Thursday Craft 'n Chat - Using Cuttlebug Die Cuts

Welcome to this week’s edition of Thursday Craft 'n Chat. Every Thursday will feature a different crafty tip/technique from one of the Made Especially For You design team members. Click here to view last week's paper piecing tutorial. 

Hi there!
So, for fear of sounding too basic, this is a Cuttlebug. It is a hand-cranked die cutting and embossing tool created by the same company as the Cricut.  I do not feel that these tools necessarily do away with one another as they both have their merits and benefits. Though, I personally do run to my Cuttlebug more often than my Cricut.

You'll notice I glammed mine up a little with some gliterry laptop stickers.

Both the front and back flaps fold down flat to create your 'runway' for using the tool.

These are the 'plates.' The Cuttlebug comes with an A plate, a C plate, and two B plates.  You will use them in a variety of combinations depending on the dies/folders you choose to work with.

First let's talk about embossing.  There are a variety of dry embossing folders on the market made by Cuttlebug and other companies and almost all are compatible with this tool.

This is why they are called folders, they open up to accept your paper to be sandwiched in the middle.  One side is embossed and the other debossed to imprint the design into your paper.

I am using a scrap piece of paper for this example, these folders generally accept A4 sized papers (4.25 x 5.5) or smaller.

Now you will place your A plate, a B plate and your folder onto your Cuttlebug 'runway' and then top it off with another B plate.

And roll the whole thing through the machine (it rolls easily enough), I like to go once forward and then once backward towards me.

And this is what you would end up with, a beautifully embossed piece of cardstock to do with what you will!

Now let's talk about die cutting.  There are an enormous amount of die manufacturers on the market, and again almost all work with the Cuttlebug.  Some are thin metal dies and others are chunky like Tim Holtz dies.  Some create flowers, other create shapes and others create borders.  Your options are as endless as your pocketbook!

To die cut, you will start with the A plate, add a C plate, then add your paper, die and top it off with a B plate. (note - this is the formula for the most common thin metal dies.) And again roll it through the machine and back again.

You will end up with a nice clean die cut.

While this tool is not as flexible as the Cricut for size, it is much more flexible in terms of what it can cut.  I love working with chipboard, cork, fabric, denim, burlap, felt and vellum and this tool can accommodate it all, you may have to roll thicker materials through the machine a few times but it is worth it for the variety of textures you can add to your projects.

Thank you for reading!

Laura
xoxo
www.scrappinaroundtheclock.blogspot.com

WYEGW - Phrase Feature

I'm back with other card for this week's Would You Ever Guess Wednesday (WYEGW) over at My Cricut Craft Room! If you've never heard of WYEGW before, here's the scoop:

" We take some of the feature keys of a Cricut Cartridge, you know on the keypad layover the keys on the far left on the top three rows.... sometimes called layer, tag, card, font ...etc. We use ONLY those keys, and not the image or its shadow. Basically if you can see it on the back of the cartridge box.... we don't use it! Or its shadow which is about the same thing ;) We might also use a Cake cartridge to make a paper creation (All cake cartridges work in ALL cricut machines) But sometimes people forget about those cartridges. So we want to show you some of those and make you say "I would never have thought of that."

This week's WYEGW challenge was to use the Phrase feature of any Cricut cartridge. Can you tell which cartridge I used just by looking at the card? :)

If you guessed the Create a Critter cartridge... you're right! :) I paired the 'Busy' phrase with this adorable freebie digi from Meljens Designs. I don't see digis paired with Cricut cuts too often, so I thought I'd give it a try. I think it actually worked really well! :) Here's what I used to make the card:

Paper

- Black, yellow, white, and purple Recollections cardstock

- Gray patterned paper from The Paper Studio

Embellishments

- 4 black rhinestones

- 3 purple brads

Adhesives

- Therm-o-web Sticky Dots (die-cut transfer adhesive)

- Therm-o-web 1/2" Zots (glue dots)

Coloring Supplies

- Blending stump

- Baby oil 

- Prismacolor Verithin colored pencils #745 Crimson Red, #741 Light Cerulean Blue, #735 Canary Yellow, #747 Black, #753 Metallic Silver, #734 Warm Grey, and #742 Violet

Make sure to stop by My Cricut Craft Room to see what other phrases were used by the design team members for this week's Would You Ever Guess Wednesday!

