This week I had a different project in mind but it didn’t work out. So I thought I might talk about the pros and cons of buying cartridges vs. paying for the subscription with the Cricut machine.

You know that neither Steve nor I can resist a bargain! Well when we were at Tuesday Morning the other day Steve spotted this Sesame Street cartridge for $12.99, tax made it about $14.00. If you have looked at cartridges that is a pretty good price. And I was surprised to see it at Tuesday Morning. I’m not really into Sesame Street but Steve thought we could do some cards and things for the grandbaby. So we picked it up.

So looking at it I was pleasantly surprised to find how many sayings it has on it!

So let’s look at the two options.

With a cartridge you get a limited amount of images, just what is on the cartridge.  This Sesame Street cartridge came with 100 images.  While this is good for that one project or two it is sometimes limiting because if you want a flower and the cartridge is all letters you will be buying another cartridge.

There are a lot of cartridges out.  And you can find almost any image. Also if you aren’t using the internet to design and cut things this is the only way to cut things. So for the older machines this could be the best option. I personally had/have about 60 cartridges because I have had the older machine for so long. I would say that I used it a lot less then than I do now.  Also if you aren’t hooking up to the internet there are a lot of people out there that are selling their cartridges after they have linked the cartridge to their online account and you can pick them up pretty cheaply.

The one time that I encourage someone to buy a cartridge is if they want to do things with images that are licensed, like Disney, Sesame Street, Anna Griffin. Here is my reasoning: you are going to pay a couple of dollars for that image on the subscription side and it only gives you 1 image, for a little more money you can use the hundreds of images that come on the cartridges. Most of us out there that use a princess image are going to want more than one princess!!!

Let’s talk about the subscription.  There are images that you can use without a subscription for free, but it is fairly limited.  The subscription is a monthly or yearly fee. Right now I think that when you buy a machine they are giving you a free, all access trial for 2 weeks.  This 2 weeks starts when you set up you account. I also got a free period when we bought this Sesame Street cartridge.  The subscription gives you access to thousands and thousands of images. There are also already designed projects that you have access to for free. It is easy to tell what is on the subscription because they put a small, green A in the corner.

I recommend the subscription especially for beginners because it lets you try so many different things! You can play with flat images, layered images, lettering, 3-D objects as well as the print then cut.  And you can try it for a month at a time.  Once you decide if that works you can decide to do it for a year at a time and save a little.

Hope this helps!  Feel free to ask me any questions you have that I didn’t answer here!

Thanks for stopping by!

Lu

The great thing about the Cricut machine is that if you need more of a project you can just go in and make it again without having to redesign it!

That is what we did this week! Our friend that had us do ribbons for her friend’s daughter’s ball team needed them for another team. So we just pulled up our saved project, put in the quantity we needed and pressed go!  You might want to test it out on a plain test paper first to make sure it goes as you want.  Paper is cheaper than vinyl.

Well ok it got a little tougher than that, things never go that easy for me!! Steve got us an after market pen holder and this is the first time we have used it.  And it did the writing fine but when it was ‘traveling” to the next spot it didn’t always pick up right so there were some “extra” lines. I just spent a few minutes with swaps and alcohol and got them out of the ribbons. There are some still but they are on the negative space.  Too bad our projects can’t work perfect every time.  The good thing is we keep making it work!!!!!

Thanks for stopping by today!!!

Lu

This week I wanted to talk about cards for a minute.  I don’t know about everyone but when I send a card I am looking to convey a feeling, ie. love, hope, sympathy, longing.  Anyway, color can play a big role in conveying that feeling.  So this week I decided to show you an example of that.  Also the way you orient your card can make a difference also.  So let’s look at this example!

So when you look at the yellow one you get a softer more subtle feeling, where with the white you get a sharper, louder kind of feel.  The first pictures with the vertical orientation you kind of get a  stronger feeling, and the second picture with the horizontal orientation gives you a softer feel!

I hope you can play with your projects and see if you can tell the differences!

Thanks for stopping by!!!!

