Another simple layout

I have accepted that I'm not the kind to make heavily embellished or fussy layouts. I buy embellishments. I have whole stacks and drawers of them that are gorgeous and I loved in the store and such, it's just that I don't seem to ever really use them. I just really love clean lines. So tonight while I'm listening to the Portland Winterhawks win the fourth game of the seven game series (go Hawks!), I played with this picture of the dear hubby at the game we attended on our sixth anniversary. I've already done the picture of the two of us together there, which is hanging in my "gallery" at work (come to think of it, I really need to change because I haven't swapped out pages there in quite some time). But I've had this one sitting on my desk for a while and decided it was time to put it together. I'm not sure what my title will be or what journalling I may want for it, but here's my work in progress...

New inspiration from CKC and the Disney/Pixar blog hop

So I've spent the last two days at the Creating Keepsakes convention. I went by myself on Friday and then yesterday took my Mom for the first time. It was a ton of fun, but I do have to admit that after a little while, all the booths start to blur together. It's much better if you can look at a few for a while and then go do something else. Despite the blur of the booths, my mind is filled with ideas, but I have projects I have to finish before I can really start letting the ideas pour out. A co-worker announced that she is leaving and her staff members came to me and asked me to do a "goodbye book" for her. I've done several of these in the past and they are really simple. It's just a picture of each staff member and a place for them to write her a little message. Usually, they are a snap, since I've kept the format, it's just a little updating of staff names and pictures. But it's been a while since I've done one and I didn't realize how many people have come and gone, so it took a lot longer today than I anticipated. But, it's ready for the pictures of the new people that her staff are getting for me. So maybe another hour or so sometime this week and that will be done. When I needed a little break from the digital manipulation, I finally found the time to cover this little notebook I bought a couple weeks ago when out shopping with my sister. It was a "green" recycled book that was pretty blah looking. I found a package of this argyle paper at CKC that I just loved and I had the ribbon on hand. A little glitter pen (that doesn't show up well in the picture) and voila... All I can say is that covering the front was a breeze, but it took a bit of time to figure out where to put the slit for the pen holder and the circles and slit for the elastic band, but it looks pretty good. The other to-do item on my list today (other than laundry) was to writes a few cards to friends who need a little pick me up. It seems like there's quite a few lately who have been going through some rough times. So if you read my blog you know that I have a bit of a stash of cards right now, so I didn't really need to make any, but I saw an idea in the Boxer booth at CKC about a card that says "I'm all ears..." and I knew that was perfect to send to a friend to remind her that whenever she needs someone to talk to, she can call me. So I went ahead and made a new one today to send to her. I guess I was more than a little inspired by the Disney/Pixar blog hop yesterday. They did a wonderful job with that one and if you are interested in seeing the hop, it started here.

First set of cards featuring the Natural card base

So here is the first set of cards from my weekend's card-making frenzy. The box of cards was the Natural set from DCWV. I love that the colors are a little more masculine so it gave me the opportunity to make some more masculine looking cards.

A productive weekend

The hubby and I decided to spend our three day weekend camping... in the snow. Yup, there was about an inch of snow on the ground when we got to the campground, but since we have an RV (with a furnace), it's not really a big deal. We were toasty warm the whole weekend. What I couldn't believe was the number of people camping in tents. Crazy! Fortunately the snow was pretty much melted by the end of the second day as you can see here.

It was our first weekend with the new satellite dish in the RV. I couldn't believe how easy it was to set up. But I have to confess there's something very decadent about sitting in the RV watching all the same shows I would be watching at home with the same DVR capability we have at home to pause TV. Matt was thrilled to watch hours of NASCAR while camping. Because it was so cold outside, we only went for a couple of walks so we watched a lot of TV.

Most of the time, I was making cards.... 76 of them! I had picked up boxes of the DCWV the Natural and La Creme card bases at Jo-Ann's when they had them on sale a few weeks ago and the mat stacks to go with. I had packed a limited amount of supplies, mostly punches, ribbon, my Irock and a few embellishments. When I was done, I realized that I hadn't missed my whole stash of supplies but had been able to made do easily with what I had there. There was only one card base that I didn't want to use because I knew I needed something from my room that I hadn't brought with.

