MeFlick's Various Forms of Cut Files

New Features in Make the Cut and a New Lettering Delights Card Using them

2011-12-04T11:18:00.002-05:00

Wow, can't believe it's been more than 2 months since I posted anything here on my blog! End of Sept., really?! Guess there was too much volleyball and football going on in my life the last few months!

I have actually been doing some crafting and playing with the new features that have recently been added to the Make the Cut software. However, I just haven't had time to sit down and take pictures, write the info. up and get it posted on my blog. Too little time and I'd rather spend it crafting I guess! It does take a LOT of time to keep up a blog and to all of those who manage to do it EVERY DAY or several times a week, I salute you, your hard work and dedication!

Here is the project card that I wanted to share with you. One of the newer features in the Make the Cut software (MTC) is the ability to access Lettering Delights cutting files (LD) directly from within your MTC software! One of LD's more recent files set is called "All Season's Pop-up Cards". Well, there is some "cute" stuff there but the pop-up cards themselves are a little plain and boring without any "color" to them (at least to me!). Here's a picture of what the plain card looks like:

Cute little snowman with a friend and the snowflakes yes? However, what if you could make the snowman and the bird really "pop" off the page - that would be better don't you think? I did! So this is what I made using several of the new features in MTC version 4.0.+!

Now, which card would you rather send out or receive in the mail? I know I'd rather have the "color"!

So now, you probably want to know how I did that! It's actually a lot easier then it's going to sound! I'm not going to give a full tutorial or step by step, nor do I feel that I can share photos or screen shots of the process because the file is a purchased one from Lettering Delights. However, if you are comfortable with MTC and some of its newer features you should be able to follow along with the "concept" as I do my best to "explain" what I did. It would be helpful if you have some basic knowledge of MTC and its newest features in order to fully understand what I have done.

First, you would need to purchase and download one of the Lettering Delight's Popup files like this one or find another one from somewhere else (there are some out there for free as well!). This snowman card came from LD's "All Season's Pop-up Cards" and is "Card 2" in that collection.

Once I had the base card downloaded onto my MTC mat, I created a new page in that same MTC file and copied and pasted in place the card base to the new page to work with that copy. (Simply redownloading to that page would work also.) I kept the first page to cut "as is" for my card base to which to adhere my "Print and Cut" file once it was completed. (Note: This card base is actually the "insert" that you would need to add to the inside of a card base you create.) Now you are ready to "break the file" to create your "Print and Cut".

Select the card base, go to Edit-->--->Shape Magic---->Break

This will break the card into different "parts and pieces". One of the first things I did was to select the snowflakes and snow "dots" all together, and "join" them back together as a group (edit ---> shape magic ----> join) so they are treated as "one" object, take them to their own layer, and then hide that layer so that they are out of the way. (One reason I "join" them back together is so that when I want to work with them, move them around, etc. I only have to click on one and it selects the entire group!)

I then took the other different "parts and pieces" of the snowman to their own layers and colored them. I selected the snowman's eyes and mouth (again, did a "join" so they stay together as one "object") - took them to their own layer ('selection to new layer") and made their color "black" (I took them together because I was coloring both the eyes and mouth black. If I wanted them different colors, I would have take the eyes to one layer and the mouth to its own layer). I then selected the nose, took it to its own layer, and made it orange. Finally, I "joined" the buttons to keep them together, took them to their own layer and colored them red. Once I had all of these objects moved to their own layers and colored as desired, I hid those layers to keep them out of the way while I worked on the remaining parts I needed.

Next I did a little work on the bird. I will be bringing the entire (already) colored bird back in from the Lettering Delight's file a little later (No need to reinvent the wheel!) so I just need to get rid of the bird's eye and wing. There are two ways I could do that. I selected the bird's wing and eye along with the body and "welded" (edit---->shape magic ----> weld) the bird's eye and wing to the base so that those "holes" are gone and it is one solid piece for cutting later. I could also have deleted the wing and the eye from this part of the card but it would have and left the "holes" in the base and these would have still been cut out. The way I did it with the welding, it is one solid piece now.

Now to complete the work, we need to do some "node editing." To do "node editing" you have to be using the newest version of MTC, version 4.0.+. We need to use MTC's new node editing features to get the Snowman recognized as a "whole" snowman and to remove his stick arms from the body and make them into separate parts. Right now he has "pieces" (cut lines) missing from his head and side where he is "attached" to the card base. We want to be able to cut the snowman out on his own and to color his stick arms brown.

Open the Node editing menu in MTC 4.0.+ (found on the left top corner of your MTC mat). Click on the Bezier Curve tool, notice that you can now see the "nodes" blue dots at the end of lines (you may need to zoom in to see better). Left click on the top node on the left top side of the snowman's head, then go down to the bottom left side node and right click on the node there. This will add a line to the snowman and close off the left side of his head. Repeat this on the right side of the Snowman's head. This will make his head "whole" and ready to cut all the way around.

Now, before we do the same thing to the sides of his body, we need to cut off his stick arms and close the finger tips and end of the arms so that we can take them to their own layer and color them brown. Using the knife slicing tool (probably a really good idea to zoom in closer here), go just above the top of the left stick arm where it joins the body, click, hold and drag it down to below where the bottom part of the stick joins the body and then release, this will cut the arm away from the body. It is probably in two pieces, the top and bottom parts of the stick, select both pieces, move them a little way away from the body to help with the node work. (If you don't, you may end up rejoining them to the body accidentially!) Again select the Bezier Curve tool and use it to close the "gap" or "missing line" on his middle finger tip and at the end of the stick (see instructions above on using this tool to close the sides of the head). If done correctly, the "stick" will become whole and change color. Now do the same to the stick arm on the right side. Use the Knife/slicing tool to cut the stick off the body and then use the Bezier Curve tool to close the lines on the finger and at the end of the stick. You know have to "closed" stick arms!

Now use the Bezier Curve tool to close the "gaps" or add the "missing line" to the left and right sides of the snowman's body the same way you did the head and the stick arms. Take the snowman's body to it's own layer and color it "white". Move the stick arms back into place next to the snowman's body, take them to their own layer and color them brown. You will also then need to "copy" and then "paste in place" the snowman's arms onto the same layer with the snowman's body and then "weld" them to the body so that you have the correct shape to "cut" once you have him printed. Welding should make them one piece with the body and make sure it is all still white.

At this point you can open and close layers as needed and use the node editing tools as desired to modify, correct lines as needed (making sure finger tip or head is more "curved" for example).

At this point, it's a good idea to make sure that all the different "layers" or "parts and pieces" are in the correct order for the best print and cut and make sure that they are not closed or hidden if needed for the print and cut.. (For example, the eyes, nose, mouth, and button layers should all be "above" the snowman's body layer so that they are "on top" and showing properly when printing.)

Once that is all done, you can then go back to the Lettering Delight's Files and download the "bird" from the "All Season's Pop-up Cards" collection. Put it on its own layer, place it and size it correctly so that it is sitting on top of the snowman's head as needed. You are now ready to do your printing. (If you are just printing, the different parts and pieces of the bird do not have to be on their own layers since they are already colored differently and stay that way when you bring them in from LD's file.)

Couple of notes regarding printing. First, you need to make sure that you only have the layers showing that you want included in the printing (in this instance, the bird and the snowman along with his eyes, nose, mouth, buttons and arms). Be sure you have closed any other layers not needed for printing. Second, you need to decide if you just want the "fill" only or the "fill and outline" to show when you print and make any changes needed there. On mine, both were showing so I have the lines around his nose, etc. You can also use the "print preview" to see what is going to print. Since the snowman himself is "white" with no outline showing, you won't see his body since "white" does not show on print preview. (If you feel the need to verify that he's really there you can change his body to another color besides white before doing the preview - just remember to change it back to white if you want a white snowman!)

To print a file for a "Print and Cut" - first make sure that you have checked your printing options needed from within the MTC software. Go to File ---->print options and select or deselect options as needed. For example you will need to make sure that "print registration marks are checked" but the "use silhouette sd" is marked only if you are using that cutter. Decide on printer outlines or not, etc. Once done, click ok and print.

Once you have your printed page, follow the proper method needed to do a "print and cut" for your cutter of choice. I have both a Silhouette SD and an 18" Cougar machine so how I do a print and cut with each of those machines varies. (Note: If you have never done a 'print and cut" with your cutter before, you may need to first calibrate your machine before doing a "print and cut" to ensure your cutting is aligned properly with your image.)

One important step to remember at this point is to CLOSE any and all LAYERS that you DO NOT WANT TO CUT! For example, we only want to cut the "outline" of the snowman with the bird on his head so that is the only layer we would have showing. We would close the colored bird, along with the snowman's eyes, nose, mouth, buttons, and arms along with the card base. (If we forget to close those layers, they will "cut" and you will not have an orange nose, red buttons, etc!)

Once you have your "print and cut" printed and cut out, you are ready to adhere it to your inside "pop-up base". Cut out the original "card base" from the Lettering Delights file. Adhere your "print and cut" to the Snowman and then apply the entire base to a base card being careful not to adhere the parts of the snowman that "pop-up". (Note: I always remove or hide the layer with the scored/fold lines because I don't like the little "slits" it puts in the card. This is a personal preference.)

Now you have a cute "colored" pop-up to send out to your family and friends!

Couple of other quick notes, if you want to vary the card size, you need to put the card base on the same page on its own layer - have ALL layers showing, "select all" and resize so that you resize all together and in proportion!You can also now use this file to "paper piece" the snowman if desired as well. You would just cut out the different parts and pieces as needed. This would be great or adding a little "dimension" to a project. You could also use the "print and cut" as a stand alone object (like on the front of the card) and can resize him as needed, etc. Use your imagination and have fun!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope my basic "instructions" are helpful to you in making other simple files have a little more "pop". Please feel free to leave a message should you have any questions or comments. I tried to make sure I covered all the steps but I may have missed something or not explained it well enough! I hope to share some more projects with you soon that I have been working on. In the meantime, if I don't get back soon - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all and a Happy New Year too! LOL!!

Beach Babe "Print and Cut" Cards

2011-09-29T14:10:00.001-04:00

Wow - time sure does fly doesn't it! Almost 2 months since I've posted to my blog. I'm sorry but between recovering from my cervical fusion, school starting, sports and other things - well that hasn't left much time to update my blog. I have been doing some crafting recently, I just need to find time to sit down write them up, take photos and get everything posted to share. All that takes time which I don't have much of - when I do, I'd rather be actually crafting then posting about it I guess! I'm going to make an effort to start to share some more soon. In that regard, I wanted to share two cards I made today from some new "Print and Cut" files I found on the "All that Jazz" site. They are designed as Print and Cut files for 2 page scrapbook layouts. The files are from "Scrapbook Circus" and can be found on Tyler's site (along with a video and a free sample file to try!) :

Scrapbook Cricus Print and Cut Files at All that Jazz.

Well, I'm not a scrapbooker (yet) but I do make cards on occasion so I thought I'd try the "Beach Babes" collection and see if I could take "scrapbooking" files and make cards with them! I was able to make 2 different cards and used a number of the embellishments from the files. The files are available in several formats that should work for almost anyone no matter what cutter and software you use (.mtc, .svg, and .jpeg files).

Here are the two cards I made from the files. I did have to resize them some to fit on "cards". Not to difficult to do with MTC and the new features offered in the new Beta Version 4.*. Shift and hold while clicking and dragging to resize outline and texture at the same time for example.

One Card (the blue base) is 5x7 and the other is 4x6. The "mat" on the smaller one is also from the file.

Best thing (besides the cute files) was this project forced me to sit down and actually calibrate my Cougar machine so I could do the Print and Cuts of these files! I have tried a few times but never gotten it nailed down - close but not right on (more a problem with me and my brain - not the fault of the cutter or the software - strictly a user error - My brain fogs when it sees X/Y and +/- numbers I am afraid!). I'm happy to report that with the help of Tyler and Rob (ScrappyDew) and their latest work to continue to find tools to help us use our machines and software, I was finally able to get my machine calibrated!

You can find this latest help file on Tyler's website:

Print and Cut Calibration Help at All that Jazz

I used this and then used MTC's Black Cat Plugin and the Laser option and found great success in doing these Print and Cuts so thanks Tyler and Rob! Please feel free to ask if you have any questions. If you have the ability to do Print and Cuts I would highly recommend checking out these files on Tyler's site and downloading the free "Hammock" file! Thanks for stopping by! Hope to share more soon!

Tom Cruise by paperkutz

2011-07-31T21:15:00.000-04:00

Good evening. My cervical disc fusion went well and I am on the mend. It has been a month now and I have finally felt up to spending some time in my craft room. Still some time required on the mending so things around here will still be slow for a while.

While I haven't recently created any files personally to share, I did want to share this with all of you that use MTC, SCAL or other software with your electronic cutters. If you have ever been on the MTC forums you may have seen paperkutz share some celebrity "portraits" cut from layered paper. They are truly awesome works of art. Many people on that forum had asked for him to share his methodology and experience so they could learn how to do such projects (most want to do family members). I am happy to say that he has finally found the time to sit down and work on sharing that information. He has started a blog where he will be posting files to try and then tutorials on how he does it so we can all learn how to do it too! He shared a 6 layer cut file of Tom Cruise that he created to show us how it works. It is actually fairly easy to cut this file as it does not have many small intricate pieces and therefore goes together fairly easily. I didn't have the correct 6 colors of paper he recommended (you really can use 6 any monochromatic shades of any color) but thought it was a decent job for a novice. Here is the "portrait" I cut and assembled using paperkutz' file and instructions:

You can find out more about paperkutz and his technique and tutorials (and get this cut file of Tom) by visiting his blog here: http://paperkutzstudio.wordpress.com/

His plan is to post another cut file of a different celebrity by the end of this week and then in the following weeks go through how to pick your own photo, how to posterize it and turn it into a cut file. After his tutorials are done, he is going to have a mini-contest for you to create your own files based on his tutorials that you have completed! So be sure and stop by his site for all the details. I'm very excited that he will be sharing his knowledge and expertise as I would love to use this process to create portraits of my family.

I'm so excited about this that I wanted you to see more of his actual work (its not all on his blog at the moment) so here are links to his other celebrity portraits that he has done and shared on the MTC forum: (There are no cut files shared for these - just his awesome end products to inspire you and show you why I am so excited to learn his techniques!)

Edgar Allen Poe and Mark Twain

Edward and Jacob from Twilight

Michael Jackson and Bob Marley

John Lennon and Steven Tyler

Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia

Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn

Kurt Cobain and Robert Plant

True Blood: Jason, Eric, Sookie, and Jason Stackhouse

Prince and Elvis

Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix

Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones

Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.

I hope to have some more things I have actually done to share soon. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about a new blog. I need to do a new one and drop the "cricut" name from it as I don't want to get in any trouble by using it. As always, thanks for stopping by! Have a great week.

Happy Summer!

2011-07-11T12:39:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to make a quick post to let everyone know that I haven't forgotten my blog. Life gets in the way sometimes. LOL Family comes first and then I had to have a cervical fusion at the end of June. This wasn't unexpected - had been fighting it for more than 2 years now. Finally gave in and took care of it. I am on the mend now and hope to be crafting again more regularly soon. One of my fist orders of business is probably to redo or start a new blog for sharing. I will update here if and when that happens. Have a great summer and as always, thanks for stopping by and for understanding.

Disney Album Cover - Engraving with My Cougar

2011-05-29T08:42:00.002-04:00

Well, I guess almost posting everyday for an entire month really threw me off! LOL - Seems that I haven't been able to find the time to do much crafting of late, much less all the extra time to sit down and create cuttable files, take pictures, and then writeup blog posts. Summer has now arrived in my household so I will MAYBE have a little more time to create and craft with. I have all the supplies - just need the time and some creativity to hit! LOL

One of the reasons I got a new cutting machine, an 18" Cougar from That's Scraps, (the North American Dealer; see Dawn at Thyme Graphics regarding international orders) is so that I could do many more really cute things that I couldn't do with my Cricut machines like engraving and embossing as well as much larger items and some awesome print and cuts or using free graphic images and fonts from the internet or things I create myself from scratch. The problem though has been first time and second "bravery". LOL Now, I know many of you can relate to that statement. How many of you get some really cool new tool, a gypsy, an imagine, a gazzelle, silhouette, or better yet, a Lynx or a Cougar and then sit there and look at it for days, weeks or even months before FINALLY pulling it out of its box and turning it on?! Well, I'm not that bad, I do usually pull it out of the box immediately and then get it all set up but then stare at it for a while! LOL

Actually, I have had my Cougar out of the box for many months and have used it for quite a bit of regular cutting and it cuts really great. (It is easily setup out of the box but it does take some getting use to how to load and where it will cut, etc. especially if coming from the land of Cricuts). However, I hadn't been brave enough to try the engraving on plastics and metal, or the embossing. A lot of the time - my excuse was I didn't have enough time to devote to figuring it all out. However, I finally decided to give it a try yesterday and I must say once I started the engraving I thought, "Wow, that was EASY!" and wondered why I had waited so long! LOL Now that I have done it, there may be no stopping me! Still have some other tools to try as well as some really neat crafting supplies that I just bought from Tyler over at a new online store called "All that Jazz". He has some neat textured papers that look like animal skins and other things, velvet paper, thin and thicker sheets of acrylics, metal, and so much more. Now, just to get brave and try some of that as well! LOL

Anyway, here's the project that I wanted you to see. I had found a couple of sets of 6"x6" Clear Acrylic Covers by Zutter for use in the Bind It All marked down to $1.79 at HL the other day and figured that was a great, inexpensive way to give my engraving tool and my Cougar a try! I decided to create a mini album for our Disney Trip coming up later this summer. I have some free Disney Fonts and dingbats I found by googling for free Disney Fonts and used them to engrave the cover of my album. Now, to actually finish off the album and put pictures inside when we return! LOL That will be a first too - actually puting pics into an album! LOL Not really a scrapbooker here!

Now that summer is here, I hope to have some more time to create and share here on my blog. I have been doing some vinyl crafting of late, making tumblers and ice tubs for gifts, as well as some cards and other "gifts" that I will try to share in the next little bit. Some will only be for inspiration and some will have some cut files to share if you use MTC, SCAL or SVG files with other programs and machines other than Cricuts.

If you would like some real inspiration of some things to do checkout
Thyme's galleries, PennyDuncan's Blog, as well as Rachell's Blog to name but a few! If you go to Christy's blog, you will get links to LOTS more blogs with projects. First, Christy has several projects of her own but she also hosted a month long blog hop during the month of May showcasing projects from lots of other wonderful crafters. Once you have gotten your fill on those, you will see why I am so excited about all that my Cougar will let me do with software like MTC and SCAL. Don't worry though, I still have my Cricut machines and way too many cartridges so I am sure that you will still see some projects made with those again as well. In the interim, please feel free to leave me a comment if you have something specfic you would like to have done and I will give it a try.

