Cricut Releases an iPhone App for Design Space

It's ready and waiting for you iPhone users! A new Cricut Design Space app for your phone!

And, there is an update to the Design Space iPad app that adds 3 new features! Hide Contour, Insert Shapes and the camera to project your design onto your project!

Don't wory android users, Cricut is developing android apps as well. Here is a video from Ashish Arora  giving an update on what's happening with Cricut :

Cricut Update Video

Self Closing Treat Box

Once again, I have to say I love my Cricut Explore! A friend sent me a photo of the cutest little box {and you know I have a thing for boxes} and asked me if I could make it. She called it a Self Closing Box and said someone told her it was from Stampin Up but she couldn't find it. So off to Google I went and I found that indeed there were some videos on how to make the box by cutting and scoring by hand. I watched one of the videos made by Linda Parker and then went to work in Design Space. The little box is adorable but what makes it so clever is the way it opens!

You just grab it on each side and squeeze it! And it pops open and when you release it, it closes. All by itself!

The box in the video was huge. You could easily fit gift cards and such in it. But I thought it would be cuter as a smaller treat box. No problem. Once the design was complete and all the score lines and cut lines attached to the base image, I could easily re-size it! This box is just over 2 inches wide.

I used all free shapes in Design Space to make the box. The flower and leaves are from the Flower Shoppe cart. The rolled flower is so easy to make and I clipped the left image since there were five leaves and I only wanted a couple.

If you would like to have the Design Space file, just become a follower of my blog and
leave a comment with your email address and I'll send it out! And if you make any of these little boxes. . .or even big boxes because you can size it to fit your needs, I'd love to see photos!

Yet Another Dollar Tree Cake Carrier!

OK, this is the last one. . .for a while! I'm sure there will be more because I really love using the images from the Suburbia Cricut cart to decorate this Dollar Tree Cake Carriers! For this one, I only added the bow and the pearls to the image. A cute little saying and it was done!

Quick and Easy Floating Frame Wedding Gift

I love that my Cricut allows me to create such great gifts! The young waitress at a restaurant my hubby and I go to often {and by often, I mean almost every week!} for lunch recently got married. We chat with her every time we are there but she's still more of a causal acquaintance. Even so, I wanted to give her something to commemorate her big day.

A floating frame was the perfect gift! I've made lots of floating frames for weddings that we were invited to and lots of variations of the design based on the couple. Usually I use a big 10 x 17 frame. For this gift, I choose a smaller 8.5 x 11 frame. I used the letter "C" from the Regal font that Narelle had split {so easy to cut since she took the time to clean up all the little "bits"} and uploaded it to Design Space. I then added the names. I used the Milkshake font for both names and the wedding date and I used Times New Roman for the last name. {I did use a different font for the "&" as it looked like the "E" in the Milkshake font! }Then I selected all of the images/text and attached them. The Explore cut the vinyl like butter! Once I weeded away the excess pieces of vinyl, I used transfer tape to move the entire design to the glass. In less than one hour, I had the design completed, cut, weeded, applied,  {photographed} and wrapped!

I gave it to her when we went in for our usual Wednesday lunch and she was thrilled! She immediately went to show the others and then was taking pictures with her phone to send!

If you want to make nice projects like this, Narelle has split all the Regal font and has shared her files in our Facebook Group. . .come join us!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/CricutLoversGuide/

Another Dollar Tree Cake Carrier

Had so much fun decorating the top of the other Dollar Tree Cake Carrier that I decided to decorate another!

Once again, I used an image from the Suburbia cart. I did alter it a bit to give the apron a belt and bow and I added the pearls and cupcakes. The cute saying is the Armonioso font. The hot pink and green vinyl are from the Cricut "Brights" Vinyl Sampler pack.

I have one more of these cake carriers and I think I will decorate it too!

Wedding Flower Petal Keepsake

The daughter of our long, long time friends got married a couple of months ago. I kept lots of "things" from the wedding and reception to make keepsakes for the bride {and her mom}. One of the things I kept was roses from the tables at the reception. Once they were dried, I knew I wanted to make a little framed keepsake, but couldn't quite find the materials I wanted to use. Rachel is a more down-to-earth girl and I wanted the keepsake to reflect the colors and textures she used for her wedding. Then, Cricut introduced Printable Fabric!