Thanks so much for reading!

Ashley

MEFY Paper Piercing Challenge!

Happy Monday and Memorial Day! I hope everyone who has a long weekend is enjoying it. :) It's been extremely hot here and I've been enjoying my weekend off work and trying to soak up some more rays.

This week's challenge here at Made Especially For You is to create a card using the technique of paper piercing.

(Make sure to note the challenge is paper piercing not paper piecing. Here's a great link to some paper piercing patterns, one of which I used on my card).

My card for this week's challenge sort of ties in with the hot weather theme.. it's an invitation for a pool party! I tend to stick with basic-shaped cards, but every once in a while I like to change things up a bit, and this week I decided to make an easel card. :) 

Front view

Angle view

Side view

Close-up of the paper piercing and digi

The adorable dragon digi on my card is from Stamping with the Dragon. They're an awesome challenge blog and have a fabulous digital stamp store. They're also having a design team call, if anyone is interested!

This week's sponsor is Adams Acres. One randomly chosen winner of this week's paper piercing challenge will win a $10 gift certificate to their site and will also be offered a one-week guest designer position here at MEFY. The top three submissions will be chosen by the design team and will receive a badge to display on their blogs.

We'd love to have you play along with us! Visit the 'Weekly Challenge' page to submit your card using the technique of paper piercing.

Ashley

Do You Speak Cricut Saturday - Once Upon A Princess

Welcome to this week’s edition of Do You Speak Cricut Saturday. Every Saturday will feature a different Cricut cartridge review from one of the Made Especially For You design team members. This feature was added to the blog in order to give potential cartridge buyers a better idea of what each cart has to offer. Click here to view last week's Potpourri Basket cartridge review. 

Hello everybody!

Today's cartridge review is on the Once Upon a Princess cartridge! 

This cartridge isn't limited to a Princess theme. It also has other great cuts from the dolls to a frog, bird, poodle, unicorn, flowers, sweet treats and other fabulous cuts, including 3D items! 

It uses all of the creative features available! It has Layer, Phrase, Gem, Font, Tag, Base, and Base Shadow/Phrase Shadow.

This cartridge is so versatile. You can create anything from cards, scrapbook layouts, to invitations and even 3D items! 

The doll on this card is from this cartridge. Keep in mind that the clothes for the dolls are interchangeable! You can play dress-up with them! 

Here's a mini video to get your imagination flowing on the endless possibilities to use this cartridge! 

This cartridge is definitely an oldie, but a goodie! 

Cyndy

Thursday Craft 'n Chat - Paper Piecing

Welcome to this week’s edition of Thursday Craft 'n Chat. Every Thursday will feature a different crafty tip/technique from one of the Made Especially For You design team members. Click here to view last week's crafty money-saving tips. This week, Beckie is going to share how to use the technique of paper piecing.

Hi Friends!


Beckie of Just B Creative Crazy here with ya today. I thought with Paper Piecing being such a popular technique we could craft and chat over a simple paper piecing tutorial.

You won't believe how EASY this technique is to do. You'll want to do it for every stamp you have ;0)


Step 1: 

Decide what image you want to use. Decide what colors/papers you want to use in this image. Once you have decided, print the image on all the papers (including a base).

I'm using an awesome Friday Freebie from Bugaboo.  Here are my papers I printed the image on...

Step 2:

Now, cut the pieces of the image, from the colored papers, that you wish to use for your finished image.

I wanted pieces of the sails, the pole and the boat.

Step 3:

On your base image, color the parts of the image that you want colored. 

Step 4: 

Now glue the pieces of the image that you cut from the colored papers to their appropriate place on the colored, base image.

Step 5: 

You are done with your paper piecing. Use the image however you want ;0)

How easy was that? Paper piecing is fun and you can accent your image with papers from your card. 

Thanks for stopping by! We always love seeing ya!