As always - Thanks for stopping by!

Praying Hands Silhouette - MTC and SVG Files

2011-03-25T13:24:00.001-04:00

I had a request for the famous "Praying Hands". Here it is available for both MTC and SVG file users. Whew - thought I was going to miss posting today!!! LOL Have some work to do this weekend if I am going to be able to cover the remaining 4 days next week of March. If I do, I will have posted each weekday in March! That's a record. Sorry but don't think I will carry that into April! LOL

Really, I am trying to find how often I can comfortably post items. I think I am going to shoot for once a week. However, my problem is that once I create something I want to go ahead and share it! LOL But sometimes I have days and days where I can't sit down at my computer or in my craft room! Thanks for stopping by!

Download the Praying Hands MTC file here.

Download the Praying Hands SVG file here.

Bunny Painting Eggs (MTC and SVG files available)

2011-03-24T05:00:00.002-04:00

Good morning. Here is another bunny with his paint bucket and some Easter eggs. I found this bunny a couple of weeks ago as a free online coloring page back when I found the other bunnies I already shared. However, this one had several open lines, and double cuts, and other issues when trying to convert it so I had to take it into Inkscape and do some node editing and clean-up in order to create a cut file from it. I finally got that finished up and working so I thought I would go ahead and share it here with everyone just in case you hadn't found enough bunnies to work with! LOL I cut it fairly small, about 3 1/2" high by 2 1/2" wide. That small, some of the little pieces are extremely tiny (tongue, brush handle, flowers, ribbon, etc) and difficult to work with and may not cut well at all depending on your cutter. I would suggest a larger size if you hate working with teeny tiny pieces especially if your cutter doesn't cut well. I put googly eyes on this one and simply chalked the edges for some dimension.

Interestingly, I find that this is what I enjoy doing the most - the challenge of creating the cut file from something - figuring out HOW to make it work so that it can cut. That might explain why I have so many of these items still laying around on my craft table put together but not made into a card or anything!! LOL

Anyway - if you are interested in having this file to add to your collection feel free to download it below!

Download the Bunny with Paint Bucket Make the Cut (MTC) file here.

Download the Bunny with Paint Bucket SVG file here.

As always - let me see if you actually do something with my file! Thanks for stopping by!

Baby Chick Cracking through Egg - MTC and SVG Files Available

2011-03-23T05:00:00.018-04:00

Here is a baby chick or duck cracking through his egg. I created the file from a free coloring book page I found on-line. I am sharing both the Make the Cut (MTC) and SVG Files here for you. I created the file in Make the Cut (MTC) and then exported out as a SVG file. I did not break the SVG file into its separate pieces and parts. As a result, you will need to "break" the image into its parts and pieces when importing it to separate it out for its different colors. There are 6 layers to it. I would love to see what you do with the file. Thanks for stopping by.

Download the Baby Chick cracking through his egg Make the Cut file here.

Download the Baby Chick cracking through his egg SVG file here.

Pile of Easter Eggs (Make the Cut and SVG files available)

2011-03-22T05:00:00.011-04:00

Sorry - but I've been on a bit of sports roll looks like. Probably because more often then not, I am at some sort of game or another! Thought that all of the bunnies that I did needed some Easter Eggs to go with them! I found this pile on a free coloring book page on on-line and converted them into cut files for our use. The Make the Cut (MTC) file contains the pile of eggs as shown here. Then it has a page with the pile of separate eggs on it (not the little pieces just the base eggs) and then a third page with a single egg on it. The SVG file just has the pile of eggs. You will need to break the svg file into its separate pieces once imported into the software of your choice. I just did some quick chalking of the edges once I had it all glued down to give it some added depth and demension. (I always forget to chalk, ink, texture, etc. when putting my prototypes together!!) More texture and dimension could be added by using embossing tools of your choice. Please feel free to leave a comment below. Would love to see what you do with the file. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Download the Pile of Easter Eggs Make the Cut file here.

Download the Pile of Easter Eggs SVG file here.

Silhouette Volleyball Player getting a Dig - Make the Cut and SVG files

2011-03-21T05:00:00.002-04:00

Staying with my sports theme today but taking it back to DD's volleyball. Here is a file of a VB player getting that all important "Dig" on the court. My DD plays Libero on her school and club team so this is a move I often see her making! LOL She has lots of bruises and scabs from digging that ball! Good thing she loves playing. LOL This file too was a free clipart file I found and converted to a Make the Cut and then SVG files. Would love to see anything that you do with this or any of my other files. As always, thanks for stopping by. Let me know if there is anything you need help with converting. Would be happy to help if I can. Just leave me a comment and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Have a great week.

Download the Make the Cut Volleyball Player getting the Dig file here.

Download the SVG Volleyball Player getting the Dig file here.

Tennis Ball - Make the Cut and SVG files Available

2011-03-18T05:00:00.009-04:00

While I was on a "sports roll" I thought I'd throw out a simple tennis ball file. Neither of my children play tennis anymore but I play a little. Plus, a friend of mine's daughter plays and I thought she might like the file. It's simply the circle with the "lines". Again, this was taken from free clipart.

Download the Make the Cut tennis ball file here.

Download the SVG tennis ball file here.

Make the Cut Still Available for Many Cutter Machines NOT Cricuts

2011-03-17T09:34:00.000-04:00

PLEASE NOTE: As of March 16, 2011 - Make The Cut (MTC) NO LONGER SUPPORTS WORKING WITH CRICUT MACHINES. HOWEVER, If you have the last version of MTC (3.2.1 that was available through March 15, 2011), and firmware of 1.34 on Baby Bug and 2.34 on an Expression it will still work until you update to a newer release of MTC when it is released and/or possibly do a firmware update to your Machines. (I'm not sure of correct firmware on Creates or Cake machines - sorry! If anyone does, please leave me a comment and I will update this!). For Specific questions or concerns you can contact MTC at support@make-the-cut.com.

HOWEVER - MTC is NOT GOING ANY WHERE! It still works with a large variety of different cutters and that list is growing all the time. If you don't see your cutter on the list, send a note to Andy at support@make-the-cut.com and ask for him to add it. Machines Supported now include: Black Cat Cougar, Black Cat Lynx, Gazelle, Craft Robo, Silhouette, ECraft, US Cutter MH Series and Laser Cutter, and any other cutter using a HPGL Printing Support. These machines come in a variety of sizes, capabilities and costs. Do your research and find one that works best for you.

See post on Make the Cut Forum here:

http://forum.make-the-cut.com/discussion/13597/effective-immediately.../p1

Basketball - Make the Cut and SVG files available

2011-03-17T05:00:00.006-04:00

March Madness is here. My DS just finished his MS basketball season. Maybe his last time to play organized basketball. Will have to see if he will even try out for the High School teams next year. Only time will tell. That's a few months away for now! Anyway - thought I'd share this basketball file I created from some simply free clipart that I found online. I have both the Make the Cut and SVG files to share. Thanks for stopping by.

I was thinking that you could use the swiss dots embossing folder to add the "texture" on a basketball.

Download the Make the Cut basketball file here.

Download the SVG basketball file here.

Volleyball or Sports Photo Frame Overlay

2011-03-16T05:00:00.007-04:00

Sorry - No actual cut file to share with you today (sorry!) as it is something that I created that was very "specific" to a small group of girls. However, I wanted to show you what you can do for those special people in your lives when you have an electronic die cut machine with an awesome program like Make The Cut.

As I have mentioned several times on the blog, My children both play sports. This year, my DD's high school varsity volleyball team won our Regional Championship and qualified to go to the State Tournament in their division. (This was the 2nd year in a row, but she wasn't on the team last year as she is a Freshman this year.) For Christmas, I made her a framed photo of the group with the Regional Championship Plaque. I created this mat or overlay to frame the photo with. It cuts as one piece with the wording and the spartan heads all cut out of the Mat. My DD loved it.

I got the idea from Julie and her awesome tutorials that she creates and shares for free on the MTC_Tuts Yahoo group. If you have MTC and don't belong to Julie's MTC_Tuts Yahoo group I would highly recommend joining. If you don't have MTC yet but are thinking about getting it, I would also highly recommend Julie's Yahoo group as well. It is a moderated group and Julie does a great job of keeping people on task and shares a wealth of knowledge and information in the large quantity of FREE tutorials that she shares with the group. In addition, lots of people regularly share their knowledge and experience in using this great program. If you buy MTC through Julie's link she will also send you some free files. (You don't have to have purchased MTC through Julie to join the group however and other people also share free files if you purchase through them. No matter who or where you purchase MTC from - it should always be the same price). The group just recently added its 3,000+ member and Julie shared some Irish cut files. It is a great place for newbies and not so newbies to keep expanding their knowledge of the program. Julie has a ton of tutorials for beginners to advanced users and that list is growing regularly. There is a lot of email that passes through the group so I have it on digest so that I get just a few emails a day with a compilation of messages that have passed through the group. You can also set it to receive no emails and just go to the yahoo group to view the messages and tutorials.

You can find Julie's MTC_Tuts Yahoo group here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MTC_Tuts/
(She will have to approve you for membership but that shouldn't take long).

If you are a member, or once you join, you can find the tutorial on how to create a Sports Frame Overlay like this one here in the Intermediate Lessons Folder and it is entitled: III.12_SportsFrameOverlay.

PLEASE NOTE: As of March 16, 2011 - Make The Cut (MTC) NO LONGER SUPPORTS WORKING WITH CRICUT MACHINES. HOWEVER, If you have the last version of MTC (3.2.1 that was available through March 15, 2011, and firmware of 1.34 on Baby Bug and 2.34 on an Expression it will still work until you update to a newer release of MTC when it is released and/or possibly do a firmware update to your Machines. (I'm not sure of correct firmware on Creates or Cake machines - sorry! If anyone does, please leave me a comment and I will update this!). For Specific questions or concerns you can contact MTC at support@make-the-cut.com.

HOWEVER - MTC is NOT GOING ANY WHERE! It still works with a large variety of different cutters and that list is growing all the time. If you don't see your cutter on the list, send a note to Andy at support@make-the-cut.com and ask for him to add it. Machines Supported now include: Black Cat Cougar, Black Cat Lynx, Gazelle, Craft Robo, Silhouette, ECraft, US Cutter MH Series and Laser Cutter, and any other cutter using a HPGL Printing Support.

As always, thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to leave me any questions or comments by clicking on the comments area below any post.

Another Porky the Pig - Make the Cut and SVG files Available

2011-03-15T05:00:00.003-04:00

Here is the second Porky the Pig file that I created last summer. I am again sharing the file in both Make the Cut (MTC) and SVG formats. This file also has lots of bits and pieces to it and you might want to grab a copy of my picture if you need it to help you put it together if you take the svg file format. The file contains the black base of Porky, the pink pig skin, his nose (no additional base on nose on this one), his tongue and the whites of his eyes, and then the pieces to the red hat, red bowtie and his (very small) red sleeve cuff on the extended hand.

As previously noted, these were taken from free coloring pages that I found online and then converted into Make the Cut Files. I then export the MTC files into svg files to share with those who don't yet own MTC. I share these files here for free for your own personal use. Please do not share or sell the files individually or in a group.

Download the Porky Pig2 Make the Cut file here.

Download the Porky Pig2 SVG file here.

Porky Pig - Make the Cut and SVG Files Available

2011-03-14T05:00:00.008-04:00

Good morning. Last summer when I was trying to show some friends what Make The Cut could do, I went and downloaded some free coloring pages of Porky the Pig, downloaded them to my computer, and made them into cut files that could be used with Make the Cut. I realized recently that I had not shared those files here on the blog.

I have also gone ahead and converted them to svg files as well although I think it may be difficult to know what the different pieces and parts are when opening those files as opposed to the MTC files. This file should have a black base, his pink pig skin, blue jacket, red bow tie, pink tongue, whites of eyes, and then 2 parts to his nose, a black shadow base and then the pink nose. Hopefully you will be able to tell from the pictures that I post here. I would suggest that you might take a copy of the pictures as well if you take the svg files. Simply right click on my picture and save to your computer. I am going to share 1 Porky Pig file today and another one tomorrow.

As always, the files that I share here are shared for free for your personal use only and are not to be sold. Thanks for stopping by. Let me know if you have any questions.

Download the Porky Pig1 Make the Cut file here.

Download the Porky Pig1 SVG file here.

Rain Boots - Make the Cut and SVG Files Available to Download

2011-03-11T05:00:00.015-05:00

We had a big rain storm the first of last week that caused a lot of localized flash flooding in a number of areas. So when I was looking for bunnies last week during all that rain, I ran across these rain boots and thought that they were cute and would make a great file to share. After all, April Showers are just around the corner!! LOL

There are several layers to this file. One is the base puddle that outlines all around the boots, then there is another top puddle layer that adds dimension to the puddle. You will want to cut each of those layers out in two different shades of blue. Then there is a shadow layer of the boots themselves that I cut out in black and the top layer of the boots with different pieces and parts to them. I choose to make them yellow! You can of course make your boots any color that you choose. Since there are several pieces and parts to them, you may want to consider using transfer tape of some kind to keep them all lined up and together properly for placement on the black shadow. You could do the same for the puddle pieces. This is one of the reasons I prefer to share the MTC files as oppose to the svg files. In MTC, you can see the layers in color but if I export it out to an SVG file all the layers are exported and then imported all in one color making it more difficult on the end user to know how the pieces and parts go together.

Hope someone can find a use for these boots. If you do, I would love to see what you did with them. As always, thanks for stopping by. By the way, did anyone notice that I have now posed something on my blog EVERY DAY for TWO WEEKS (well business weeks at least)!! That is a record for me!!! LOL I'm not sure I can keep up with this break neck speed of sharing!! It's wearing me out!! LOL I've still got almost 3 full weeks left in March before I could claim a whole month of posts. Doubt I'll get there - but hey, I won't say never just yet!! Have a great weekend!

Download the Rain Boots and Puddle Make the Cut file here.

Download the Rain Boots and Puddle SVG file here.

Baseball Mom - Make the Cut and SVG Files available

2011-03-10T05:00:00.014-05:00

Well, since I got my baseball file ready I've been trying to come up with my T-shirt design. The obvious one is "MOM" with the baseball serving as the "O" in Mom. I've tried a couple of different configurations. Since our school is Spartans, I tried a Spartan head in the middle of the baseball. Problem is, to get it small enough you lose the teeny tiny little pieces of the helmet and I didn't like that. Then I tried the player's number on the baseball. I think I like that BUT - I don't know yet what number my DS is so I can't make my shirt until I know that! However, I wanted to go ahead and share my Make the Cut and SVG files for the "Baseball Mom" here on the blog. I am going to post only the file without a number added. However, I am showing it to you both with and without the number added to the file. It is very simple to add your number to the baseball if you want it there. I used the font "Freshman" that I have on my computer. It is an athletic style block lettering that I use a lot for sports stuff. This is also what I used for the Ms in "MOM". In Make the Cut, go to your Text tab, select the Font you wish to use and then click the add Text Buton to to add your text. Once it is on your mat, resize as needed and place where you desire. I would suggest keeping it on its own layer if cutting it separately. However, if you want it to "cut out" of the white part of the middle of the ball, you would "join" the number to that part. I plan to use mine with Heat Set Vinyl to make a T-shirt for me to wear to games. I may add the school name above the Mom and may add a baseball bat between the school name and the Mom or lean it up against the school name. Once I get my final design figured out (once I know my DS's jersey number) and my shirt made I will share it here on the blog.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer them as quickly as possible but know that I am not always able to check the blog everyday so it may be several days before I answer. Thanks for stopping by.

Download the Baseball MOM Make the Cut file here.

Download the Baseball MOM SVG file here.

Baseball - Make the Cut and SVG Files Available

2011-03-09T05:00:00.022-05:00

Spring is arriving shortly which means my DS has moved on from basketball to baseball. With that thought in mind, I knew that I needed to create some baseball items to make myself some T-shirts to wear to the school baseball games since I didn't have any yet. Obviously, the main thing a girl needs is the baseball its self. I found this free baseball clipart at http://www.iloveclipart.com/ and converted it into a cut file for use with Make the Cut. I then exported it out from my Make the Cut file and saved it to an .svg file to share for those who have not yet moved to Make the Cut.

The file has 2 parts. The first part really has 3 pieces - this would be the "white" portions of the baseball with the "seams" cut away. The second part is the red for the seams. Cut out the red circle then ovelay the 3 white pieces on top of the red to show the red "seams". It is probably easiest to do this by using transfer tape of some kind to transfer the white pieces off your mat and to lay it on top of the red. I did it this way because I think it is easier to cut it this way then to try and cut those little red seams.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns with this or any other of my files. I always test cut everything before I share so you shouldn't have any problems. I'd love to see anything you create with one of my files. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Download the Baseball Make the Cut file here.

Download the Baseball SVG file here.

Volleyball Club "TEAM" T-shirts

2011-03-08T05:00:00.010-05:00

Front of Shirts

Hello again. I also wanted to share with you all some TEAM t-shirts that I made for DD's Volleyball Club Team. I made about 13-14 of these shirts. They all loved them as did their parents. I'm glad, as they did take some time because of all the weeding that had to be done. What I learned from this shirt design is that sometimes it is better to use the old KISS concept (Keep It Simple Stupid!) LOL. We all loved the shirts BUT they are a little labor intensive for a couple of reasons. First, I added all the girls names to the volleyball on the front of the shirt along with the year, age group, and club name. This means that all of that had to be weeded out! It was pretty small and thin to fit on the ball! Then, we did 2 colors on the front and 2 colors on the back so you have to apply each of those separately. Then finally, we added each girls number to the sleeve of her shirt. This means you need to keep track of sizes and who needs what! In the end, I think that they were quite worth the effort and DD and her teammates really liked them and that is what I was hoping for!

