Clearly Challenged (Clearly Inspired Challenge #14)

Clearly iStamp has a challenge each month on the first Friday. Participants have until the first Friday of the next month to complete the challenge and post a link to a project related to the theme. They love for you to use Clear Dollar Stamps if you have them, but they are not required. The winner is randomly picked, and great prizes are offered!

The theme this month is Birthday Bash. According to the site .... The challenge will close on July 1 and the winner will be announced, along with the next challenge, on July 2nd.


After going through the CDS stamps in my stash, I decided to work with a set that I've not used yet. Critter Log is super cute! I love this little set. The bunny was precious, so that's where the project started. Christian Birthdays was also used on this card.


Isn't he adorable?! He is, of course, colored with Copics and mounted on SU paper - night of navy, certainly celery, and basic gray.
















The night of navy paper was stamped with VersaMark using the one of the stamps from the Leaf Impressions set. The base is creamy caramel and has been embossed with the Cuttlebug. The brads are from my stash.





















The sentiment is mounted on night of navy, as well, and the ribbon on the card was from the SAB ribbon bundle, I believe.










Tomorrow, I will show another project that I worked on this weekend.

Have a wonderful Saturday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow! :)


~*Shell*~

Projects and Plans

What was your take on yesterday's challenge? Have you tried it yet? I hope that if you haven't, that you will try it this weekend or when you get a few minutes to craft.

When I began creating this card, I knew that I wanted to use my Cricut and SCAL. I had a 'vision' of the pieces I wanted to use. So, I set to work. I wanted a red circle (or part of one), a blue star, and white wavy lines. As I continued the design in my mind, I decided, that I wanted another white star to be the 'image' layer.

Here's how the pieces were placed in SCAL to be cut ....



The paper was put on the mat like this ...




This allowed the pieces to be cut at the same time and with smaller pieces of paper. I would have used scraps if I had scraps that were a little bigger than the pieces I was cutting. Instead, the pieces used were about 6x6.

It's been a while since I've used eyelets for a project, so I used some wonderful stars on this one. The stars were placed on the corners of the white sentiment layer. The tool that I used was from Eyelets Etc out of Denver, CO. I found it at CHA last year. It has nibs to cut the holes and to set the eyelets. Pretty cool little tool.





The set used on this card was from SU. It's a great patriotic set. The sentiment came from the patriotic sentiment set, also from SU.







The edges of the card were brushed with the black ink pad, and the edges of the blue star were brushed with a little bit of white craft ink.





The image was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with Copics.







So, there's my take on the patriotic challenge. I can't wait to check out what you do.




What's coming up? What's the new plan? Beginning Monday, I will begin 'theme days.' Each day will have a specific plan.

Monday - Mojo Monday...what gave me my inspiration this last week or weekend.

Tooty Fruity Tuesday - Tutorials (for now, on SCAL)

Use Those Thingies Thursday - A challenge day

Free File Friday - a free .jpg file will be offered each Friday for you to use


I hope this will be beneficial for my readers. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. If you have questions about SCAL, the Cricut, or stamping, I'd love to address them here on the blog.


Let me know what you think - about the project and about the plans.

The plans are exciting for me! I hope they are for you, as well!


Have an awesome Friday night and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!!!

~*Shell*~





****** Just a note - the images on this page WERE resized *before* being put on here, but for some reason are HUGE on some computers (including mine ....). They small on Photobucket, and that's all I can do with them. I'm sorry.

"Use Those Thingies" Thursday Challenge

Recently, Memorial Day was recognized in the US. Although some of the details about the holiday's origins are debatable, usmemorialdayhistory.org has some of history about the holiday if you're interested in finding out about it. Because the holiday honors our fallen military heroes, I've decided that the first challenge that I'm presenting is Celebrate Our Military and Our Freedom.

Choose one of our military branches -










Or .... choose something patriotic like the US flag -







to create a card or project. Honor our freedom; honor our troops; honor our country.

I will show another take on this challenge tomorrow, but my example tonight is a card that I made my son some time ago. He is a US Marine, and I'm proud to honor the US Marine Corp by making a card with them in mind.





