Disney Autograph Books

One of my best friends and her husband are taking their two beautiful girls to Disneyland for the first time. I was so excited that I wanted to make them something special to take on their trip. I had seen lots of people on the Cricut boards make Disney Autograph books and I was itching to give them a whirl.

I made 8.5 x 4 inch books with chipboard covers and double layered cardstock pages. I used my Bind It All to do a 1" ring binding and decorated with ribbon. The chipboard covers are layered with cardstock and the names are layered with white vinyl. You can't tell it from this picture but the names are their own covered chipboard piece separate from the cover. I used some really fun fuzzy black vinyl for the cover titles.


The picture of the covers is a little bright from the flash reflection. As an afterthought, I opted to cut a piece of transparency film for the front and back of each book to rest over the covers and protect them from wear and tear damage at the park. I went ahead and bound the transparency pieces in with the rest of the book, but they can later be cut off and removed when they return home.

Faith is 12 and Lizzie is almost 4 and I wanted their books to be uniform but different. I chose to do full body cuts for Faith's book and portrait cuts for Lizzie's book. The only exception would be the Chipmunks as I only had one style of cut for them.

After looking up lots of tips and hints about these autograph books I decided to design pages for the most prominent core Disney characters as well as 2 of the more famous Princesses & Tinkerbell and then leave 3 blank layouts in the back for other characters they may see.

One tip suggested that photo mats are not ideal to lay down as you may get a signature with a character but not a photo. Another tip was that characters who have large gloves or costumes tend to make larger signatures due to the lack of dexterity so it's best to have a decent sized place for them to sign. From those tips, I decided to design each character's layout with a cut and a large white 'signing' space on the right and their character name and a large open space for a possible picture on the left. I opted not to do the photo mats so it wouldn't look odd if no photo was taken but has room for a picture if they are able to get one.

(I ended up using ALOT of vinyl on this project. The mickey heart and block name are covered in a sparkly red vinyl but it looks black because of the angle of the picture. It's really cute in person -- I wish I'd taken a close up picture hehe.)












These were SO much fun to make and I was really pleased with how they turned out. My friend picked them up tonight and I've been told the girls loved them. In fact, Faith already called to tell me how "awesome" they are. Hopefully they'll be able to get a few signatures. If not then they can stick some fun pictures from the trip in there and just have a fun little momento. Either way, I hope they enjoy them.

Again, these were just a blast to make! Thanks for looking!! ~Jenn

For Cricut Users:
The front cover titles were done with Mickey Font & Stone Script. The chipboard name pieces were done with Mickey Font. All character cuts and character names are from Mickey & Friends, Happily Ever After and Tinkerbell & Friends.

For the characters and names, I used textured black cardstock (without white core) and colored cardstock and vinyl for the layers. I'll be honest, vinyl was truly my best friend on this project because it makes nice clean cuts and makes the small pieces SO much easier to work with.

Gypsy Spot - Post It Paper Challenge

This week we were challenged to use some fabulous Post It craft paper. I was given 2 different colors of green and a blue/purple color. I decided just to make a simple but fun card.

I have lots of detailed edge punches that I LOVE to use on crafting projects.... HOWEVER, adhereing them to the paper isn't always so fun. I've been using vinyl alot lately for detailed things because it's so easy to adhere but it's not at all forgiving on paper. Once it's down, its usually down. I was SO excited to use this Post It paper with my edge punches and it truly worked like a charm! I didn't have to worry about adhesive showing through the holes or making a mess and it made the punches SO easy to use. The Post It paper adheres nicely but also repositions just as easily. It was IDEAL when trying to line up multiple layers of the lace punched paper.

I love all of the fun words on the Gypsy cartridges so I just chose this "smile" cut to complete the card.

Happy scrapping and thanks for looking!

Gypsy Spot - Superbowl Challenge

This week we were challenged to create something with a Super Bowl theme. I'm not a huge football fan and I don't have a real die-hard football family but we usually gather around to watch the Super Bowl game. My favorite thing to do is make yummy treats and food for everyone so I decided to make a Superbowl treat tray!