Lu

Sorry we are late getting this out this week.  We have been busy moving our belongings to a storage container. This week we finally got word that we got the loan but we don’t have time to get the house built before we have to be out of our rental. So we bought a storage container and are in the process of moving our massive amount of stuff to the container. We think we might need 2 containers!!I know none of you are surprised at that! lol lol lol So for the next several months while we move and get the house built the blog might be a little hit and miss, sorry.

This weekend I have an Open House at Joann’s so I am trying to get the Giveaway figured out. It needs to be Solar Eclipse Themed because  that is going to be the big deal here in a few days!!!

So I decided to make a mini eclipse viewer.  And this is what I came up with! It is a little box bottom I designed so it would hold a small candy and then I just attached the squares and decorations to that box.   I tried it in the house with my flashlight and it seems to work, but I’m not sure that it is big enough to use for the actual eclipse.  Oh well it is just a giveaway!!! Hope you like it!!!

This week I wanted to send a thank you card to each of my cousins for letting us crash their reunion. I just wanted them simple and my Cricut was in for repair so I just did some stamping. I haven’t really stamped in a long time so it was good to get back to it!! I think they are fun!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Lu

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This week one family of my cousins are coming from all over the country to Nauvoo, IL for a family reunion. So we are going to go up and spend a day with them. I know that some of them are scrapbookers so I thought I’d try and take them something they could use to remember this reunion. I hope they like it!

This weekend Joann’s is having a Journaling Event. I’m not running that but am trying to go in and demo the Cricut, hoping to get some people to sign up for class. So I needed to come up with something to give away that would coordinate with what they are doing.
They are letting them make a “journaling box” . They are saying it is bullet journaling. The two I remember from the picture were more like lists of things to do. So I came up with a little envelope for them to put their list in. One had a mason jar on it, one had stars.
So here’s what I came up with!

Thanks for taking time to stop by!!

Lu

I am not feeling too well this week so I just made a couple of cards for this week,
The first one I wanted to use a push pin. I thought that I could just cut the pin part off, but it was too thick for the tools I had to cut. So I had to figure I way to use it with the pin part on. So I decided to just put pops on it. It took 3 to get it covered and then I had to use 3 in the other places to keep it level! It might not go to someone in an envelope, but I will send it with something else in a box.

Then as most of you know I like to color and have done it since I was in Utah. So I decided to use one of those today. I think it turned out ok.

They each have a little paper in the inside as well!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Lu

I know this is too late but wanted to try it anyway! I saw this technique to paint with a toilet paper roll on Pinterest,and thought “I wonder if I could make my own roll and size it to whatever I want?” Because, those of you that know me, know I want to change everything! Besides a toilet paper roll only gives you one size and is too big for a card!!

So here we go! I have lots of pictures to show you the stages! They said to do it with paint. I tried my inks but they are pretty dry so that didn’t work well. I tried watercolors and I liked that. And I think the refill for your ink pads would work well also. So lots of ways to do this so that it is safe for your scrapbook. I decide hat I was making card and safety wasn’t an issue this time for so I went with paint.
So first I cut me a piece of paper and rolled it into the shape. I just glued the edge with tape and overlapped the ends. Then I cut one end of the cone up about half way making sure to be inconsistent in the cut width. Then I folded the cuts out. To get different size tubes I wrapped the paper around different size pens or markers.

The next step is to put paint onto something that you can dip the cut end into. I just used a paper plate so I could throw it away.  you want to spread the paint into as even a layer as you can and big enough to get the whole tube ends in at once. The paint needs to be in a fairly thin layer because the design doesn’t come out as well if there is paint on the top side of the paper.

Then I took a sheet of white paper and started “stamping”.  You should probably let the paint dry between colors but you know me!!  Once I had “stamped” in both colors, I thought the middles looked a little empty so I used a stylus and added some dots to the centers.

Then I really did have to let everything dry!!  The I just cut my paper to fit my card!! I cut the happy 4th of July out on my Cricut and then put it on white and the cards are ready, for next year!! lol lol lol

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

Lu