Hold on to your wallets . . .

Cricut has ANOTHER new machine coming out . . . the Expression 2!

This new addition to the Cricut Family was just announced at the Craft and Hobby Association convention.  From what I have heard, you will be able to use the Imagine AND the regular cartridges in this new machine.  It is also digital and you can save settings . . . so if you always set the machine the same way to cut vinyl, just save it so you don't have to mess with the settings every time.    Here is a little video on the new machine.

It will be on sale at HSN starting April 26th at midnight.

And, coming soon . . . cute little Cricut toys.  

Guest Blogger ~ Donna from Scrapp'n Nana

I discovered a crafter the other day that I wanted to share with you.  Her name is Donna and her site is Scrapp'n Nana

Here is just one of the Valentine's Day cards that she created.

I love the all over word print that she did for the background, and the way the balloons pop off of the card.  And the little envelope in the corner with the hearts coming out . . . so cute!

Here is another one of her creations.

The striped paper has just a little shimmer to it, and adding that flower in a different color really makes it POP!

If you would like to see some of Donna's other creations, hop over to her blog at Scrapp'n Nana.  Her blog is new, but I have a feeling she will have a lot of other great things to share with us!  Thank you Donna for allowing me to showcase your cards!

Valentine's day Wall Art

Back at Christmas time I shared some wall decorations that I made with my Cricut.  I got such a great response from everyone about them that I have decided that this year I am going to make some for other holidays.  Here is what I created for Valentine's Day.

I used black and cream striped paper cut to size to create a grid pattern for the background. Then I cut the heart image from the George and Basic shapes Cricut cartridge. I did the first cut in some rose paper and the shadow cut in a metallic purple paper.

I placed the whole thing inside a red frame from the craft store, and it made for a quick and cute decoration to hang on my wall.

Contest - Win a Cricut Imagine

Consumer Crafts is having a contest where you can win a $400 shopping spree from them, or a Cricut Imagine Machine.  What do you have to do?  Just refer a friend to receive the Consumer Crafts weekly emails.

Go HERE to refer your friends!

How do you keep track of them all!?!?!?

I have had so many people ask me this . . . how do you keep track of all of the Cricut Cartridges out there, and which ones you own, or want to purchase?

I have an excel spreadsheet that I have created that lists all of the cartridges.  Then I have one column that I enter Have, Want or Don't Want . . . then when it is getting close to my birthday or Christmas, my husband can just filter it to show just the Want list and he knows just what to buy me.  When I get a new cartridge, I make sure I change it from Want to Have so that I don't get any duplicates.

I have even started a column where I add which cartridges are retired . . . this might not be complete since I just started doing this, but at least it is something.

Every third Thursday of the month is Hello Thursday, when Cricut announces the new cartridges being released that month, so once a month I have to update the list with new cartridges.

Don't want to spend the time typing up a list for yourself?  You can download a copy of my list by clicking here.

Now, this list is current up until today's date . . . January 28th, 2011 . . . any cartridges that come out after that will need to be added to the list.

Goodbye card

Here is a card that I made for a co-worker and friend who found a new job.  I am really going to miss having her sitting right behind me at work every day.

I thought that this striped paper had just the right amount of "bling" . . . some glitter and some metallics in it.  The black dot boarder reminded me of a beaded necklace, and this particular co-worker always has the best jewelry, so it was perfect for her.  I used some black sticker letters to spell out goodbye . . . you remember sticker letters . . . those are those things we used to buy like CRAZY before we owned Cricut machines.

Baby gift and card

One of my husband's co-workers recently had a baby, so I purchased a baby blanket and personalized it with the baby's name.  I love that my sewing machine has an embroidery feature so that I can add things to make a gift more special.

And of course, I had to make a card to go with the gift.  I cut three onesies from my Cricut Sampler cartridge, and then layered the word joy over the top of them.  The inside of the card says "Congratulations on your bundle of joy"

Birthday card for a Princess

My niece loves anything Tinkerbell or Princess right now . . . which I love since I am a HUGE Disney fan and in my heart I would love to be Cinderella.  My niece just had her 4th birthday, and it was a Princess Party, so I made her this Princess Birthday Card.

A pink castle cut from the Paper Doll Dress Up Cricut Cartridge, on top of metallic and glitter covered fireworks burst paper.  

And the winners are . . . .

First, I would like to thank everyone that came to the Valentine's Day Card Blog Hop.  It was a lot of fun, and there were some really great projects.

During the hop I was doing a contest, and I was giving away two $25 gift certificates to Custom Crops

Gail Knottnerus

and

Karel Jennings  

You can check out Karel's blog at 

One By One The Flamingos Are Stealing My Sanity

Congratulations ladies!  Enjoy your shopping trip to Custom Crops.

Look who is 2!

She is 2 in the pictures, but just had her 4th birthday in real life . . . I know . . . I am behind on my scrapbooks!
Theses are from my niece's 2nd birthday.  My sister does not like her daughter's picture on the internet, so I have blurred out her face so that you can still see the layout.

The primary colors went great with the Elmo cake for her party.  What 2 year old doesn't like bright colors and Elmo!  I used some blue paper in the corners, along with red and yellow border stickers to frame the entire layout and pull everything together.

