cricut THIS!

Kinda sad when you forget the login for your own blog, isn't it? my way of saying, its been a while....
Today I was playing around with the Pagoda cartridge and Design Studio. I like the card option function, even if I don't necessarily like their odd sizes of the resulting cards. But most of the design shapes are flexible enough so that you can shift the card size to a regular 5.5 by 4.25 inch card! Meaning, if you stretch the design it still looks good and not funky out of whack. For this example I used the card option with the bird3 (key 16) and put in the dimensions in the Shape Properties : Width 11, Height 4.25:



I also added the character for "Happiness" in the lower corner of the card front. Some of the characters are slightly different for the "tag/card" option when compared to the die cut option, if you want to keep the background with an image cut out, use the card/tag option for the character, it will look clearer. Example "happiness" (key22):



Left is the regular character (I colored in the three small center cuts) and to the right is the tag/card version of the character as it would appear after cutting. The Kanji alone gives you a convenient one part item to add to your layout, the card/tag option of the character cuts in two parts and has more definition that way, even if the differences are just subtle. If you add the card option of the character to your card front, just select the surrounding border and do a "hide selected contour" to have it not cut, I also hide the score marks in the center of the card....
The resulting window card can be finished in many ways, I used some hand made paper inside the card and added a touch of eyelash yarn and some pierced holes at the top:



These designs look very cool with mulberry paper or patterned designer paper behind them!

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!