Do You Speak Cricut Saturday - Spring Fever Holiday

Welcome to this week’s edition of Do You Speak Cricut? 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 Pack Your Bags cartridge review. This week, Jessica is going to share her review of the Spring Fever Holiday cartridge. 

Hi All!

This is Jessica from Craftin' and Stampin' and today I am here at Made Especially For You to go over my cartridge review!

Today’s review is on SPRING FEVER HOLIDAY Cricut cartridge. I chose this cartridge because I am OVER winter, but still feeling in a "LOVEY" kind of mood! Here is what the cartridge looks like:

This cartridge is a SOLUTIONS cartridge and was a cartridge made for the Cricut Expression 2 release that you could purchase from HSN.

It has a mix of images (lips, angel, cupid, hearts, etc) and phrases (love, sweetheart, xoxo, etc) from some of the more popular cartrdidges.

 

 

The Main Icon shapes are pictured below:

As you can see, there are images from Love Struck, Tie The Knot, Fabulous Finds, Pagoda, Sweet Treats, Mother's Day, Stamping, A Child's Year, Beyond Birthday, Pink Journey, Heritage, Wild Card,Wedding, All Mixed Up, Making the Grade, Printing Press, Doodlecharms, Mini Monograms, Alphalicious, Home Decor, New Arrival, Lyrical Letters, Stamped, Calligraphy Collection & Sweethearts. This cartridge took the best images from the more popular cartridges.

 

 

Here’s a look at the Keypad Overlay:

The images are made to be easily created and a quick SOLUTION for you when you need to finish a project in a hurry. This cartridge is also a great cartridge because you have the best images off of 25 cartridges! Could you image how much you would spend if you purchased all of these cartridges?

There is no booklet for this cartridge seeing there are only 50 Images/Phrases.

There are NO Creative Feature Keys – Instead, you will just utilize just <SHIFT> and <NON SHIFT>keys to create your images.

I will tell you that I have already posted one of my FAVORITE projects from this cartridge, and here it is:

I made this image using the <LIPS> + <LIPS-S> cuts on the cartridge. It took no time at all to cut. I was able to make this card in under 10 minutes.

This cartridge is does not have what you think would be on it. You would think with a name like SPRING FEVER HOLIDAY that you would have lots of Spring images on it. Instead, you have a lot of love images, hearts, and love phrases. I almost feel as though this image has images for things you would DO during Spring (Mother's Day, Weddings, Spring, etc).

So, if you are looking for a cartridge that has some really great images on it, and a lot of variety from many cartridges, this is the cartridge for you!

I hope this Cartridge Review helps you in your projects you chose to make with it!

OK guys, hope to catch you all Craftin' and Stampin'!

Thursday Craft 'n Chat - Creating Your Own Embellishments Using Glossy Accents

Hi All!

This is Jessica from Craftin' and Stampin' and today is my turn to host the Thursday Craft 'n Chat at Made Especially For You! For my Craft 'n Chat post, I decided I would show you how to create your own embellishements out of Glossy accents!

I wanted to tell you how I came up with this....

About a year ago, I was going to volunteer for the Autism Speaks walk, and I wanted to make puzzle piece pins. Well, I did not have a Cricut Cartridge that cut out an image of a puzzle piece (which I would of cut out of chipboard and decorated). I did have a a puzzle piece punch that I knew I could use! So I punched out 5 puzzle pieces out of card stock of the same color. I adhered them all together (one on top of another) with adhesive. Then, I used the Glossy accents on the top and sides of the puzzle pieces. I let them dry on a piece of wax paper, for about an hour and then adhered a pin clip on the back and it was done!!

So, after making the pin, I thought, what about embellishments??? I tried it out with a circle punch to make a "button" in a particular color that I did not have in my button stash. And guess what? It WORKED!! So, I am going to share my technique with you! I hope you enjoy this video! 

Thanks for allowing me to share this with you and the rest of the Made Especially For You bloggy friends!

Hope to catch you all Craftin' and Stampin'!

Crafty Hugs,

Jessica

www.craftinandstampin.blogspot.com

Spring Fling DT Team-Up Blog Hop Winners!

Thank you for hopping along with us during our Spring Fling DT Team-Up Hop!!! It was wonderful to see everyone!


