Card Making with Cricut by Chris P.

I bought this book from Cutters Creek a while ago and it has sat on my shelf as I played with SCAL. Then when I was rearranging my art space, I realized I had so many Cricut cartridges that were not being utilized; I turned to the book to give me some ideas and reacquaint myself with them. I chose four different styles and to protect copyright I won’t be able to tell you exactly how to make them, but I will tell what changes I made and products used.

Card 1 uses the ZooBalloo cartridge and was the simplest to make using one of the Creative Features with one small exception. The card cut perfectly, but I found that in order to fool my expression into cutting the envelope I needed to tell it that the mat was 24 inches and not 12 even though there was enough paper on the mat for it to cut.

Card 2 uses Walk in My Garden (one of my all-time favorite cartridges). I changed the colors of the papers from bright and springy to a more subtle combination and left off the sentiment. I think this would work for a sympathy card or a thinking of you card. I also used my cuttlebug: swiss dots for the bellyband and stickles on the butterfly (golden rod on the wings and waterfall and lime ice on the body).

Cards 3 & 4 use the Wild Card cartridge, which until today wasn’t even opened. (Really have to stop hoarding materials and use them!) Card 3 is probably my favorite and such a different style than my usual work. I followed the directions exactly and of course had to use my American Craft glitter paper on the front and some pink stickles on the heart inside. To cut the glitter paper I used a multi-cut of 2 and a pressure of 5.

Card 4 also follows the directions, but I found the directions inaccurate when cutting the small bird. I needed to discard their version and recut a second branch out of the teal paper. Then I just trimmed the bird off and glued it directly over the original brown branch. To add some depth to the frame and opening I used Tattered Rose distress ink to edge the edges and to pop the words and the birds I used Pine Needles distress inks. Ialso added some Patina stickles for the eyes and rounded all four corners. One trick to share: the card was wider than my Swiss dots folder, but after once running the paper through, I carefully realigned the dots and reran to finish the card. That flattened one row of dots, but working from the inside and using the end of a crochet hook I was able to repop those dots.

While I don’t own every cartridge highlighted in this book, I still have many options and ideas to choose from. There are 47 different card styles and with different papers and embellishments the options are endless and there are a few more I want to try. Check it out and let me know which ones you try.

Cutters Creek Resources:

Card Making With Cricut
**new book Scrapbooking with Cricut

Ranger Stickles Glitter Glue: golden rod, lime ice, waterfall, patina, pink

American Crafts Glitter paper: yellow

Cricut Cartridges: Walk in My Garden, ZooBalloo, Wild Card

Cuttlebug Swiss Dots Embossing Folder

Crop-A-Dile Corner Rounder

Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads—Tattered Rose, Pine Needles