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Tag: cricut design studio

Cricut Card Idea That Turned Into A Housewarming Gift

Our friends just moved into their new home and invited us over for dinner.  I wanted to make a handmade housewarming gift using my Cricut Expression Machine.

Since my Gypsy has been sick and is going into the Provo Craft hospital next week, I have been using my Cricut Design Studio.  It works great but you have to sit at your computer to design which when you have a Gypsy you get spoiled designing any place that you like.   Anyway, I started to design a cricut card and it turned into a framed plaque.

plantinschoolbookandjasminecricutcartridge

I used a neutral paper, since I was not sure what colors they were using in the house.  Then I cut the word Welcome using the Plantin Schoolbook Cricut Cartridge.  I altered the welcome with my Design Studio to get the perfect size that I needed to fit inside of the frame.  Then  I cut it out with my Cricut Expression Machine I really liked the way it looked using the “negative” piece of paper. (instead of using each individual letter separately.  Using the same cartridge Plantin Schoolbook I cut out the word Established and 2010 and again altered it with the Design Studio for a perfect fit.

For there names I wanted to use a Cricut Cartridge that had a script font.  So looking thought my library of Cricut Cartridges I decided to use the Jasmin Cricut Cartridge.

I glued it all together with the Zig 2 Way glue pen for the words cut in the black cardstock and for the large Welcome piece, I used my new pink ATG gun to put onto the light aqua green cardstock.  Put it all in a frame. I completed this project by using some raffia that I tied around the frame and then used a paper punch from Family Treasurers of a house that I added to some of the ends of the raffia.

I love the way this turned out and I hope they enjoy there handmade house warming gift, and many years of happiness together.

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Still Wondering What is the Cricut Gypsy?

So people have been asking, what is the Cricut Gypsy? In a nutshell, it is a handheld cricut design studio, but better. Better because the cricut gypsy is portable and does not need a computer to design your layouts.

I was one of the lucky ones to get a Cricut Gypsy, and it arrived on my doorstep last Thursday and I Love it!  It is lighter than I thought it would be which is great since it will be in my hands a lot.  I posted on the message board yesterday that I am starting to like football.  I watched a game with my hubby; well I sat with him while I designed with my Cricut Gypsy.  How cool is this I can spend quality time with Hubby and we are both doing something that we enjoy!

I know that the first thing you want to do when you take it out of the box is turn it on.  I also bet that a lot of you thought that it didn’t work when you hit the big silver button on the front of the machine.  That is because that is not the on/off switch.  The on/off switch is on the side of the machine.  But you would have known that if you read the manual.  I have also been reading the message board good & bad.  All I can say is read the manual on line, (yes it is online, it didn’t come with the machine) but lots of companies are doing that now.  It does keep the cost down and easier for updates too! If you don’t want to read the entire manual before you start then don’t complain when something supposedly goes wrong.

Still wondering what is the Cricut Gypsy and how it can help you? It gives you more time to be creative because you can use it pretty much everywhere.  Also, you don’t need to go to the eye doctor.  You can make the images larger on your screen.  Read the manual and it will explain how to change the default size of the images.

The one thing I do have to say is you better really love or like your Cricut Gypsy a lot, before you link your cartridges to it.  First because once you link a cartridge, it’s for that Cricut Gypsy only. Your cartridges will never work in another Cricut Gypsy machine again.  It WILL work on your Cricut cutting machines. And I also heard that if you link, you can not return your Cricut Gypsy.  So think before you link. (I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it).

I have also learned that since you can sit and relax anywhere using the Cricut Gypsy, you can really get into looking at all the cartridges out there that you do not own, and even design pages with them, so that when you do have some money saved up, or your birthday rolls around you will know what to ask for.

I hope that answers the question, What is the Cricut Gypsy? Everyone, even me, have a lot of questions on how to do this and that.  It’s called learning a new piece of equipment.  Remember when you first got your Cricut cutting machine?  You had ton of questions then too.  It was the same as with your Design Studio.  All I can say is practice makes perfect.

So pick up that beautiful Cricut Gypsy and start learning all there is to learn about it/her/him.  And I betcha you will love it.

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

News for all Cricut Design Studio Users

Today is our Lucky Day!

The Update for the Cricut Design Studio has been released and is available for download from the Cricut.com site now!

The newest cricut cartridges that they added are:

Hannah Montana
Jubilee
Life is a Beach
Lyrical Letters
Simply Sweet
Sponge Bob Square Pants
Stamping (Solutions Cartridge)
Stand and Salute

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Cricut Design Studio Software is a Paper Saver

First you purchased your Cricut cutting machine (the Original Cricut, Cricut Expression, or Cricut Create).  After playing with it for awhile, and wasting a lot of paper with all of your errors, you see that there is another product on the market called Cricut Design Studio.  This is a software package that you load on your computer that allows you to see what you are going to cut on your computer screen before you cut on your cricut cutter.  It lets you connect letters together, alter shapes and the list goes on and on.

The Cricut Design Studio is actually is a paper saver too since you see exactly what is going to be cut before you cut the images on your Cricut cutter.

So you break down and purchase the Cricut Design Studio software.  You open it up and see that there is a program disc, user manual on how to install the software and some basic terms and applications, a USB cable and a cute cricut mouse pad.  You load the software in your computer and then if you are like me you said “Now what the heck do I do next?”

Here are just a few things that have helped me with the Cricut Design Studio software and hopefully it will help you too.

1. Cricut Design Studio has all of the cartridges that are available loaded into this program.  And what is really cool is that if you see that a new cartridge was just released, no need to purchase any new software, you can go online and update your software so you have the latest version available.

By having the Cricut Design Studio software, you can actually see all the images from each cartridge and this may help you decide if you would like to purchase that cartridge.

Note:  Just because you see all the cartridges available on the Cricut Design Studio software, you must physically have that specific cartridge loaded in your machine in order to cut the images.

2. The manual refers to Welding.  Welding is connecting images or letters together.  Just remember if you want to connect, you have to check the box for welding on your screen.

Welding is very helpful if you are typing phrases for your scrapbook or greeting card.  It is sometimes a pain to adhere individual letters on your paper to make your phrase.  You need to make sure that your lines are straight and letters are evenly spaced but with the welding feature it is just one piece of paper that you need to worry about, all the spacing and straightening is all done for you.

3.  Another great feature on the Cricut Design Studio software is that you can use more than one cartridge when creating a design.

For example:  You are creating a banner that says Happy Birthday Paul.  You decide to use the Jasmine cartridge for the words Happy Birthday but want the Tear Drop cartridge for the word Paul.  With the Cricut Design Studio software that is no problem.  When the Cricut is cutting it will tell you what cartridge to load in your Cricut cutter.  Now how cool is that.

Your creativity can go wild with the Cricut Design Studio software.  The possibilities are endless.

Cricut Design Studio Bonus Pak Software – $ 84.09
This software lets you take your Cricut creativity to a new level. Use the software with the original Cricut or the Expression machine and cartridges. Using the on-screen cutting mat you can modify designs by moving, reorganizing, rotating, resizing, skewing and welding letters from available cartridges. Requirements: Window XP or Vista, min of 512MB Ram, min of 100MB HD, CD/DVD-ROM, USB 1.1

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!