I used the number 2 candle cut from the Sweet Treats Cricut Cartridge.  The words Happy Birthday are also from Sweet Treats.  I must have bumped the size dial in between cutting the shadow and one of the layers, because the word birthday did not line up perfectly, but I made it work by hiding the end where it was messy with a sticker of a birthday present.

Valentine's Day Card Blog Hop - Day Two

Welcome to Day Two of the Valentine's Day Card Blog Hop.  

If you want to see the card I did for the first day, just click here.

I want to thank my good friend Ellen (aka Card Monkey) for putting this Blog Hop together.  She is my "Scrappin' Sistah".  If you are a regular follower of my blog, please go to Ellen's site so that you can see the entire Blog Hop from the beginning.

At the time that this blog hop started, I only had one card made.  It has been a little crazy in my house this week between my "real job" and family things (hubby is sick . . . daughter has hockey . . . you know, just life)
Since I received such great feedback on the card I did yesterday, and how I used an image from a new cartridge for my inspiration without going and purchasing that new cartridge, I decided to go with that same idea for today's card.

Today's card is for my 10 year old daughter, who loved music and playing guitar.  I was looking at the new Spring Holiday Cards Seasonal Cartridge from Cricut, and I saw this image on the cartridge.

Now, like I said yesterday, I do not own this cartridge, but the image and the phrase inspired me. First I went searching for an image to use from a cartridge I do own, and yes, you guessed it, I used CricutSearch.com.  First I searched for guitar, and while there are a LOT of great images, none of them were on a cartridge that I own.  I then did a search for the phrase You Rock . . . jackpot!  There was one of the cartridges that I own on the list!  And this is how it all came together.

I used some paper I had with pink glitter butterflies and lime green paint splotches with a striped backdrop.  I paired that with a pink guitar sticker I had, and some hearts and stars.  Then of course the phrase You Rock, cut from silver paper with black paper for the shadow cut.

Before you go, would you like a chance to win a $25 gift certificate from Custom Crops?  All you need to do is go to CricutSearch.com and type in the phrase you rock and see how many images there are to choose from.  Then send me an email with the number of images that you found, and I will pick a winner to be announced on Monday, January 24th.  (if you want a second chance to win, go and read yesterdays post and complete that search also)

 (you can send me an email by clicking here, or go to the Contact Us page at Cricut Search)  Please DO NOT post your email address in the comment section of the blog . . . that is not a safe thing to do . . . it allows other to get your email for those spam email lists.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, and for playing our Cricut Search game!  Now it is time to send you off to the next blog on the hop 

ExpressionsByElaine

Valentine's Day Card Blog Hop

Welcome to the Valentine's Day Card Blog Hop.

I want to thank my good friend Ellen (aka Card Monkey) for putting this Blog Hop together.  She is my "Scrappin' Sistah".  If you are a regular follower of my blog, please go to Ellen's site so that you can see the entire Blog Hop from the beginning.

For my card I was trying to think of something I could give to my teenage son.  I was looking at the new Spring Holiday Cards Seasonal Cartridge from Cricut, and I saw this image on the cartridge.

Now I do not own this cartridge, but the image and the phrase inspired me.  So I found a toad image on a cartridge that I do own and created this card.

The message under the toad says "Have a "toad"ally awesome Valentine's Day"  Personally, I think it is a great interpretation of the idea from the Spring Holiday Cards Cartridge . . . and I did not need to go out and buy a new cartridge!

Oh . . . and how did I know that I had an image of a toad?  If you know me and follow my blog, you know that I used my other website CricutSearch.com to find the image that I used for this card.  

Before you go, would you like a chance to win a $25 gift certificate from Custom Crops?  All you need to do is go to CricutSearch.com and type in the word toad and see how many images there are too choose from.  (Hint: You don't need to count them . . . after you run the search if you look below the thumbnail previews it will tell you how many there are total)  Then send me an email with the number of toad images that you found, and I will pick a winner to be announced on Monday, January 24th.

 (you can send me an email here, or go to the Contact Us page at Cricut Search)  Please DO NOT post your email address in the comment section of the blog . . . that is not a safe thing to do . . . it allows other to get your email for those spam email lists.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, and for playing our Cricut Search game!  Now it is time to send you off to the next blog on the hop 

ExpressionsByElaine

New Cricut Imagine Cartridges

Yesterday I told you about the new Cricut Cartridges that I found online . . . at the time of writing this post I still have not gotten my Hello Thursday email from Cricut officially announcing the new cartridges.  After I had posted yesterday, I found one last cartridge, so before I show you the Imagine Cartridges, I want to show you this one

Martha Stewart Birthday Cake Art

With the new Imagine cartridges this brings the total to 10 new cartridges.  Okay . . . on to the Imagine!

Today I am going to share the new Imagine Cartridges that I found.

I do not own the Imagine machine, which allows you to both print and cut images, but for those of you that do, I am sure there is something in the new cartridges that you will like.

The first one is called All Wrapped Up, and it reminds me of the Cricut cartridge Tags, Bags, Boxes and More because that pretty much sums up what is in this cartridge.  There are some great cards, boxes, envelops and bags in this cartridge.  Here is a sample of a few.