Back of Shirts

I don't recall where I saw this "TEAM" saying but I thought it would be great on their shirts. It says TEAM on the front with the volleyball with all their names on it. Then on the back it says Together Everyone Achieves More. I am going to share with you my file that I used to create the shirts. It has the word TEAM with the saying on the back going in two different directions. One goes down, one goes across. We chose to use the one with the Word TEAM going down and the rest going across. I have removed the girls names from the volleyball. To add something to the volleyball like names you will want to add the text as desired and then "join" it to each volleyball piece as needed once properly placed. This will allow it to be "cutout". I have also included a shadow layer to the volleyball. This isn't really needed to make the t-shirts the way I did. Please do not hesitate to let me know if you have any questions about my files or anything that I did. I got my heat set vinyl from H&H Sign Supply. You can find them here on the web:

http://www.hhsignsupply.com/productcart/pc/home.asp

Not affiliated and may not be the best price out there (I did a little looking around but not a lot but they were recommended by others) but they did have good prices and were always very efficient in getting my orders out and I have had no problems. I used the Siser Easy Weed vinyl. I also ordered a Teflon Sheet cover to help but you could get by without it. I think some people use parchment paper.

Right now I am only offering this file in the MTC format as this is what I created it in. Since it has several layers and colors to it, I don't have time right now to do the work necessary to get it into a SVG file and test cut it all out. However, The file would be fairly easy to recreate with another package. I do have a volleyball I previously shared in the svg format and just use your software and font of your choice to do all the text. Thanks for your understanding.

Download my TEAM - Together Everyone Achieves More file for Make The Cut here.

Using Heat Set Vinyl to Create my Volleyball Mom Wardrobe

2011-03-07T05:00:00.010-05:00

Large Logo on Sweatshirt

Hello. My DD plays on a competitive travel volleyball club in the winter and spring. Since she was new to this particular club this season, I didn't have a "team wardrobe" to wear to the tournaments so I decided to create my own! I have put that logo on many things in a variety of sizes!! I have been the vinyl queen lately it seems. I have created a logo with her name for my car, I have created it large and put it on a sweatshirt, I have created it small and put in on a pocket of a tee and on a hat. I have added it to a scarf and a sailor shirt. I then created my own design using the club's name, a volleyball for the O in MOM and her number and added it to some t-shirts and a backpack! Of course, everyone wanted to know where I had gotten it all! Then I told them I had made it myself and how little it cost me!! They couldn't believe it and it was so easy!!! I have the logo broken based on colors. However, depending upon what color shirt or item you put them on, you wouldn't always need vinyl for that color. If I put on a navy shirt, the shirt serves as the navy background. If I put on an orange shirt, the orange part does not need to be added. ( To do this, you have to modify and join and weld different parts depending upon where you need to allow a color to "show" through.)

Small Logo on Sailor Shirt

Since then, one of the ladies who works at the club had a baby shower there. I created a onsie, a baby towel, a blanket, a bib, and a burp cloth all with the club's logo on them as her gift. The "wrapping" was a plush toy dump truck Easter Basket that I put the club logo on the side of! Everyone thought I was so clever - and I am - with my scanner, my die cut machine, some heat set vinyl and my Make the Cut software!! Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of the baby stuff!! But here are some pictures of some of my "wardrobe"! Remember when working with Heat Set Vinyl that you want to put on clothing - you must MIRROR the image before cutting it out!! Plus, the heat set vinyl goes "SHINY SIDE" DOWN on your mat before you cut it all out! Ask me how I know you want to remember these 2 important items! LOL!

Logo on Backpack Pocket

I doubt that too many of you have the need for the K2 Logo unless your child plays for them as well! LOL but I will share my volleyball mom cut file here with you. I put this on some t-shirts and a backpack.

Download the Volleyball Mom Make the Cut file here.

Download the Volleyball Mom SVG file here.

This is what the "MOM" with Volleyball for the O looks like from a screen shot. You would need to add the number of your player where my DD's number 14 is shown here. (It is not in the svg file, it is in the MTC for visual aid only on another layer).

Another Bunny - Make the Cut and SVG Files Available

2011-03-04T05:00:00.002-05:00

Okay - I couldn't help myself. Had to make it a full week of bunnies! LOL Plus, I wanted to make it a full week of posts! (Okay a business week but STILL a week! That's a record for me!!)

I promise - here's my last bunny (at least for now!). This is another free coloring page that I found online.

You can download the Make the Cut Bunny File here.

You can download the SVG Bunny File here.

As always, thanks for stopping by. If you make something with this file I would love to see it.

Bunny With Egg - Make the Cut and SVG Files Available

2011-03-03T05:00:00.010-05:00

Well, I guess I should have designated this Bunny week! LOL When I went searching for free bunny clip art I obviously found a couple of cute ones that I thought would make quick and easy cut files to share here on my blog. I guess I need to see if I can find one more to finish out the week tomorrow! LOL Or maybe I will just use one of these other ones on something new! We shall see! I actually can't believe I got several posts done all in a single week so we will see if I can get one more done to make it a full week! That would be a first! LOL

I thought this bunny was too cute! I have cut the base out of a light blue and then cut the body pieces out of white, the eyes and mouth and nose line out of black and his nose out of pink. I then cut the egg decorations out of a darker royal blue. Once I had him put together, I chalked him a little with a light blue chalk on the edges and a little pink on his cheeks. Depending on the size you wanted to cut, you might have some pretty small pieces. If they are too small, just skip trying to get those glued down. The file is about 3 1/2" W x 4" H.

I hope some of you can find some cute uses for him. Please let me see what you do with him. He could also easily be made into a shaped card if you desired. Just size all the pieces together to the size that you want the card then copy and flip the base shadow and weld those two base pieces together to form a card.

As always - thanks for stopping by.

Download the Make The Cut Bunny with Egg file here.

Download the SVG Bunny with Egg file here.

Basic Bunny Shape - Make the Cut or SVG File to Share

2011-03-02T05:00:00.002-05:00

I found this basic bunny shape when I googled for free bunny clipart and decided to make it into a simple cut file. I am providing it both in the Make The Cut (.mtc) as well as an SVG file format. I hope someone can find some use for it. Would love to see whatever you might do with it. Thanks for stopping by!

Download the Make The Cut Bunny File here.

Download the SVG Bunny File here.

Bunny Card With Files to Share

2011-03-01T05:00:00.001-05:00

Well, I liked the bunny card I posted yesterday so much that I REALLY wanted to share it with people. SO, I decided to create my own bunny card using basic shapes in my Make The Cut Software. Although this file was inspired by the previous Bunny Card that I shared yesterday from a pattern in the Spring, 2011 edition of Paper Creations magazine (Issue 28) designed by Maricel Fabi, this one I created from basic shapes in MTC. Isn't it amazing what you can do by welding a few circles, ovals, triangles, etc. together! If you look closely, you can see that difference in my bunny's ears, the paws, the nose, the vest, and his overall basic shape.

So, if you thought, "shoot, I would have really liked to have had that pattern" yesterday - now you can have one almost like it but one that I feel comfortable sharing here. I have included in the Make The Cut file both a welded shape for the card joined and folded at the ears as well as a single bunny shape for use on other projects. There are two files for svg users. One is for the card its self and the "accessory" parts. There is a second one for the single bunny shape with paws and feet only. Thanks to Maricel for her inspiration.

I used the "swiss dots" embossing folder to emboss the inner ears on this one. I didn't add "buttons" to the vest, I created a vest with the "buttons" cut out.(My file contains both vests, one with the circles cut out and one plain.) I pop dotted the nose and the paw holding the flower. My sample card appears to have his left arm (paw) "bent" behind him but there is an extra arm to add on that side if desired. This card used 15mm goggle eyes with lashes. Yesterday's card the eyes were 10mm. I had previously tried 10mm size with lashes when I made my first one but didn't like it for some reason. I do think with the larger eyes it works.

Please let me know if you enjoyed my file and let me see what you do with it. I also think he would be cute made into a "she" bunny (add some lace to the bottom of the vest and make a dress and add a bow to an ear) or holding an Easter Egg or an Easter Basket. Just use your imagination!

You can Download my Make the Cut file of the Bunny Card here.

You can Download a SVG file of the Bunny Card here.

You can Download a SVG file of just the single Bunny Shape here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bunny Card

2011-02-28T05:00:00.001-05:00

Good morning. I wanted to share a card that I recently made. I picked up the Spring, 2011, Issue 28 of the Paper Creations magazine recently at the store. In the magazine, on page 22 there was an article entitled, "Bunny Card" which was designed by Maricel Fabi. It was this really cute Bunny Card for which they provided a pattern pullout to trace and cut by hand. Now, anybody who knows me knows that I HATE to cut with scissors. (I think this is because I am left handed and, when I was little, all scissors were made for right handed people. It wasn't until modern times that they made left handed scissors or ones that didn't matter which hand you used! LOL You won't understand what a problem this is UNLESS you are left handed OR you are right handed and have tried to cut using left handed scissors!! LOL) This is what I got my electronic die cut machine and my Make The Cut software for!!!!

The pattern for the full card was too big to lay out on my regular size all-in-one printer with flatbed scanner so I simply scanned in 1/2 of the card. I then copied the image, flipped it, moved it to overlap properly, and welded the two pieces together to make my card base. I then scanned in or created the extra pieces and parts like the vest, the bowtie, and the nose. Their pattern didn't include the flower and stem so I created those along with extra arms and legs in case I wanted to pop those areas and add extra dimension.

Then I cut out the card using my electronic die cut machine and made a cute Spring Bunny Card to send to someone in my family!! Now, I can easily create as many of these bunny cards that I want quickly and easily (and it doesn't matter what kind of scissors I have! LOL) Well, I couldn't stop there. I thought hmmmmmm. . . . . . I'm not sure I like the card folding in 1/2 at his feet, so I then recreated the file so that he was welded together at the top at his ears. I think I like that better as it opens the way most people expect a card to open. But now, within just a few minutes of my time, I have two card bases from which I can choose! THEN I thought, well, he might be cute on a regular card base so I made him a single image that I can now make any size I want and add to other cards.

This is the "Print and Cut" Bunny

Then I thought - well hmmmmmmm. . . . . . . I think he would be really cute if I made him into a "Print and Cut" file - I bet that I could do that really easy. So I created a pink polka dot texture that I added to the "inner ear" parts I had created and a multi-colored striped texture that I added to his vest. I found paper I had in my stash to get these "textures" from and scanned them into my computer and made texture files from them. I then created a "full bow tie" with basic shapes and added a purple color to it. I then made his body gray and added his mouth and his eyes to my MTC file so that they would "print". I then printed the bunny out on my printer (I also added separate feet and hands to "pop" dot to give it some added dimension) and then cut him and the extra pieces with my Cougar (I could also have cut him with my Expression but the Cougar was the one plugged in!). I then used Marker to ink the edges to give it some more dimension and chalked his cheeks. Otherwise, its all printed! IF I had a bigger printer (One that would print 12x12 say) I could have printed him out as a card. Since I just have a regular 8 1/2 x 11 printer I printed just the single bunny. HOWEVER, he could be glued on to the top of a card base. He can also be resized easily.

Since the file I created was from a pattern in a magazine, I can't share it with you here even though I would like to. HOWEVER, I wanted to share all of this information with you to show you what YOU can do with a pattern, your die cut machine, your printer and scanner and Make The Cut software and a little imagination! Just IMAGINE!!! LOL

As always, thanks for stopping by. Please let me know if you have any questions on how I did any of this or if I can help you out with anything. You can pick up a copy of this magazine on news stands. You can also go to the magazine's website here: http://www.papercreationsmag.com/. There you can see some of what is in their current issue, back issues and free projects and ideas. I am not affiliated with the magazine at all but like to give full contact information when I use something from a source. Thanks.

Diaper Card

2011-02-21T06:00:00.014-05:00

My friend Margaret asked me to create a Diaper card for her several weeks ago. I created the base card but wanted to use it to show my friends how easy it is to add a "texture" fill to it to basically create your own card with different "textures" or "background images". For example, since this was a "Diaper Card" that you would use for a new baby - you might want to make one for a girl or for a boy - pink or blue - or if the sex is unknown - green, yellow, purple, etc. You could find a "baby print" that you lik and "cut it out" of that paper, easy peasy. However, what if I only had the paper in pink and it was for a boy. Or, I couldn't find any baby paper that I liked in my stash. You could create your own "texture" or find one online and use it to fill your image and then cut it out. If I have paper I want to use but its the wrong color, I can scan it in- change the color with a graphics program and add that as texture to my MTC file before cutting.

The pictures show the base card I originally created and cut out in white cardstock. Then the other pictures show where I scanned in paper I had and made texture files out of them. I then used those texture files to fill the image, print it on my printer, and then cut it out (spot on I might add!) with my MTC software and my Cougar cutter. Notice how the "print" on the diapers is different!

Since I scanned in my "texture" from paper I had, I cannot share those "textures" with you. However, you can create your own very easily. If you need help, in how to do that, check out Nelda's Tutorial she shared regarding "How to Convert Lettering Delights Paper to Seamless Texture for use in MTC".

Click here to go to Nelda's Tutorial on her Blog. Scanning your own paper in would work similiarly. You can also create your own textures, backgrounds using a graphics program or google for free textures. Just remember that Andy (creator of MTC recommends texture sizes of around 256x256) so not to bog down your computer and memory.

You can download my .mtc file for the Diaper Cards (2 sizes) here.

You can download my .svg file for the Diaper Card here (it is only 1 size).

As always - thanks for stopping by. Feel free to leave a comment if any questions. Would love to see what you do with any of my files. (If I keep asking - maybe you will come back and share! LOL)

Answers to Some Recent Questions

2011-02-20T11:47:00.000-05:00

Hello. I wanted to stop and answer some questions I have recently gotten.

The first one was regarding my flower pot cards that I recently shared. As I noted when I shared it, this file was created directly in Make The Cut and thus I only shared a .mtc file at that time. I have had a couple of requests from people who do not have MTC but could use the file if it was in .svg format. I'm sorry, but right now I have not created this file as an .svg file. There are a variety of reasons for this. One being that even though I own both MTC and SCAL2 - I pretty much only use my MTC software anymore for a variety of reasons. The second being time. It takes times to convert the file and test the cuts and make sure everything works like it should before sharing the file. I NEVER share a file unless I have test cut it myself to make sure that it works as it is intended. As a result, I haven't had time to convert the file to an .svg file. I'm not saying that I won't - but right now I don't have time, sorry! Remember, you can get a free download of Make The Cut software and try it before you buy. (It will cut watermarks into your cuts until you purchase the license). I'm not an affiliate but think it is great and highly recommend it to anyone looking for software to use with electronic die cut machines. Not only can it be used with Cricut machines, but it can be used with a variety of other cutters and that list continues to grow all the time. Plus, I think it is more user friendly and easier for most people to learn and the developer is the one pushing the envelope with others trying to keep up. As a result, most of the files I share will probably usually be the .mtc file if that is where I created it.

Second - Dr. Seuss 1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish files. I regularly get requests for these files. I only made them available for download for a limited period of time. However, I am always happy to e-mail them to you for your PERSONAL USE only. Leave me a comment requesting the file AND you MUST include your e-mail address (I will not publish the comment). I can't send the files to you unless I have your email address. Also, please note if you want the .mtc or .svg file types. It may take some time for me to get back to you as I don't always check the blog for comments everyday. However, I will also say that I have e-mailed this file to a large number of people in the past several months and no one even bothers to send back a quick note saying - thanks - got it so I'm left wondering if they went through. I'm going out of my way to share these files with people and would appreciate an acknowledgement that you did in fact get them! It's not really hard to do a quick reply to my email people!! I simply want to know that you did get them. Of course, if you also actually use them I would like to see what you did with them sometime!! Thanks! I have had several more requests for these recently as Dr. Seuss' birthday is coming up in March I gather and will be sending most of those out to those people today. HOWEVER, I have had 1 request from a Melissa who DID NOT provide an email address. If you are Melissa looking for my 1 Fish Files please leave me a comment with your email address so I can forward them on to you.

Sharks

2011-01-31T06:00:00.027-05:00

Where I live there is a competitive cheerleading group collectively called the "Sharks". Many of my friends' children and my children's friends have or still do compete with various Shark squads. A while back, I had a request from a friend to take a general "Sharks" logo and convert it into a cuttable file. As always, I was happy to help a friend out. I have actually created a couple of different files that I am sharing here. One is the Logo using 2 Layers and the other is the Logo using 3 Layers. The difference in the 2 versus 3 layer is that the 3 layer has a dark blue SOLID base to the Shark, then the white "shadow" layer" to the lighter blue letters. The two layer one is just the OUTLINE of the dark blue base. There is no "white" layer - it is "cut out" of the dark blue outline base with the lighter blue "inlaid" in the middle, and as a result, it would need to be layed on white background paper to get the full logo effect. I created both as I wasn't sure which my friend desired. The picture shown above shows the 3 layered file cut out and put together.

Rather then giving them to my friend and then leave them languishing on my computer, I figured I would share them here in hopes that someone else could find them useful. If you do find a use for them I would love to see what you do with them. They could be used to create a page about sharks, a shark exhibit, a trip to an aquarium, the beach ummm . . . not sure I want to see any at the beach myself however! LOL

Download the Make the Cut Sharks Logo with 2 Layers here.

Download the Make the Cut Sharks Logo with 3 Layers here.

OR, you can download the .svg files if you don't have MTC. I also have this file type available because this is what my friend needed. I created the orginal files using the Make The Cut software and then did a simple export of the files to save them as .svg files to share with my friend.

Download the .svg Sharks Logo with 2 Layers here

Download the .svg Sharks Logo with 3 Layers here.

As always, thanks for stopping by. If you ever need help creating a file, leave me a comment and I would be happy to try and help out if and when I can. It may be a few days before I respond however as I don't always get a chance to check my blog for comments on a daily basis. Thanks for understanding.

Flowers Anyone? - Flowerpot Pocket or Slider Card

2011-01-28T16:07:00.002-05:00

Yea, it is Finally Friday. I have been under the weather all week and didn't make it into my craft room at all. Didn't get much of anything done beyond the absolute have to's!!

As a result, I haven't gotten anything on the blog in a while either. I had high hopes to do a better blogging job in the new year! Not yet it would seem though! LOL I don't know if I will ever be an everyday blogger. At least not while I still have children to drive from here to there! LOL

I created these two files several weeks ago. I got the pictures made and the files ready to share, just hadn't set down to get them actually posted on the blog. These are my own personal files I have created from scratch using the Make the Cut software. However, the IDEA is not mine. I have seen diferent versions of these types of cards in a variety of places before. BUT, what I had not seen was one where the card its self could actually stand up so that it could be displayed to look like what it is, a pot of flowers. So, first I created the base card and then I modified the bottom of the base so that it could be "folded" so that it would "stand" up. I like it. I hope you do too. You can use it for a variety of sentiments, Get Well, Sympathy, Happy Birthday, etc. - anything where you might want to send someone some flowers!!

Both files will fit in a 5x7 envelope if you place your flowers properly!! Use as many flowers as you want. I have 3 on one card and 4 on the other it looks like. I added dimension to the circles with the swiss dots cuttlebug folder and inked the raised dots by swiping the ink pad across them gently.