Now, as promised, here are the 5 GRAND-PRIZE winners!! YAY!!!


Drum roll, please.......

A $20 gift certificate to Digi Darla's Digital Stamp Store.

WINNER:  Pat N.

A set of Whimsical Designs' stamps..."Everyday Sentiments".

WINNER:  Cricut All Time

A 2-pack bundle of 3GJ crinkle ribbon.
WINNER:  Creative Diva

A 5 piece set of handmade corsage pins.

WINNER:  Sherrie K.

  A $25 gift certificate to her store Paper Piecings by Nikki.
WINNER:  Mary J.


Congratulations to all the winners!!! Again, thanks so much for stopping by.


Winners need to email me, Beckie, beckie_woodall@yahoo.com to claim your prize. Please email by Saturday, March 24th.

Three Button Challenge!

I'm back! :) I apologize for missing last week's challenge, life just got in the way and I wasn't able to make a card. This week, however, I was able to make one AND I combined it with last week's sketch challenge to make up for it. :)

The challenge here at Made Especially For You this week is to create a card featuring three buttons.

I recently purchased the 3 Birds on Parade cartridge and it came in the mail last week, and I just now got around to finding time to play with it. I love the cute little bird disguised as an Easter bunny! :)

Our wonderful sponsor this week is Kimberly from My Craft Spot.

And don't forget about this month's lucky link-up! Throughout the month of March, you have unlimited opportunities to win the Spring Fever Cricut cartridge being given away by our awesome Sponsor Coordinator and Sketch Designer, Beckie from Just B Creative Crazy. Here are the guidelines for the giveaway:

- You will receive one entry for every card you enter in our weekly challenges (you can enter as many cards as you want for each challenge as long as they each have their own post on your blog)

- You will receive one entry for liking the Made Especially For You Facebook page

- You will receive one entry for every friend you get to link up to one of our challenges (your friend must let us know in their post that they have linked up because of you, otherwise we can't count it)

Now head on over to the 'Weekly Challenge' page to check out some inspiration from the design team members to get you started on creating a card for the challenge! :)

Have a great day!

Ashley

Do You Speak Cricut Saturday - Pack Your Bags

Welcome to this week’s edition of Do You Speak Cricut? 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 Cricut Design studio review. This week, Eileen is going to share her review of the Pack Your Bags cartridge. 

Looking for ideas for your summer vacation photos? The Pack Your Bags cartridge has your summer vacation in mind; whether your plans include travel by air, land or sea. This cartridge was released in December 2011 and comes with six creative features: Layer 1, Layer 2, Phrase, Card, Stamp, and Shadow.

Main Icons

Keypad Overlay

Layers 1 and 2 are both needed to make the main icon. Here is a picture of one page in the handbook. As you can see, in order to make the ship you would have to make five different cuts: Ship2, Ship2-s, Layer 1, Layer 1-s and Layer 2. Remember, when cutting the layers you need not adjust the size of each cut. The Cricut makes the adjustments for you.

This is an example of one of the icons. This camera icon was easy to put together, but like many of the shape cartridges, it takes several cuts of different color paper to complete.

There are 4 other Creative Feature Keys – Phrase, Card, Stamp and Shadow.

The creative feature Phrase is a phrase that coordinates with each icon. Here is an example of one of the Phrase icons available. I added the shadow to the phrase as well to give it a little more ‘pop’ on the page.

The creative function keys Card and Stamp feature the icon on a card and stamp. 

Here I used the Card feature, sealed two sides to make it into a pocket for a photo.

This an example of what the Stamp feature will produce. The sandcastle stamp was the perfect addition to my beach photo.

The Shadow function key includes a shadow for the icon and a shadow for the phrase.

Note: the Shadow shapes are slightly larger than the icon/phrase so you can adhere the icon/phrase to the shadow for a shadow effect

REMEMBER: When working with the Layer function, always cut the layer shapes at the same size. The Cricut automatically sizes everything to fit.

Here’s a photo of my final project… a mini-album for a recent family vacation.

If you want to create some fun pages to remember that great summer vacation…  Pack Your Bags is a cartridge you need to add to your library.

Thanks for joining us this week!

Eileen