Post a link in your comments! I'd love to see what you make for this challenge. I will comment on each and every project posted.


Have a wonderful Thursday and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow. I plan to spend my tomorrow in the Haven!!!! :)



~*Shell*~

Tooty Fruity Tuesday (a day late ...)

I'm so sorry about missing yesterday. Upon waking for the day, I had a migraine. I took the afternoon to rest and intended to do the tutorial in the evening. Unfortunately, a salesman came by around 6 PM, and the presentation - scheduled to last 90 minutes - lasted 3.5 hours. I LITERALLY *told* him to leave on 4 separate occasions. Yikes.


Anyway.... today, we'll start with the basics.

What does SCAL offer the Cricut user?

From the Craft Edge Website ...

• New ways to manipulate ond organize objects including Select All, Group and Ungrouping
• Break Apart feature to ungroup outlines in fonts and imported files.
• Drawing Tools to draw and edit shapes
• Add multiple pages
• Use layers to organize objects within a page
• Modify text more easily
• Auto tracing feature to automatically convert images for cutting
• Show rulers using inches or centimeters
• Additional shapes added in the Shapes Library
• Works with the Cricut Personal, Cricut Expression, Cricut Create & Cricut Cake Machines^TM
• Works with your installed True Type fonts
• Works with thousands of free True Type fonts
• Works with hundreds of free True Type Dingbat fonts
• Import SVG files to allow you to use your own custom artwork
• Weld overlapping letters and shapes together
• Select styles, including Shadow and Blackout, to change the look of your letters and shapes
• No special cartridges required***(machine must have a cartridge engaged in order to cut)
  
• Cut additional shapes from the "Sure Cuts A Lot" Library.
• WYSIWYG Interface - What you see is what you cut
• Available for Windows and Macintosh OSX
• Save your design layouts, so you can save your work to allow you to make changes over time

My thoughts ....
SCAL opens the doors of creativity for me. It allows me to cut what I want to cut without the boundaries of images on a cartridge. I can cut images from the web, from pictures on my phone or camera, or any picture I can get onto my computer screen in some way from ANY program.

What does SCAL look like?

You can download a trial version of the program to find out for yourself, but here's a screen shot for you from my system. This is what the program looks like the first time you open it.





Each panel can be moved around the screen to customize it to your preferences. Here's a shot of how I like to work with my panels.





On this screen, you can see that I've moved the main 'properties' panel to the left side of the screen, as well as adjusting the view of the mat to 'fit to window.' Changing the view of the mat is done under the 'View' menu at the top of the screen. To move a panel, simply click on the title bar, and drag the panel to where you'd like it to be.


Here, the title bar of the 'Properties' panel is blue and ready to be moved, if I so wish.


Below the view of the mat are 2 other panels. These are the "Font Table" and the "Shape Library." The font you have selected will be shown in the Font Table. You can type each letter or click on the letter block on the screen to input the letters you wish to cut.

SCAL comes with a nice little library of basic shapes.





Use the drop-down menu to select the different categories of 'basic shapes' in the library. There are categories like Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, Newborn, and such. The offering is very usefufl for the basics so that you don't have to search out an example of each of them.




These are some basics of SCAL. I will get into more of the basics next time. If there's something you'd like to know how to do, please let me know. I want to make this useful for YOU. There is so much to learn with SCAL, and so much it offers, that I could easily get ahead of myself with the tutorials. I want to start as basic as possible for myself and others to have a reference for the program for some time to come.


That's a wrap for the first installment of the Tooty Fruity Tuesday (Wednesday ..... or almost Thursday, I guess.... :( ) Tutorials. On Thursday, prepare for a challenge!! Are you up to it?? :)



Have an awesome day (whatever day this is!!!) and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.

~*Shell*~

The Best Laid Plans ....

Yeah .... I know it's not Tuesday. My first installment of Tooty Fruity Tuesday got delayed. I'm so sorry about that. Tutorial coming tonight - as well as an explanation. Check back tonight! :)