First Scrapbook Party

Yesterday I held my first scrapbook party and I did ok.  I brought my Sizzix and Cricut and we talked and had a ball.
When I get home from Ohio, I will tell more about it.   Happy Mother's Day to all the moms.

Chance to win Cricut Campin Critters Critter cartridge & other scrapbook goodies.

Sherrie from Sherrie Scraps with Passion is having an awesome giveaway.

Check this out: Special Giveaway

For some reason I can't link to the picture.  But here is a copy of this picture.

Good Luck!

Got a New Cricut Cartridge - Heritage

I got a package in the mail today, woohoo!

My second daughter, got me a Cricut cartridge for Mother's Day; and it arrived today.

It is the Heritage cartridge and I am about drooling over it here.

So many images that are so cool; and will be useful in scrapping those old heritage and heirloom photographs.

Cards

Here are some of the cards I have made lately.  These cards are simple and elegant.  The backgrounds are made from cardstock.

This first card has a lovely fussycut stylized flower cut from a wallpaper sample.

This is a collage of cut-outs; the rose is from a wallpaper sample; the leaves were added to the composition.

This one is a piece of green embossed piece of cardstock layered with a torn rubber-stamped image.  The image has been lightly chalked.  Then the torn edges have been drybrushed lightly with gold paint.

This one is a thank you card.  First I put a narrow white cardstock band across the bottom part of the card.  The pink dotted square is from a wallpaper sample.  The thank you is a rubber stamp image; that has been chalked.  The rubber stamped image has had the edges torn and lightly drybrushed with gold paint.

This a rubber stamped image that was colored with watercolor pencils on white cardstock with torn edges that have been chalked.

This is a rubber stamped iamge of a flower cart that I colored in with watercolor markers and then drybrushed lightly the image and torn edges with gold paint.

The maroon background is a large paint chip the vertical stripes on each side were made with a gold paint pen.  Then I layered a rectangle of black cardstock.  The thoughts of you is a rubber stamp that is a watercolor marker in its background.  Then I lightly drybrushed the images and its torn edges with gold paint.

This is a large brown paint chip; with gold paint pen stripes at the sides.  All the rest are stickers.

Hope you like my cards, these were sent to deployed troops.  They are not able to buy cards to send home to their families.  I found a group on the Cricut messageboards that sends cards to the troops and these went there.

Cricut Cartridge Master List

These are all the Cricut cartridges that I currently own: updated as of 16 Feb 2010

50 States
Animal Kingdom
Basketball
Cuttin' Up
Dreams Come True
Fabulous Finds
George and Basic Shapes
Going Places
Home Accents
Jasmine
Jubilee
Learning Curve
Makin' the Grade
Mickey and Friends
My Community
My World
New Arrival
Paper Doll Dress Up
Plantin SchoolBook
Pooh and Friends
Printing Press
Simply Sweet
Spongebob Squarepants
Stand and Salute
Street Sign
Stretch Your Imagination
Walk in my Garden

Organizing Family Photos

In another chapter of my ongoing organizational efforts, I am trying to get my family photos organized.

I am also an avid scrapbooker, so have some photos that are in scrapbooks. Most of the other photos have long since been removed from those destructive magnetic photo albums that were so popular in the 1970s. They absolutely will destroy your photos. These photos are stored in 3 photo boxes made specifically for photo storage. Originally I had divided the photos in the boxes, placing all of my dh's family pictures in one box, all my family's pictures in a second box; and then all of us and our children and grandchildren in the third box. This has gotten a little unorganized over time; since when the kids look through the boxes they see no need to return them to the proper box. I have also made an effort to label each photograph on its back. I include who is in the picture, where it was taken, when it was taken, any occasion that it may be of, etc. Again this is not 100% completed, as I occasionally find unlabeled photos in the boxes.

The biggest problem for organizing photos is trying to organize all the digital photos as they number into the 1000s. With digital cameras, no requiring any expensive developing, to see our images, we shoot infinitely more pictures. A birthday party now can have 200 photos; instead of the 24 that the roll of film limited us to.

Also being a genealogist, I have scanned 100s of family photographs from near and far family members.

The problem comes in labeling, organizing, and ultimately being able to easily and quickly locate a picture when I want it. And I admit that I am probably only doing a C- job of digital photo organization.

I have made many stabs at getting them organized. Some of my efforts have been:

1. I created a folder on my desktop that I named Pictures; and I drag all pictures on my computer into it. So that they are at least all in one place.
2. I have created subfolders in the Pictures folders in the following categories:

• Crafts - pictures of crafts I have done, or pictures of crafts I have seen that I would like to do or use for inspiration. There are sub-folders within this sub-folder for the various types of crafts I do; such as: Quilting, Crocheting, etc.
• I have a subfolder for each family surname that I research, and place all photos of that family in each folder. Within the Talbert folder I have a subfolder for each of my children, one for pets, one for places we go (trips, vacations, etc), one for reunions, etc.
• Scrapbooking - I am hugely obsessed with scrapbooking and have a massive folder with numerous subfolders about scrapbooking, such as: Sizzix, Cricut, Titles, Tags, Page Layouts, Pages I Have Done, Alphabets, Fonts, Borders, etc.

Now this may seem very organized but not really so much so. As there are 1000s of photos in there and there are many, many folders which are only labeled by the date that the computer imported them from the digital camera. Also when one of the kids stops by they pull their memory card out of their cameras and download a copy of all their photos onto my computer. Which is good because I have all the pictures and also good because they have a backup else where of their pictures. However, if they don't delete the photos from their camera after downloading to my computer; the next time they download it will download not only the new pictures they have taken since then, but they will redownload additional copies of the photos that were downloaded last time. This makes for tedious matching up to find the duplicates and delete them.