Overall it was a pretty good weekend. Camping in the snow was kind of fun, Chewie had a great time watching the Canadian geese and other birds (yes we take a cat camping, usually two, but this time Tigger didn't want to come with), the satellite worked perfectly and I got a lot of cards made up for future use.

So the weekend was great, but this week is killing me with several people out so I'm trying to cover three jobs and still do my own. Yesterday I started at work at 6 a.m. straight through to my evening speaking engagement, so I didn't pull in to the garage until 10 p.m. Then today there was lots of drama I could have done without so, even though it was more of a normal work day, I feel like I've been through the ringer trying to get everything done. I'm too tired to do more tonight. I'll add pictures of some of the card styles later when I'm a little less zombie-ish feeling.

Janette and Asa

I just love this picture of my sister-in-law Janette and nephew Asa. It's probably at least two years old now, but it's still one of my favorites. The sad thing is that this layout doesn't photograph well or maybe it's just that I don't have the photography skills I need to get a good shot of it.
Meanwhile, I've noticed that Tigger is a serial napper. He goes from place to place in the house and naps. One minute it's on the couch, then it's on the rug under the coffee table, then the kitty tree and so on. Lately he's added the little cubby under the oak desk in my craft room to his list of napping spots. I have to admit that I love it. There's just something very soothing to sharing my space with the little guy.

Looking for a new cutting machine...

Provo Craft (PC), the makers of Cricut, is shooting itself in the foot by suing the makers of Make the Cut (MTC) and Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL) to force the companies to make their software not compatible with Cricut. If I remember correctly, it's about the same thing that happened between Apple and IBM. Apple limited the development of compatible products by competitors and IBM did not with their personal computer format. As a result, IBM's format became the more widely accepted format because there was more available for it.

PC should well remember that its target market is people who are crafters. These are people who are artistic and creative in our own way. Many of us don't want to be limited to what PC decides we should have available to us. Just look at some of the blogs out there. There are so many ways that they take products meant to do one thing, and use them to create something entirely new. These crafters will always find a way to stretch the limits of their imagination and that's what products like MTC and SCAL allowed them to do with the Cricut.

I attend a monthly Cricut class at a local crafting store. At every class, the instructor makes a project using a cartridge or two, shows off the new cartridges (or new machine) and answers audience questions. A lot of those are about basic use of the machine. There is a wide variety of users at those classes from those who haven't even taken the machine out of the box to a super-user or two and every level in between. No matter that I've had my machine for years and have used it extensively, it seems like I always walk away from the class with a new tip, trick or inspiration, so it's well worth a couple hours of my time.

But now thinking back about that class, it really demonstrates the wide variety of Cricut users. There are people at that class who will never be interested in doing anything other than making what the cartridges allow you to make with no peripheral device. They will never hook their Cricut up to a computer or use a Gypsy. But they will buy every cartridge that appeals to their taste and use it exactly as the booklet shows. They need the instructions and what they see is enough for them. They don't want anything more complicated than what the machine was originally made to do. That's one of the things that makes Cricut so attractive. It's easy to use: set a few dials, push a couple of buttons and sit back.

Then there are those who might take it to the next level and manipulate the cartridge using the Gypsy or Cricut Design Studio (CDS) software . That is, if they can figure out how to use CDS. I was so excited when I bought the CDS software years ago. But once I had it loaded, I was thoroughly disappointed. It was the most non-user friendly software I had seen and, trust me, I use some of the most non-user friendly programs one could imagine. Most of the time I can figure them out without a lot of help or instruction. But this one was truly awful. I finally figured it out with a lot of trial and error because there wasn't a lot of help in any of the materials. I looked at it and thought, my mother, who is pretty good with computers, would still have difficulty with the software because it's not intuitive and they don't provide any real support to get to learn to use the program. For many, it would never work at all. For a company that created a machine that was simple enough that most people could easily use it, how could they create such a poor program to go with it? Because of that, I've never looked at the Gypsy. I'm not one to create on the go and because CDS was so awful, I wasn't willing to spend my money on Gypsy.

