Featured Artist-Doreen & Toy Story

*NOTE* From Kim B-Owner of Cutters Creek:

When I spied this project from Doreen on one of my groups, all I could think was WOW, WOW, WOW! What a labor of love for her grand daughter and oh how just stinking cute! I hope you love this as much as I do, as there was a TON of work but into this project! Check out this wonderful home decor project and please leave Doreen a comment and show her some love!!

My grand daughter Gabrielle loves Toy Story so I decided to buy the cartridge and create the characters for her 9th birthday party decorations. After the party she will put them on the walls in her bedroom. This is my gift to her in addition to her birthday mini book. I must admit laying all of the pieces out on the Gypsy, arranging the colors of paper in the proper place on the mat, then gluing it all together took so much more time than I thought it would. Now that it’s done and the party is over………it was worth every minute!

I used the Cricut Expression with the Gypsy and a 12x24 mat. Using the Gypsy was the only way I could cut Buzz, Woody and Jesse at 22 ½ “ tall. I tried without it and it would not work so I bought a Gypsy.

I used black cardstock for the background layer for each character. When I needed more than 12” in length I taped two 12x12 pieces together then put it on the mat as a 12x24 piece of paper. All of the small parts were created mostly from my scrap file J using a lot of Stampin Up cardstock. The white cardstock used on all of the characters is from the 40 sheet pack sold at Walmart………cuts like a dream on the E and the Imagine.

For all of the cuts the blade was set at #3, pressure set at high, speed regulated by Gypsy (on my expression it is set to one bar below fastest) Some of the brown cardstock I used (bazzil) was really thick and needed the blade at #4.

I used ridged plastic packaging for Buzz’s helmet. And real twine for Jesse’s rope.

I used Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive to glue everything together…..love that stuff!

After putting the characters together I wanted them to be a bit more sturdy so I glued coffee stirrers (flat, skinny wood sticks) to the backs where any of them seemed to need support. To hang them on the wall I attached poster putty in various places on the back of each character.

Other crafters are suggesting Post It paper with the adhesive already on it but it is very thin and I think it would rip easily on these big items. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it for cards or scrapbook pages though. These characters could be cut from Vinyl for the wall and would look awesome!

You probably noticed I couldn’t resist giving Mrs. Potato Head some bling, suits her.
I also made the decorations for the cake. Gabrielle wanted the good guys VS the bad guys and she chose an Over The Hill cake from Costco because it reminded her of the hills in the Great Valley (she is a dinosaur nut.