Be blessed, Beckie

Made Especially 4 You - DT Member

Just B Creative Crazy - Personal Blog

Go Fish Challenge #17

It's my first "official" day of summer and I couldn't be more happy! I'm so excited to spend my summer working on cards and trying out new projects and techniques. Since I have much more free time now, I've also been looking for more challenges to play along with, and I recently came across the Go Fish Challenge Blog. They're a bi-monthly challenge blog that posts a new challenge on the 1st and 15th every month. I've posted their badge on my lefthand sidebar if you wanna stop by and take a look. :)

Their current challenge is a color challenge, my favorite! :)

I created this brown graduation card for the challenge:

(It's hard to see because the glitter gives off such a bad glare, but the owl is holding a banner that says 'You Did It!' I tried to take a close-up so you can see it better.

Go Fish is also having a design team call until May 30th, and I'm linking this card to both the design team call and the color challenge. :) 

What I Used To Make The Card:

- Brown and gold cardstock from Recollections

- Patterned papers from the DCWV High School Mat Stack

- Happy Graduation Cricut cartridge (the owl banner is cut at 2.25")

- Pooh Font Set Cricut cartridge (the 2012 numbers are cut at .5" using the Marker Shadow feature)

- Gold ribbon

- Wood star piece painted with gold acrylic paint

- Gold glitter

Thanks so much for reading, have a a great day!
Ashley

Three Brads Challenge

Good morning, all! The weather here in northern Illinois has been absolutely gorgeous these past few days and I've been a busy girl soaking up the sun! I stuck with a simple card for this week's challenge as I didn't get to it until late Saturday night and was exhausted from being outside all day and was sore from sunburn. On the plus side, it'll fade into a nice tan! :)

This week's challenge here at MEFY is to create a card featuring three brads.

I used the Create a Critter cartridge to cut this adorable little cow at 2". The polka dot paper is from the DCWV All Dressed Up mat stack and the rest of the papers are all solid Recollections cardstock. The sentiment is computer generated and I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the cow's background with the D'vine Swirl embossing folder. Here's a close-up of the embossing:

One randomly chosen winner of this week's challenge will be offered a one-week guest designer position here at MEFY and will also receive a $20 gift certificate to Scraptastical Kreations. As always, the design team will choose the top three submissions to receive a badge for their blogs and have their cards displayed on the challenge page. 

Head on over to the Weekly Challenge page to see what inspiration the design team has cooked up for this week's challenge, we hope you play along with us! :)

Ashley

Do You Speak Cricut Saturday - Potpourri Basket

Welcome to this week’s edition of Do You Speak Cricut Saturday. Every Saturday will feature a different Cricut cartridge review from one of the Made Especially For You design team members. This feature was added to the blog in order to give potential cartridge buyers a better idea of what each cart has to offer. Click here to view last week's Fabulous Finds cartridge review. This week, Laura is going to share her review of the Potpourri Basket cartridge.

Hi there!

I chose to do my 'chat' on the Potpourri Basket cartridge as it is one of my favourites!

Don't be deceived by this cutesy box, this cartridge has a plethora of cuts available.  So many in fact, that it has 2 overlays!  Which means one of the function buttons controls this second overlay.

 

This cartridge is a compilation of select shape graphics from many available cartridges. These include Fabulous Finds, New Arrival, Celebrations, Joys of the Season, Stretch your Imagination, Doodlecharms, Walk in May Garden, Going Places, My Community, Beyond Birthdays, Indie Art, Home Accents, Campout, Baseball, Street Sign, Soccer, and Wedding.  Which makes it a great 'go-to' cartridge for many of your projects and a great investment, too!

Here are a few cuts that I made to show you some of what it can do....

As with most cartridges, you will notice that I cut the tree out and then I was able to cut out only the top portion.

With these pieces I created this little card:

To make the fence a little more realistic, I stamped it with a wood grain stamp, in a tone-on-tone colour.

 I also added some blue ink to the edges of my clouds, to give them a little more dimension.

A little punched out area gives room for my sentiment.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and read my review. If you have any questions feel free to ask me!

Laura 

xoxo

www.scrappinaroundtheclock.blogspot.com