But, ultimately, with perseverance, one can learn to use the CDS software and take their machine and cartridge capacity to another level. But, ultimately, one is still limited to what is available on the cartridges the person owns. The problem there is that the cartridges don't always speak to the creativity in us. We all have different tastes. I like clean, graphic styles. Others might see the pages as boring. But that's what's so great about life. We all do have different styles and tastes and get to express them. Unfortunately the cartridges mean that we are at the mercy of the Cricut designers for the tools available to use. While that's great for the straight-forward user, it places limits on the creativity of those of us who have a different vision but not the tools to achieve it due to the limits of the cartridges and the CDS software.

That's where SCAL and MTC came in for Cricut users who wanted to break free of the limitations of the CDS software and the designs on the cartridges. I have SCAL and have loved it from the time I installed it about a year ago. It's let me take my Cricut creating to the next level. I've made word books, found designs that weren't available on any cartridge and created my own. For instance, last weekend when making the card for my co-worker, I wanted a buckle for the front. I pulled out my Fabulous Finds cartridge and flipped through the booklet. I didn't see what I had in mind. There were things that I suppose would have worked, but they weren't what I wanted. So I designed my own in Inkscape, brought it into SCAL and cut it on my Cricut. I was free to follow my inspiration wherever it wanted to go.

PC truly had the best of both worlds, they had a machine for people who needed something simple to use and needed inspiration for their creativity and that same machine could be pushed to the limits of our imagination using outside programs like Inkscape combined with SCAL.

But now PC wants to stop that. Instead of creating their own competing software to allow us to do what others have done, they are simply seeking to stop the others. They have already settled with the makers of MTC to ensure that the future versions of the software will not be Cricut compatible and they have filed suit against the makers of SCAL, likely to seek the same remedy. If PC makes it so that I can only use the Cricut with their cartridges and their CDS software, well, all I can say is that I'll vote with my dollars. Cricut is not the only machine out there and the makers of many of the others aren't as short-sighted as PC. If PC cannot respect my creative drive, I guess I'll go find a company that can.

So if you have use a cutting machine other than a Cricut, let me know what you think about it. I guess I'm evaluating my options.

New chair!

Matt has been telling me to find a new chair for my craft room ever since we put the room back together after the floors were refinished. So that's what, nearly a year now? But yesterday my sister and I were poking around some shops looking for towels, when I came across a chair that I absolutely loved. So after some interesting maneuvering to get it in the back of my tiny coupe, my search was over. It's comfortable for long crafting sessions and just the perfect height for my work surface. I guess now I just need to get back to crafting.

What is going on?

So today at work I had just got off the phone with my co-worker whose mother-in-law died yesterday, when I hear another manager right next door on the phone with her employee whose mother died suddenly over the weekend too. It's just such a shock to have two co-workers lose loved ones so suddenly in the same weekend. Since I was tired tonight, I simply revised a previous card so I would still have time to clean up my craft room a bit, clean the kitchen a bit and get to bed pretty early. Good night all.

Sympathy card and slide SVG

I got a voicemail yesterday that my co-worker's mother-in-law was not doing well and likely would not survive the weekend. So this afternoon I resigned myself to creating a sympathy card. The DCWV La Creme mat stack I picked up on Friday evening was the perfect paper. But I needed something different to go on the card. I had looked at the buckle set of SVGs on SVGcuts.com the other day, which made me think about using a slide, but I haven't bought the set yet. So I looked through the files I have and couldn't find one. I didn't find one on the Fabulous Finds cartridge that was really what I was thinking of either so I decided to try my hand at finally making my own in Inkscape. It didn't take long and I had exactly what I had imagined. I cut it out of the cardboard from the packaging of a case of the hubby's diet Mountain Dew and then out of the scraps of the paper from the inside of the card. A little black ribbon, a few punches of an edge punch, a few swipes of tape and voila:

Unless you are familiar with that stack, you probably don't know that the flowered paper is flocked so there's lots of texture on this card. So if you want to pick up the slide I made to use in a project of your own, you can download it here.

