Baby Album Using Cricut and Sure Cuts a Lot

A baby album with elements cut with my Cricut and Sure Cuts a Lot lately to make a first year baby album for my little niece for Christmas.

I found a great set of baby cut files by The Scrapping Table.  These files were bought with a subscription, however, there are tons of free files out there you can use with your SCAL cutting software and Cricut.  For this project, I just wanted to find files already grouped together for me, and I loved these.  All her files are well worth the small subscription fee.  The files are easy to use, stored by theme, and clean to cut.  I also enjoy the emails she sends out with links to how-tos on updates to the SCAL software as Craft Edge releases them.  I am not being paid to endorse her site, I just love it.

SLIDESHOW OF ENTIRE ALBUM:

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My favorite adhesive so far for piecing is tape dot roller.  I just got a pink ATG gun on sale at Jo-Ann’s, so we’ll see how that goes.

INFO ON FALL .SVG FILES:

The autumn title (see slideshow above) is a free file from a cut file internet seller called www.svgcuts.com.  They also have great files for small charge bundled by theme (like cartridges), so that they are tested and easy to find.   I’ve bought several from there usually very reasonable prices with great sales (join their mailing list for free weekly files and promotions).  I created the Halloween title myself by welding letters together in SCAL with a pumpkin welded in the middle for the “O”.  The scarecrow is the most complex paper piecing I did, but I had made it for fun during some down time the previous fall–he was just waiting for a page!

SPRING SVG  FILES:.

The Easter embellishments are for her first Easter photos this spring.  Everyone who sees the cut embellishments can’t resist holding onto them and rubbing them for a while!   Even me.  We laugh at each other at our scrap group…you just have to hold them! You just can’t help but want to touch and hold them.   I know, it’s crazy, but textiles are just that way!

The donkey and cross are three layer file–they look great and were easy to assemble.

SCAL gets two thumbs up from me!

Related Articles On This Blog:

Fancy Free Fonts I Love & How to Install Them

Fall Pumpkin Card Using Cricut and SCAL

7 FREE SVG PACKS| High Quality Cut File Packs

New Font for Cricut plus Scal

HAVING TROUBLE KNITTING?

It’s finally starting to look “keep-able”! 

I was having me some trouble knitting!  I had to undo my first 5-6 attempts! 

I switched yarns.   I switched “needle” sizes, watched more videos, tried different cast-ons, different tensions.  Different moods.  Different weather. 

I could not get an even row to save my life! 

I could not tell the difference in a bad stitch and a good stitch until I’d finished a couple rows, then, the “hole” was apparent!  Ugh! 

Yesterday, I finally made progress.  First, I shifted from nylon to cotton yarn.  I had some left from last Sunday’s Sunday school craft.  I found that the cotton did not slip off the metal needle as easily as the nylon, making control easier.  Still, I didn’t have a straight line!  Tear out again.

A New Project That Helped:  Next, I discovered instructions suggesting doubling the COTTON yarn for the correct insulation for a potholder (synthetics can melt).  That sounded like a good small project to tackle.   However, doubling the yarn sounded daunting – I couldn’t even handle a single strand yet!  After trying, I found that it helped me learn the stitches, keep good tension, and learn much faster.

Color:  This isn’t my favorite color for kitchen towels.  It helps that my daughter thinks this one is heavenly.

Alterations:  Instead of square, I want to make this potholder rectangular shaped, for wrapping around my long skillet handles.  I have a smaller one I love, but it won’t wrap around the iron skillet handle for me.

Challenges to knitting double strands:  I wasn’t that confident in my ability to do the project, so I didn’t halve and cut the ball of yarn first.  That meant when I ran out of my long tail I was using for doubing, I had to figure out how to reattach more yarn to continue.  I’m not sure what you are supposed to do in this case, but it seemed a good idea to overlap the new strand  for three stitches, weaving the new strand into the work before trimming the tail.  Knotting doesn’t work, by the way!

The second issue is that working with two strands, causes the strands you are working with to twist.  You have to untwist the two “strands every half row or so to keep from having a great big wadded mess.  But, not too hard. 

Conclusion:  I would recommend doubling.  I could easily see the mechanics of the stitch, and see what was causing my problems:   casting too tight, picking up pieces of threads I wasn’t supposed to have.  Now, my rows are straight!  I know when to drop that stray thread from the yarn if I accidentally pick something up that isn’t supposed to be there.   No problem! 

