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21
Aug
2014

A Handmade Wedding with Cricut Explore

categories: Crafty

Recently, some friends of mine asked me to help out with their wedding decorations. I was in charge of the place cards and the seating chart. They wanted them handwritten – No pressure then!

Making the place cards couldn’t have been easier with the (c/o) Cricut Explore. All I had to do was set the size of the place cards in the Design Room and go. I was using A4 card that matched the colour scheme of the wedding. The Design Room makes it easy, as you can add as many shapes as you can fit on the paper. I was able to fit five on a page and I used the Scoring stylus so the cards were easy to bend. Super simple – my kind of craft!

Then I used Scrabble tiles as the first initial for the place card and then hand wrote the name. I also used the Cricut Explore to for the seating chart so that everything was cut to perfection. I was so pleased with how it all turned out and along with the amazing decorations at the wedding venue, everything looked great. Take a look!

It was such an honour to be a part of such a beautiful day. Everything was lovely, the food was great, the speeches were hilarious and the grooms were very handsome! Congratulations Mark & Ashley!

Disclosure: I was sent the Cricut Explore to review, but as usual, all opinions are my own.

07
Aug
2014

Personalising my iPad with Cricut Explore

categories: Crafty

I have a long list of things I want to do, make and create, but making time for them is tough. So, while we were in between guests last weekend, my OH popped out to the garden centre and I sat down with my (c/o) Cricut Explore, in a bid to personalise my iPad a bit. I had no excuses – the house was clean, the washing was done, food was in, Poppy was walked. I had an idea about what I wanted, well, a few actually. As time was of the essence, I went with the quick and easy option of using some of the images from the Cricut Design Room. I knew I wanted to cover the edge a bit and have some kind of repeating pattern on the back. Plus, I’d never cut the vinyl before, so it was a little bit of a test all round. I settled on a basic border and a rain cloud.

In the design room, you can set your canvas, but unfortunately, they don’t have the iPad Mini, which meant I had to set my own measurements (always a risk!) So the border isn’t perfect. What I’d really like is a border set in the design room, which includes the buttons and camera and cuts them out to. Mine didn’t and I didn’t have time to figure it out (so if you know how, please let me know!) so I just went with this. I love the cloud shape and raindrops – it’s very simple, which is fine for a first attempt. And the beauty of the vinyl is that it can be removed very easily and changed for something else when you fancy a change.

Using the vinyl was surprisingly easy. As I didn’t have a lot of time before our guests arrived, I used the same colour throughout but there are a number of colours available. Now I actually have something on my iPad, giving it a bit of protection, I want to work on something a bit more personal, maybe even designed by me!

Another thing I had on my list, was making some wall art, in the way of a slogan to go in my my office. I’ve been wracking my brains, trying to think of a quote or a slogan that isn’t too cheesy or too long, that will inspire me when I’m lacking in confidence. I’ve yet to find one! However, I did just want to have something small and quick on my computer – after all, I face it every day. This is what I went with:

Hey, I never said I was Shakespeare! (And yes, I realise it’s not straight!) But sometimes I just need a reminder not to give up, no matter how frustrated I am or lacking in self-confidence. It’ll do for now. If you’ve got any suggestions of quotes, phrases or slogans, then let me know!

Disclosure: I was sent the Cricut Explore to review, but as usual, all opinions are my own.

18
Jun
2014

Home Made Cards using the Cricut Explore

categories: Crafty

So I’m not very good with remembering to buy cards for people. Their birthdays are in my Filofax and on my Google calendar, but that’s no guarantee. In theory, I’d either buy them online from an independent maker on Folksy or Etsy or I’d be organised enough to have a card making session, sourcing beautiful card and vintage paper, and have a supply of cards suitable for any occasion. However, neither of these have happened yet and recently, I’ve needed a couple of cards in a pinch. Fortunately, I have a wonderful (c/o) Cricut Explore to hand and this makes cardmaking super quick. Thank goodness!

I needed three cards: A birthday card for my sister (who should’ve been in Canada but came home early), a new baby card (for an early arrival) and a belated thank you card. I always have a supply of cards and various papers, and I saw this post over on A Beautiful Mess and thought it was such a great idea, it could easily work with cards.

The birthday card was for my sister has spent most of the last year in Canada. I printed off a map of Banff National Park, where she was throughout winter and trimmed it to size. I hopped onto the Cricut Design Room and typed up the words that I wanted cut. I love how easy the design room is to navigate and that you can save everything for future use. It was a little bit fiddly, but to be honest, I was in my element, cutting and sticking the old fashioned way!

I never know what to buy for a new baby. I’m not a fan of the stereotypical blue for boys and pink for girls, especially as my favourite colour is blue! So I reused this lovely yellow paper bag as the background and cut out New Baby on the Cricut Explore. For the Thank You card, I was also testing the Explore as I wanted to use this very delicate wrapping paper. It cut it really well and it didn’t rip, which I was really pleased with. Then I used washi tape to make sure that the letters were straight when I stuck them on. Next time I make some cards, I’m going to add some embellishments and jazz them up a bit more. I think I need to look on Pinterest a bit for some ideas. And plan in advance. That would most definitely help!

I know these are just basic projects and that the Cricut Explore has way more possibilities – I’m just trying to pin down some ideas in my head before I test them out! And I could do with a week of just crafting and nothing else! How about you? What have you made lately?

Disclosure: I was sent the Cricut Explore to review, but all views are my own, honest opinions. For more information, see my Disclosure page.

25
Apr
2014

#Exploretheseasons with the new Cricut Explore

categories: Crafty, Paper Love

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the day in a lovely part of London at the launch of the new Cricut Explore. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the walk from the tube was lovely and the view from the building was breathtaking.

After a minute or two to catch my breath (I was late thanks to the Tube taking forever. Very glad my daily commute involves walking downstairs in my slippers!) it was on to the presentation. The CEO, Ashish Arora, spoke about the thinking behind the new Cricut Explore. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I want to make something but I’m not the neatest cutter, especially if something is a little fiddly. Well, the Cricut Explore will cut just about any material you’ll need, from tracing paper all the way through to denim and leather. These butterflies below show (and I couldn’t get them all in the picture) the huge range of materials you can cut with the new Explore.

Not only that, but it’s really simple to change the cut setting on the Explore. You simply turn a dial to choose your material, which is much easier than it’s been before. Not only that, but if you want to design your own project and cut it, you can with the new Design Room. You can save your project, just like all the other projects that are all there ready for you to make. There were lots of examples all around the room of the kind of things you could make, including a beautiful dress.

After the presentation, which included unpacking the Explore (which was pretty exciting!), meeting American bloggers Vintage Revivals and The TomKat Studio and more inspiration from Ashish, we were able to have a go ourselves. I’ve only used a Cricut Mini before and it’s pretty safe to say that my mind exploded. We were given plain tote bags to jazz up however we wanted to. I wanted a lightening bolt type design and a quick search of images threw up a lovely cloud and lightning. I cut out two layers of glitter iron on transfer. It took less than 5 minutes to cut and about a similar amount of time to iron on.

I’m pretty impressed with it and am seriously thinking about a few t-shirt designs. There’s so much you can do with the Explore – the whole day, my mind was whirling with ideas. But there was more! Lots and lots of great food, including humungous cupcakes, and manicurists who gave my nails a lovely coat of bright red polish.

It was such a brilliant and inspirational day. I can’t wait to get my hands on the Explore and get my make on!

Huge thank you to everyone who made the day so much fun! I