Vinyl Tiles Make Great Gifts

Well I'm finally getting around to posting all the Vinyl tiles I made for Christmas gifts this year. Was the Christmas Holiday a wild whirlwind for anyone else? Sheesh! Anyhow, I'm posting all the designs with quick info and downloadable .gypsy files for those who are interested. (REMEMBER! If you are a CDS user you can convert these .gypsy files to .cut files.) Thank you so much for looking and please leave your comments. I love to read them! :)

Here's a picture of all of the tiles I created on their picture stands:



AWFUL BEAUTIFUL LIFE:

This tile was for a friend of mine. It's main line to the chorus of Darryl Worley's song "Awful Beautiful Life". If you're not familiar, the line goes "I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life."


On this particular tile I placed the saying a little high but it was too late to fix it. The high placement is luckily not as noticable when it's on its stand.
Cartridges used: Lyrical Letters, Mickey Font, Old West, Opposites Attract, Printing 101 & Simply Sweet.

Click here to download the .gypsy file used

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FAITH


Cartridges used: Cursive 101, Home Accents, Lyrical Letters & Pagoda

Click here to download the .gypsy file used

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FAMILY HEARTSTRINGS


Cartridges used: Jasmine, Simply Sweet & Sweethearts

Click here to download the .gypsy file used

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A HOUSE IS - A HOME IS


Cartridges used: Home Decor, My Community & Simply Sweet

Click here to download the .gypsy file used

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LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE

I ended up placing the saying a little too low on this one. In hindsight I would have started the Live, Laugh, Love set of letters higher so that the "much" didn't end up so low. It cuts in front of that word when on the stand so it's not ideal. When cutting this one, I just opened the first page and deleted the LLL part and cut the small words, then reopened the file, deleted the small words and cut the big ones. That way I could use 2 different colors of vinyl but keep the spacing. Again, this is a tight fit and be sure to hold your letters over the tile and perfect the placement before laying it down (or simply resize the saying if you prefer).



Cartridges used: Opposites Attract & Serenade

Click here to download the .gypsy file used

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STAND TALL

This one I made special for my Sister-in-law and her 3 kids. I knew she would appreciate one that had a message/saying that spoke to her children and I found this fabulous silouette with 2 girls and a boy (her children exactly) so I had to use it!



Cartridges used: A Child's Year, Gypsy Font & Lyrical Letters

Click here to download the .gypsy file used

Gypsy Spot Challenge Week #5 -- Christmas Bags & Boxes

This week's challenge was to create a Christmas bag or box. I chose to create something VERY simple as I intend to use them for friend and neighbor gifts and if they are too detailed they become somewhat impractical since I need to make alot of them.

Click here to download the Gypsy cut file used.

I used the popcorn box from TBBM and dressed it up with a sweet little panda cut from the new Pagoda cartridge. I tried a few different santa hats on the panda but didn't like them so I decided to go with a sweet little holly embellishment instead. The holly is cut from Winter Woodland and dressed up with red stickles.

I wrapped homemade caramel corn in cellophane, turned it upside down and then strung a ribbon through the side cuts and tied on top. I also inked the edges of the box and the holly for a little touch. Again, this is a SUPER simple box, but sometimes simple is good right? Haha. I'll keep telling myself that.

I'm linking the caramel corn recipe for anyone who is interested.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Caramel-Popcorn/Detail.aspx
This caramel corn tastes amazing and is SO cheap and easy to make. I use www.allrecipes.com for all of my recipe searches because it's fabulous and there are so many helpful reviews. I chose to try this one because it had over 1000 reviews and was still 5 stars so I thought it was a good bet. I was right, it turned out fab!

Thanks for stopping by!

Gypsy Spot Challenge Week #4 -- Snow Time

This week's challenge was anything that incorporated snowmen or snowflakes. I chose to use both. I had seen this super cute quotation about snowmen on a greeting card made by a member of the cricut messageboards. I LOVED the saying when I saw it and then when I found out this week's challenge I knew I had to use it. I also wanted to try my hand at vinyl tiles because I want to make some for Christmas gifts this year.

I originally designed it on my Gypsy but had to move it to Design Studio for cutting because Gypsy decided she didn't want to work for a little while so I am providing BOTH cut files.

Click here to download the Gypsy cut file.

Click here to download the Design Studio cut file.

I used two different styles of font from the Lyrical Letters cartridge and welded them together on my Gypsy. Lyrical Letters is my FAVORITE font cartridge by FAR! Then I used When It's Cold Outside (seasonal mini cart) for the snowflakes and Snow Friends (seasonal mini cart) for the snowman.

This was SUPER easy to make and turned out just like I'd hoped. On my original cricut expression, I usually use a blade depth, speed and pressure of 2 when cutting vinyl but I recently purchased one of the new colored expressions from walmart and noticed that I had to use 3's all around instead. I believe this is due the the fact that the blade housing on the newer one is plastic as opposed to metal and it seemed to require a bit more pressure. I could be wrong, it's possible that it was just the vinyl I was working with but nevertheless, I ended up using a blade depth of 3, speed 3, pressure 3 for this one in particular. You may have to test your vinyl before hand on a simple shape and a few letters to get familiar with what settings will be best for you. The ultimate goal is to achieve a "kiss cut" meaning that you cut the vinyl cleanly without cutting deep enough to pierce through and cut the backing.

Once your vinyl items are cut you will need to "weed" your vinyl. Weeding is just the process of removing the unwanted portions of the vinyl (for example the holes in the middle of the letters, etc). Some people weed their vinyl before putting it on transfer paper and some do it after. I prefer to weed mine before. Once I've weeded the vinyl, I rub transfer paper over the top and peel away the backing slowly. Be sure to check your vinyl as you peel ESPECIALLY when working with delicate letters. If the vinyl is lifting and not adhering to the transfer paper, rub it down a little more and continue to peel.

Once your vinyl expression and/or shapes are on the transfer paper, simply press them to your tile, rub down thoroughly and peel away transfer paper. Vinyl adheres quite nicely to tile so you won't need much effort to get it to stick.

I purchased this glossy black tile block (12x12) at Lowe's and it is resting on a black wooden picture frame holder from Walmart.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to email me. Enjoy! And thanks for stopping by!