I got the “rhythm”! 

Stitches:  I’m using the knitting stitch, or the garter stitch.  It creates a nice, flat stitch that doesn’t roll, great for flat projects like this.

Next:  I’ll try to learn purl stitches, better edges, and switching between purl and knit–difficult, but still called “beginner stitching”! 

Words From The Fam:  

Boy Wonder:  “Mom!  Wow!  Look at that!  You are really doing great!  When did you get all that done?  That’s GREAT!” (He was serious!)

Flash:  “Wow, Mom!  Is that for me?  When are you making my sweater?  I wanted a blue one.”  (Thanks for vote of confidence.  I’ll get right on that…right after I learn to make this here potholder).  (He was serious.)

Goldilocks:  “Mommy!  Ooooh!   {holding it as I stitch}  You have REALLY improved!   I would have given up a long time ago.  Good job!”  (She was serious.)

The Hub — 11:06PM  “You coming to bed soon?”  (He was serious.)

Cross-Stitch Generator

Generate your image of what you want cross-stitched, this site generates the cross-stitch pattern!  It is delivered in .pdf form.  

I want to generate names for our stockings!    For ten years, I’ve printed them and safety-pinned them on.  They are knitted stockings, so I hate to use glitter glue.

I might get to it if we are snowed in and have sick ones who can’t go sledding this week!

I don’t often have time to stitch, but enjoy it when I’m waiting… at hospitals and such. 

Here‘s  the link! 

Embossing Candles: How It’s Done!

First, I will say that these candles are for decorative purposes primarily.  The process involves embedding tissue paper into the candle, so caution must be used to avoid creating a fire hazard.  Using a hurricane glass cover might be advisable.  The smaller monograms involve so little paper, I would not be concerned, a fully covered pillar candle might warrant a warning to the gift recipient.

Candles were very fun and easy to do–if you know the person’s decor, even better, if not, use classic colors.  Even if people don’t like burning candles, these are pretty enough to just “sit pretty”.

I trialed a few colors and liked white and ivory candles best.  We prefer mild or clean scents.  I created gift bags to match using embossing powder and a heat gun.We made them for teachers and public servants to thank.  They do require some detail work, but are versatile in what you can do.  I used circle stamps, embossing powder, and black tissue paper, wax paper on these below:

These are double embossed to created the texture…I embossed the tissue paper with embossing powder and a heat gun, then melted the whole thing into the candle, producing an Old World Effect.  For the bands on the bottom of the candle, I cut 1/3″ strips, wrapped them around the candle, then used the heat gun until wax melted through the tissue paper, adhering it.

Step-by-Step:

First, I used embossing powder and embossing ink pad, stamped the alpha and circle on tissue paper, sprinkled on embossing powder (which sticks to the clear, glue-like, stamped image), then used a heat gun to raise the lettering (very cool to watch if you’ve never seen it–see pic below of the M.  The embossing powder melts into a plastic-like raised letter as seen n nice cards.

Stamp or print your design onto TISSUE PAPER.  If you decide to print your image on tissue paper, TAPE ALL EDGES to regular paper or cardstock or the tissue paper can get jammed in the printer.

Why emboss first?  Trials shows it darkened the image once it was placed on the candle…I tried just a stamped image in it’s stead, and wasn’t pleasedso I kept double embossing them.

This image is only stamped.

Above is the image stamped with embossing glue and sprinkled with embossing powder. (Available at Hobby Lobby and other craft departments).

Brush away stray powder with an embossing brush (above, I got it on clearance somewhere, comes in handy for all sorts of uses.)

Above: I cut out part of this M – there were some stray dust interfering with the shape of the letter.  Otherwise, random stray dust adds character…don’t worry about that, it doesn’t show much at all.

How to get the image onto the candle:  get a piece of wax paper long enough to hold around the candle and grasp the two pieces of wax paper.  This helps maintain the shape of the candle when you heat it. THIS IS NECESSARY, otherwise in heating the candle, the candle will lose it’s cylindrical shape, and the wax from the wax paper is what embeds your tissue-paper design.