I guess, to put it into perspective. Yes, organizing is a necessary but tedious part of this; but that is only because we are blessed with the technology to save our littlest memories so easily. Our ancestors, would have priced as a priceless heirloom even one photo of that dear baby or of mother and father. So we are blessed, just overwhelmed. Like anything else, working on it bit by bit and having an organizational plan can help us get organized and remain organized.

Good luck with preserving those visual memories.

Cricut New Arrival Cartridge

Today, I thought I would add a few sample die cuts from Cricut's New Arrival Cartridge. They are so cute, this one is a baby buggy.

The little diaper pins are adorable.

There are many words like this included.

Here is a link to a detailed article that I wrote about the Cricut New Arrival Cartridge:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1171218/cricuts_new_arrival_cartridge_has_over.html?cat=24

Cricut Animal Kingdom

This is a cat die cut from the Cricut Animal Kingdom cartridge.

This is the elephant from the same cartridge.

This is the bear from the same cartridge.













This cartridge also includes:

1. Horse
2. Pig
3. Piglet
4. Cow
5. Goat
6. Duck
7. Lamb
8. Goose
9. Chicken
10. Rooster
11. Turkey
12. Bird
13. Bear
14. Deer
15. Moose
16. Skunk
17. Raccoon
18. Owl
19. Squirrel
20. Camel
21. Elephant
22. Hippo
23. Ape
24. Giraffe
25. Kangaroo
26. Zebra
27. Monkey
28. Tiger
29. Rhino
30. Seal
31. Lion
32. Polar Bear
33. Penguin
34. Snake
35. Parrot
36. Alligator
37. Turtle
38. Rabbit
39. Fishbowl
40. Fish
41. Frog
42. Mouse
43. Hound dog
44. Lab type dog
45. Jack Russell type dog
46. Scotty type dog
47. Petey type dog
48. Cat
49. Lying cat

Craft Area Organization

Here is a picture of my craft area organization. The green bookshelf in the midle holds my rubber stamps, then there is the sizzix bookshelf and the trim cabinets and bookshelves. On the bookshelf is my Cricut, and punches.

Hope this gives you some ideas. I know crafters always have lots of toys, oops meant tools, to organize.

Cricut Message Boards Awesome Resource

For anyone with a cricut diecutting machine, you really should visit the Cricut Message Boards.

There is so much inspiration there, you can get lost for hours.

http://www.cricut.com/messageboard/default.aspx

enjoy!

Cricut New Arrival Die Cuts List

These die cuts are included on the New Arrival cartridge.

Pregnant mom with purse, hat, shoes, hair, pants overlays
Umbrella with bow overlay
Words: Baby Shower
Words connected: For, Date, Time, Place, RSVP
Baby in a sling
Stork flying that can go with the baby in a sling
Pile of presents; with bow, tag, and ribbon overlays
Stitched looking card
Word: Congratulations
Words: New Arrival
Connected Words: Name, Date, Time, Weight, Length, Parents
Words: It’s a Boy
Words: It’s a Girl
Word: Twin
Two overlapped hearts
Woman pushing baby stroller with hair, shoes, dress overlays
Baby stroller with trim overlay
Word: Bath time with bubbles overlay
Bathtub with bubbles overlay
Rubber ducky
Crawling baby with diaper overlay
Girl outfit with shirt, panties and clothes hanger
Onesie with clothes hanger
Smiling flower
Smiling butterfly
Baby face with bow overlay
Bassinet with trim overlay
Smiling moon with hat overlay
Diaper bag, opens and closes with teddy bear, bottle and diaper
Diaper pins
Baby booties with bow overlay
Baby bottle with nipple and ring overlay
Baby rattle with trim overlay
Words: Little One
Baby feet
Sitting baby with arms out; with bow and diaper overlay
Elephant
Monkey
Teddy bear
Bunny stuffed animal
Frog
Giraffe
Airplane with cloud, wing, propeller and banner overlays
Pickup truck
Sailboat
Choo choo train
Pea pod with baby face that fits in it
Words: Sweet Pea
Word: Baby
Words: I am small
Words: I am big
Word: Love
Words: For you
Words: Thank you
Confetti, hearts, star, pacifier, baby bottle, moon
Circle charm
Place card
Envelope with optional window
Envelope 2

Product Review: Cricut New Arrival Shapes Cartridge

I just published a product review on Cricut's New Arrival shapes cartridge.

You can read it here:
http://www1.epinions.com/review/Provo_Craft_Cricut_Arrival_Cartridge_29_0222/content_449978470020


http://www.epinions.com/ is a site where you can join and get paid for writing product reviews. They page based on the number of people that view your review.

I have personally been paid by this site.

If you are interested in seeing all my reviews, you can check out this page.

http://www1.epinions.com/user-paul_talb/show_~content

Cricut List

I have a Cricut Expression and the Design Studio software for it.

I currently have the following Cricut cartridges:

Animal Kingdom
Fabulous Finds
50 States
George and Basic Shapes
Going Places
Mickey and Friends
New Arrival
Paper Doll Dress Up
Plantin Schoolbook
Paper Doll Dress Up

Cricut cartridges are something else you can adjust the sizes of the die cuts and each cartridge can have 1000s of variations and different die cuts on it.