RATIONALIZING A LITTLE LOVE AFFAIR (LONG LIVE THE CUPCAKE!)

I have been on a diet...kind of. Really, it's more like a meal plan with a limited intake of all things delicious. So, a recent decision has been made to exchange my meal plan for one with a philosophy of "moderation in all things...food related." I shall share with you how I arrived at this decision.

Cupcakes are the rage nowadays. Everybody is decorating them. Everybody is eating them. There are currently several shows on television dedicated to the subject of cupcakes. They are a personally satisfying option to eating an entire cake. This means one can still take the pounds off without feeling deprived.

Furthermore, I love working with my Cricut Cake machine. The Cricut Cake machine is so versatile and can be used to decorate all things pastry, cookie, or cake (cupcake that is). I can develop my creative talents decorating cupcakes and receive a small but scrumptious reward at the end! There is no need to ever feel guilty about cheating on my diet because it is not really cheating. Cupcakes are a part of my very own specially balanced diet.

I will exercise daily and eat as many green veggies, whole grain sprouts, and super foods as it takes to be healthy, as long as I can whip up a batch of cupcakes and decorate them with my Cricut Cake machine. I'll share them with my friends and neighbors and save one delicious morsel of beautifully crafted cupcake goodness for me.

This week, be sure to check out Crafty Kimber's cartridge exploration of the Spring Holiday Cards, Mother's Day Bouquet, Smiley Cards cartridges. As always, I wish you well in your crafting adventures.

**Header project made by Jill Webster and Sue Helfrich using the Birthday Cakes cartridge.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

FEATURED PROJECTS

MESSAGE BOARD HIGHLIGHTS

This week's highlighted threads are:

• Sisters Photo Tile
• Tiny Dancer
• Sweet 16
• Glam Rock Baby Layout
• Snow Much Fun
• Beach Fun Layout with Pack Your Bags

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

Name: L. Grace Lauer
About: My name is Grace and I am a mother of two, and a wife to a handsome hubby. I have been scrapbooking for eighteen years and when introduced to the Cricut about four years ago, fell in love. Today I use my Cricut for scrapbook pages, cards, altered items, wall décor, faux painting, baking, and school projects for my kids. It has revolutionized my crafting experience. I love all things that glitter as well as things that are detailed. I hope you like what you see and maybe it will inspire you as others have inspired me.

Grace's Project: Lock and Key Card

YOUR NOTABLE TIP

Today's tip comes from helpful message board member Narelle (GirlfromOz). Thanks for the clever tip!

Q. "I have one of the older Cricut machines. How do I duplicate a cut on this machine to cut through heavier materials (not repeat but cut in the same spot)? Using higher pressure and blade depth 6 doesn't always work."

A. "If it's the original Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter there is no multi-cut feature, but you can get the blade to go back to the original position so you can cut again (provided you didn't move your blade to a different spot on the mat to start with). Do your first cut, then press Load Paper (not Unload Paper). The blade will return to its original spot and you can press Repeat Last and Cut."

CARTRIDGE EXPLORATION

This week has been cram-packed with crafts. I'm making cards, bracelets, name badges, and wood projects! I'm planning an event in a few weeks and I like to make all the fun things myself. For example, the theme of my event is masquerade, so I took feathers and green flower tape and made myself some feathered pens. I bought some masks to decorate with feathers and jewels to adorn the tables. However, even with all this preparation, I've made time to explore some new cartridges. This week I tackled the Spring Holiday Cards, Mother's Day Bouquet, and Smiley Cards cartridges.

Spring Holiday Cards is a seasonal cartridge with thirty readymade cards, ten solid backgrounds for each of the cards, plus four different envelops, two favor boxes, and four fun shape seals (heart, clover, bunny, and flower). Some of the readymade card sayings are: "Queen of my Heart," "You're me Lucky Charm," "Rain Rain Go Away," "You Crack Me Up," "Happy Spring," and "Cute as a Bug." This cartridge provides cards for Easter, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day. Each of these designs are interchangeable with envelops and seals. Croppin Cassie from the message board used one of the box cut outs and created this adorable project (see pic or click here).

Mother's Day Bouquet is full of flower shapes. You can cut nine different types of leaves, a round circle, and forty different flower shapes. Create your own combination of flower shapes, layer them on top of each other, then add them to your project. This is simple and easy way to add some 3-D to your projects. At first, I was a bit stuck on what to do with this cartridge. Then I did some research online and found a bunch of ideas using the flowers. I decided to make a fun dinner theme; someone suggested I use a spray bottle to sprits a little water on my flowers. Next, wad or crinkle the flowers up in your hand to help give the paper some added dimension. I added a few different sizes on top of each other, then poked a hole in the middle, and added a brad to hold all the layers together (see pic). All you need to do is teach your teenagers how to use your Cricut, then hand them the cartridge with a note that says you want a pretty table theme for Mother's Day dinner. The project I did only took about a half an hour to make and was really easy to pull together.

Smiley Cards is a fun, bright cartridge, and is exclusive for use with Gypsy. The creative features on this cartridge are: Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3 (Card/Type Face), Feature 4 (Emoticons), Feature 5 (Emoticons Layer), and Feature 6 (Phrase). Some examples of the images you can get on this cartridge are: cupcakes, ice cream cone, balloon, spider, apple, trash can, cloud, birthday cake, car, popsicle stick, banana, flower, milk, heart, present, rainbow, moon, guitar, ghost, pumpkin, pirate, crab, corn, mushroom, pencil, fish, and snowman. The Card/Type Face feature provides you with a variety of cards (round, flower, star, tag, oval, box, heart) on the base layer. Under this feature, when using the Shift key, you can cut a ton of different faces, from smiley to frowny, and all in between. You can also cut ten different types of envelops to compliment these cards. The Emoticons feature gives you all those round smiley faces you see online. The Shift key gives you the different emotions and the base layer is the solid images. You could easily layer them together, add a magnet to the back, and put them on your fridge. A few of my favorite emoticons are the crown, cowboy, music note, sleeping, and the one that has the devil horns. A few examples of the phrases that you can cut out with this cartridge are: "How R U?," "Sing," "Cool," "Howdy," "Hey," "Rock On," "Thx" and "LOL." It looks like all the phrase are written as if you were texting on your phone!

Well, that wraps up this week's featured cartridges. Check back next week as I continue exploring new cartridges that are being developed for your Cricut!

Crafty Kimber

HELP FROM THE EXPERTS

Here's the word from customer support this week:

- Excited about the Cricut Expression 2 machine? Check it out!

- Remember that a great way to build your cartridge library is to submit a project to the Chirp newsletter! A free cartridge is given out each week to the winner. Submit here!

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Need some help? Provo Craft Customer Support is here for you! Never hesitate to call in (1-888-922-4725 or 1-888-92ccircle for Cricut Circle questions); we have people ready to help you! We are currently open Monday through Friday 7am to 6pm Mountain Time. If these hours do not work with your schedule, please send an email to support@provocraft.com.


Have a great week!

From your Customer Support Sweeps:
Mark, Colby, Brittany, and Becky, "The Floor Sweeps"

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me."
~ Audrey Hepburn