You can put a piece of ribbon and a tag around your "pot" if you want, ink it, or decorate the pot its self- use your imagination.

To create the regular "flat" fowerpot card - fold the base or "pot" in the center of the pot so that it is equal on both sides. Then fold the tops down and score at 1" on each side to create the lip or the rim of the pot. You can adhere the lip or rim of the pot to the pot or not to hold it down more flat (use glue dot, double stick tape, etc).

To create the Standing Flower pot card so that the receiver can stand it up like an actual pot of flowers, create a mountain fold in the center of the base pot so that it is equal on both sides, THEN score at the 1/2 inch on EACH side of the center fold and make these scores valley folds.

PLEASE NOTE: the smaller STANDING file has had more "depth" added to the pot to allow for these extra folds to allow it to stand up. You will not get the correct dimensions if you try this with the larger file.

I hope all of this makes sense. This is one of the reasons I hadn't yet posted the file. I wanted to do detailed directions. I'm not sure these are great, but hopefully everyone will understand them!! LOL If not, leave me a note and I will try to do a better job.

I am only sharing this in the Make the Cut (.mtc) file format as that is how I created my files to begin with. The files have a couple of pages to them. One page has a variety of different "flowers" I created using basic shapes. Then I layered them to create my flowers. Since It's been a couple of weeks since I created the files, I don't recall what all is in them to tell you the truth! LOL

I have had a couple of requests from people who do not have MTC but could use the file if it was in .svg format. I'm sorry, but right now I have not created this as an .svg file. There are a variety of reasons for this. One being that even though I own both MTC and SCAL2 - I pretty much only use my MTC software anymore for a variety of reasons. The second being time. It takes times to convert the file and test the cuts and make sure everything works like it should before sharing the file. I NEVER share a file unless I have test cut it myself to make sure that it works as it is intended. As a result, I haven't had time to convert the file to an .svg file. I'm not saying that I won't - but right now I don't have time, sorry! As you can see from my blog - I don't have lots of time on my hands right now with 2 soon to be HS aged students and their sports! LOL Which is why I don't get to share a lot on my blog and it took weeks to get just the MTC file posted here! Thanks for asking though and I do promise that it is on my to do list so check back by sometime and see if I ever get a chance to convert the file and test it to share.

I would love to see any that you make and hear what you did with them. Thanks for stopping by.

Download the Larger Flat Flowerpot Card here.

Download the Smaller but Standing Flowerpot Card here.

Gift Card Holders (With MTC files shared)

2011-01-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

One of the challenges on the MTC forum Christmas Challenges was to create some gift card holders. Well, I have quite a few different gift card holders already here on my blog. However, when I started looking, it didn't look like I had any or very few using MTC so I decided to take on that Challenge.

The Challenge was to make 3 different gift card holders. I did the traditonal standby Christmas Stocking, a "gift bag" that I turned into a "santa bag" and a simple tri-fold gift card holder. The "bag" or "Santa belly bag" can be used as a simple shopping bag. It is also big enough to hold the bigger Itunes gift cards - especially if you use something like the fur that I used at the top of the bag. I shared the files I created on the MTC forums before Christmas so, if you are a member there, you may have already downloaded my files. If you aren't a member, I am putting them here for your use.

They are .mtc files only as I haven't converted them into any other format. So little time and so much to do!! LOL Hopefully, someone can find a use for some of them. As always, I would love to see what you do with them should you choose to use them for a gift! Thanks for stopping by!!

You can download the Stocking Gift card holder here.

You can download the Santa Belly Bag gift card holder here.

You can download the tri-fold gift card holder here.

Rudolph Treat Box

2011-01-13T06:00:00.003-05:00

This is another one of the Challenges from the MTC forums before the holidays. a file was shared for a piece of cake or pie box. The challenge was then to make it into an ornament or something else. I made them to be filled with treats that could also be hung on the Christmas Tree. My favorite one I made was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. This is not my original idea. I have seen it done several times before. I just think he is cute!! Google eyes and a red pom pom nose. The antlers are pipe cleaners and can be used to hang it on the tree. Filled with small treats, it would make any child happy!!

Two Types of Slider Cards to Share

2011-01-12T06:00:00.010-05:00

Just wanted to share these photos of a couple of "Slider Cards" I made for one of the Challenges at the MTC forum just before the holidays. I don't have any files to share. I think the cut files for each were shared on the MTC forum and you could find them there to use if you have the MTC software. I think the Santa was from the MTC gallery of files people have shared there. The stocking was one I still had in my stash that I had previously cut from a Cricut cartridge. Either type of card could also be used as a gift card holder. HO HO HO and the Merry Christmas were both $1 stamps. I spritzed the card for the first time and I added texture to Santa's beard using the swirl embossing folder.

If you don't have MTC, you can find directions for these types of cards in a variety of spots on the Web. Simply google slider cards. Thanks to those who shared the files and for the Challenges at MTC. I enjoyed participating. There were a lot more challenges to do then I got done. I sitll have the list and hope to get some more of them done.

Easel Christmas Card - Print and Cut with Make the Cut and your Cricut

2011-01-11T14:37:00.000-05:00

Andy, the awesome developer of the Make the Cut (MTC) software released the official 3.2 version of MTC just before Christmas. As I have said before, if you haven't checked out MTC you need to!! With this latest release, you can do so much more like rhinestones, lattice work, words in a circle (or any other shape you desire!) PLUS, you can now use your cricut to do Print and Cuts (or any other machine MTC now works with including the Cougar machine). MTC's print and cut will allow me to pull in ANY image that I want WITH Colors and TEXTURE, print it, or even break it into layers if I want and print those layers, change the colors and textures and so much more!!! I simply need a cutter like my Cricut or my workhorse Cougar machine, a regular printer and the MTC software. I already had all 3 sitting in my craft room so no new machine purchases needed for me and I'm limited only by my own imagination - not someone elses!!! What more could a girl ask for!! LOL

Here is a simple easel card using print and cut that I did for a Christmas Challenge. I love the Mouse so I found this image pulled it into Make The Cut, printed it to my printer, then lined it up on my mat and then cut it out. I changed some of the colors used even. Notice the colors of his shoes - they should be yellow BUT here they are red!! I haven't had time to really play around yet with this feature but hope to soon!!

If you want to find out more about the Make The Cut software I would suggest that you go to the MTC forums to learn more. There are also great tutorials and information out there from a variety of people. Julie runs a MTC Tuts Yahoo group that you can sign up for and Rob from ScrappyDew has some great basics beginners videos. You can download a trial of MTC at No Cost so you can give it a try before you buy and see if it is something for you. I'm not selling - just a happy customer who thinks you will love all you can do with it to!

Happy Belated New Year!

2011-01-11T14:13:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to say a Happy Belated New Year to everyone. Hope everyone is on their way to recovery from the holidays and off to a Great New Year. Sorry I haven't posted in a little while. Sometimes I just don't have time to do all that I need to do much less that I want to do!! LOL I get very few comments that I sometimes wonder why bother and don't always come to my blog regularly. But then, I see the over 100 followers even though I have never specifically asked any where for any or given away "blog candy" to recruit followers so I figure somewhere some people do like what I share! LOL Then, I see that some of my files have been downloaded hundreds of times so even more like my files! LOL So thanks to everyone who has "followed" me or felt one of my files was worth downloading. I will try to do a better job. I think I get so few comments because I don't "show" the comments in the blog its self as I figure most people don't want to plod through the comments. However, I do appreciate those who take the time to leave them.

I do have some pictures of Christmas Projects I made from files shared by others on the Make The Cut Forum Christmas Challenges. I got most of them posted on that forum, but not here on my blog before the holidays. I will only be sharing the pictures for most of those as they were from files I didn't make but were made by others and shared for the Challenges on MTC's forum. I do have some however that are files that I made that I will be sharing. Some were for Challenges at MTC and some are some I have worked on outside of that. Thanks to everyone on the MTC forums for all you share everyday. If you haven't checked out Make the Cut software yet I encourage you to do so soon. You can do so much with it. Thanks Andy for all the updates you have done on this program in it's first year! It's simply the best!!

I will be posting the pictures and projects over the next several days as time permits. We are having an unusually snowy winter so far for East TN. My children are on their 2nd day out of school this week so far! Not helping with me getting done those things I WANT to do LOL!!

Intricate 3-D Christmas Tree

2010-12-07T21:22:00.001-05:00

Okay, Just had to share a picture of this beautiful christmas tree. I got the pattern from the 2010 Holiday, Issue 41 of Scrollsaw Woodworking & Crafts magazine. It has several more patterns of things I plan to use with my Make The Cut Software. I have previously noted that Scrollsaw patterns are a great source for things to cut with an electronic die cut machine. This pattern was created by Gloria Cosgrove. (She was also the creator of the "Treasures of the Sea" seashell patterns. You can find more of her work at http://www.papercuttingsbyalison.com/.) Unfortunately, I can't share the pattern with you do to the magazine's copyright permissions. : ( I have some other things to share with you all as soon as I get some time to set down and get it all organized!

I must also say that I cut this using "tagboard" that I found at Hobby Lobby. It is a little thicker then cardstock. I tried cutting with regular cardstock. It is a little too flimsy. If anyone knows where I can get a little thicker paper like tagboard in colors please let me know. I tried cutting it on my Cricut Expression - didn't cut so well - either tore up the paper or left all the little pieces still inside and I was having to try and finish punching them out. I recently bought a Black Cat Cougar 18" die cutter. It cut on there beautifully and didn't have to finish punching out lots of little pieces!! You can find out more about the Black Cat Cougars at thatscrapinc.com.

If you aren't familiar with Make the Cut software I would highly recommend that you go to their website to learn more about it. You can find it at http://www.make-the-cut.com/. It allows you to do so much with your die cutter. You will be amazed. You are limited only by your imagination!! You can check out their forums for more great ideas. The best news is that Andy, the developer, is about to release the official new version 3 which adds so many more great features to this amazing software.

Purse Gift Card Holder

2010-11-12T13:55:00.000-05:00

Hello. I've been working on this file and had meant to get it up earlier this week. I had my crafting buddies (Names in ( ) are names used on CricutMB), Rheba (DazyCutr), Margaret (mlharrell) and Kristen (KristenLong) try my files out on Tuesday. They seemed to work for them. Then I had to find time to do all the work needed to get them on the blog to share. That can be a time consuming process! LOL Then I had a busy week with other stuff so here it is Friday and I think I am ready to put these up. I an uploading a pdf file showing the score lines. However, PLEASE NOTE, the score line file is NOT to scale. It couldn't be to get it on a printable 8 1/2"x11" sheet of paper. It is for visual use only. One day I will get down putting score lines in my projects themselves. Jsut haven't gotten there with this one sorry! LOL

I got the idea for this file when I saw a Purse Gift Card Holder at a local large box retail store and thought "hmmmm. . . . . I could probably make that!" So I did. The "purse" opens and sort of "pops up" the gift card. The original file size needs a larger mat than 12x12 (the 12x24 mat on the Cricut). Paper size needed is 19" long for those with other cutters.

However, I thought that most people would prefer to use the 12x12 mat and 12x12 paper so with some work, I was able to create a file that cuts separate pieces that you need to glue together. There are really only 2 parts that you have to cut, but the file does have a back "overlay" piece for those anal people who don't want the "overlap" of the two pieces showing. You can overlap the two pieces either on the inside or on the outside (this looks good if you use contrasting patterned paper for the top and bottom pieces!)

Without further ado, here are my files. There are files for Make the Cut (MTC) and .svg for those with other software and/or cutters. I created my original files in MTC and then exported them out to .svg.

Download the Large Mat (12x24) 1 Piece Make the Cut (.mtc) cut file here.

Download the Small Mat (12x12) 2 piece Make the Cut (.mtc) cut file here.

Download the Large Mat (12x24) 1 Piece .svg file here.

Download the Small Mat (12x12) 2 piece .svg file here.

Download the .pdf file showing the score lines here.

Download the .pdf file showing the glue lines for the 2 piece file here.

The handle of the purse can either be made in a couple of ways. The one I saw basically used a pipe cleaner and did not put holes but just put it around the sides and folded it inside. I punched small holes and used pipe cleaners and or small wire and added some cheap beads I had just to see how that would look. Feel Free to use your imagination!! I only show pics of ones wit the beads. The pipe cleaners also worked well. Then you put a piece of velcro to hold the purse flap down.

Thanks for stopping by. Please show me what you make with the files. I love to see that people actually use my files! LOL Pictures of mine are just "rough mockups" of the files to make sure that they really work! Would love to show some really blinged out! Hopefully with the pics and the .pdf files you will be able to figure out how to put this together. If not, please leave me a comment with any questions. Leave your email if I need to contact you. I will not publish the email address.

2 pieces cut on 12x12 mat

2 pieces adhered together with top overlayed on outside

Where to Glue on Top Piece

Where to glue on bottom piece then adhere top and bottom together

1 Piece cut on 12x24 Mat - no gluing or joining pieces needed!

Volleyball Window Cling and Volleyball .svg and .mtc files

2010-11-05T05:00:00.023-04:00

Original Window Cling
Using DS and Sports Mania Cart

I had previously shared the window clings I had made with vinyl for My DD for Volleyball and my DS for football. I originally made them and shared them more than a year ago. Since I had the Sports Mania cartridge, I simply used the volleyball and football off of that cartridge and used Design Studio to add their names and the school name. I have had inquires about them off and on since I first shared.

Recently, I had several new inquires looking for the Volleyball cut file from people who did not have either a Cricut and/or Design Studio or a Gypsy. Since the volleyball I originally used was a copyrighted file from the Sports Mania cartridge, I couldn't use it to quickly make another file type to share with you. Several said they had searched for an .svg file to use but had not had any success. I too searched for one and didn't find one so I have created two new and different files using two basic shapes, a circle and a ( !

"Full" Volleyball
.mtc or .svg file available

One file is a full volleyball with all the lines and the other file is a "cling" or "decal" with a "blank" area on the ball to add the child's name and/or number, school name, etc. You would need to cut it in vinyl to adhere to your car window.

As a result, there are several different files and formats available for download. I originally didn't share my Design Studio .cut file as I thought it was simple to recreate. However, several people needed help with that as well. Therefore I am also now sharing my original volleyball file created in Design Studio (DS) using the Sports Mania Cartridge and Basecamp for the font and have also converted it to a .gypsy file for those without DS but with a Gypsy. I have also created Make the Cut (.mtc) files and then exported those out to .svg files for people with SCAL and/or other software or cutters. So hopefully, there is something here that you can use. LOL

Window Cling with Blank area
for personalization by you
.mtc or .svg file available

I hope that someone finds some use for these files. As always, I appreciate any comments and especially those who take the file and actually do somethimg with it and then come back and let me know so I can come take a look! Those have been extremely rare but greatly appreciated!

You can see my original post showing the football and volleyball here.

Download the Design Studio (DS) Volleyball Decal .cut file using Sports Mania and Basecamp Cartridges. Replace my child's name and school name with your's or modify as you desire. I used the Hide Contour feature to hide the lines not wanted on the ball.

Download the Gypsy Volleyball Decal .gypsy file using the Sports Mania and Basecamp Cartridges. Replace my child's name and school name with your's or modify as you desire. I used the Hide Contour feature to hide the lines not wanted on the ball.

(Note: Basecamp was the font I used for my child's & school's name - you can use any font cart).

Download the full Volleyball Make the Cut (.mtc) file. This is a complete ball with all lines in the middle.

Download the full Volleyball .svg file. This is a complete ball with all lines in the middle.

Download the Volleyball Window Cling for Make the Cut (.mtc) file. This ball has lines missing in the middle to add your child's name, number and/or school or club name, etc.

Download the Volleyball Window Cling .svg file. This ball has lines missing in the middle to add your child's name, number, and/or school or club name, etc.

As always, leave me a comment if you have questions, problems or simply want to say Thanks! Thanks for stopping by!

Circus Party Invitation or Card

2010-11-03T12:39:00.001-04:00

"Closed Card" with pullout tab

Regular Card with no tab

Sorry. Circus Week was interrupted by a trip out of town to our State's High School Volleyball Tournament last week with my DD and her team. They came in 3rd! Not what they hoped for, but still a great showing!! Then I have been trying to catch up on being gone for most of the week last week! Now club VB tryouts have begun and DS has finished football and Basketball has begun!

Anyway back to the Circus one more time! LOL One of the ladies at our school saw the circus decorations we made for our carnival and said "hey" I could use those for my son's birthday party and make it a circus theme and save lots of money! However, to do that, she wanted a circus tent invitation to send out and asked for my help in creating one for her to use.

Open Card with Tent Insert

Since I already had the Carousel Lite Cartridge, I whipped her up a couple of ideas to pick from. Both used the circus tent from the cartridge but one opened up completely like a regular card and one was sealed all the way around except for the very bottom. I refer to it as the "Closed Card." I added a tab place at the bottom (using the George Cartridge circle) to pull out the "insert". I think you can see this in the pictures. Then, I gave her the choice of creating a "tent" insert or a ticket to put the party information on. She elected to use the ticket and the tent invite that was closed but pulled out from the bottom.

Open Card with Ticket Insert

I think they turned out really cute and she was pleased with her options.

So, as not to let them sit around unused on my computer I am sharing my files here. SInce I used PC's Carousel Lite cartridges I only have files for Design Studio and the Gypsy available here at this time. If you really like this idea but don't have either Design Studio, a Gypsy and/or the Carousel Cartridge, I am sure that you can google circus tent and find some clipart to use to create a .svg for use with Make the Cut (MTC) or with Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) or whatever software and/or cutter you might have. You can also easily create a "ticket" by cutting out a rectangle and using a small circle punch on each of the four corners (cut a half circle on each corner). I haven't had time to try to find another circus tent image and create either a .mtc or .svg file myself sorry!

Download the Circus Tent Card/Invitation .cut file for DS using the Carousel Lite and George Cartridge.

Download the Circus Tent Card/Invitation .gypsy file for Gypsy using the Carousel Lite and George Carts.

Note: George was used to create half circle needed for thumb pull out tab. Any circle can be used.

This shows Fold and Glue Lines

The file contains multiple pages, the first page cuts 2 red bases with the thumb tab, the second page cuts 4 of the white stripe overlays, the third page cuts 2 of the tent insert card, the fourth page cuts 4 of the ticket inserts, and the 5th page cuts 1 red base without the thumb tab for a traditional card that opens completely. To create the pull out card simple fold in the middle of the card lining up all sides. Then add a thin strip of glue or double stick tape to the top and right side of the card leaving the bottom open to pull out the insert.

