VALENTINE’S GIFTS

Cupid’s favorite holiday is coming soon! Love, love, love! Yes sir! That’s what they say Valentine’s Day is about. Well I love, love, love to make beautiful Valentine gifts for the people I care about. Cricut products are the first ones I run to when tackling my Valentine project list. Cricut makes my crafting easy, whether I’m whipping up a gift with a traditional theme or one with a new and original twist. Cricut serves me well and saves me time, effort, and sanity. So, when a friend says, “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” - I can honestly say, “It was my pleasure!”

Be sure to check out Crafty Kimber's excellent cartridge exploration of This & That by Creative Memories and Notebook Doodles in today’s Chirp. You’ll also find a quick tip on what to do if the dials on your Cricut machine are not responding and glean great crafting ideas from Cricut message board members in this week’s newsletter.

As always, I wish you success in your crafting adventures!

Lonna Joy Smoot - Editor, Cricut^® CHIRP!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

TIPS TREASURE CHEST

Today’s tip comes from message board bug guide, scrapalette. Thanks again.

Q: When I turn the Dial Size the display does not change. It will resize if I have it fill the page but not when I turn the Dial Size wheel.

A: Have you tried the reset procedure? If not, do that and if a reset doesn't fix it, call Provo Craft Customer Support.

Cricut Reset Procedure

1. First, turn your machine on with no cartridge loaded. Then you are going to roll all your gray dials (the two on the left and the one on the right) down to their lowest setting.
2. Then you will want to grasp the green/gold cylinder blade assembly and use it to pull the entire gray carriage car unit (the one with the Cricut bug on it) along its track to the other side of the machine. Back in the cave where the gray carriage car usually sits there is a red button. Press that button and hold it down for about three seconds. Let go and then move the gray carriage car back into place.
3. This next step will sound a bit odd, but many times it can fix your Cricut. You’re going to roll all your dials all the way up and all the way down three times?three times for each dial.
4. Then you are going to hit the Cut button and turn the machine off. Let the machine sit for a few minutes (15-20), load a cartridge, turn it on, and try a practice cut.

If this does not solve your problem, give PC a call toll free at 1-877-727-4288 7am to 6pm MST Mon-Fri (make sure you are by your machine) and someone there will walk you through some troubleshooting tips.

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

Name: Marlene Gomez

About Me: My name is Marlene and I love all things crafty! Everything from card making to altered art, with an emphasis on scrapbooking. I do have a clean and simple style. I love my Cricut Expression and Cricut DesignStudio. I use them for almost EVERY project. I love how they give you the freedom and flexibility to combine Cricut cartridges. Together, they have expanded my creativity.

Materials Used:

• Cricut Expression Machine
• Cricut Craft Room
• Simply Charmed Cartridge
• Life's A Party Cartridge
• Flower Shoppe Cartridge
• Accent Essential Cartridge
• Sweet Tooth Boxes Cartridge
• Mini Monograms Cartridge
• Plantin Schoolbook Cartridge
• 1-1/2" Styrofoam Balls
• Glass Head Pins
• Mini Cupcake Liners

Instructions:

1. Using Cricut Craft Room, fill mat with 60 3" Tree1 flowers from the Simply Charmed Cartridge. Each truffle requires about 50 to 60 flowers.
2. To make truffles cover about 80% of the Styrofoam ball with desired colored flowers, holding each flower with a head pin. Once complete, apply adhesive to bottom of the liner and insert the truffle.
3. To make square truffles, cut a 3" Window Box from the Life's A Party Cartridge. Using Cricut Craft Room, hide the window.
4. From Flower Shoppe Cartridge cut four 2" Scallop1 Flower. Roll and place one on top of Square Truffle. Roll and set aside remaining flowers.
5. From Accent Essentials cut a 3 Accent4's leaves at 0.625". Tuck underneath rolled Scallop1 Flower.
6. Using Cricut Craft Room, weld a 1.5" x 3.5" rectangle to each side of a 6.25" SquareBox from the Sweet Tooth Boxes Cartridge. Cut and Assemble. Create dividers by hand.
7. From Sweet Tooth Boxes Cartridge, cut a 6.25" CrclWnLd. Assemble. Add clear plastic to the underside of CrclWnLd.
8. Using Cricut Craft Room, align a 2.345" Width x 2.327" length circle and a 3" REAL SIZE CrclSclp. Cut and adhere to CrclWdLd.
9. From Plantin Schoolbook Cartridge, cut a 0.75" TagLeft and write your desired sentiment.
10. Using remaining Scallop1 Flowers and desired ribbon embellish the Faux Truffle Box.