Try to get the wax side down on the wax paper…I couldn’t tell the front from the back sometimes; simply flip it and reheat if it seemed to not be working right.

Take care to not overheat the candle until it’s running or you’ll have either a runny mess or a divet where the heat gun it hitting.  For minor infractions, you can smooth it by distributing heat and working quickly.  It is homemade, so give yourself some grace on perfectionistic tendancies.  Most of the time, there is no problem.  Two of my 20 candles went into “meltdown” ; I probably went into meltdown that often myself.  2/20 isn’t too bad a ratio.

The wax absorbs the tissue paper, leaving the design showing through the wax.

Note on heat guns:  A heat gun is NOT the same as a blow dryer.   Move the heat gently until all the tissue paper starts to turn clear and is absorbed, maybe 10 seconds or so (longer for the dark bands, as you have to go all the way around the candle.

Move your wax paper so that you don’t get too close to your hand for too long.

Gently peel back the wax paper and your design is left!

For the Bands: I did the black bands on the shorter candles by cutting out black tissue paper with a straight paper cutter (necessary for a clean edge, even if it’s not entirely level), then just cover the band with wax paper and let the candle absorb the black tissue paper.  The fine lines on the very small candles , I just stamped fine lines onto tissue paper and let the candle absorb the tissue paper I’d stamped it on.

As a note, the bands and lines were the hardest part to do, but I loved how it finished the candles.

For some large candles, I used  ribbon for dimension instead of the tissue paper bands.

Salvage old candles. This was a ruined candle from rubbing against with other candles.  We all have these, I think.  We save them for power outages that never come.

I covered the entire candle with a designed tissue paper to cover ”scars”:

…then wax paper, heating until the clear or beige part is absorbed into the candle.

This elegant silver design remained…

Now it’s usable and even more beautiful than before!

Originally, I thought about embossing on the kids pictures printed onto tissue paper…but, you know, watching heads burn down?  It was just a little much for me.

Gift Bags/Delivery: for tall candles, I used the same image on the gift bags, embossed.  For shorter candles, I placed them in a in a basket lined with tissue paper and hand delivered.

Supplies: Circles are from a favorite acrylic stamp collection I use OFTEN (Hobby Lobby).   Letters: clear acrylic alphabet Times New Roman (Wal*Mart some time ago, and Big Lots recently for only $2. . Heat Gun, 50% off coupon at Hobby Lobby with coupon.  They run $20 or so, $10 after that discount. Silver Coasters: These, I found at a dollar store and fell in love with them.  I got to the counter, and they all rang up at 90% off!  Yes, I said a prayer of thanks right then and there!

I had no idea how to do this when I started and kept going from one idea to the next.  The Lord was so into my discoveries and finds that I was amused for the days we worked at it.  It was SO FUN to go from one idea to the next.  I hope people liked them.

The post that inspired me: Musings of an Addict

Very Cute Packaging for Mixes — Great for Teacher’s Gifts

Musings of An Addict shared this link to some cute Christmas treat ideas, how to wrap them up in style.  I may use my computer rather than stamping the messages and art. 

As an aside, I don’t like storing wooden block stamps.  I feel they are too heavy, take up too much room, and I don’t use one design enough to warrant a long term investment.   I do use Acrylic Stamps quite a bit.  They are flat, and cling to an acrylic block, and you can see through the block and stamp to square them.  They take VERY little room to store, and I’ve used them over and over and over on various projects. 

I’ll share an example of their use soon with some ornaments I made today using them. 

Technology…gotta love it!  Makes me wanna SHOUT!  (Yeah, it really doesn’t take much to get me goin’!) 

I’ve got my eye on sales for: Winterland (2peas),

and I’m seriously thinking about stocking stuffer ordering these! 

Autumn Leaves Clear Stamps – Flower Trio

 $0.90

 Autumn Leaves Clear Stamps – Elegant Flourishes  (I HEART flourishes!)

  $13.50

Creative Imaginations – Christmas Tag Stickers

 $1.80

Fontwerks Clear Stamps – Datekeeper

$1.78

FORE-WARNING BOYS: MOM SAYS WE ARE MAKING ORNAMENTS TODAY!