This shows "Closed Card" with Tent Pullout

"Closed Card" with Ticket Pullout

Please feel free to leave me a comment especially if you have any questions on my files. If you do have a question, please leave me an e-mail address to contact you at. I will remove your address before publishing the comment. Thanks for stopping by.

Circus Images cut with Cricut and Blown-up Life Size

2010-10-26T11:34:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I shared with you a .mtc and .svg file of a circus elephant balancing on a ball. Today, I wanted to show you what we did with him. We created large cutouts using plywood to decorate our carnival with Circus animals and performers. To do this, I cut out the shapes with my cricut as large as I could on a 12x12 mat. We then took those shapes and used an overhead projector to trace the images much larger onto plywood. We then used a saw to cut them out, we painted them and volia - great circus images decorating our school for our week long Greatest Webbfest on Earth celebration! The stars on the balls were cut using vinyl with my cricut. These pictures show the elephant I shared yesterday blown up and painted. We also used a lot of the images from the Lite Carousel Cartridge from PC. We created clowns, Lions, a Lion Tamer, Dancing Bears, a Circus train, a Circus Tent, a canon, popcorn boxes, ticket booth, large tickets, and more! Everybody loved them! Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Can You Say Circus?!? Circus Elephant on Ball - MTC or .svg File

2010-10-25T13:02:00.001-04:00

Hello. Welcome to the Circus! I have been busy at my children's school the past few weeks helping make decorations for our annual carnival fund raiser "Webbfest" that we do each year. This year's theme was the Greatest Webbfest on Earth and was based on the Circus. I will show you several things that I did to help the decorations committee. This is the first one. This is from a coloring page we found simply by doing a google search for free circus coloring pages. I then used my Make the Cut software to pull it in and create a cut file for use with my Cricut machine. I have then used my MTC software to export it out as an .svg file for use by those who may use other software and/or cutters. (I took that .svg file and broke it apart in Inkscape and that is the file I am sharing here).

Isn't he cute?! If you would like my MTC file you can download it here. If you would like the .svg file, you can download it here. Sorry, but you cannot use .mtc or .svg files with Design Studio (DS) or the Gypsy. However, I will be showing you some cute things we made with the PC cartridge, Carousel, as well. I bought that cartridge specifically for us to use with our Carnival this year. Money well spent as we did LOTS of things with it. However, they really wanted an elephant on the ball like this one and there wasn't one on the cartridge. So, I quickly found this one and made the file and cut him out for them. They were amazed how easy it was to do!
Just a quick note: If you have been considering purchasing MTC, you might want to do so this week. A new and improved version of MTC is coming within the next few weeks and if you already own MTC, there is never a charge to upgrade. However, there are some significant new features that are being added as well as support for use with at least one other cutter and I suspect (have no actual knowledge of it however) that there might be a price increase coming with these new improved features. The software will still be worth the money with the new features being added BUT why pay more if you don't have too?

To find out more about Make the Cut go to their website here: http://www.make-the-cut.com/
Note: I am not affiliated with MTC and I do not get any money for others purchasing it. I am just a happy user who knows what all you can do with it and that even more is coming very soon. MTC and SCAL both are why I still have my Cricuts and didn't buy another cutter because they let me truly create as I want! However, since I still have my Cricuts, Gpsy, and DS I still buy cartridges thus a win-win for me and PC!

Backpack Box

2010-10-22T06:00:00.015-04:00

A few months ago, Lariea posted on the "Make The Cut Forum" about these cute little backpack boxes that she had made. CaseysAngel(Christy) then went and found the pattern and directions on the Splitcoaststampers website. They were created and posted by Mary Arima on that site. Her blog is "PaperJoy". I couldn't resist making one. Actually, my plan was to make several as treat bags for my DD's volleyball team. However, they were a bit "fiddly" LOL and I decided there was no way I was making that many (it would have been more than 20 as she plays both JV and varsity!!) so this is a "one of a kind"!

However, it wasn't nearly as "fiddly" as it could have been. Thanks to Rachellann ID #714, on the Make The Cut Forums who made a .mtc cut file for this pattern. It is an awesome pattern that includes both the cut lines and then the score lines. Just close the layer (close the eyeball) with the score lines when you cut it out, then close the layer with the cut lines and open the layer with the score lines, change the pressure to light and the blade depth to about 1 or 2 and "cut" the score lines. It won't actually cut them all the way through but will allow you to score and fold as needed. You can find Rachellann's .mtc file for this on the Make the Cut Forum here. You will have to scroll down through the thread a little ways to find it. You wil also see Lareia's picture of the cute ones that she made at the beginning of that thread. As a result, I don't have any cut files to share here. Just a picture of the one I made and the links to the patterns and directions as provided above.

I also found a .svg file for the same or similiar type file here on cricutcraftyclare's blog. She indicates that she got her original file from Nancy who had created the file in DS from the splitcoaststamper's directions and template. Nancy doesn't have the DS cut file on her blog but she does say that you could contact her if you wanted one of her files. You can find Nancy's post on these backpacks on her blog here at Nancy's Craft Spot. Finally, I also found a post of a .svg file with or without the scorelines on the SCAL forum. It was posted by dchiu1 and can be found here. So, hopefully between these multiple sites, you should be able to find a cut file that will work for you no matter what cut file or software that you use. Thanks for stopping by.

Embossed Paper Birds - Project from JoAnn's

2010-10-20T06:00:00.000-04:00

This project came from one of those free project sheets from JoAnn's. You can find the complete project information here at JoAnn's website. You will also find a better picture of the final project there as well. I took the pdf file provided and created a cut file for use with my electronic cutter. You can download the embossed paper bird .mtc cut file for use with Make The Cut here. You can download the embossed paper bird .svg file for use with other software and cutters here. Be sure to download the PDF file for assembly directions from JoAnn's site here. I used cuttlebug embossing folders to emboss the flower (dots) and the bird.

Totally Totebag

2010-10-18T06:00:00.006-04:00

PLEASE NOTE: Make the Cut (.mtc) Download link is now Fixed. Thanks for those who let me know!

A friend asked me if I could create a file for cutting with our electronic cutters based on the "Totally Totebag" instructions and pattern posted on the Splitcoaststampers.com website by Leigh O'Brien. You can find Leigh's directions and information on thte Splitcoasterstamper's site here. You can also find it on Leigh's blog "Sunflowerstudio" along with more cute ideas and projects. I have only made a "rough draft" of the totebag to make sure that it cut out properly. To see more (and prettier) photos of assembled projects check the splitcoasstampers site here. Thanks Leigh for sharing.

You can download my .mtc cut file for use with Make The Cut here. (FIXED THANKS!) You can download my .svg file for use with other software packages or cutters here. (Note: You cannot use these files with either PC's Gypsy or Design Studio (DS) but you can use it with a cricut machine if you have Make the Cut or SCAL).
The finished bag measures: heigh:t 2 3/4", width: 3 3/4", and the depth: 1 1/2". It is just right for a gift card holder or a little snack or small treat. Thanks for stopping by.

Flap Card

2010-10-15T06:00:00.017-04:00

I was browsing around the other day on Splitcoaststampers.com and ran across this cute "Flap Card" created by Rose Ann Reynolds. This is a simple tri-fold card that makes a small card or can serve as a cute gift card holder. You can find the Tutorial with the directions and pattern on the splitcoaststampers site here.
You can also go check out Rose Ann's blog, "Paper Delightz," with other cute ideas and projects created by her.

I made my "flap cards" into Halloween cards. I have made them into gift card holders and plan to put $5 McDonald Gift Cards in them for my children and my nieces and nephews. To use as a gift card holder you can either use a kraft knife to cut "slits" into a couple of corners of the mat inside to hold the gift card (use the card to position where the slits need to be placed), or simply put some repositionable glue on the back of the gift card, or make a pocket out of the inside mat (you may need to cut that down a little to create the pocket and still be able to see the gift card). The finished size of the card is 4.25" tall by 3.5" wide. Just the right size for a gift card holder.

Download the .Flap Card mtc file for Make The Cut here. Download the Flap Card .svg file here. Note that my .mtc file has information and notes available under the Notes Bar. Sadly, I cannot add "notes" to the .svg file. So I will note here that I have added two "flaps" for the "flap" should you wish to add mats and decorative paper to the front flap of the card. It then has 1 smaller mat overlaying decorative paper to the larger mats that are there to cut and use on the outside and inside of the card as used on Rose Ann's sample pics in her Tutorial. Thanks for stopping by. Would love to see what you do with my files!

Spartan Head

2010-10-13T06:00:00.002-04:00

I have previously shared this Spartan Head a long time ago as a .scut file. I have converted it into a Make the Cut file (.mtc). My children's school's mascot is the Spartan's so it gets a lot of use around my house! I took one of their logos and converted it into a cut file. Hope someone else can get some use out of it.

Download the Spartan Head .mtc file here. Download the Spartan Head .svg file.

As always, I would love to see what you do with any of my files. Thanks for stopping by.

Jack-O-Lantern Basket

2010-10-11T06:00:00.001-04:00

This is a quick and easy project using your electronic cutters and a small basket. I am not sharing any cut files as it would be easy to recreate my idea but the sizing will vary based upon the basket used. Leave a comment with your e-mail address should you have questions.

Measure the "circle" of your basket and cut a circle out of orange vinyl to fit the lid of the basket. cut around any hinges that may be on the top of the lid (mine had a leather strap that I used to be the "stem"). Apply the orange circle to the top of your lid. Then cut out the jack-o-lantern's face from black vinyl. You could use Pumpkin Carvings cart from PC or use the dbjackopatterns from Lettering Delights to creat a .svg or .mtc file or any other place you can find "jack-o-lantern" faces.

1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

2010-07-24T12:10:00.003-04:00

Hello. A Message Board Friend asked for help in making .svg files of Dr. Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. She is in turn helping a friend who is decorating her nursery with Dr. Seuss. She had found several other Dr. Seuss images as .svg files already, but hadn't found the fish. I told her I would be happy to help.

I found a coloring book page online and used that to create the images. There are two layers to most images, the base layer which is black and then the top layer which is the color of the fish. A couple (the red fish and blue fish) also have white eyes as another layer to cut. All of them have a few small pieces that aren't part of the "whole". They could have been taken into Inkscape and edited some of the nodes so that the top was just one piece. I just didn't have the time to do that.

These files are no longer available sorry. Thanks for your understanding.

Treasures of the Sea

2010-06-27T11:17:00.000-04:00

I have previously posted about getting patterns to cut from Scroll Saw magazines and websites that you can use to create cut files for use with your Cricut. Obviously, to do this you would need to have a 3rd party software like Make the Cut (MTC) or Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL). So I always take a quick look at scrollsaw magazines whenever I see them to see if there are patterns I would like to use with my Cricut. As a result, I quickly purchased a news stand copy of Issue 39, Summer 2010 ScrollSaw Woodworking & Crafts magazine when I saw these Treasures of the Sea items. Interestingly, it wasn't until after I bought the magazine and had created the .mtc cut files that I actually read the full article and see where it notes that these patterns were orignally designed as paper cuttings and that many paper cutting patterns are easily cut on a scroll saw! LOL

The website for ScrollSaw Woodworking & Crafts magazine is http://www.scrollsawer.com/. This site has lots of information including various patterns you can download directly from their website. Many of them can easily be used to create and cut with paper on your electronic cutters.

The particular article that drew my attention in the Summer 2010 edition was entitled Treasures of the Sea. The article and the patterns used were created by Gloria Cosgrove (the actual cuts shown were done by Linda Heigerson.) Gloria and her daughter, Alison, specialize in "scherenschnitte" (paper cutting) patterns. These patterns would have originally been designed to be cut by hand. They have a mail-order business selling original art work and paper cutting patterns. Their website can be found by visiting http://www.papercuttingsbyallison.com/. Be sure to check it out for some beautiful artwork that coud be made into files to cut with an electronic cutter like the Cricut and others using software like MTC or SCAL.

For these items, there were 6 patterns provided for different seashells and a sea horse in the magazine. I took the patterns and scanned them into my computer and used Make The Cut (MTC) to create cut files to cut with my Cricut. As you can see, there is a lot of delicate detail in the cuts. However, they pulled in quite well into MTC. I did end up pulling a couple of them over into Inkscape to do some node modifications in a few spots. They cut just fine with MTC and my Cricut. I used the items I cut to make cards. I think the cards could be used for a variety of needs such as sympathy, thanks, or any other need. They could also be used to create home decor items like framed art (this is what they were in the scroll saw magazine for) or even vinyl on a wall or used on a scrapbook page.

I really would love to share these files with you BUT unfortunately I don't think that I can! Since the patterns appear in the Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts magazine, it indicates that the copyright belongs to them. The pattern pullout sheet then indicates that you can make up to 10 copies for personal use "for the buyer of the magazine". However, I hope by posting them here for you to see, that you will also see that there are other places to look for patterns and ideas of items to cut with your Cricut and/or other electronic cutters. In addition, scroll sawers may see a new way to get their patterns ready to adhere to their wood to cut with. Thanks for stopping by!

Car Decals made with Vinyl

2010-06-26T12:37:00.001-04:00

Nicole had seen the post I made last year showing the car decals I made for my children's sports. You can see them here:

Sports Decals

She wanted to know how I had removed some of the "lines" from the Volleyball and put in the volleyball player, my daughter's name and school name. These were created with Design Studio and the Sports Mania Cartridge. I used the "hide contour feature" in DS to hide the lines that I didn't want to cut. It is very simple to do and they recently updated the Gypsy software so that hide contour is now available on the Gypsy as well.

I had to answer here on the blog as Nicole didn't leave me an e-mail address to contact her at. I hope she comes back to find my answer! LOL Please be sure to leave me an email address in any comments if you need me to get back to you directly. Thanks for stopping by.

Converting Different Types of CUT fils for use with the Cicut Machines

2010-06-26T09:41:00.002-04:00

So you have a Cricut and you heard that you could use other software packages to cut more things with it then just those provided on a Cricut cartridge and you are wondering how you do that. To get started, you might want to refer back to my post from April 25, 2009 entitled: What is a .cut file, a .scut file and a .svg file and what does it matter? you can find it here:

http://meflickcricutandmore.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-is-cut-file-scut-file-and-svg-file.html

Now we need to add a couple of other file types into the mix that were not discussed in that post. Since making that post, SCAL2 has come out as well as Make The Cut (MTC) and the Gypsy. The file extension for SCAL2 files are .scut2. The file extension for MTC files is .mtc. In addition, PC introduced a new handheld device called a Gypsy. File extensions of files created with a Gypsy are .gypsy.

So depending on the software you choose to get, your cricut can cut out an image from a .cut file created with PC's Design Studio (if you have the cartridge that was used to create the file), a .scut or .scut2 file created with SCAL1 or SCAL2 (note SCAL2 can open a SCAL1 or SCAL2 file - SCAL or SCAL1 cannot open a SCAL2 file. You know which version of SCAL was used to create the file by looking at the file extension. A .scut file was created with SCAL(1) while an .scut2 file was created with SCAL2. In addtion, your cricut can cut a .mtc file created with Make the Cut (version 1 or 2) or a .gypsy file created with a Gypsy. However, you would have to have each of those packages to use any of those file formats. Each have pros and cons that I won't go into here.

BUT - if you can find a file in an .svg file format ( svg stands for "scaleable vector graphics") THEN you can IMPORT that .svg file into any of the SCAL versions (1 or 2) OR MTC versions (1 or 2) and then cut it with your Cricut. HOWEVER, you CANNOT USE a .svg file with either the DS or Gypsy software from PC and you cannot use a DS .cut file or a .gypsy file with either version of SCAL or MTC. You also cannot open a .mtc file from Make the Cut with any program other than MTC. (However, if you have MTC you can EXPORT your files into many different formats to share with others and/or user with other cuters beyond a Cricut!) MTC has also recently added a "beta test" in it to IMPORT SCAL .scut and .scut2 files into it (I have not tried it yet to see how it works). You can take a DS .cut file and convert it to a .gypsy file and/or take a .gypsy file and covert it to a DS .cut file. However, you must have a licensed version of the DS software to do this. You CANNOT directly open a DS .cut file or a .gypsy file with any other program.

So, in summary - to cut a DS .cut file or a .gypsy file you would need that software and the cartridge(s) used to create it. If you have a purchased copy of DS -you can convert DS .cut fies to .gypsy files and .gypsy files to DS files..

To cut a .scut or .scut2 file you would need SCAL or SCAL2. (SCAL2 will cut both; SCAL will only cut. scut). You may be able to import these into MTC and cut with it. This feature is a beta test in MTC right now.

To cut a .mtc file you would need MTC version 1 or 2. Again, MTC2 will cut both version 1 or 2 files - the original MTC will not open or cut a version 2 file. If you have MTC, you can EXPORT .mtc files into many other formats to use with other packages and/or cutters beyond a Cricut. (In addition, MTC has added other importing features to work with other options to get files into your program. Please see the MTC official site for full details.)

A .svg file can be used with any version of SCAL or MTC. However, it must be IMPORTED into the program rather than simply opened.

This is just the very basic information to help you start to understand the potential available with your Cricuts and software programs available to use with it. I would recommend that you check out all the appropriate websites for each software program to get the most up-to-date information available regarding each.

One final cavet that I will point out. PC says that use of other 3rd party software will void your warranty. Your warranty on your machine is 1 year so if your 1 year is up, no problem. I will also tell you however that none of the 3rd party software does anything to your cricut. They simply talk to your cricut through the computer - the same way your computer talks to your printer. I have been running 3rd party software with my cricuts since they (the 3rd party software) were first released and have never had a problem with my Cricuts not working properly. My Cricuts are now 3 and 4 years old. However, I did want to make anyone aware of this in case you weren't! It really shouldn' be an issue or a concern.

There are trial versions of MTC, SCAL, and DS available for you to download and try if you want to check each of these packages out. Each website also has User Forums available for questions and help. I would recommend that you download a trial of each to find the one that works best for you.

If you have never used any of these software packages with your cricut before, you may need to update your cricut firmware and/or drivers to get them to work properly. Each site will give you information regarding how to do this.

Thanks for stopping by. I have some new files to post shortly of "seashells" that I have cut with MTC. I hope to get them up later today or tomorrow.

Round Top Treat Box now available in.svg and .mtc formats

2010-04-10T22:06:00.000-04:00

I wanted to let everyone know that I have been recreating some of my original .cut files into .svg and/or .mtc files for my friends who may only have cutters that will use one of those formats. The first one I was going to "reshare" here is one I called the Round Top Treat Box. You can see my original post of it here where I show it made into a "bunny box" and another one with a Mickey Head:

http://meflickcricutandmore.blogspot.com/2009/03/round-top-box-look-what-you-can-do-with.html

You can download the .svg file for the Round Top Treat Box here.

