Melodi's First Birthday

Last Thursday was Melodi's birthday and we had a party for her on Saturday afternoon.  I had fun doing a project with my Cricut that wasn't a layout.  This was also the first time that I used design studio for a major project.

My mom bought Melodi a "Baby's First Birthday" onsie with a cupcake on it so we did a cupcake themed party.

I managed to fit all of the banner pieces on four 12x12 pages, including the frill that went along the top, using Design Studio.  I added letters to each of the pieces in DS to spell out "Happy Birthday Melodi" then backed the pieces using black paper.  On the four blank pendants at the beginning, end, and between words I added smaller black cupcakes.

After hanging the banner we decided to add a large cupcake above the banner.  I used a sharpie to define the frosting lines from the back of the cupcake, and also around the green backing of the dot cuts.

Another LID & Composition Notebook Alteration

I finished up this weeks LID today.  Thankfully it was another one that was easy enough to adjust to my 8x8 size.  I did a spread of Melodi "climbing" the stairs for the first time.  The set of 6 pictures I used really tells the story from beginning to end.  I used my Cricut to create a title tag and some embellishment flowers.  If I had some cute little brads I would have used them in place of the flowers and pearls on the title tag.  Each of the four flowers are different, even if it's in just a little way.

William started his first batch of beer today.  When he was finished with the steps for today he asked for "one of those hard covered books," meaning a composition notebook, to keep track of what he's done in regards to brewing.  I asked if I could decorate it with my Cricut and he said that I could as long as it wasn't crazy.  After some rummaging I found one pretty easily.  I ended up covering it in two brown pieces using my corner cutter to match the corners of the notebook, and two colored strips (one red, one green) along the spine.  It was necessary to use as many pieces because there was no way a 12x12 piece of paper would cover it completely.  I did the center artwork completely with my Cricut.  A couple days ago someone asked in the forum if it was possible to weld letters around a circle, and since then I was really wanting to try it out on something, so this was the perfect opportunity.  I do need to figure out a apostrophe for his name, and if he wants some more embellishments later I'll add those too.  It turned out great and William has already started keeping track of his stuff in it.

Laying It Down (or Layout in Drawing) - LID

I discovered the community (forum / message board) portion of the Cricut site and have been reading through a lot of the posts.  Every week a group does a Layout in Drawing challenge where they post a layout and then everyone makes a page using that specific layout and posts it.  Unfortunately they do 12x12 pages and I do 8x8s so I can't fit as many pictures on each page.  I enjoyed participating in this and look forward to doing so again.

This page is title "Christmas Round 2" because we opened a second round of presents in early January.  Melodi was done with presents on Christmas day so it was great that we were able to do a second round after we received the last of the presents.  I used my Cricut to cut out the title circle and the three poinsettias.  Stickers (I think they're CM) that I've had for years were used for the title.

Crafting Area Makeover

I was in desperate need of an organizational makeover in my crafting area.  My storage solution when I first set up my tables was non-existent.  I was using my entire table top for storage so it was a juggling act to get any space on the table to actually create.  I had a spot for my paper cutter, which after I got my Cricut became a shared space so anytime I wanted to use the Cricut, the paper cutter had to be moved.  All of my stickers, pens, adhesives, and photos were in boxes in the corner of the table, and taking up a lot of space.  My Cricut cartridges sat up against the wall on the opposite end of the table from my machine, and I had 12x12 paper containers sitting off the edge.  I had said that I needed more light and when I had William come look at a layout I was working on he that I really did need more lighting.  Here are the before pictures, you'll have to excuse Melodi, but I didn't actually take before pictures.

Seeing as I was doing as much juggling of stuff while trying to create as I was spending creating it was time to figure out better storage solutions.  Originally I was thinking some sort of bookshelf or self-standing closet, that I could be covered up with fabric, closed with doors, or zip up.  When I mentioned to William that I needed some storage we stopped by the hardware store to look at options.  We ended up deciding on a shelf above my tables.  After returning home to consult the tape measure and William working a couple days, we bought a 11.75in x 97in shelf and 6 brackets.  We also looked at lights, but decided to wait to see what the shelf looked like after it was up.  William cut the shelf into two pieces so that it could wrap around the corner, found the studs, and put up the shelf.  Now that the shelf was up we went back to look at lights and decided on a set of three puck lights, that another light could be added to if needed.

The shelf turned out great! The only thing left to do is tidy up the lighting wires.  Everything has its place which makes it much easier for me to create since I have the table completely opened up.  The only things that live on the table are my Cricut and paper cutter.  My Cricut cartridges, tools, and manuals live on the short side of the shelf above the paper cutter.  This the closest spot to the computer that I have Design Studio loaded on.  in the corner (unaccessable without some work) are my scrapbooks that are a work in progress, but not actively being worked on (wedding, Air Force, high school).  Then we have tools (scissors, markers, adhesive/pen tubs).  The paper (12x12 and 8x8 pads) sat underneath some of the tools but now I have them standing upright within a Costco baby wipes box.  Next is my photo storage box which really only contains rejects from Melodi's book, wedding photos, and some other random photos from other projects (Air Force, Scott's trips).  Then we have a couple 12x12 bins that have paper that is not paper I normally reach for.  One has the paper I've had since I (with my mom) started scrapping, we're talking from the trip my family took to Hawaii in elementary school, maybe junior high.  The other has paper for my wedding and Air Force albums.  I've got some file folders that contain loose leaf paper, scrap paper, and stencils.  On top of these bins I have my sticker files.  Then I have my really current projects (the ones that I am actively working on).  The pink binder is Melodi's baby book (you know, the one that you write in all the firsts, keep track of growth and immunizations, and tell stories), the purple book is Melodi's state book (keeping track of the states that she has been to), and the pink scrapbook is Melodi's first year book (I'm almost at 80 pages, 40 sleeves, complete and just bought more sleeves to insert so that I can finish up the book after Melodi's birthday next month).  Finally, we have my cards bin, that I have all of my note cards in, along with return labels and stamps.

 

It's been great getting to create in my new space because I actually have the space to spread everything out.  I can even have six pages out at a time.  Yeah, my general December pictures are going to take six pages.

Clearance Cartridges

Last night I was looking at the Michaels sales ad to see if there was any paper on sale for my mom and saw that they were having a $9.99 clearance sale on select cartridges.  As a result I headed to Michaels as soon as we (Melodi and I) were up and ready.  I'm glad that they had some, and even happier I didn't try yesterday since they only had two choices.  Today I picked up five cartridges (50 States, Jubilee, Lyrical Letters, Paisley, and Sweet Treats) and decided against several others.

Melodi went down almost two hours early tonight so I had some extra time and was set on determining why I couldn't get all of the cartridges that I own to show up in Design Studio.  I had done a font pack patch when I was getting set up at the end of December which helped with some of the cartridges, but after today I was still missing three.  After consulting the Cricut forums and some other blogs I found that I needed to do a basic DS patch.  So I did the uninstall, download, reinstall and it works!  Now I have access to all of my cartridges in DS.

Haven't done any scrapping this evening, not sure I'll get around to it, but maybe a little later.