New card - Hoo Loves Ya?

Last night, hubby and I headed to the hockey game, but I wanted to make on little stop at Jo-Ann's the way there. It was only a little side jaunt for that trip but that store has such a better selection than any here. I wanted the little La Creme mat stack because I need to make some somber cards to keep on hand for condolences (little scare with a co-worker's MIL this week made me realize I only have cheerful cards on hand). Turns out not only did they have the little mat stack I was looking for, but they have these boxes of DCWV cards on sale for only $4.99 a box. What a deal, so I snapped up a few. I turned the first one into a card today with this cute owl SVG I found on Scrapcation Getaway. Pretty simple and easy but I wanted to get it in the mail today.

We never did make it to the game. The traffic was so terrible it took more than 20 minutes to get across the bridge and forty minutes to go about five miles. By the time we got there, they were half-way through the first period. It was sold out and the absolutely blew the other team away. I guess we didn't miss much since we got to listen to most of the game on the radio and had a fabulous dinner at Claim Jumper instead.

Card making frenzy

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I posted. Really, I've been very busy and I have been crafty, but just haven't finished many projects lately, but I did want to share with you one crazy card making frenzy I just finished in late February.

I was out of my stash of handy, pre-made cards and needed a few in hurry for thank you’s, get well and birthday greetings. I was perusing the local Michaels when I saw the little DCWV Citrus mat stack. I was really drawn the cheerful colors and prints. I thought, I can make that work for some simple cards. Sure enough a card making frenzy was born and boy did I have a blast.

In only a few hours spread over a couple of days, I made up a whole stack of cards. It was so much fun, I've already bought another mat stack to do it again. I love how all the colors coordinate together beautifully so the "trimmings" work as accents on another card. After I had started, I realized that there’s enough paper in the stack to make three of each card combination and it worked out perfectly that there was always a glitter paper for the front of the card and plain paper for the inside. That also means that making a lot in a short period of time is a snap. Plus it doesn't take much in the way of supplies. Literally I only used my cutter, a few edge punches, a corner rounder, my eyelet tool and ribbon hole attachment, some ribbon, a couple of flowers, a few brads and buttons, and my handy ATG. Wow the list seems long there, but it really doesn't take up much room in my handy-dandy little crafting tote, which means that stack that is waiting to be made into cards is destined for our next camping trip.

It was pretty inexpensive too. I think I paid less than five dollars for the little stack with my coupons, plus $1.50 for nice heavyweight linen from the local paper supply from a ream I got with a great coupon and $1.72 for the matching envelopes (only because it wasn't as good of a coupon), about five dollars in tape (I think I went thought a whole box of ATG tape and I always get that at Michaels with a coupon), and maybe two or three dollars at most for the embellishments, which were from my existing stash (so does that really count? Okay, I'll count it but I'm not counting the costs of all the punches and other tools.). So that’s about $16 for about 36 cards. I think that’s a great value considering what store cards cost nowadays; although, come to think about it, I don’t think I’ve bought a store card in years so I don’t honestly know what they charge anymore. My husband certainly thinks it a great value because it kept me occupied for several days. :)

I left the cards fairly plain with room to add a sentiment on the outside, and plenty of room for a quotation, verse or greeting on the inside. But those I'll add at the time to avoid having a stack of "Congratulations on your retirement" cards when I really need a "Sorry about your rotten luck on the slopes, hope you get out of that full body cast soon" card, which of course I never seem to need except when I don't have one on hand.

The pictures aren’t the greatest because the glitter (and that highly polished wood of mine! ha ha) reflects a lot of the light in my craft room, but they give you an idea. The last picture is the stack of cards in my card keeper, minus about five that I’ve already sent out.