cricut THIS!

Browsing around on my cartridges I found this pretty heart on the Home Decor one! And what do you know, a very nice "love" script as well. Shrinking the word a bit sideways I welded it into the heart. Made a duplicate of this for a shadow and got a pretty quick card out of this!

This is my entry for the current Just Buggin' Love Ya Challenge .

card size: 6 by 5.5
papers: assorted shimmer and linen papers
cartridge: Home Decor
get .cut file

Now how do you make yourself a custom shadow like that in design studio?
Very easy: Line up and weld your items on the first page.
Use the shadow function and same slider size and add both items again.
Now move them behind the original to see how the shadow fits.
The heart was easy as I had not changed this, but put it exactly behind the original cut the way you want the shadow to appear.
Now the "love" text I had manipulated so it took a little while of shifting and adjusting the width until it fit properly as a shadow.
You are still working on the first page in DS!
When you are happy with it all, open a second page.
Select the heart by clicking on it, copy (ctrl C), then go to your second page and paste. DO NOT MOVE THIS! It will paste exactly to the same position as it was copied from the first page.
Go back and copy your second item (text), and paste it to your second page. It will copy exactly at the same spot that you had it on your first page. Select weld on both items. Go back to first page again and select your shadow items and delete them.

So, in other words, in order to make a shadow of welded items in design studio, you arrange your shadow items right on top of your original items on page 1 until you are happy with their size. Then just copy all welded items to a second page and paste them there without moving. Go back to your first page and delete them there.

In one of my ATC swap groups we have a fabulous birthday coming up. I really wanted to sit this amazing number into something else, and here is what I came up with:

I took the banner heart from the Lovestruck cart and sat the "90" (storybook) in the center of the banner, welded. This layer was cut from Dragonfly Dreams Shimmer Paper which takes the intricate cuts very well without tearing.

The base card was made with the blackout key for the same heart. I adjusted the width and height a bit so that it would fit properly in a A6 envelope. At the beginning of this blog I showed you how to make shaped cards that are side-fold. The top-fold cards are a lot easier to do, here are the steps:

1. choose your shape and put on bottom half of DS screen
2. select item, then copy (ctrl C) and paste (ctrl V) (don't move it!!) it is exactly on top of your initial shape
3. rotate new shape 90 degrees twice
4. move new shape up on vertical axis only until you have desired overlap at fold
5. important: FLIP new shape. Most cricut shapes are not exactly bilaterally even, so this step is important for the front and back of the card to match

Click here to download the .cut file

I put the top cut directly onto the top-fold card which was cut from a DECVW designer card stock that has little shimmer dots all over. Colored the heart part with a violet copic marker. This bled through, so I had to get a bit creative on the inside:

I really love the way the copic looks on the inside, with the dot pattern and entire shape looking a lot like done in watercolor. All stamps used on the inside are from Mark's Finest Papers .

I had to play some more with fish today! This card is for my son who loves his fish tank and always wanted to have black gravel (when we the parents had the say LOL...).

This week's challenge at Just Buggin' is "all about pets", that is how I got the idea.

Carts and dial sizes:
Pagoda: center fish at 2.75
Animal Kingdom: Bowls + water at 3.25, SplishSplash at 1
Everyday Paper Dolls: left fish at 3 and right fish at 2.5

no Design Studio was harmed in the making of this card ;)

The water layers on the bowls were cut from transparency, then colored with copics and adhered over the lower bowl layer and fish with dots of clear glue which was supposed to look a bit like water bubbles:

The bottom black is glitter card stock that has got to be just as messy as real black gravel.... Amazing how hard it is to purposely sew wavy lines with the machine! Both cards from today fit in a regular size 10 business envelope.

This week the Cricut Cardz blog gives us the challenge to make a masculine card with your cricut. Taking my husband as the recipient, I played with Storybook and Pagoda in Design Studio. He loves koi and I think he still is just as "coy" as he was so many years ago ;)

I cut the welded image and the fish from shimmer paper which cuts like butter :) The background card stock was a bit cuttlebugged and swiped with ink and shimmer paste. Some hotfix crystals and pearls for accents finish it all off. This card may be in subtle colors, but this teal sortof color is one of hubby's favorites, and truly, he knows from all the hours of staring into his pond that koi can be hard to spot when they are hiding!

I'm sure many of you have already seen my obsession with building storage items like the copic marker holders in this post . I'm about to increase my collection and have outgrown the holders that I made there. I used to really enjoy the ciao markers more than the sketch, now I changed my mind, I like the sketch better. Ahhh, it is grande to be a female isn't it LOL.... Anyway, the previous design was perfect for mixing the two if you don't have that many sketch markers (they are wider). I fudged the size a bit to be just a touch wider to house the sketch markers more comfortably. Here is what I made today:

Lets get right to it how to make one! You'll need to decide how many compartments you want and how you want to arrange them. It works vertically or horizontally. I chose stacks of 10 boxes in 4 rows. Using the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cartridge you can cut two boxes from one sheet of 8.5 by 11 card stock.

Just type in the sizes for width and height as shown, hit apply. Select box and copy it once and move the second one under the first one. Or click on the picture to download the cut file ;) Arrange your card stock on the mat in landscape aligning the upper right corner to the corner of the mat.

Cut your boxes, I did 40 for this example. Score each one, pre-fold, then assemble:

Apply adhesive to both short tabs and one long tab and the whole length of the skinny side tab. On the edge only, don't fill the entire tab, you don't want sticky stuff to be exposed inside your box. I used my ATG gun for this step.

With the adhesive in place, go ahead and flatten your box to press and really securely glue the long side seam. Then unfold again and place your box on some grid so you can align it on the grid to close the bottom. It is very important to get your boxes as straight as you can get them, and not twisted:

Holding the box straight, fold in both small flaps first, then the large flap with the adhesive, then the large flap that doesn't have adhesive. (DUH because the sequence is wrong in the picture...). Hold and turn over, use a sketch marker to press inside the box and secure. Now build your stacks with gluing them on top of each other. I used liquid paper glue for this:

Notice how I switched the orientation with each box? No matter how much we love our cricut and our abilities to work even, neither does really. So there are small imperfections that repeat and would make everything crooked if you stack them the same way. Switching back and forth balances this out and gives you the straightest result! Now glue your stacks of boxes together in rows, go heavy on the glue. Cover everything with your favorite paper (I used "Color me Silly" from Basic Grey and lots of mod podge) add a ribbon around the front:

Fill er up and take her for a drive! I love having my copics this way. Sort any way it makes sense to you, there are no rules but your own preferences. Make your holder as small or as large as you like. This one sits on my desk right by my work area and is as much fun to use as it is to look at.
OK, gonna have to place another marker order now, I got some space ;)