Guest Designer Tuesday!

Welcome to Guest Designer Tuesday

at Cooking With Cricut!

Our special Guest Designer this week is none other than Charlotte from A Little Bit of Detail.  Charlotte is a talented crafter and an elementary school teacher.  She is showcasing the Cricut Quarter Note cartridge today.

I am so excited and honored to be the guest designer this week at Cooking With Cricut.  When I received the invitation, I was shocked and had to read it a second time.  WOW!  I could not believe this super talented group of designers wanted me to be their guest!! This is a great honor.  And to all great chefs at CWC I say, “Thank you, so very much”. 

One of my greatest loves is music.  I especially love opera and jazz.  I enjoy almost any kind of music and love to read about music history.  I have B.S. in music education and a M.A. in early childhood education.   I am a public school kindergarten teacher in a fabulous school district.  I serve on the Alabama Education Association Board of Directors, and I am a past member of the National Education Association Board of Directors.  I am an advocate for public education employees and the children we serve.  I am driven by a passion for the fine arts, and work hard for their place in our schools.  In my kindergarten class, I incorporate the fine arts in everything.

As one who is left handed, right brained, I have spent my life involved in making things.  Sewing, pottery, and paper crafts are my favorites.

When I first saw the Quarter Note cartridge, I fell in love with it.  It is gorgeous and can be used in so many ways.  The images are beautiful. It has a fabulous font, and wonderful phrases.  If you visit my blog, you will see several more projects from Quarter Note. 

The card I made is 5"x5".  All of the papers I used are from K&Co. with the exception of the gold paper.  It is from AC Specialty.  The flowers are fabric and are from Prima.  I just love the flourishes on the card.  And they were on the clearance rack at Michael's.  (Wish I had bought more.)  And lastly, the two ribbons are from my stash of long ago.  I just love the sweet romantic look of the card.

WOW . . . such amazing detail and what a beautiful card!  Thanks again, Charlotte, for your continued support of Cooking With Cricut -- we love seeing what you cook up each week.  

Please take the time to go over to Charlotte's blog and show her some crafting "love!" See you back here tomorrow for our weekly challenge. You won't want to miss it!

~ Jen

MTC and Cricut Settle

Here is a close up of the butterfly.

http://www.mypapercrafting.com/2011/03/mtc-and-cricut-settle.html

Here is a layout I created that was also published in the Bug Magazine.

I used the following cartridges to complete

Stamping, 

Quarter Note, 

Picturesque, 

CM Cheerful Seasons, 

Elegant Cakes

Plus I used my Gypsy.

So now on to another topic.

As many of you in the crafting – cutting community know, Provo Craft (PC) filed suit against The owners of Make The Cut Software (MTC) for copyright infringement.

That lawsuit has been settled. We are still waiting to get an official statement on the Direction of Make The Cut from its owners.

There is a LOT of buzz and this is an emotionally charged issue. At this point I just want to make it clear that Make The Cut works with several other electronic cutters aside from the Cricut. As such, I will continue to have my affiliate program in place at PaperCraftgingWorld.com.

I must also in good conscience make it clear that the continued and future use of MTC in conjunction with Cricut products is unclear. I personally do not warrant the software and its current or future capabilities. Please be informed and make your own decision based on this current information.

As I learn more information, I will be sure to share it with all of you.

Make The Cut Settles Cricut Software Lawsuit With Provo Craft

By Nancy Nally on March 11, 2011
Documents filed in US District court on Wednesday reveal that Make The Cut has reached a settlement with Provo Craft in the lawsuit over 3rd party Cricut software created by Make The Cut. Provo Craft had sued Make The Cut in April 2010 alleging that Make the Cut’s 3rd party software for Cricut machines illegally circumvented copyright protection on Provo Craft’s products and violated copyright on the company’s Cricut Design Studio software code.
Provo Craft had appeared particularly to be targeting in the suit the recently introduced “back-up” feature in the Make The Cut software, which allowed users to create back-ups of their Cricut cartridges. (The feature was only available to users for a two week period in March 2010 before being pulled from distribution as a result of the litigation.)
Terms of the settlement were stipulated to the court in joint documents filed by the companies Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, which had been hearing the case. Under the settlement, Make The Cut is permanently and immediately disallowed from selling software that is compatible in any way with Cricut machines. The company is also required to destroy all copies of the software’s source code.
For the existing software, Make The Cut also is required to take measures within 30 days to disable the 600 copies that were sold of the software with the cartridge back-up feature. Make The Cut is ordered to render these copies of the software completely non-functional until these users update their software to a copy that eliminates the back-up function.
Provo Craft also recently filed suit against another 3rd party Cricut software creator, Craft Edge, in an attempt to stop distribution of their Sure Cuts A Lot product.

