Aloha Lawn Fawn Card Lift

Today I joined a challenge and made this card that is based on a Lawn Fawn card by Kelly Marie Alvarez.  I used the Life is a Beach cartridge and other images by Cricut/ProvoCraft.

Here's mine:

Here's Kelly's:

How to Cut All Images on the Same Mat in Cricut Design Space

How to Cut All Images on One Cricut Mat in Design Space

I like to conserve paper – especially my “good” cardstock.  Unfortunately for me, in Design Space, all layers are arranged onto separate mats by default.  That means that I have to do a little work if I want to cut them all on one sheet of cardstock.  The process takes a few minutes, but it’s definitely worth the extra time.  Here is a step-by-step process that I find pretty easy to do.

1.      Add all of your images to the on-screen mat as usual.

2.      Click the Sync button in the upper right section of the control panel.

3.      Now, following the instructions, drag all of your images to the top layer.  They will now all be the same color.  This is the key to making all of the images cut on the same mat, because Design Space cuts all images with the same color on the same mat.  If you wanted to cut some images out of one color cardstock, and some out of another, you would simply drag and drop the images into the appropriate layers.

4.      Now that all of your images are the same color on your mat, click Go to start cutting.

5.      If you want to use a smaller sheet of cardstock, for example 8 ½ x 11, you can drag your images around on the mat, avoiding the space that you wouldn’t want to use.  Remember that each square on the mat is one square inch.

6.      Now click Go in the bottom right corner of your screen to cut your project.

With a little practice, this process will become easier to remember and master.  Have fun!

Card for My 11-Year-Old Great-Nephew

Paper:  DCWV and Echo Park
Enamel Dots:  My Mind's Eye
Greeting:  Cricut Cake Basics cartridge
Stars:  Cricut George and Basic Shapes cartridge
Center Step Card:  Silhouette Studio

Art Journaling This Week

Here's this week's Art Journaling Page.  I challenged myself to use dark colors to create a background.  I used Dyan Reaveley spray inks in After Midnight, Dirty Martini, London Blue.

How to Weld a Word in Cricut Design Space

1.  Start a new project, and click Insert Text.

2    2.  Click Edit, and change your font to one that is easily connected.  In this tutorial, I’m using Pacifico, one of my favorite free fonts.

3.  The next thing you want to do is get the letters as close together as possible.  Click the down arrow in the Line Spacing setting on the right.  Continue clicking until the letters are as close together as possible, without them overlapping too much.

      4.  Now you need to move the letters individually, so you have to Ungroup them.  Right-click on the word, and click Ungroup.

5.  Next, click on a letter, hold your mouse/touchpad button down, and move it until it touches/overlaps the others.  Do this for each letter until everything looks the way you want it to look.  This might take some time at first, but the more you do it, the easier it will become.

6.  Once everything looks good, you need to Re-Group and Weld the word together.  To do this, you must first select the entire word by drawing a box around it.   Do this by clicking and dragging with your mouse/touchpad.  I usually start directly above and left of the word.

7.   Now, right-click on the word, and then click Group.

8.  The last thing to do is right-click on the grouped word, and click Weld.  Now you can re-size it and move it around.  (Note that you might be able to skip #7, but I always group the word and then weld it.  It  works well for me that way, and it only takes a few extra seconds.) 

Here’s what mine looked like when it was finished.  I probably could have moved the first “t” a little closer to the “e” next to it, but it will still weld and cut out in one piece.  I’ll just have to be careful not to rip it.

My Latest Art Journaling Page

I had lots of fun this evening making this page.  I used Dyan Reaveley acrylic paints, Viva Decor gold molding paste, stencils from Heidi Swapp and The Crafter's Workshop, a heart stencil that I cut on my Cricut Explore Air, and various background stamps.  For the lettering, I used a Fude Ball Pen and a white Gelly Roll pen.  Links to follow soon.

Products Used  (Disclaimer:  These are Amazon Affiliate links):

Dyan Reaveley Paints in  Bubblegum Pink, Squeezed Orange, Lemon Zest

Viva Decor Gold Modeling Creme:  Viva Decor Gold Modeling Creme

Sakura Gelly Roll White Gel Pen:  White Gel Pen

Uniball Signo Black Gel Pen:  Black Gel Pen

White Craft Paint (watered down for splatters):  White Paint

Assorted Stencils like this one:  Zig Zag Stencil

Get Well Card for My BFF

One of my BFFs just came home from the hospital, and I wanted to send her a get well card.  Details below the photo.  Thanks for looking!

• The card base is a pre-made kraft card that I converted into a tent card.  
• The background is an embossed piece of cardstock that was left over from a gel plate texture print.  I had used the cardstock to pull paint for texture, and I just added a little Twisted Citron Distress Ink to the white parts.  (If I had been using a white card base, I would have left it white.)
• The stamp set is Sick Turtle, by Inky Antics.
• I stamped the turtle, bird, and sentiment using VersaFine Vintage Sepia.  (I don't know why mine is so green, but it worked for this card.)
• I colored the images using Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol.
• The adhesive dots are very old.  They're made by Cloud 9 (told you they were old!), and I bought them on clearance at JoAnn's a few years ago.
• The cardstock for the greeting is a left-over piece from another card.  I trimmed it into a banner shape.
• I popped the images & sentiment up with foam tape.
• I lightly brushed Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink onto the background of the image. using a makeup brush.

ETA:  The back says, "Hope your recovery is speedy."  :)