import ANY image on your computer, the web, or email into SCAL.


I hope you have an awesome Monday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.

~*Shell*~

Cricut Design Studio Font Pack

A new font pack update is available here for the Cricut Design Studio. This update adds these cartridges ...

• Splish Splash
• Bloom
• Block Party
• Varsity Letter
• Feeling Groovy
• Wildlife
• B is for Boy
• Sugar and Spice
• Cherry Limeade
• Botanicals
• Billionaire
• Meow
• Handyman
• Lovely Floral
• Celebrate with Flourish
• Dude!
• Lacy Labels
• Slumber Party
• Hoot n Holler
• Live Simply
• Chore Chart
• Cupcake Wrappers
• Carousel
• Pagoda Passion

Just a note ... I use Mozilla Firefox as my internet browser. If you use it, as well, switch to IE to do your update. For the last 2 updates, I've not been able to download and install them successfully using Firefox. Using IE instead fixed the problem.

Enjoy! Have an awesome Friday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.


~*Shell*~

Free File Friday

Today, I'm posting 2 free files. They are in .jpg or .gif format (both are supported by SCAL). To use them, simply click on the image, right click on it, and click 'save as.' Save it in an easy to remember place on your computer so that you can get to it when you want to use it. To get the file in SCAL, use the Trace feature. Click Trace, click browse, find the file, preview the cut, and import it into SCAL. All free .jpgs or .gifs offered on this blog have been previously cut on my machine.



Fireworks


















Lattice Heart











Both of these files have been used on projects recently showcased on this blog. I would love to see what you can do with them!



Have a wonderful Friday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.


~*Shell*~

Use Those Thingies Thursday

Each month, an envelope comes to my house with a menagerie of supplies with which to create. One month of the year, I will send out images, backgrounds, embellishments, and such for this challenge. For June, our challenge pieces included the items below...






The items included images from the Nice and Narrow set and the Sweet Somethings set, both from SU.










The challenge is to create one - or more - cards or projects from the included supplies, adding our own creativity and using some of our own stash. If you have any of the supplies above (or something similar), I'd love to see what you do with it.


Here's the first card I created.




The image is colored with Copics, layered on top of a piece of SU pink paper, and embellished with some self-adhesive pearls and organdy ribbon that I had in my stash.




Along with using the pearls on the baby buggy, I also used them at the bottom of the card.




Try the challenge! I want to see what you can create.


Free File Friday tomorrow! I will have a .jpg file or two for you to pick up and use with SCAL.

Have an awesome Thursday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!


~*Shell*~

CDS Summer Stamp Off

As many of you know, Clear Dollar Stamps is one of my favorite stamp companies and one that I often refer to on here. The company is having a Design Team Call - the CDS Summer Stamp Off, and I've chosen to apply. Normally, applicants show off several of their recent projects - any kind. For one card this time, they want us to use a sketch and all bright colors. We're also limited to one type of embellishment. You can find the details here.

My first version of this challenge came out .... less than I had hoped. So, back to the drawing board I went ... or rather, back to the Haven I went. :) I'm much happier with this card. :)





This card started with the card base. I took a lattice heart into SCAL, welded them to the edge of a rectangle, did the same for the back of the card, and cut. I love the edge this cut gives the card. It can be used for many different card types. (Imagine it in white for a wedding or baby card ...).












It took quite a while to cut the edge because of all of the 'holes.' It was worth it, though!!

The corners of the orange layer were punched with an EK Success corner punch. It's an unusual one, but it's pretty cool.


















The card base is SU, as is the orange and pink layers. I'm not sure who makes the designer/patterned paper I used, but it gave the card a little bit of a psychedelic feel. :) You can get a bit of a glimpse of it behind the frog image here. The frog, mushroom, flowers, and 'hi' are all from Pond Pals by CDS. They are colored with Copics, and the image layer, as well as the sentiment, are up on pop dots.












I chose to make my strip across the bottom using my one type of embellishment. The embellishments are hand-crocheted flowers with little crystal centers. The little flowers from Pond Pals are also stamped on the orange layer using VersaMark ink.










This was a fun card to make, and I really like how it turned out. I may give it to someone special .... who could probably use a pick-me- up. :)


Have an awesome Wednesday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow. Use Those Thingies Thursday is up next! :)


~*Shell*~

Mojo Monday

Did you have inspiration to create this weekend or last week? What was it? What take on it did you have? Will you share with me? I'd love to see it!!

My daughter is 4, and she has an adorable room Recently, she got a 'big girl bed' to go in there. The new comforter and bedding she picked out doesn't really match the room, but she - like any good 4 year old - doesn't care. :) I wanted to add a few things to tie it together.

First, I took pictures of the bedding.




I converted these to black and white pictures and imported them into SCAL. A little sizing, copy, pasting, and it was time to cut.