The above information was from ScrapbookUpdate.com

As I create my cutting files, I will continue to offer them in the .MTC file extension for those that will continue to use MTC in conjunction with their electronic cutters. I will of course also continue to have my files available in the SVG format among the other formats as well.

Have a wonderful day,

Melin

Day 6–25 Days of Cricut (Crafting ) Holiday Fun FREE Files

Happy Monday crafters!

Hope you all had an enjoyable and productive holiday weekend. My neighborhood is looking so festive. Several neighbors have their outdoor decorations up and it looks so nice in the evening.

Today’s project is for the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog. This week over at FCCB our challenge was all about gifts. We needed to make a gift or gift packaging.

So here is my take on the challenge:

I made this gift box and matching gift card holder. The base of the box and the gift card holder are made from one sheet of cardstock! Gotta love that! The directions for making these is below. I have also put the directions on a pdf document so you can easily download and save them :-)

Be sure to head over to FCCB and join in the challenge this week! Some wonderful prizes are up for grabs.  You can also get some more great holiday inspiration from the super talented design team!  GO HERE

For my box decorations:

• The French Horn is from the Quarter Note Cartridge.
• The Present is From Christmas Cheer
• The Rejoice Tag and For You Tag are digi stamps I created.
• I embossed the French horn and present with Gold Embossing powder. Simple yet really pretty.
• I made a simple “belly band” that slides of the gift card holder. This is just a .75” strip of paper wrapped around. Tight enough so it won’t slip, yet loose enough for the recipient to easily remove it.

So here are some directions for making this gift set. I have the original directions on my SCRAPBOOKEDEN.COM  so I am copying them over here for you today!

Bag and Gift Card Tutorial

Box Instructions

Supplies:

• Scor Pal or scoring blade or other scoring tool.

• 12 x 12 Cardstock

• Scissors

• Adhesive

• Circle Punch, Tag Punch or Other Punch as desired.

• Corner Rounder

• Bone Folder

• Patterned paper and embellishments as desired.

Step #1: Cut your cardstock 9” x 12”

Set the 3” strip aside. You will use this for making the gift card holder.

Step #2: With the 12” side of your cardstock across the top, score at 4”, 5-1/2”, 9-1/2” and 11”.

Step #3: With the 9” side of your cardstock across the top, score at 2”, 3”, and 8”        

Step #4: Cut out all the striped areas as shown in the diagram.

Step #5: With your scissors, cut on all the red lines. (Refer to diagram) When done properly your piece should look like the photo below. Note: photo is flipped and turned from the diagram...sorry for any confusion.

Step #6: Round corners on the two main wide flaps (This is optional).

Step #7: Using your Circle Punch, or key hole or tag punch or any desired, punch the holes for your handles. Do this step BEFORE you adhere your box together. 

You can line them up and do them at the same time so your holes match up.

Step #8: Apply adhesive to one of the large bottom panels.

Step #9: Crease all score lines with your bone folder and assemble your box.

Step #10: Decorate your box as desired.

Gift Card Holder

Step #1:  Taking your 3” x 12” piece of paper, score at 4”, 6” and 8”.  Crease all your folds with a bone folder.

Create a pocket in the center and adhere the outer edges.

Cut the middle fold. This is where the gift card will slide in and hold in place.

NOTE: Please click each link THEN check out once! Otherwise your IP address may get blocked and you may not be able to download all the files.

This is a picture of the box with "My Version of a French Horn Cutting File".

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to come by and share in a little holiday crafting fun with us. We sincerely appreciate it.  Please be sure to let all your crafting buddies know about our fun!  We are wanting to share this with as many crafters as possible!  Thank you so much!