The next cartridge is called Buccaneer.  With how much people love the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I can see this one being a big hit.  These would also be great for a Pirate themed party or to decorate a bedroom or kids play area.

The last cartridge is called Bubblegum Stripes, and it has a lot of great backgrounds.

Better late than never ~ Hello Thursday

I don't know about you, but I never got my Hello Thursday email from Cricut today, so I just spent a bunch of time trying to do some hunting to figure out which are the new cartridges for today's Hello Thursday.  I hope that I found them all, but if not, I will be sure to add the rest when I do find them.

If you follow my blog, you will remember that I posted last month about a few of the cartridges that I found online and suspected were going to be a part of this month's Hello Thursday . . . All Sports, Florals Embellished and  Formal Occasions.  Be sure to go back to my original post about these cartridges to see the front and back previews, but now I have a little more info on all of these cartridges to share with you . . . some samples of the insides of the handbooks.

All Sports . . . it has some nice phrases to go with the sports, similar to Sports Mania.

Florals Embellished . . . flowers, designs, and phrases

Formal Occasion . . . this could be used for Prom, Weddings, Homecoming 

Now on to the ones that I had not heard of before today . . . 

Baby Steps looks like the new version of New Arrival.  

One thing I do like about this is that it contains a lot of things that would be good for those first moments . . . first bath, first tooth 

I don't even like camping, and I like this cartridge . . . Campin' Critters.

Just look at some of these cute little animals

And these landscape images

And they even have some 3D cuts of tents and backpacks!  Now that is creative!

Next up is Kate's ABCs, which could be a partner to Nate's ABCs that came out at the end of last year.

The rest of the cartridges are Imagine Cartridges . . . I think I am going to save all of those for tomorrow's post, so stop back to see what I found.

 - - - - - - - 

Hold on . . . I just found one more cartridge!  Martha Stewart Birthday Cake Art

With the new Imagine cartridges that I am going to talk about tomorrow, this brings the total to 10 new cartridges.

Precious baby

I am trying to get caught up on my scrapbooking, and I am in the early parts of 2009.  Here are some pictures from when my niece was still just a tiny baby, and we were baby sitting her.

It was in January, so I went with a winter look of snowflakes and snowmen.  I combined this with some words from the Graphically Speaking Cricut Cartridge . . . comfy, content, precious, hush hush . . . I think it sums up the feelings of snuggling with a little baby in a rocking chair.  

Just a random thought, but why is it that when my kids were this age and I spent the entire day in a rocking chair and got nothing done I was not this "content" but when it is someone else's baby and I spend the entire day in the rocking chair it is just fine?  Could have something to do with the fact that when it is someone else's baby you know that they will go home and you can get stuff done the next day.

Scrapbook - Cover Page

I had some time off of work in December, and I used it to get going on my scrapbooks again.  I am currently on my 2009 scrapbook.  I like to do something fun for the front cover page of the book, and I saw these cuts from the Graphically Speaking Cricut Cartridge and thought that they were fitting when paired with the school pictures of the kids.

Are you ready for Valentine's Day?

It seems like we just got done with Christmas, and now it is time to start thinking about Valentine's Day.  If you have not started thinking about it yet and need some inspiration, then be sure to mark January 22nd and 23rd on your calendar for the Valentine's Day Card Blog Hop.

http://tistheseason-hatboro.blogspot.com/

New Product and a Contest!

Have you seen the new scrapbooking easel made by the people from Scrap N Tote?  It is a 12x24 easel that allows space for you to work on a 2 page layout at once.  It also inverts for a photo frame style, which I think would be a great way to prop up layouts for pictures for a blog!

The people from Scrap N Tote are also having a contest right now . . . you could win a Cricut Imagine and 2 cartridges, a Scrap N Tote and a Scrap N Easel!  Second place wins a Gypsy, a Scrap N Tote and a Scrap N Easel.  Third Place will win a Scrap N Tote and a Scrap N Easel.

Contest ends 4/15/11

Donald Duck

My family recently went to Walt Disney World, and my daughter became a HUGE Donald Duck fan while we were there.  I decided to make her this Donald Duck image to hang on her wall.  I used my Cricut Expression so that I could make it really large.  I used the Fit to Page option when I did the first background cut of Donald.  I like this button because then the machine does all of the work of figuring out how big it can make it without running off of the page, and before it starts cutting it tells you the size that it calculated for the cut, so that you can be sure to set the rest of the layers for that same size.

It was like putting a puzzle together when you place all of those little pieces, but I thought it turned out cute.  After I had all of the layers on, I sandwiched the Donald Duck between two pieces of clear contact paper, pressed it down around the edges to seal it and then trimmed away the extra contact paper.  This way Donald is nice and sealed and we don't have to worry about the paper ripping.  This is a great way to laminate things if you do not own a laminating machine.

Here is Donald on my daughter's bedroom wall.  (the darn flash was always right over Donald, and when I did it with no flash it was too dark to see . . . sorry for the not so great photo, but at least you get the idea of how big Donald is.)