You can download the .mtc file for the Round Top Treat Box here.

As always - please let me see what you might create with these files. If you see other older files here on my blog that you need in another format, let me know and I will try and accomodate you. Thanks for stopping by.

Sock Monkey and Banana now in SVG format

2010-03-29T14:40:00.000-04:00

Okay. Finally found a few minutes to make the conversion asked for on the Sock Monkey to an .svg format! Sorry but I have DD doing traveling Club Volleyball (VB) team and DS doing traveling Club Basketball team so time is limited. Plus our Spring Break is this week. Anyway - finally figured out or remembered that you can right click in Make the Cut (MTC) and get it to EXPORT to an .svg file! That was Easy!! LOL

So, if you want the .svg files for either the Sock Monkey and/or the Banana files you can download the Sock Monkey in .svg format here. You can download the Banana in .svg format here. If you have SCAL2, you can download the .scut2 file with both the Monkey and the Banana in one file here. Let me see what you do with any of these files! Thanks for stopping by!

Banana for Sock Monkey - MTC 2.2.1 File

2010-03-26T10:10:00.000-04:00

Here is a Banana for the sock monkey.Wouldn't want him sitting around hungry! It is for MTC 2.2.1. It has 3 layers to it. You can "hide" the layers and cut out one at a time, or separate them and lay them all out on one mat with your different colors of paper and cut once. You decide. You can download the banana MTC file here.

I have had one request for the sock monkey in .svg format. I will try to get both the monkey and the banana into an .svg file soon. Please let us see what you do with these files. It's so much fun to see someone actually put your work into a project! Thanks for stopping by!

Sock Monkey for Make The Cut (version 2.2.1)

2010-03-24T14:34:00.000-04:00

Hello friends. Well, as most of you may know from reading my blog I have 2 Cricuts, Design Studio, a Gypsy, SCAL (Sure Cuts a Lot) and MTC (Make The Cut). As a result, I post a variety of files here. Some have mulitple files types and some only one. :( (This has a lot to do sometimes with my limited amount of time as the mother of two very active middle school aged children). However, if you ever see one of my files you would like and I haven't provided it in a format that works for you, just leave me a comment at the end of that post. Simply click on comments and leave me a note requesting another format. I won't promise that I will make it in another format or how long it will take for me to do it in, however, I will look into it and try to do so if I can when time permits.

This file is one of a Sock Monkey. However, to date, I only have the file available for Make The Cut (MTC) version 2.2.1 with its use of layers.

I really like this feature of MTC. I haven't had a lot of time lately to play with this new version, but so far, I really like what I have seen. You can download a trial version (or purchase the full version!) of MTC by going to their website at http://www.make-the-cut.com/. You can use all the features of MTC in the trial mode, but it will cut a watermark through the images until you purchase a licensed version. I think it is a great enhancement to the arsenol of tools for use by Cricut owners.

You can download my sock monkey file for MTC here. As always, this file is for personal use only. Please let me see what you do with this file if you do use it. Leave me a comment f you have any questions or problems with this or any of my other files.

Also, if you are new to my blog - check out my older posts. I have a variety of cut files for Design Studio, Gypsy, SCAL, MTC and .svg files for use with both SCAL or MTC. You might find something else you like. There are lots of gift card holders, treat bags or boxes, a cupcake box, and lots more. Plus, DazyCutr has shared some pretty great looking cards here. Let me know if I can help with something you need but can't find. Thanks for stopping by!

Manly Card - Vest for Dad - .svg and .mtc files for use with Cricut

2010-03-19T06:00:00.002-04:00

Hello. I was looking back through my huge stack of "ideas" and ran across a project that I had been working on a while back. I decided to finish it up and put it out here to share with the Cricut and blogging world. I found the original pattern in a February 2008 edition of Paper Crafts magazine (page 60) entitled Vest Card. You can find the magazine's website at http://www.papercraftsmag.com/index.html. (Unfortunately, the website no longer goes back to that edition!) The article notes that the design was courtesy of Tinkering Ink & Mainly Stamps. I believe Tinkering Ink's website address is: http://www.tinkeringink.com/ (but I didn't find anything there related to this Vest Card.) I have seen other "vest" cards in the past, but this is where I got my pattern from.

First, I copied and cut out the pattern provided in the magazine. I then enlarged it and scanned it. I usually scan it in and save it in a graphics format like .jpeg or .png and then import that into Inkscape to get an .svg file. I then take the .svg file and import it into either Make the Cut ("MTC") or Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL).

There really aren't any "directions" to prvide. Once you cut out the card from a patterned cardstock, you simply fold the card at the middle of the arm holes so that the points of the bottom of the vest line up. The "flat" side of the vest (as opposed to the pointed side) is the outside overlapping flap. The .svg file does not have the "pocket" and the "hankie". I created those and imported them directly into MTC from the scanner. Glue the "hankie" to the backside of the "pocket" and then glue the pocket onto the front left side of the Vest. You can then create "buttons" or add real buttons to the right front side of the Vest. I created buttons with a small hole punch and glued them onto the card front. Then used a marker to make button holes.

You can download the Vest Card .svg file here. If you have the latest version of the Make the Cut (MTC) software (not the beta 2.x version) you can download the Vest Card .mtc file here. The MTC file is sized correctly and has the pocket and the hankie cuts as well. As always, let me know if you have any problems with any of my files and I would love to see what you create with any of them! Thanks for stopping by.

Brownie Mix Gift Box - Requires Expression 12x24 and George Cartridge

2010-03-17T06:00:00.002-04:00

Okay, CrazyScrapper also wanted help with another file. This one was a "Gift Bag Carrier" for a box of Brownie Mix with a side pocket for a spoon or whisk. Due to the size to cut, you will need the Expression machine, a 12x24 mat with 18"x10" paper at least, and the George cartridge. There are cut files here to share that I have created for both the Design Studio (DS) software and the Gypsy. If anyone wants one for SCAL see the link below to Jamie Lane's blog.

The paper I used was a piece of the 12/x24 K&Co. pad that I found at our local Michael's. I'm not crazy about the designs in it but hey, its larger paper with designs. I hope they come out with more and better designs this size like some other K&Co. paper I do like! The card was made with Wildcard and leaves from anothr cartridge (sorry, don't remember which one!)
CrazyScrapper first saw the idea for this box on NikkiGirl's blog which you can find here:

http://mypolarexpressions.blogspot.com/2010/01/brownie-boxes.html

Nikki mentions on her blog that she had created a .cut file in DS using the George cartridge to make her box. Unfortunately, for CrazyScrapper and me, she hadn't shared her actual cut file. She did however mention that she had seen the idea on Jamie Lane's Blog but that Jamie only had the file for SCAL which Nikki didn't have. So, I followed Nikki's link back to Jamie's Blog here:
http://jamielanedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/12/brownie-boxes.html

Since CrazyScrapper needed a Gypsy file, I followed the link from Jamie's blog to her word document which shows the basic layout with cuts and score marks. (The cuts are the red and geen lines, the score lines are the black lines). So, based on Jamie's word document, I also created my own DS .cut file using the George cartridge for this brownie mix gift box. Once I had the DS .cut file (I used DS because I wanted to work with the bigger screen on my computer and thought it would be easy to convert), I attempted to convert the file to a Gypsy file. Well, that was easier said then done for a lot of reasons (some of which I plan to report to PC as bug/issues!!). However, not to be out done by a crazy Gypsy, I finally managed to get a .gypsy cut file for CrazyScrapper to use. (I basically went back to the "drawing board" and recreated the file a second time on the Gypsy).

Two things I will point out on the Gypsy file. First, all the cut lines can be seen in the preview mode when you first highlight the file but may not show on the screen when you open the file unless you Zoom in on those areas. Second, it appeared from Jamie's file that her basic layout was about 17.25"x10". This is what size I created the file in DS and it worked to hold the Brownie Box. However, when I used those same measurements on the Gypsy file, the file cut shorter then 17.25". I had to bump the size up to 19"x10" to get it to cut out to the same size as the DS .cut file! HOWEVER, I only used a 12x18 piece of paper so no way did it cut out at 19"! As a matter of fact, I measured the cut out and it WAS NOT 19" but about 17.25". I put together mockup cuts of both DS and the Gypsy files and they look identical in size!! Go Figure. (If anyone ever wants to know the other crazy things the Gypsy did when working with these files, bring over a bottle of wine or margaritias sometime and we'll chat! LOL)

You can Download the DS .cut file here. You can Download the Gypsy cut file here.

If you have SCAL, you can go to Jamie Lane's blog link I provided above and download her .scut file from there. She didn't provide the file in an .svg format so my Make The Cut friends are out of luck for now unless someone wants to convert it to a .svg and/or MTC file. LOL (Sorry, I'm done with this file for now! LOL - I might do it later!) As I already noted, you can go to Jamie's blog to get the scoring information in word format at the above link as well.

We have new neighbors moving into the neighborhood that we already know so I think that I will use this to take them a "welcome to the neighborhood gift"! They know my kids keep me too busy for me to have time to actally bake the brownies myself! LOL Thanks CrazyScrapper for pointing me towards this box idea.

Rheba's Notecard Organizer Box - ah la Cricut Bug

2010-03-16T15:13:00.000-04:00

Here's a photo of the notecard/organizer box that Rheba made. She added a cricut bug head to her's. She is going to use it to store her beautiful cards in when she makes them! Didn't she do a fabulous job! You can get a .cut file for this box/container in the post below. Let us see what you do with yours. Thanks again to everyone whois responsbile for me getting this file so I could make a .cut file from it!

Notecard Organizer Box - Expression and George cartridge needed

2010-03-01T21:12:00.002-05:00

Hello. Here is a great Notecard Organizer Box. I have created it as both a DS .cut file and a .gypsy file. Due to its size, you will need the Expression, the George cartridge and a 12x12 mat. I may try to get it into an .svg file shortly for my SCAL and MTC friends. Just so many hours in my day however so it may be just a bit! If anyone really wants it as an .svg, let me know by commenting here and I'll try to push it up more on the "to do list". If I don't hear from anyone then I may just leave it "undone"!

The directions and information for this file was given to me by Margaret or mlharrell on the Cricut MB. DazyCutr (Rheba) and I went to Margaret's last week and we made some of these cute boxes. The box pictured on the top left is the box I made at Margaret's. We used a hole punch for the scalloped edges on the half circle cutout. I told her then I would probably be making a .cut file (since I am handcutter and ruler challenged) and so it would be easy to make more. So here it is Margaret! Thanks for sharing it with me!

It is my understanding that the directions were given to Margaret from her Stampin Up sales woman/friend, Kathy Hines. The directions/info. I have says the original file was created by Lauren Meader and modified by Kim Cagle. So thanks also to all of you for sharing this cute box and I hope that no one objects to me creating files for use with the Cricut, Design Studio and/or the Gypsy. Unfortunately, I have no information on how to contact the orginal creator. However, besides crediting them here, you will find credit given to them on the last page of the .cut file (I deleted it from the .gypsy file since it just cluttered up the file the way the gypsy shows all pages!)

I am also including a PDF file that shows the three pages of the .cut file with the score lines marked and the sizing of each piece of paper. I did combine the Front Decorative Mat layer with the Front Panel on the first page of the .cut file. You will probably want to use two different pieces of paper here that contrast. The PDF file also tells the measurements used so if you don't have the Cricut you could probably still use it to hand cut the pieces you need and make the box.

Please let me know if you have any questions or problems with any of the files. I'm thinking about making a video of how to put the box together but not sure I am willing to go there just yet. However, DH did get me a Flip HD last year for my bday so I have the equipment just not the guts yet! LOL

So, without further ado here are the files you will need to download.

Download the Design Studio .cut file for the Notecard Organizer Box here.

Download the Gypsy file for the Notecard Organizer Box here.

Download the PDF file for the scorelines and other information for the Notecard Organizer Box here.

DS File Conversion to Gypsy File for Ghirardelli Candy Box

2010-02-16T18:24:00.006-05:00

Hello. Hope this finds everyone doing well. It has been a while since I have posted any files. Long list of reasons why that no one really cares about! LOL Anyway, I'm going to try to do some new stuff soon. If anyone has any "ideas" of things they would like to see, leave me a comment here and I'd be happy to try. I have a baby bug, an expression, Design Studio (DS), a Gypsy, and those two other software packages that PC prefers not to be named on the MB (LOL), Make The Cut (MTC) and Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) (both versions 1 & 2). They all are great and useful tools in our arsenol for getting the most from our Cricuts.

This post is a "file conversion" of a Design Studio file that was created by GingerSuttle and generously shared on the Cricut MB. The original file Ginger created used the George cartridge. Upon the request of another Cricut MB member, CrazyScrapper, who does not have DS but does have a Gypsy, I have converted Ginger's original DS .cut file to a .gypsy cut file for use with the Gypsy. CrazyScrapper needed help with the conversion because she didn't have a licensed copy of DS because she uses a Mac computer. You need a licensed copy of DS to do file conversions between DS and a Gypsy. The trial version of DS cannot be used to convert files. I told her I would be happy to help if I could. I then contacted Ginger to make sure that she was fine with me converting her file to the .gypsy format and then sharing it on both Ginger's original thread on the Cricut MB and here on my blog. I assured Ginger that I would make sure everyone understood that Ginger had done all the hard work when she created the original .cut fle for DS.

So please make sure to thank Ginger for all her hard work! You can find Ginger's original thread about her .cut file and pics of her Ghirardelli candy box here:

http://www.cricut.com/messageboard/tm.aspx?m=5922818&mpage=1

If you have DS and want Ginger's .cut file, follow the above link back to Ginger's original thread on the Cricut MB. There you will find the link to her original .cut file in the first posting.

In researching all of this, I found that Ginger had gotten her idea from a post on the Cricut MB from SherylGreene. Sheryl had made some of these boxes for Christmas. You can find Sheryl's blog with pics of the boxes she made by following this link:

http://sherylscraftingcorner.blogspot.com/2009/12/treat-box.html

I didn't find Sheryl's thread on the Cricut MB, but I do remember seeing her post these cute boxes before the holidays. I think I even thought, ooh - you could make that in DS. I don't believe that Sheryl used her cricut to cut out the actual boxes, but she simply used it to cut out the emblishments she put on top of them. On Sheryl's blog, she credits getting the idea for the boxes to "blog hopping" on old posts she had saved. This particular idea she got from Shelly Hopps' blog. On Shelly's blog, she shares detailed instructions on sizes of paper needed and how to manually cut and fold these ghiradelli boxes - all without a Cricut! (Surely not!) Her original post sharing this information was from 2 years ago in Jan. 2008! You can find Shelly's blog with the detailed photos and directions here:

http://mochamemories.typepad.com/mocha_memories/2008/01/ghiradelli-choc.html

So, even if you don't have a Cricut but stilll want to create these cute little boxes you can. Simply follow the above link back to Shelly's blog to get all the information that you need. However, her instructions are also helpful if you are using your Circut but are not sure how and where to score, fold and glue.

So, thanks to CrazyScrapper who needed help converting Ginger's .cut file to a Gypsy file, GingerSuttle for creating the origianl .cut file for these boxes, to SherylGreene for posting her creations from Shelly Hopps' directions to give Ginger the idea for her .cut file, and Shelly Hopps for posting the original directions . . .

here at long last is the Gypsy file for use with your Circut and your Gypsy. Please note, the cartridge used is George, the file is on a 12/x12 mat, however, it can easily be converted to a 6x12 mat (in fact Ginger has it laid out already on only half of the 12x12 mat) so no matter what machine you have, the original Cricut (Baby Bug), the Create or the Expression you could easily use one of these files to create some of these wonderful creations! Have fun and let us see what you create! You can add pics of your creations to Ginger's original thread listed above or let us know where to see pics of your creations!

Download the Ghirardelli Box for the Gypsy here.

I cut both Ginger's .cut file with DS and the converted Gypsy file out and both worked fine. My sample cuts pictured above are not as "pretty" as Ginger's, Sheryl's, or Shelley's as they were only meant to be samples to make sure the cut files were working properly. Please let us know if you encounter any problem with either file. Thanks and have fun!

Cheap ITop Alternative from the Sewing World - Turtle Friend

2010-01-27T10:11:00.007-05:00

While looking at some brads covered by using the "I Top" it reminded me of covering buttons for sewing. I went looking through my sewing stash and found a kit to cover buttons with cloth.

I thought if you can use cloth, why not paper.... and it worked !!! I am happy with the results. CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE DETAIL!

This is how I did it.

On my card I used a button that I covered for the turtles shell. The button is the largest size, 2"

On the back of the button covering kit are patterns for the correct size to cut paper/cloth. I stamped my paper before cutting. I copied the template off the back of the kit onto acetate and used the pattern to cut my paper. The picture to the right shows the button kit, the template and the stamped image I made for the Turtle shell.

The picture to the left shows the depth or the dimension of the turtle's shell. Once I had the button covered I used UTEE to cover the shell and to protect it.

As shown in the picture to the right, I made some cuts into the circle so the paper would fold properly. I followed the directions on the back of the package and covered my button.

The stamp on the button says "The only way to have a friend is to be one". So on my card the turtle is being a friend to the duck by giving it a ride, and the duck is giving the butterfly a ride. The turtle is cut from Paisley cut @ 2 1/4" The duck is from EDPD cut @ 1 1/4.

Stocking Gift Card Holder

2009-12-12T19:10:00.002-05:00

Here is a stocking gift card holder just in time for those last minute Christmas Gift Cards. Due to its size, you need the Expression and a 12x12 mat and I only used the Christmas Cheer Cartridge.

This idea has been bouncing around in my head for a little while. Just hadn't found the time to set down and try it. Stockings can be hard to figure out the proper place to weld I can tell you that!! LOL Anyway - I finally got a couple done that I liked. I used one of the stockings from the Christmas Cheer cartridge. So as to not cause the need for multiple carts, I then decided to use only shapes from that cart to do the "insert" for the gift card. So the rectangle for the insert along with the welded package and the candy cane also came from Christmas Cheer. You could recreate this idea with any other stocking from any other cart and just "add" any "gifts" to the top of the insert of any other carts as well. Thought a doll peeking out of the top of the stocking would be cute for a little girl, maybe a nutcracker for a boy! When I decide who these will be used for, I will add their names to the cuff on the stocking.