I purchased a cute little 4 x 4 inch square from at Michaels {only $3.99} and was able to quickly design my project in Design Space. I use a free square and heart and sized and positioned them on the canvas. I added the text using Lavanderia Sturdy font. And then, with the help of my techy son using Gimp, he got the hex color code from her bridesmaid's dress. I inserted the hex color code in the color picker for the square and choose a darker share for the text. Then, it was off to print on my home printer and loaded onto the mat to cut with my Explore. Not only was I able to get the fabric texture for my project, but I was able to get the exact color I wanted!

The fabric cut beautifully! The edges were clean and crisp. It is a nice weight and has an adhesive backing which makes it each to get a smooth application to your projects. I did cut 2 from the one 8.5 x 11 sheet so her mom could have one too!

Then I took a 4 x 4 piece of cardstock and covered part of it with my ATG. I randomly stuck the flower petals to the tape.

And then covered the flowered cardstock square with the printed fabric square and placed them in the frame. The results were too cute. The reflection from the glass distorted the color but in person, it looks cute and you can see the texture of the fabric. I can't wait to give these to the bride and her mom!

And, a little bonus. . .I have he two fabric hearts, from the cutouts, to use for another project! Whatever will I make with them?

Dollar Tree Cake Carrier Gets Dressed Up

My daughter loves to bake and not only do we love that, but so do the people at her office! She often will bake just to try new recipes and take them into to her co-workers. She had been using left-over bakery containers. I found the somewhat elusive cake carriers at Dollar Tree and decided to get her one. But. . . it was so plain!

Never fear. . .a little vinyl and my Cricut Explore took care of that! I logged into Design Space and began searching for images. I found the {almost} perfect image on the Suburbia cart. It was a two layer design but with the slice feature, I was able to make the note pad more prominent. My daughter is a big list maker and always has a grocery list and notes with her recipes!

I also added the pearl necklace. . .just to make it a bit more retro! I found the saying on a kitchen towel set while surfing the net and it was perfect! I was able to use a circle the size of the top of the carrier and plan my design. The Explore cut the vinyl, including the small letters, without a problem. Then it was just a matter of weeding away the unwanted vinyl, using transfer tape and applying the design to the cake carrier.

My daughter loved it and her co-workers got a big kick out of it too! It's amazing what a little vinyl can do to a one dollar item!

Black Pen Variety Pack from Cricut

A big request from Cricut Explore owners has been for good quality black pens to use with the writing feature. Cricut has releases a Variety Pack of black pens today! These packs have been popping up in various Michael's stores for the past weeks, but they have officially been launched on cricut.com today.

The package contains 5 black pens. Two fine point, one medium point and two calligraphy point pens.

And here's a sample of the different pens writing the same sentiment.

The card sentiments from the Anna Griffin carts look great when written with the calligraphy pen!

And with the features of Design Space and the Explore, you can use multiple pens in one project. You can set some of the text to different colors and Design Space will prompt you to change the pen or you can pause your Explore as desired and change the pen. This example is from the Word Collage cart.

You can also use the pens to draw your images. These examples are from the Pretty Packages cart.

Overall, I found the pens to write/draw nicely and having a selection of different pen tips allows more creativity when using the pen feature. And of course, black pens tend to be the color ink I use the most, so having a pack of all black pens makes this a must-have for me!

New Design Space App for the iPhone!

Cricut has done it again! Today they have announced a new iphone app for Cricut Design Space will be coming soon! How exciting for those users who have an iphone!

The iphone app will look and function very similar to the ipad app. But there is one very exciting new feature. . .the use of the camera! You can create your design like usual and then use the camera to show your design on your project!

This is a screenshot of Narelle's design in the iphone app.

And this is how it would look on her wall! Yes, that's her actual wall! Imagine being able to see your design on your actual tile or pillow or tumbler or whatever!

Narelle has been beta testing the iphone app, so go check out her blog for more details!
http://www.thenoncraftycrafter.com/

But what if you don't have an iphone like me? No worries! Cricut has begun development of android apps for Design Space. I don't know when, but they are being developed!

So go forth and Cricut Everywhere!