MESSAGE BOARD HIGHLIGHTS

This week’s highlighted threads are:

• Valentine Ribbon Plate
• The Best Kisses are Chocolate.....
• Valentine Flowers
• LOVE Door Hanging
• All You Need Is Love
• Valentine Block with Vinyl

CARTRIDGE EXPLORATION

It’s hard to believe that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and this week I started to panic as I realized that I needed to decorate the house and get my Valentine’s cards finished. Every year I try to create a home d?cor project to add to my collection. I still have to figure out what I want to create for that project. At least I got one project created and explored a new cartridge at the same time; yes, I killed two birds with one stone. This week I explored This & That by Creative Memories cartridge and Notebook Doodles.

“Notebook Doodles”, is part of the Imagine pattern collection. This cartridge has twenty fun school patterns with fourteen solid coordinating colors. Some of the patterns that come with this collection are notebook paper style, grid line paper style, third grade paper style, notebook yellow paper style with three hole punch, bubble box pattern, hand drawn monster style, arrows, alphabet, and notebook graffiti (full of hearts, BFF, & kiss me). This last style comes in blue, green, and red which would be great for any Valentine’s Day cards or projects. Another idea for using these designs would be to scrapbook school photos. Don’t forget that you also get some extra fun projects. Included with this cartridge is a paper airplane with instructions and make your own milk box.

“Creative Memories - This & That” is a full cartridge that includes six creative features and can only be purchased from Creative Memories. The creative features are Layer, Icon, Icon Layer, Font 1, Font 2, and Monogram. This cartridge comes with two fonts and the monogram includes two shapes, also included are tons of images, for example, flowers, star, shoe, crown, baseball, soccer ball, tools, teapot and cup, house, present, snowflake, cake, spider web, books, suitcase, animals, fish, cherries, paw print, heart, puzzle, and paisley. With this cartridge you can decorate for all seasons, school, girl events, parties, and boy events. Also included in this cartridge are some phrases, for example, “love”, “cherish”, “you make me smile”, “100% girl”, “fun”, “laughs!”, “travels”, “adventures”, and “memories”. I used the heart and the phrase “love” to create my cute Valentine’s Day card, see photo. I’ve included the cut file that you can cut using Cricut Craft Room ? just unzip the file after you download it and click the Import button, located to the left of the New button in Cricut Craft Room after you login, to open the cut file. If you need to download Cricut Craft Room, go to www.cricut.com/craftroom and check it out. I love creating projects using the new Cricut Craft Room.

There are three different hearts on this cartridge that would look great on a solid wood block. Gather some small wood blocks and cut out the different letters for the word “love” and create your own home d?cor project. Don’t forget that you also get the shadow and layer features to help your projects stand out. One thing I discovered with Font 1 feature, you can cut a variety of labels or use the images as journal tags for your scrapbook pages. I love the style of this font, the lines are thick and straight, Font 2 is a thinner more delicate style. When I first started cutting letters from this font, I fell in love with the style and simplicity of it as well as how feminine it looked. The extra images that come with that font are borders, stars, paw prints, pencil, candle, hearts, and vine.

This week I also explored a few of the Cricut Craft Room Exclusives; there are always new image packs that I can’t wait to see what I can create with. I fell in love with the Valentine’s Sweets and I love the Valentine’s 3D mailboxes and the Page Pals. I love reading and need a handful of these so I can use them as bookmarkers. Oh, just got a great idea - these Page Pals would be great as Valentine’s gifts for the kids to take to school. Check out the new Cricut Craft Room Exclusives.

That wraps up my exploration for this week. Happy Crafting!

Crafty Kimber

HELP FROM THE EXPERTS

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!
Customer Support

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.”
- Victor Hugo