I decided instead of making a "pocket" for the gift card to slide down onto that I would just make it so that the card could be attached to the insert with a repositionable glue strip down the backside of the gift card. You could make a pocket for it or you could add slits for the corners to slide into if you prefer more "attachment". I took the easy way out! LOL Hope that someone finds a use for it. Please let me see your project if you do use it! Please let me know if you have any questions.

You can download the stocking gift card holder for the Gypsy file or download the stocking gift card holder .cut file for Design Studio. Both use the Expression with 12x12 mats.

I did not check the Gypsy file yet. I just converted it after finishing the design up on Design Studio. This means that it has all dumped onto 1 page too! I believe there are at least 4 "pages" in the DS file. (Forgot about that part! - Sorry! Easy enough to "fix" just copy and paste to different pages. I will try and do that at some point BUT I haven't yet!! Sorry!!) If you try the Gypsy file be sure to check the placement and the weldings. I used hide contour to hide the extra packages and ribbons (because I couldn't delete them) on one page and the tack on the another page. These will show up in the Gypsy file. :( You can just discard the "extras" not needed or use for some other project. I did this so I could "layer" the backside so that the stocking and "gifts" looked the same from either side. See PC why they need to work the same with all the same features!! Grrrrr.. . . . . . . . . :(

Gingerbread House - Card or Gift Card Holder - .gypsy or .cut files available - George Cartridge Used

2009-11-29T09:52:00.001-05:00

Hello. Hope everyone in the US had a great Thanksgiving. We did. We had 28-30 people to our house to eat on Thanksgiving. That means I spent all the earlier part of the week cleaning my house! LOL Then about half of them were back on Friday for leftovers!! So - I just finally got around to posting this today!

Here is the "GingerBread" House Card that I made last week. I found it while perusing an old copy of a PaperCrafts magazine. It was in the November, 2007 edition on page 45 entitled, "So Good You Could Eat It" and was designed by Valerie Pingree. When I saw it I thought - "hmm . . . . that is cute and would be very easy to do in Design Studio and/or the Gypsy." I designed my original file on my Gypsy with the George cartridge. I used the Gypsy so I could "group" and easily resize if needed. I used the George cartridge for two reasons. First, like BugBytes - I think my Gypsy Wanderings shapes are wonky for some reason - at least they look that way on my screeen!! Then, I wanted to be able to share this file with people who didn't have the Gypsy but did have Design Studio so I went with George. If you don't have George, you can use the template option on the Gypsy to recreate the file using another cartridge with basic shapes you do have. DS doesn't have the "template" option but you can still recreate it in DS with another cartridge simply by using another "page" and the preview mode to allow you to do the same thing like the template mode on the Gypsy. You can also leave me a comment if you need help recreating this file with another cartridge on either the Gypsy or DS and can't do it yourself and I will be happy to try and help you.

Both files, the .gypsy and the .cut, have 2 pages. The first page is the house card base. Cut it out in any brown or tan cardstock that you want. You will want it to be fairly heavy cardstock. Once cut, fold the left and right "flaps" in to overlap the card base.The 2nd page is the "snow scallop" for the bottom of the card and then the 2 roof scallops. Note that the circles are welded together but the rectangles are not welded to the circles. This is correct as you simply want the rectangle to cut the circles so that they are "flat" on that side for placement on the roof line or the base of the card. The first scallop is only 4 circles - this is for the "snow" on the base of the card. Once you have it - cut it in half to put half on the bottom of one "flap" of the card and the other half on the other flap of the card so that you can still open the card. The other two longer "scallops" are for the roof "shingles". They overlap on the peak of the rooftop. I used stickles for the red "dots" on the roof line. You could also add small circle cuts to each circle (without welding) and they would cut the "dots" out. You cold then add paper to the back to get a different color "dot".

The file doesn't include any other "decorations". The candy "circles" in the middle of my roof is cut from paper I had and then stickled. I also stickled the snow and roof shingles. I used my crop-a-dile to add two eyelets on the "flaps" to run the ribbon through. The ribbon is some I had in my stash. Create and decorate as you would any Gingerbread house - the limits are your imagination.

To simply use this as a card, write your greeting inside. You could add a small piece of colored cardstock inside to write on if you wanted a little more color inside. If you want to use it as a "gift card" holder, you can either simply add a little repostitionable glue to the back of your gift card and place it inside on the card base or cut some "slits" for the corners of the gift card to slide into. I think I am going to use it for my niece who is moving to NC to her first real job and apt. just before Christmas. As always, I love to read comments and see what people do with my files. I'm happy to answer any questions as well. Hope everyone has a Joyous Holiday Season!

You can download the .cut file using George for Design Studio or you can download the .gypsy file using George on the Gypsy.

DazyCutr's Corner - Pagoda Cart Taking Flight

2009-11-19T18:37:00.004-05:00

This card was created using my new cartridge Pagoda and my Gypsy.

I chose this stork because I liked the layer cut that went with it.

In the end I wasn't able to use the layer. I used the "slant" feature on Gypsy for the bird and could not get the layer to fit.

Let me tell you what I did.
I used a rectangle from George and using width and length I made it 6 x 9. that's my card base. I selected the stork and and sized it at 3 1/2", flipped it, moved it to the right edge of my card, slanted it and then welded.......it all worked !!!!!
I copied and pasted the bird to another spot on the mat so I could cut another layer, the black bird.

Melanie guided me through this, she's so good with Gypsy and DS.

The tree I cut @ 3" just using Cricut. Kangi cut @ 2".

On the inside I will put....May your dreams take flight.

I think it would make a good graduation card.

Thanks for looking

Sweet Treats Cricut Cartridge - Couple of Sample Cuts

2009-11-18T11:08:00.000-05:00

Hello. I got several of the new cartridges in the past week or so. One of those I picked up was the "Sweet Treats" cartridge from our local Michaels. I was excited about this cart because I like to make bags, boxes, containers. I tried a couple of them. I cut out 2 "cupcake holders" and 1 "Party Favor Boxes". I cut 2 of the cupcake holders trying to figure out the sizing for a cupcake. You would "think" that they would give the basic sizes to cut to get the correct size for something like this!!!

My biggest issue with this cart is what I feel like was deceptiveness on PC's part with this cartridge. At first glance you would think you had 50 cupcake holders. However, in fact, there is only 1 "cupcake holder" and 49 more IDENTICAL cuts. There is NOTHING DIFFERENT on any of those cuts. The shift function gives you "emblishments" to add to the cupcake holders that make them "different". Then there are a large number of identical cuts on the Party Favor Boxes. There are 3 of 1 and 5 of another that are identical on the word cuts. They are actually the same boxes but just 2 different sizes, 3 one size and 5 of another. Then there are 10 identical cuts for the "candle" party favor boxes. So you don't have 50 different "Party Favor Boxes" you get far fewer. Again, the shfit feature for each gives you "emblishments" that make them different. However, I don't need 10 or 50 of the same cut for that. Just give me one cut and then the different embelishments.

At first glance, I thought hey, these look identical - then I thought no they wouldn't do that. So, before I accused them I decided to make sure that I was correct and I cut them all out to verify they were in fact identical as I suspected. Sad to say, I was right. :( Then there are a number of "not available" spaces (23 or more based on my account!!!) Plus, this I didn't verify, but I believe that some of the cards and the tags may be the same as well. Again, just with a different emblishment with the shift feature. :( So when you start adding it up, there are probably well over 100 that are blank or identical. Compared to the newly released Old West and Pagoda that has no identical cuts or N/A's on them so they have a full 700 images! Sorry PC but I don't see that as acceptable. If you can't do a fully loaded cart with different images, then make it a soulutions cart!

With that said, here are the 3 items that I made with the Sweet Treats cartridge. The first 2 are the cupcake holders. The first one the purple one with the crown I loaded the mat with a 12x12 piece of paper and told it to "fit to size" (at the moment, Sweet Treats and Paisley are not avialable on the Gypsy or DS software - maybe tommorrow or soon!). With fit to size, it said it was cutting at 11". When the cut is completed and the holder is folded up and glued together, you get a completed holder that is fairly large. It gives you a 4"x4" square bottom and its width is 4" wide at the bottom, 4 1/2" wide at the top. It's height is 3 1/2". To get the "crowns" you use the shift function. It cuts out 2 side panels leaving 2 sides undecorated. You can do all 4 sides by cutting it again. I think this size is probably even still too big for a jumbo cupcake. However, it would make a nice size box for other treats.

The second cuupcake holder I "guestimated" the size to cut based on my results from the first one. I cut it at 7". This gives you a 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" square bottom. It is 2 1/2" wide at the base and 3" wide at the top. It is 2 1/4" in height. I used the shift function to cut the scalloped border. This cuts 4, one for each side. This is probably the right size to hold a regular size cupcake or muffin.

Finally, I tried one of the Party Favor Boxes. I cut the number 6 ice cream cone. Again, since for some unexplainable reason, PC does NOT provide sizing guidelines, I had to "guesstimate" or try a "fit to page" and just see what he end result was. I put in the 12"x12" paper and told it to "fit to page". It then cut this Party Favor Box at 5 3/4". As a result, it only uses 1/2 the page of paper but it takes the full 12" width to cut it out. If you could use DS or the Gypsy. You could manipulate this a little to get more height if you wanted. The "favor" part of the box ends up being approx. 3 x 2 3/4" in width and a little less then 2 1/2" in height. Not a huge box by any means! You then need to cut the layers of the ice cream out. Since you will need "2" of them, you will need to "flip" some of them for one side. Not a problem if you use plain one color paper, but an issue if you use a print (as I did for the strawberry ice cream). If you do that you will need to "flip" the ones for that side. I found it easier to mark mine as I cut L for left and R for right. I then embossed with the Cuttlebug "swirl folder" so I had to make sure I was embossing the "correct" sides as well!! They also have added the "holes" for adding a handle. I don't know that I would have added a handle, but without it being loaded on DS, I couldn't do a hide/contour feature on it to prevent those holes from cutting, and the Gypsy doesn't have that feature so I wouldn't have been able to do it on there at all.

End result, I like a lot of the things on this cartridge. However, I do feel that PC "short changed" us by giving so many identical cuts! I would not pay full price for this less then complete cartridge!! Glad I got mine on a sales price match!! Please let me know if you have any questions or want to see a particular item cut out from this cartridge. There is of course no .cut or .gypsy files for this since the are direct cuts from the cartridge and they are not yet avilable on on the DS or Gypsy cartridge listings for use. Have a great day!

Gas Pump Money or Gift Card Holder for 16th Birthday

2009-11-15T10:24:00.001-05:00

Here is the money or gift card holder I made for my Nephew's 16th Birthday a couple of weeks ago. Since he was turning 16 and getting his license soon and they prefer money at this age as a gift anyway, I decided to make a money holder around the "driving" theme. I used the gas pump from the Cars cartridge. I created this on my Gypsy now that they have finally fixed the welding a flipped image issue! Thanks for that PC! I was also able to use the grouping feature with it to resize it to make it smaller. Once I had it made and cut the first one out, I decided it needed to be a little smaller in size, with being able to group it all as one object on the Gypsy it was a snap to make smaller! Thans for that too PC. However, you still can't group in DS. Please PC, can you give us the grouping feature in DS tooooooooo. We have been asking for that since it was first released. I don't see why that is difficult to do, especially since it is now on the Gypsy!!!!

To create this money holder, I used the Disney Cars cartridge for the gas pump, created a 2nd one and flipped it and welded them together on one side. I then created the pocket on the bottom by adding a square from another cartridge (I probably used George) and welding it to the bottom of the right side of the money holder, created rectangles and welded them on the sides of the square to fold in and adhere pocket with when folded up. I cut the base money holder out of a cream color cardstock. Then I cut one of the pump in a silver cardstock and applied it to the front of the money holder. I then cut off the front pump handle so that there was only the one on the back of the card. I used markers to color the pump handle. After I had already adhered the front silver pump, I thought, dang, I should have embossed Happy Birthday on the front of it first. So, I cut a small square to fit, embossed the happy birthday with a sizzix embossing folder and adhered it to the bottom front. I then sanded it and inked it. Please leave me a comment if you have any further questions about how I did this or what either a .gypsy or .cut file of this project. I have not yet saved it to my computer so I don't yet have it available to share. I will probably only do that if someone asks for it. It should be fairly easy to recreate on your own however.

Volleyball Gift Card Holder

2009-11-11T19:35:00.001-05:00

Here is a volleyball gift card holder I created a month or so ago. I used the Sports Mania cartridge (and maybe George for the square for the pocket). I used the volleyball shadow to create the front at I and back black base and welded them together in DS. I then added a "pocket" to the back base to hold the gift card. This is done by welding a square to the bottom of the back circle base and then rectangles to the left and right of the square to fold in and glue to the base to form the pocket. The font volleyball shape was then cut out in white and added to the front. I created this to give to my DD's Volleyball Coach for her end of the season gift from the team. It could also be used to give a gift to your favorite volleyball player!

It could easily be adapted to be a basketball, baseball, tennis ball, etc. Any "round" ball sport. Just simply cut the front to be the ball shape that you need. I don't recall what cartridge the "Thanks" word came from off the top of my head! You could also use congrats, You Did It, Way to Go, etc. LOL

If you are interested in the .cut file for this leave me a comment and I will try to get it posted in the next couple of days. It would be fairly easy to recreate without a file from me but I'll be happy to share if anyone wants my file, just let me know. My comments are setup to be done anonymously so leaving a comment shouldn't be a problem! I haven't had time to work on cleaning up the file and making it ready to post and its on a different computer which is why I'm not posting it right now! LOL Plus, this way I see who really wants the file! LOL

DazyCutr's Corner - Cards made with MS Punches

2009-11-10T10:58:00.014-05:00

Welcome to DazyCutr's Corner! Rheba a.k.a. DazyCutr on the Cricut MB is going to share my blog. She will post her beautiful card creations here as often as she wants. I'll encourage her to post other things too!! Here is her first sharing with us. They are cards made with MS Punches. She learned this technique from Becca at AmazingGrace. You can find Becca's website here http://www.amazingpapergrace.com/. Becca refers to these as "circle frames". This first card was created using a MS around the page punch, fall leaves. To create this frame I cut a circle 3 3/4", and using Becca's directions I marked the back of the card stock in 1/8th sections. I used the corner punch from the set and went around the circle. I really like the look of this.

The cornucopia is cut from Speaking of Fall @ 1 3/4". The pumpkins, apple and cherry are part of the cut. I added glaze to them

"Give Thanks" is cut from Don Juan @ 1/2".

I used the border and corner punch for the background paper.

This is a real fun technique with endless possibilities. I have created a few more.

This second card was made using the MS cupcake punch. I had to make the circle a little bigger for this one, 4" The cupcakes around the circle are punched out and what you are seeing is the background paper through the cupcake cut out. In the center is the actual punch. I added a little glaze to them and doodled the edges.

The scalloped circle is from Mini Monos.

Happy Birthday is a stamp.

Here are some additional cards made with this technique. One has deer and one has snowmen. The "winter" is from Stretch Your Imagination, "Season's Greetinngs is from Don Juan. The tree is a cricut cut but can't recall which cartridge! Anyone care to guess?!! The snowman head and hat are from Speaking of Winter.

These last two pictures are not very clear, but you can click on all of the pictures for a larger image.

Transfering my DS .cut files to .gypsy files

2009-11-09T13:58:00.000-05:00

I hope to start transferring my DS .cut files to .gypsy files soon. If there is anyone out there who would like one of these files converted sooner then later, leave me a comment here and I would be happy to do that as time permits. Some of my files have multiple pages in DS and will need some work to recreate them with multiple pages for the Gypsy since multiple pages do not transfer that way but get transferred all on one page! I really have to go back and see what files I do have and where to start! Thanks for stopping in!

Hello Again!

2009-11-09T13:51:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to say hello. I knew it had been a while since I had added anything to my Blog, but I hadn't realized that it had been more then a month. I'm sorry if you are a "follower" who has been looking for new projects. I haven't had a lot to share lately and didn't seem like anybody was missing me any way! LOL

My last post said that my cervical vertabrae issues had reared their ugly head again. I was having lots of pain issues at that time, they have abated some what. Surgery is probably coming BUT I hope later then sooner. We are doing the wait and see for now. Right now I am doing okay with it all.

Anyway, in addition to that, I then went out of town to Disney World with my Family for a mini Fall Break (getting used to not being able to ride the roller coasters and other rides anymore!) :(, then we returned to host an exchange student from El Salvador for 10 days including over Halloween. We are now getting ready for DD to cheer for her MS Baseketball teams and to play on a competitive traveling Volleyball team while DS is playing league Basketball and getting ready for MS baseball team tryouts next week. DS left today for a school trip to Barrier Island, SC for the week. So, as you can see I haven't had much time to create.

I did get the Gypsy as noted in my last post. I was somewhat disappointed in it and its lack of some of its basic features initially. However, I was willing to have faith in PC to fix the problems. The biggest problems that I saw was the flipping/welding issue and the inability to swap files between DS and the Gypsy. Even with those major concerns, I did decide to keep it and uploaded ALL of my carts to it. However, after my initial playing with it, I hadn't done a lot with it because of the issues it had and little time on my part. However, last week PC finally released a new update to the DS software and the Gypsy Synch software that seems to have fixed the major concerns/problems. That has made me happy and I have done some new projects with the Gypsy. I will post them later this week along with some other projects I had done previously but hadn't gotten posted. I would suggest that if you have the Gypsy that you get the most recent updates - they will make things run much more smoothly.

Finally - DazyCutr (Rheba) from the Cricut MB may share my blog to post some of her beautiful card creations. I have mentioned it to her before, I'm hoping we can start to do that soon. If you haven't seen her work on the MB before, you are in for a treat. If you are familiar with Rheba's work, you know how wonderful her creations are.

If anyone's out there reading this - thanks for checking in and I hope to have more projects to share with you soon. If you have any ideas/suggestions that you would like to see or have created leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do!

Gypsy is here and I like it!!

2009-09-30T15:04:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to give a quick update to my blog. I probably won't have any other posts this week. I did get my Gypsy last Thursday from HSN. I didn't get it until late Thurs. night when I got home from DS's MS football game (darn UPS man!!!). Then our school carnival was Friday so I was at school on Friday for about 15 hours getting it set up, having the carnival, and tearing it down then sitting through our HS major rival football game (we won!! YEA!!). That combined with my cervical disk issues rearing its ugly head again last week and well I haven't had too much time to play or create and when I did, I was playing with the Gypsy!! I think I have a good handle on it now.

I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND - downloading the user manual from the gypsy's site and reviewing it ALL carefully!!! You can find it here.

