Vancouver 2010

It will be interesting to see how many people visit Vancouver for the Winter Olympics. Tomorrow more streets downtown are closing in preperation. I want to go down there at least once to see if it lives up to all the hype. Transit is supposed to be really backed up and thats the only way in and out of the city.
My boyfriend and I have tickets to one event and may be going to the dress rehearsal for the opening ceremonies so I'm getting excited. He showed me this video today and I thought it was really nice so I figured I'd share it.
I hope many people will be able to visit our beautiful city, and for those who cant make it.. you can at least see how beautiful it is.

Glass Etching with Cricut

I havent done glass etching since I was a pre-teen. When I bought my cricut expression it came with a package of goodies so the other day I decided to do an etching project. Since I moved a few months ago I havent put up many pictures and I had two large square frames from Ikea with no pictures in them. This was the perfect size for the image I had.

I used the cricut expression to cut a cute phrase out of vinyl. I positioned it on the cutting mat so I would have two seperate pieces. Normally you would take off the background and be left with your image. To use as a stencil you want to take out the image to be left with an outline. *Be careful when removing pieces like the "a" and "b" etc where there is a small piece left in the middle, you want to ensure this doesnt pull off with the rest of the letter. Tweezers or any other small instrument is helpful for this.

If you havent used transfer tape before, it isnt very difficult and is much easier than trying to peel off and apply the vinyl by hand. Cut a piece large enough to cover the entire phrase. Rub the surface to ensure it has adhered to the vinyl. 

Now flip the piece over and peel off the backing. Watch carefully while removing and if a part of vinyl stays on the backing, lay it down a bit and rub that area so it sticks to the transfer tape.

The vinyl and transfer tape are now together and ready to apply to your surface. *Again notice the small pieces inside the "o" "b" etc are in the correct position.

 I wanted the words to be over the matted frame and not cover the image inside. When I applied the vinyl stencil I placed the paper frame underneath to help position it correctly.  Rub the image again to help the vinyl adhere to the glass, then peel off the transfer tape.

Next you apply a thick layer of etching cream and follow the directions on the bottle. Mine sat for 5min before I washed it off.

I pulled off the larger pieces of vinyl easily but was left with the little inside pieces. Using a utility knife or exacto knife helps to get these off.

Here is the finished project. I hung it above the toilet in my bathroom. The shower curtain is also blue and it looks beautiful!

 Here is a closeup of the etching. Its a bit difficult to photograph.

Wedding Binder Follow-up

I had a chance to cut some of the bride svg's I talked about here and tried them out for the cover of the wedding binder. I ended up going with the bride with flowers. I cut the words and dress/flowers with a shimmery white that I think adds that special touch. To coordinate with the background paper I used light purple for the base of the bride.

I cut this sillhouette in the shimmery paper as well. I matted it on light purple but felt it was missing something so I added velum under that too.

I think this image is beautiful as well but the other worked for the binder project. I'm sure I'll find another project to use this one on.. and as I'm sure you've figured out, her wedding colour is going to be purple!

Trial & Error

I found a beautiful image I thought would be great as a cut file for my cricut. I'm still new to scal and inkscape so I just jumped right in and tried my best. The final project was just what I had pictured.. but getting there wasnt hehe.

I made my svg file after lots of trials (with editing in paint, photoshop and inkscape) and somehow I always ended up with a double line on the outline of the image. Like I said I'm no pro with these types of things and ran out of ideas so I just decided to give the file a shot and cut it anyways!

I was so excited while it was cutting.. then when it was finished I saw that the outside line (around the hair etc) cut as a row of long ovals to form the line. I ended up using my exacto knife and mat to cut the outside line. Then the edges looked a bit jagged so I went around it again with my scissors to clean it up. Once everything looked good I started piecing the images together.

What I did was cut the full image on two different shades of blue. When they were all cleaned up I just switched the hair pieces for the contrast. My favourite part of this project is that since you cut two of the same image, the pieces fit together perfectly. This makes the image lay flat once the pieces are adhered to the background paper.

I thought this way looked more sleek than layering one colour on top of the other, and you end up with two images!

I found the Sure Cuts A Lot Forum and asked about the double line problem. Hopefully I will be able to fix the svg file.

*If you're interested in the cut file you can leave a message and I'll get it to you once its fixed!

Wedding Preparation

My best friend is planning to get married in about a year. Loving everything DIY I offered (well almost insisted lol) to be the wedding planner.
I found a site with a great Wedding Organizer Set. You can download a few or all of the worksheets and put them in your own binder. I've seen packages in stores with similar information for $50-$100... So I figured my first wedding related DIY would be this organizer!

I'm going to take a regular three-ringed binder and put in all the printed worksheets. I found a few cute pictures and made a SVG files for the cricut. I'm going to play around with the images and papers to make a cover and I'll post pictures of what I've come up with.

Wedding Organizer Set

Bride
SVG contains two pieces show in black

Bride & Groom
SVG contains two pieces shown in grey and white

Bride with Flowers
SVG contains two pieces shown in black and grey

Shooting Stars!

A while ago I found a phrase I thought would be cute to put on the wall of a childs room. For New Years I spent the evening with my best friend and her new family. Baby Lily (3 1/2months) needed some decorations in her room and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to use the phrase (Twink twinkle little star). And also a perfect excuse to use my new cricut expression!

The walls are greenish so we did the words in a dark blue and the stars yellow.. I'll post a pic soon if I can.
After applying the vinyl and admiring our work, my friend mentioned it would look nice with a shooting star as well. So of course I must get a shooting star for Lily! Today I searched for some inspiration and made a super cute design.
I'm still new at making svg images but thought I would share it.
If you use it for something I would love to see!

Shooting Star svg

Here is a single star incase you want to add a smaller one inside the big star.







**Feel free to use any of my files for your own personal use**