"Panda"monium!

Not sure exactly why but lately I find myself wanting to create things with pandas on them...these origami fold bags were made to be donated to my mom's senior group for sale at their craft fair fund raiser last month. Same tote bag I made earlier this year with a few changes.

I used cardstock for the handles instead of ribbon this time, and am much happier with how it looks. Also changed panda's face a little, I think he looks better now too. For the flower, I used the same sakura cutfile I had created earlier for the tag on our Cricut Club bag swap last month. Patterned cardstock is from My Little Shoebox, Aiko collection. Everything came together pretty quickly so I was able to make several of these in a short amount of time.

Then in addition to the Hello Kitty Post It Note Holders, I also made a bunch of panda ones. Super duper quick and easy...these are part of the Kyoto Kuties free SVG files shared by Jin over at Under A Cherry Tree. Sigh...I think mom was a little disappointed with all my little quick and easy projects, but at least I know everything did sell. Next year I promise to come up with something better, mom.

And here's yet another panda project....found this cute guy on the internet and couldn't resist creating another panda cutfile.

Used Make the Cut to create the cutfile and cut him in vinyl to decorate a cup for a special friend. Oopsie! As you can see I didn't do a good job of aligning the black vinyl onto the white...see the white showing through by his feet?  Cut panda one more time using cardstock to create a matching tag for my gift.
Got one more panda project to share, but will save that for another day...

Hello Kitty...Hello Latte...

When it came my turn to "share a project" couple months ago at our Cricut Club meeting, I was lost for ideas and my mind drew a blank. Panic set in the week before the meeting when I still hadn't come up with any ideas. It definitely had to be quick and easy since I wanted to do 17 of them...then I remembered the cute panda post it note holder my pal Patti had sent me a while back. Patti had used a free SVG file shared by Jin of Under A Cherry Tree and her Silhouette to cut her post it note holder. I decided to try something similar, but with Cricut cartridges and Design Studio.

Using Cricut Design Studio and the George cartridge, I welded squares and rectangles for the body of the post it note holder as well as circles and ovals to create Hello Kitty's neck, arms and feet. Hello Kitty cartridge for her head. The original plan was to have them all made and ready for giving, but due to computer technical difficulties, I barely had all the pieces cut in time for the meeting. As a result this project turned into a make and take and everyone had to assemble their own...sorry, ladies!
After the meeting I cut and put together several more of these kitties to donate to my mom's senior citizen group for their craft fair. Lol, she wasn't too pleased with these at first..."what will people do with this?" But she told me later that they sold well...everyone loves Hello Kitty, right?

And finally... (yes, finally) I recently graduated from my dumb phone to a smart phone. Dh decided it was the better way for me to access the internet on my netbook. Well, truthfully, being that I'm not very tech savvy, I was more excited about how I wanted to try decorating my phone with vinyl than learning all the features of my new fangled phone....I tossed around the idea of creating a vinyl Hello Kitty decal to put on the back of my phone but....

...LOL! Instead of "Hello Kitty" I decided to go with "Hello Latte"!

 



Having Fun with Vinyl

 

Thought the Pucca cut looked so cute on Patti's card that I decided to try a few more of her, this time in vinyl. Found an image of Pucca with her boyfriend, Garo that I liked and rendered it into a cutfile in MTC. Unfortunately my stash of vinyl is limited to only a few basic colors so Pucca and Garo's faces had to be very very pink!

 Adhered them to a plastic scrapbook supply case and personalized it with Patti's name...

 

 Also tried the same Pucca and chopsticks image that I used on Patti's card in vinyl and adhered her onto a clear red acrylic cup. I used Oracal 651 and Scotchcal 220 vinyl for my projects since these are permanent vinyls which differ from most of the vinyls typically sold in scrapbooking stores which are usually only intended for "indoor use".  The permanent vinyls have a more durable adhesive on them which can withstand higher temperatures and detergents and therefore are more suitable for cars, windows, cups and food storage items that need to be washed.

Having successfully finished Patti's cup and case, I was feeling pretty confident and decided I was ready to try a more "permanent" project...decorating my netbook!  I had been wanting to do this for quite a while but was always too afraid that I'd mess up...LOL, everything else can be dumped if I made a mistake, but I wouldn't be able to throw away my netbook...!

 

 I started by drawing an image of my doggie Latte...just couldn't find a cute image of a Maltese that I liked so finally decided to draw my own...and saved it as a jpeg image. Used MTC (Make the Cut) to render it into a cutfile and had my Silhouette Cameo do the cut in vinyl. Happily it turned out just as I hoped...it brings a smile to my heart and reminds me of my little doggie everytime I use my netbook!

 And finally, here's a pic of our little Latte (minus her top knot)...haven't posted a photo of her in quite awhile, but she's the reason for the white doggie you see in many of my card projects created for dh and dd.

 

 

My First Vinyl Project

Last year, for our Cricut Club holiday Secret Santa gift swap, one of the talented gals, Michele F., decorated one of those clear re-usable plastic cups that are all the rage right now with a super cute Hello Kitty vinyl decal she had cut with her Cricut. Totally inspired by Michele's adorable cup, I went out and bought several sheets of vinyl and all kinds of plasticware to embellish.

But it wasn't till I was trying to think of something to send dd for Valentines Day that I finally decided it was time to learn how to cut vinyl with my Cricut. So after watching tons of video tutorials on youtube and lots of advice and encouragement from Michele, I finished my first vinyl project. The cutting party was easy... Cricut cut through the vinyl very smoothly and easily. By using a medium pressure setting and blade depth of 3, Cricut cut through the vinyl only, leaving the backing intact for easier removal of the cut piece from the backing. I used the wedding cake cut from the Sweethearts cartridge and doves and filigree heart cuts are from the Wedding Solutions cartridge.

 For the cover, I did a monogram, created on Make the Cut using  CK Calligraphy and Baar Sophia fonts. I learned alot about creating with vinyl by doing this project, but I there's still so much more I need to learn!

Here's the finished cannister with some "starter cash" that I sent off for dd and her fiance's Valentine surprise. They're busy planning their wedding and are learning how expensive weddings can be. I thought this might be a cute way for them to save up their pocket change for their "wedding fund"...a penny saved is a penny earned, right?