The images are cut from vinyl (purchased from Signwarehouse.com - Oracle 631 vinyl) on the Cricut. They cut like butter and stick wonderfully. They leave no residue when removed from the surface and are wonderful decorations for almost any room - you can even use vinyl cuts on your vehicle!

Let me know what you think and what inspired you to create this weekend!


Have a great Monday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.

It's the Weekend!

Summer nights .... fireworks, watermelon, and stars .... Oh, and little bugs. :) :) What great things to think about during the summer.

I went on a search for a fireworks picture. I wanted to import it into SCAL and cut it for a card.

The negative image of the fireworks is actually what was used in this project. It was cut from night of navy paper. Glossy paper was used for the background. Alcohol inks were used to make the background on that glossy paper. Silver, stream, and eggplant colors were used.




The colors aren't very discernible on the background, but the effect is nice for this card. It shines wonderfully ... just like the fireworks in the sky.



The little bug stamp used on front was found at Hobby Lobby on clearance last week. He was just adorable and had to come home with me (along with several other stamps, of course...). He is colored with Copics and accented with a Gelly Rollz glitter pen. The image is mounted on 3D glue dots. The patterned paper was from a paper stack and the ribbon from SU,






Tomorrow will be our first installment of Mojo Monday! Hope you had something that inspired you this weekend. I can't wait to share what inspired me and what I did with it.


Have a great Sunday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.


~*Shell*~

Clearly Challenged (Clearly Inspired Challenge #14)

Clearly iStamp has a challenge each month on the first Friday. Participants have until the first Friday of the next month to complete the challenge and post a link to a project related to the theme. They love for you to use Clear Dollar Stamps if you have them, but they are not required. The winner is randomly picked, and great prizes are offered!

The theme this month is Birthday Bash. According to the site .... The challenge will close on July 1 and the winner will be announced, along with the next challenge, on July 2nd.


After going through the CDS stamps in my stash, I decided to work with a set that I've not used yet. Critter Log is super cute! I love this little set. The bunny was precious, so that's where the project started. Christian Birthdays was also used on this card.


Isn't he adorable?! He is, of course, colored with Copics and mounted on SU paper - night of navy, certainly celery, and basic gray.
















The night of navy paper was stamped with VersaMark using the one of the stamps from the Leaf Impressions set. The base is creamy caramel and has been embossed with the Cuttlebug. The brads are from my stash.





















The sentiment is mounted on night of navy, as well, and the ribbon on the card was from the SAB ribbon bundle, I believe.










Tomorrow, I will show another project that I worked on this weekend.

Have a wonderful Saturday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow! :)


~*Shell*~

Projects and Plans

What was your take on yesterday's challenge? Have you tried it yet? I hope that if you haven't, that you will try it this weekend or when you get a few minutes to craft.

When I began creating this card, I knew that I wanted to use my Cricut and SCAL. I had a 'vision' of the pieces I wanted to use. So, I set to work. I wanted a red circle (or part of one), a blue star, and white wavy lines. As I continued the design in my mind, I decided, that I wanted another white star to be the 'image' layer.

Here's how the pieces were placed in SCAL to be cut ....



The paper was put on the mat like this ...




This allowed the pieces to be cut at the same time and with smaller pieces of paper. I would have used scraps if I had scraps that were a little bigger than the pieces I was cutting. Instead, the pieces used were about 6x6.

It's been a while since I've used eyelets for a project, so I used some wonderful stars on this one. The stars were placed on the corners of the white sentiment layer. The tool that I used was from Eyelets Etc out of Denver, CO. I found it at CHA last year. It has nibs to cut the holes and to set the eyelets. Pretty cool little tool.





The set used on this card was from SU. It's a great patriotic set. The sentiment came from the patriotic sentiment set, also from SU.







The edges of the card were brushed with the black ink pad, and the edges of the blue star were brushed with a little bit of white craft ink.





The image was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with Copics.







So, there's my take on the patriotic challenge. I can't wait to check out what you do.




What's coming up? What's the new plan? Beginning Monday, I will begin 'theme days.' Each day will have a specific plan.

Monday - Mojo Monday...what gave me my inspiration this last week or weekend.

Tooty Fruity Tuesday - Tutorials (for now, on SCAL)

Use Those Thingies Thursday - A challenge day

Free File Friday - a free .jpg file will be offered each Friday for you to use


I hope this will be beneficial for my readers. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. If you have questions about SCAL, the Cricut, or stamping, I'd love to address them here on the blog.


Let me know what you think - about the project and about the plans.

The plans are exciting for me! I hope they are for you, as well!


Have an awesome Friday night and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!!!

~*Shell*~





****** Just a note - the images on this page WERE resized *before* being put on here, but for some reason are HUGE on some computers (including mine ....). They small on Photobucket, and that's all I can do with them. I'm sorry.