I would also RECOMMEND that you "think before you link". I have had mine for almost a week now and I have not linked a single cartridge that I own. I wanted to make sure I loved this tool BEFORE I LINKED. I will probably start linking carts by the weekend at the latest. Remember, linking your carts makes it not possible to return your Gypsy if you don't like it.

Couple quick notes about using the Gypsy: **First, the Power button IS NOT the small silver button on the right top side. It is a black button on the SIDE of the Gypsy on the right! Hold it in briefly. **Second, you don't have to keep "tapping" the screen - you can tap once and hold and it will continue until you untap. For example: increasing the size of something, tap and hold on the round size up or down circles will continue to increase or decrease size! ** You don't have to click precisely on a line of an object to select it like in DS. Just click somewhere on the object. ** Finally, you can change the default height of the cursor while nothing else is selected on the screen - this changes the "default" size of the images that you add to your screen. (See page 28 of the on-line user manual!). HTH

There are glitches with it, as there always are with the first release of any technical tool like this. They have given one update to add the copy and paste feature it was missing (couldn't believe that!) BUT you still can't swap DS .cut files to the Gypsy or Gypsy files to DS. They are suppose to be working on that and hopefully it will be coming soon. I do believe that PC will keep working to improve this product. I promise to come back soon and share what I have been learning! Take Care!

ITunes Gift Card Holder - Any size bug - George, Plantin SB, or My World Carts

2009-09-23T11:46:00.001-04:00

Happy Wed! Plus, Happy, Happy, Happy!!!! Just a little more then 12 hours before the Gypsy Premier is launched by ProvoCraft on HSN!! Are you waiting with baited breath?!! I am, as I have already pre-ordered mine from HSN yesterday and it is SUPPOSE to be delivered to me tomorrow!!!! Can't wait!!

In the interim, I have had the idea of an "itunes gift card holder" shaped like an ipod dancing around in my head for a while now. Just hadn't gotten around to it! The story of my life it seems - getting " around to it!" Well I finally took the time to do one. I was feeling so good about it once I had it made that I then proceeded to make sure that I have hopefully taken care of most everyone with a Cricut machine! I have created files for the smaller bugs and the Expression. I have used George, Plantin Schoolbook, or My World cartridges to create 4 files. Hopefully, one of them works for you. If not, you can always use one of my files as your "pattern" and recreate it with a cartridge you do have. If you don't have George or Plantin Schoolbook, they would be a great "gift" to yourself from the Cricut Rewards site. So many people use these two cartridges to create a lot of their .cut files that they share.

As always, I don't require a comment to get my files but I do like to get them and even more so, like to see what people do with my files. It encourages me to keep creating and sharing!

If you have one of the smaller bugs like the Personal (Baby) or Create machine I have created one file using the George cartridge. You can Download the BabyBug Itunes Gift Card Holder here.

If you have the Expression machine, you can pick between 3 files that I have created.

The first file was the first one I created using the actual IPod image from the My World cartridge. You can Download the Expression/My World ITunes Gift Card Holder here.

The second file I have available for the Expression uses the George Cartridge only. You can Download the Expression/George ITunes Gift Card Holder here.

The third and final file I have available for the Expression uses the Plantin Schoolbook Cartridge only (although the "This Project" will show George and PS! - it's only PS I promise!). You can Download the Expression/Plantin Schoolbook ITunes Gift Card Holder here.

Note: This fits the "smaller" size ITunes gift cards that are a little bigger then 2 x 3. The final completed size of the gift card holder is approximately 2 1/2" x 4".

I just did a couple "quick" mockups to make sure my cut files all worked and to show you what they would look like if you were "playing a song" on the Ipod. I would spend a little more time on my "buttons" and "screen" when I made it to give as a gift.

They would make great stocking stuffers at Christmas!

The final picture shows you where to score and fold should that not be obvious to you. Have a great day!

"Interactive Card" - .cut file for Expression or Smaller Bugs

2009-09-21T10:10:00.000-04:00

Here is an "interactive card" that I made based on information I found on-line with the Paper Crafts Magazine. The article was from October, 2008 and was entitled "Boo Bats Card". It can be found on-line at http://www.papercraftsmag.com/articles/Boo_Bats_Card_pc1008. The Designer is listed as Bonnie Billings. The card has a large round "window" cut out of the front with "strings" in the window to which you attach an "accent" that will then "spin". In their card sample, they used bats. In mine, I used ghosts.

In the other sample card I'm posting I "messed up" and attached my front cover paper before I had added the string! Since I was using my Xyron perm. adhesive there was no getting that paper back up to put in the string! LOL So, on the "Bewitching" card, I added an "inside" layer to the top of the card to be my "moon" and then added my flying witch cut with SCAL to it so it doesn't actually move on that card. However, it does show another way to use this card base .cut file! LOL If I had remembered to have added my string first, the witch would have been "flying" on the string and the orange "moon" paper would have been the liner on the inside back of the card and you would have "seen" into the card.

The "ghosts" on the Ghost card are from Everyday Paper Dolls I think. The blue paper had "ghosts" on it but then I stamped more ghosts and the wording onto the front cover and used stickles around the circle edge and paper edging (because I didn't get my paper lined up straight! LOL) The "flying witch" is a .svg file I created and is available from last Friday's post here on my blog. Here is the .cut file for the card base:

Download the "Square with Interactive Circle cut Card Base" .cut file for the Small Bugs here. Note: the .cut file for the small bugs cuts one 1 card. Finished card size is 5 1/4" square and will need a square envelope for mailing. I believe this also requires extra postage when mailing. :(

Download the "Square with Interative Circle cut Card Base" .cut file for the Expression here. Note: the .cut file for the Expression macine cuts 2 cards. The finished card size is 5 1/4" square and will need a square envelope for mailing. I believe this also requires extra postage when mailing. :(

Notes: I used a strong light gray embriodery thread for my string. I would have used fishing line but didn't have any handy! LOL They used "elastic cording" in their directions. Any "string" you have that you like should work just fine. They used 2 pieces of string and applied 3 bats. I used 2 and applied 2 ghosts. You could use only 1 and apply one object or more and apply more. * You will need to cut 2 of any object that you are applying to the string. You will "back" them together with the string running between.

Supplies - paper for card base, paper for outside card "top" and for inside "liner". String, wire or elastic cording. Die cuts of choice (make sure you have two of each to layer them together with string in between.) Other items as desired to finish decorate card (stamps for wording, etc.). Envelope for 5 1/4" Square Card.

Flying Witch Silhouette .svg file for SCAL

2009-09-18T05:00:00.001-04:00

Yes, I am in "Halloween Mode"! Here is a Flying Witch file for use with SCAL. As always, I am providing the .svg file as well as the .scut file. Remember you IMPORT .svg files into SCAL and OPEN an .scut file with SCAL. Neither .svg or .scut files will work with Design Studio (DS). The .scut file was created with SCAL 1.

Please show me any projects that you create with this or any of my other files. I like to see people are getting a use from them.

You can download the Flying Witch .svg file here.

You can download the Flying Witch .scut file here.

PC continues to Celebrate their 100th Cartridge Release

2009-09-16T18:24:00.000-04:00

Don't forget, PC is continuing to celebrate their 100th Cartridge Release, Winter Woodland, by giving free cartridges away. For details, see the Cricut Messageboard at www.cricut.com/messageboard. To see all 100 of their cartridges you can go to their products section at http://www.cricut.com/shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?id=361&s=1&sc=2. If you are new to the Cricut, go back to the beginning and see some of the first released carts, many of those are "can't live without".

Pyramid Favor Box for SCAL Users

2009-09-16T05:00:00.002-04:00

I found this instruction sheet for a Pyramid Favor Box at Jo-Ann's some time ago. It notes that it is courtesy of Inkadinkado (I think because the project sheet has you stamping on your project after you have it cut out but before you put it together.) I finally got around to tracing the pattern off the back, scanned it in, pulled it into Inkscape and made an .svg pattern with it for use with SCAL. I had to handtrace the original since it is printed lightly on the back with the written instructions over the top of it. (Hate when they do that - makes it hard to use!)

I usually use the red liner tape available at Walmart or any craft store to put my boxes and or bags together so that I know that they will "stay" together once I have put treats in them.

Special Notes: * the "sides" where you do the folds seem to be a little longer (taller) then the front and back sides (maybe it's just my folding). Once you fold them in and glue the "sides" to the front and back trim off any extra length by hand. It's just a quick snip. * Also, you'll need to "pinch in" the sides of the box to allow for the front closure flap to pull over the top correctly. * see the attached photo that shows you where to score and fold (basically you score on the triangle sides and the middle square). Click on picture to see it better and in larger size.

Here are two sample boxes that I made to try the pattern out.

Notice in the last picture posted here how I have "pinched" in the sides of the box to allow for the top flap to come over and down properly.

You can download the Pyramid Box .svg file here.

You can download the Pyramid Box .scut file here.

Remember, you IMPORT an .svg file into SCAL. You OPEN a .scut file with SCAL. Neither .svg nor .scut files can be used with Design Studio (DS).

Thanks for looking. As always, I'd love to see any projects that you create with this file.

Approximate finished size of the project is 3" x 3 1/2" x 1 1/2"

My Rolling Yudu Cart designed and made for me by my DH Jeff

2009-09-15T16:22:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to share a photo of my new cart that my DH Jeff designed and made for me for my Yudu machine.

It is on wheels so that I can roll it to where I want it for use or storage. The wheels then lock down so that it won't move while actually using it. It has a drawer for storage of paints and other supplies as well as the bottom shelf for more storage.

The only thing he has left to do is add "hooks" to the ends for holding the plantins while they are drying or for storage. We haven't found the hooks we want to use. He's thinking about making those as well.

Thanks for looking. I just love my new cart and my DH for his hard work in making it!

Eyeore Card with DS and Any Cricut - Pooh & Friends Cartridge & George

2009-09-14T05:00:00.001-04:00

Here is an Eyeore card that I made back around the end of March for my sister's birthday. I love the Mouse. She loves Eyeore. We were out of town (at Disney I believe!) on her birthday so we "missed" it. I made this as a birthday card for her and on the inside I put - "we missed your birthday - hope it was happy" or something like that.

Well, I've had the .cut file since then but forgot to take a picture of the card to share with all of you. I finally got around to cutting a new one so I could take a picture! I've left the inside blank at the moment so I could "adapt" it to any need like another missed birthday, an illness, an apology, etc.

I have files for both the smaller bugs and the Expression. You will need the Pooh and Friends cartridge and George. The rectangle used to join Eyeore's head for the base and the bottom of the card are from George but could easily be replaced by ones from another cartridge if you don't have our friend George. I used the Pooh Font for the words "oh bother" so you could easily redo that with another font you had. I used the shadow of Eyeore to make the card base, then cut the full head and then the "pieces" and layered them. See your Pooh & Friends handbook if needed in figuring out the layering.

Download the Eyeore Card .cut file for the Smaller bugs here.

Download the Eyeore Card .cut file for the Expression here.

Dachshund Silhouette - (Weiner Dog) for SCAL

2009-09-12T05:00:00.003-04:00

Seems like I am on a SCAL role. LOL I'm sorry to my DS only friends. I'm not ignoring it but these images are just so much easier to recreate with my scanner, Inkscape and SCAL! I wish it were as easy with DS and we had no need for SCAL but until that day comes, I will continue to use both.

Here is a silhouette of a dachshund. My BIL and his wife have always owned dachshunds. I wanted to be able to have a cut of one to use to make them a card or other things. The .svg file will need to be IMPORTED into any version of SCAL. The .scut file is one I created with SCAL 1. You open it with SCAL. Neither of these files can be used with DS.

Download the dachshund .svg file here.
Download the dachshund .scut file here.

DS File by GJ now available for Witche's Shoe Card Previously Posted

2009-09-11T20:10:00.003-04:00

Hello. Just a quick note to let you know that I was contacted by GJ on the Cricut MB asking if it was okay for her to remake the Witch's shoe card that I had made as .svg and .scut files and previously posted. I said sure, I would love for her to do that for our DS using friends. So she did and has kindly agreed to let me post it here on my blog for those who wish to download it. Both GJ and I have cut the file and it works great. Here is a picture of GJ's card.

You can follow this link to see my original post and to find GJ's DS .cut file that she has kindly shared. Thanks GJ!

http://meflickcricutandmore.blogspot.com/2009/08/happy-halloween-witchy-footwear-card.html

NOTE: On GJ's card she has used the "hide contour feature". Her first page with the card tells you what should be "hidden". Make sure these are "hidden" before you go to cut the file. You will probably have to "hide" them again in the file. I did. Nothing GJ did wrong - just one of those "bugs" in the software - a hidden contour doesn't always stay hidden!

Broken Picket Fence - SCAL

2009-09-11T05:00:00.003-04:00

Here is a Broken Picket Fence file for use with your Cricut and SCAL. I have created the .scut file using SCAL 1. As always, this is easily done by scanning the image into my computer, importing it into Inkscape, doing a few simple steps and saving it as an .svg file. You then IMPORT the .svg fle into any version of SCAL. The .scut file is the file created after the image has been pulled into SCAL and saved. You OPEN a .scut file with SCAL. Note: .svg and .scut files CANNOT be used with DS (Design Studio)

Note: I don't cover the steps of creating the .svg file in Inkscape here on my blog as there are several places with great tutorials on doing that and, as I've said before, I try not to reinvent the wheel. This means that if I know something already exists out there in the online world as it relates to Cricuts, DS, SCAL and Inkscape I won't cover it myself. That doesn't mean that sometimes you won't find something here that others have - it simply means that I was unaware of it already being done! LOL

Download the Broken Picket Fence .svg file here. Download the Broken Picket Fence .scut file here.

Treat Bag - SCAL file

2009-09-10T05:00:00.003-04:00

I love magazines with patterns! I had picked up the Sept/Oct 2009 edition of the Paper Crafts magazine. It has several cute ideas in it for Halloween. One idea was a "Haunted House Treat Box" designed by Daniela Dobson on page 44 of the magazine. The pattern for the "Treat Bag" was available to download from their website, http://www.papercraftsmag.com/index.html. It is really just a simple little bag who's finished size is about 3 1/4" x 5 1/4" x 1 3/4". The "Haunted House" part was just decorative paper added as a "wrap" to the bag.

I downloaded the pattern, scanned it into my computer, imported it into Inkscape and converted it into an .svg file to import into SCAL. I have also created a .scut file with SCAL 1. The .scut file is sized to approximately the same size as the bag in the magazine therefore it will require the Expression to cut it.

Here in my sample file I created, I added the witch brewing in her caldrun .svg file that was posted yesterday to the middle of the bag to cut out the image. I then added a piece of acetate or clear plastic to the inside of the bag over the "hole" left by the witch cut out. This allows you to "see" into the bag. I then used my MS drippy goo punch to punch out a strip that I added to the top of my bag. I then cut a larger "wrap" to add to the bottom and stamped "Boo to You" and wrapped it around the bag. I then added some stickles to the drippy goo and the "boo to you".

You can download the .svg "treat bag" file here. You can download the .scut "treat bag" file here. Note that this .scut file was created with SCAL 1. It also has the witch brewing in her caldrun included on the bag to cut out. If you don't want the witch to cut out, simply delete it from the file or replace it with a different object, a cupcake with a candle, ballons, a snowman, etc. Anything that would fit your "theme".

Have fun and let me see what you create with the file. The score lines are not marked. Again, I think that they are "obvious" but if not, you can find the original pattern with the score marks online at Paper Crafts magazine's website listed above. However, it is missing one scoreline on the bottom flap. In addition, the way this pattern is layed out and cuts, you will need to hand cut a little more the two side "flaps" up to the score line to fold properly. Please let me know if you have any questions or problems! Thanks for "popping in".

ProvoCraft Celebrates their 100th Cartridge Release

2009-09-09T21:03:00.000-04:00

Hello. Just a quick note to say Congratulations to ProvoCraft for their 100th Cricut Cartridge Release. Winter Woodland is their 100th cartridge! They are celebrating by giving away 100 cartridges over the next few weeks. How exciting! The good news for me (and PC) is that I have almost all of those 100 and am eagerly awaiting the next 100! LOL Of course, having purchased the original baby bug right after it was first released I have had over 3 1/2 years to amass my collection!! LOL

To see all 100 of the cartridges presently available you can go to the Cricut Product page here:
http://www.cricut.com/shopping/productList.aspx?sc=2

What is your favorite? I don't have one favorite - I love them all!!!

Halloween is "Brewing" - SCAL file

2009-09-09T05:00:00.004-04:00

Here is an image of a witch brewing her potions in her caldrun. You will need SCAL to IMPORT the .svg file for cutting with your cricut or you can OPEN the .scut file directly with SCAL. I used SCAL 1 to create the .scut file.

You can download the .svg file of the witch and caldrun here. You can download the .scut file of the witch and caldrun here.

Note: .svg and .scut files will not work with DS. You must have SCAL 1 or 2 to work with these files. Any size bug can be used to cut it out.

"Pencil Box" created with Design Studio, Plantin Schoolbook and Expression Machine

2009-09-08T10:40:00.004-04:00

Okay, I admit it. I like to create "boxes". This "Pencil Box" was created after unloading some pencils from a box bottom. There was only the bottom, not a top. I thought, ooh - that would make a cute box and would be so easy to do! So, here it is. Due to its size, you will need the Expression Machine which is why I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge to create it. Even with the 12x12 mat, I had to alter the design from the orginal box a little. They had "extra" end flaps on the ends that folded back over for extra support. I have not marked or "ticked' the score lines, I think that is obvious. If you have problems with it, let me know.

It would make a great "pencil box", treat box, or simply a little rectangular gift box. You decide what to use it for. If you download the file and use it, please send me a picture(s) of what you did with it. I'll even post your pics to show off your work! I like seeing my work put into "action" by others! Of course, I think many of you are more like me, a "collector" of other people's .cut, .scut and .svg files for that "just in case" moment in the future. LOL - its okay to admit it - I have!! LOL

You can download the Pencil Box .cut file here.

Note that the file contains two pages for the "top" of the box. One Top page is a solid top, simply cut and assemble. The second Top page has an oval cut out so you can "see" into the box. Just choose which Box Top you want to use and cut 1. If you use the Oval cut out, the 3rd page has the oval enlarged to cut from transparency (or contrasting or coordinating paper) so that you can adhere it inside the box top easily. You could always find a different shape and replace the oval with one you like - the sky's the limit - or maybe that should be your designs on your cartridges are your only limits! LOL

Note: this file is a .cut file created with DS. It will not work with SCAL. It requires Plantin Schoolbook and the Expression. Thanks for stopping by!