Information and Cricut Craft Room Tip

Hello everyone.  I was down with a bit of a tummy bug yesterday so I am behind on my weekly schedule - both crafting and around the house.  I had planned to be finished in my recovering project, but alas after breaking three sewing machine needles (and I only had three left!) I must go to sewing store before I can share my recovered footstool.

I also will have to finish my video before  I can share the technique used to create those awesome Cuttlebug Quill Flowers.  Do you see a pattern here?  Yes, my week is full of unfinished....

The one thing I did mange to finish, just before the tummy thing hit, was this new floral arrangement for my coffee table.  I LOVED the flowers that my husband gave me for my birthday.  And I loved them sitting on this table.  They made me realize that the table needed both color and a taller element.  So, with all of the flowers on 50% off sale at Hobby Lobby, I made my choices and my purchases.  I thought the arrangement came out nicely and added a pop of color to the area.

Now for the real reason for this post.  I read a wonderful tutorial on converting your Design Studio .Cut files into .ccr files to use in the Cricut Craft Room.  The Craft Room will not support .cut files, only .gypsy files and .ccr files.  While I was visiting Karen Adamczyk's blog, Scrapper Creations, I read her tutorial on converting your Design Studio library into gypsy files. 

I have both .cut files and .gypsy files on my computer, and have moved back and forth between my Gypsy and my Design Studio.  And while I am not sure that I will convert everything, Karen makes a great point when sharing her calendar cut files.  I too have calendar cut files and would hate to have to recreate those.  Soooo, I will be converting some of my files.  My Design Studio llibrary is far too large to covert everything in one sitting - but perhaps I could start with favorites. 

Of course now I am questioning whether I should put the time into converting all of the cut files on my side bar into .gypsy files.  Yikes.  So much time involved. 

Cricut Craft Room - First Project

If you read my blog last Saturday you may remember that I was having a difficult time with printing and cutting on my Imagine in the Cricut Craft Room.  Well... now having actually READ the information on the Craft Room, I discovered that it was a ID-10-T error (idiot) - the Imagine is not yet linked to the Craft Room.  Duhh.  So sheepishly I went back to the CR and selected Cricut Expression as my machine and VOILA! It worked wonderfully well!  I cannot wait to link up my Imagine also.

I used Lacy Labels exclusively to create this card.  The base card was created by welding two of the same shape together and was then cut in a double sided cardstock.  I then cut two toppers, in the same shape, in a dark brown cardstock and a reverse of the base card cardstock.  Finally I cut the branch with bird cut and the word Bliss.

After using my ATG gun to assemble all of the large pieces I got out some Copic markers and attacked the foliage branch and the word Bliss.  First I added two different greens to the leaves and then tan to the branches.  I finished the branch with a thin brown marker, adding dots and dashes to highlight random stem areas and leaves.  I used both green and blue markers on the work Bliss, and finished the word with white ink dots.  I chose to leave the bird solid cream so that the stark simplicity would pop off of the card. 

Before I affixed the branch to the base card I found a little bag of goodies that I received in the goody bag swap at the Cricut Circle Crop in Atlanta.  The package contained the great aqua colored trim and two coordinating buttons.  I attached the trim to the branch and then, adding two brown flowers, I sewed the buttons onto the branch sides.

I finished the card by adding an aqua-ish flower behind the bird to frame him.

I think you are all going to love the Cricut Craft Room when it goes public later in the month.  To me it takes the best parts of Gypsy and Design Studio and combines them into a great piece of software.  Oh, and for those like me that love DS but HATE the tiny images - the images are bigger too!!!  Woo-hoo!!!