Imagine a Spring Bouquet!

Hey Ya'll,
It's the Sassy Dude here again from The Cricut Couple.  For those of you who don't see our blog that often, it's been a challenging couple of months and during this time, my Gypsy had to go in for a tune up, so I had to get creative real quick to meet this deadline as I LOVE my Gypsy... So... This was a fun project to welcome Spring using the Cricut Imagine, Audrey Imagine Art Cartridge, Mother's Day Bouquet Cricut Seasonal Cartridge and Serenade Solutions Cricut Cartridge.

For this project, I started with a white 12" x 16" Canvas.  To prepare the canvas, there are a couple of tools you will need to make it like this one, but you can paint the canvas or design it in anyway that you want for your background.

I used a set of clear stamps that have a flourish design, a large clear block and a VersaMark pad.  I placed the clear stamps on the block in a random pattern and inked it with the VersaMark pad.  The pictures didn't turn out showing this technique because the VersaMark is clear, but you simply stamp over the canvas in a random pattern.  This builds your base for your inking.  An extra tip is to use a large book under the canvas it it's already stretched over the wood so that you can get a good impression with your stamps.

I used a light blue ink with a makeup wedge sponge and rubbed it across the canvas first to mimic brush strokes.  I then used a craft sponge and pounced the lime green and then the pink all over the canvas.  You can see in the detail shot how it looks close up.  The VersaMark collects more of the ink and makes the flourish design stand out, but it's still very mute and makes a very nice airy background.  Since this is a pre-treated canvas, I let it dry overnight so that everything else would stick to it well.

For the next step, I used the Imagine with the Audrey Cartridge plugged in.  I selected the scalloped circle from the built in designs on the Imagine machine and flood filled it with this yellow damask background.  I printed and cut this on textured white card stock.

I centered the scalloped circle on the top of the canvas.  I used tacky glue on the back to make sure that this stuck securely to the canvas.  While this dried, I went back to the imagine for the rest of the cuts.

I used the Mother's Day Bouquet Cartridge with the Audrey Cartridge to make all of the flowers.  I started with the larger ones picking random designs, filling them with random patterns from Audrey and just had fun picking lots of different things.  They all coordinate so well that you really can't go wrong with it.

As I went along, the flowers became smaller.  I started with 3.00 in height and worked my way down to 1.50 in height.

I then selected some leaves from this cartridge as well.  I simply filled them with either green patterns from Audrey or used the greens in this cartridge's color scheme.

I used a basic white card stock without texture for the flowers.  Once this had all finished, I used the Serenade Cartridge to cut the vase and butterflies.

The vase is cut at a height of 7.00 and the butterflies and all layers are cut at a height of 2.50 without using the shadow feature.  All patterns were also filled from the Audrey cartridge.

Hopefully you can see in this picture how I used the 3-D adhesive.  I used 1/8" strips.  I layered three in the center, two heading towards the outside and one on the ends.  This way, when it's added to the canvas, it has a curve to it like a vase.

Once that's all done, simply peel and stick it to the canvas in the center bottom.  You can see here that the yellow background gives a surround for the placement of the flowers.

You can see in this picture that I just put together random flower layers to create the blossoms.  Each are put together with a brad.  Some of the petals were curled around a pen to curve the petals.  I made center brads with the I-Top and used gem brads for the centers of the smaller blossoms.  I then placed them around on the canvas.  It's hard to see in the picture, but I numbered the blossoms were I wanted them to be.  I put a number on the canvas and on the back of the flowers.  Then sat them aside and arranged my leaves and glued them down.  Once I had half of the leaves where I wanted them, I started adding flowers.  When all flowers were placed, I went back in and added leaves.

Once it was all put together, I added a ribbon bow the to top of the vase as it would be in a floral arrangement.  I then added some stickles here and there to highlight the flowers.

It was such a long winter and this project really made it feel more like springtime!  Thanks so much Sheila, for letting me design for you again.  This was a real treat!  We love to hear your comments and would really love for you to check out our blog at http://cricutcouple.blogspot.com/.  Welcome Spring!  Hope you all have a wonderful season!  Most Sincerely,  Bobby

You Take The Cake ~Cricut Imagine~

You Take The Cake

Hey all! This is Leah from Beeing Creative and Feeling Cherry and today is my very first day at She's a Sassy Lady! I am excited to be a part of the team here and look forward to sharing projects of all types with you. Today I have for you my very first project using the Cricut Imagine! After reading so much out there about Provo Craft's newest toy release, I was not too sure what I was getting into. Now after getting to know this new machine, I am pretty excited about it! I hope to share some Imagine insight with you, somehow to's and maybe take the guess work out of the machine for you guys.

Now my first tutorial is all about the printing part of the Imagine. We all know it's a die cut machine on steroids but there are some neat possibilities with the printing part of it. This sweet card (for my husband on Valentine's Day) comes from the Yummy cartridge. Now we all know that you can print images, how I think of it is printing something more like what you see on a greeting card from the store. You can print a single layer image or cut in layers like I did here. You can change to colors/patterns of each layer but for this example, I would have lost the words on here had I changed the color. So I went with cutting in layers what was shown on the cartridge.

There are many different settings for the Imagine machine but the first thing I really noticed was being able to print in Draft Quality or Best Quality. When you first are getting used to the machine, I say to save the ink and use Draft Quality!

Hit the Menu button and go to Settings.

On the left side you have some options, the second is the print quality, choose Draft Quality.

Now here is something I had not seen online. There are some shapes saved on the Imagine without any carts put in. I chose the very first one. The pencil on the top left on the highlighted image is how you alter the image (change colors, patterns, sizes, etc.)

There is not an option for a pattern to use since no cartridge is in the machine but there are some plain colors. I chose this blue and printed in Draft Quality.

This photo shows you the 3 layered images and the blue background as printed in Draft Quality

And here is the card all dolled up! You can of course print in Best Quality and the image will stand alone but why not print in Draft Quality, save some ink and spruce up the images yourself!

I used a paint brush and distress inks to water color my cupcake. I love how it turned out and how you can really make it any color you want! I used Spun Sugar for my frosting but the very slight print behind it still shows up. I added some Crackle Accents to the cherry on top. You can also see what Distress Inks do to the blue background and the pink piece.

I used Broken China to give some color to the blue die cut and then clear embossed with Background Basics: Hearts by Papertrey Ink. After that I used some Faded Jeans distress ink and made sure to whip off anything that might have been over the embossed hearts. I used only Versamark ink the stamp the kraft card base.

Now the wording on here still needed something so I used an embossing pen to draw over the sentiment, You Take, and embossed with clear embossing powder. I also used the pen to add some embossed dots to the piece. The Cake was kept as is with some blue and brown distress inks on the corners.

I hope this gives you a ton of ideas how to make Draft Quality printing work for you on the Imagine machine. I love that you can still get something printed but you can take it a step further in making it your own!
I hope you enjoyed my first project, thanks for spending time with me.