I don't have a cut file for you this week because I really just laid down single images on my Gypsy as I went.

After coming up with the idea to make a treat tray, I remembered that some time ago I had purchased a cheap pack of cookie sheets to make those decorative magnetic boards for the kitchen and I had a small one leftover from the pack. The cookie sheet shape was perfect for a football field and I had all the right colors of vinyl to do the job so I went right to work on it. (I'm not going to lie -- I had to Google an image of a football field to know just how many lines there were.)

I measured the inner portion of the cookie sheet and cut a piece of green vinyl to the correct size using a standard paper cutter. I then used my handy dandy little corner chomp to round the corner to match the cookie sheet. Next, I took a white piece of vinyl and cut it to the appropriate height of the "football field". Then I sliced off 1/8" strips to create the white lines.

I used the Don Juan cartridge to create the numbers for the yard lines. The goal posts are from Everyday Paper Dolls and the helmets and football are from Sports Mania. I used generic colors for the helmets but you could use colors that matched the 2 teams that will be playing.

I laid all the yard lines, goal posts and numbers onto the green vinyl before placing it on the actual cookie sheet. I thought it would be difficult to place the numbers so close to the edge if the green was already placed inside the cookie sheet because of the edges.

I can't say enough about vinyl these days. I'm just using it on everything and I find it SO easy to work with. I whipped this cute little thing together in no time and it turned out even better than I'd planned.

Obviously this sheet could not be placed into an oven or anything like that but it would make a cute tray for cookies, treats, a bowl of salsa with chips around the sides, etc. You CAN clean the vinyl with a damp cloth or a baby wipe so it could be re-used if it was handled gently. EVEN if you only had it for a one-time use for a party though, it was still very inexpensive to make. This could also be a cute gift to give to someone hosting a Super Bowl party OR a great way to take your treats to a party you are going to.

As always thanks for looking and feel free to leave a comment!

Gypsy Spot Black & Gold Challenge

Sorry for the late posting. Another one of those crazy weeks!

This week we had a color challenge using black and gold. I had recently received my Spring mini cartridges and was really excited to play with the Love Struck cartridge so I knew immediately I wanted to make a Valentine card in these non-traditional colors.

Click here to download the .gypsy file used.

For the base I used a heart card from the Wild Card cartridge. I welded the cupid from Love Struck to the side and welded one of the decorative heart cuts from Love Struck in the center of the card to create an elegant look. The gold detail layer of the cupid is done in gold vinyl.

I wanted to play with the MS micro beads I bought on sale on Black Friday and thought this would be a fun item to use them on. I really wanted the card to look elegant so I thought the gold beads would add a really nice touch. I didn't really know how to go about adhereing them to the card so I decided to get creative with my gold vinyl. I cut a solid heart out of gold vinyl and placed it on the inside of the front of the card which effectively left the 'sticky' side of the vinyl exposed through the cuts on the front. I then sprinkled the micro beads on the sticky part of the vinyl and pressed them down to be sure they were on there pretty good.



The unfortunate side effect of doing the beading this way was that the top side of the vinyl on the inside of the card was all lumpy and bumpy and I didn't care for it at all. I knew I wanted to put a sentiment inside the card on the other side so I chose to cut 2 more solid hearts and place them over the gold vinyl to have a space for a personal note in the card. I wasn't quite satisfied with it until I cut out an additional little decorative piece from the Home Accent cartridge. In this picture the gold layer is the vinyl, the black and cream are cardstock (inking on the cream piece) and the little black piece is vinyl as well.



On the other inside piece of the card I placed a welded a sentiment made with the Lyrical Letters cartridge (if you know me at all, you know this is my FAVORITE font cartridge for the Cricut). I used gold vinyl once again and even added some hearts from the Simply Sweet cartridge to complete the look of the sentiment.



As always thank you for looking and feel free to leave a comment. ~Jenn

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!