This post made me entirely nostalgic.  I have to try this!  I don’t know it I’ll do it this year or not.  Thanks to Kittie Kraft!  I’m loving “visual” blogs and craft logs this season!  The fact that women long to worship through creation, just like their Heavenly Daddy just makes me all gushy.  My mom was like that.  And, I didn’t get it at the time AT ALL…yet, I will be dog tired, but HAVE to make me some homemake stuff for the season is just not Christmas for me!  Creativity MUST FLOW!  It’s either worship or an illness…I like to think of it as worship, it just sound smore rational.

A few months ago, I picked up some inexpensive shiney stars with holes in the middle.  Last night, I added some styrofoam balls and straight pins ($5.00 for pearlized straight pins is highway robbery, Wal*Mart, just in case you read).  

Notice:  I plan on there being a Martha Stewart moment in my house very soon!!!  Beware ye testostere-laden men-folk.  Make Mom happy for an hour or so, and she’ll love and cherish you for years to come!

I Love Me Some Fine Detail

Today, Saturday, The 8th “Day of Christmas”

State:  Noon.  Flannel pajamas, Christmas cards, pens, coffee.  PS 2 noises, Rustling of The Hub’s Bible.

The Hub took care of breakfast AND the dog today.  Aaaah.

Embossing, enjoying detail…Pondering:  ”gifting tradition versus a heart of true giving”.  Discussing.  Challenging myself to give more of myself and less “stuff” to fill the needs.

Preparing:  shopping, a party to send kids to, a business party tonight, a visit to the hospital to see Grandma.

Jazz Up Your Christmas Wreath in 5 Minutes

This has been my front door Christmas wreath the last three years.  To it’s credit, I had a hoard of pine and fully ornamented stuff around it on the door so it didn’t seem so plain.  When lit, it was really pretty and simple.  But, during the day…ugh!  I love the cluster bulbs…I added those when the pre-lit part of the wreath no longer “lit”.  

It’s about time for a bigger wreath in general for this house, but the coveted “larger wreath” is currently $49.00 at K*Mart.  I thought I’d wait for a sale and see if I could find one later.

Wreaths with a lot of sparkle and ornaments are beautiful and make the front of a house, but they can be over a hundred dollars at the store.  I enjoy changing mine up a lot depending on my mood and decor, and it’s not hard to do.  I’m not a pro, but it’s fun, and I enjoy playing with it. 

Ornaments I  bought on clearance last year post season for it from Wal*Mart (I’m very high class), glittery flat ornaments hard to see in this pic, sparkly wine baby breath sprigs for fullness, silver stars, just for fun, poiensettas and sparkly fruit-like beady-things…both had fallen out of other things. 

Yes, I’ve seen ones I like better, but you have to say, it looks A LOT better! 

How do you attach stuff?  Stuff, and wire.  Glue ruins a wreath for future inspiriation.  Remember to prop the wreath up to place ornaments as they will hang on the door. 

Selections:  I hadn’t planned on using any glass bulbs, but decided they reflected the light so well I couldn’t live without them.  If you get a lot of wind in your area, you might give that some thought.  Plastic bulbs are probably best.

Ribbon (The Tying of the Dread Bow) 

One word:  wired ribbon.  It’s forgiving, and it can be bent back to shape coming out of storage. A little floral wire and you can do wreath bows. 

Bulk outlet card stores or craft stores will discount HUGE rolls of wired ribbon.  GET THOSE ON SALE!  You can use it on gifts and other decor for a cohesive look.  I buy several in coordinating colors.  There are books to tell you have to make bows.  I bought one at Wal*Mart and learned how.   

For now, just gather it up and tie some wire around it, squish it around until it looks somewhat even.  With all the lights and ornaments around it, you won’t be able to tell the difference…I promise.  Oh, and be sure to leave plenty wire at the end to tie the bow onto the wreath.

I am into mixing gold and silver this year.  I love them both.  I need them both.  I like them together.  If ebony and ivory go together, than I should have no problem.  I used a more rustic gold with a buffed silver and I think it works alrighty, but that’s up to your taste. 

Keep in Mind Ideas for the Next Step Up-Do:  Keep in mind things you are looking for.  For me, stiff sparkle mesh to weave around the wreath.   Sparkly curly sticks or sprigs to poke out of it.

Enjoy your wreath rennovation!  Send me a link to your pic.  I’d love to see your creativity!