I've Moved!

I have combined all my blogs to ForTryingOutLoud.Blogspot.com. Please join me there!

Race for the Cure thank you cards

Did I mention I love my Gypsy? I made this card using my Gypsy and the George and Basic Shapes cartridge. I cannot take the credit for the shape. JenC, a wonderful member of the Cricut forum, created this cut. She did it on Design Studio. Because DS is not compatible with the Gypsy, I had to recreate the cut in my Gypsy. It took a while but it I like it and I learned a lot about my Gypsy. I used paper from Basic Grey's Valentine line from 2009. The ribbon is from Michael's and the beads are from Paper Studio.

If you want the cut file for Design Studio, go to Jen's blog. If you leave her a comment, she will email you the file. She has some really nice cut files. So grab a coffee, sit back and enjoy her blog.

On a side note: I am in the process of recording Gypsy videos for beginners. I should have them edit ted and up by this weekend.

LAST WEEK TO WIN WINTER WOODLAND

Winter Woodland is ProvoCrafts 100th cartridge. To celebrate they are giving away 100 of this fabulous cartridge. All you have to do is go to the Cricut message board and reply to the "Cricut Celebrates Cartridge #100" in the Cricut chat forum. So go sign up and good luck!

I love my Gypsy

I am so in love with my Gypsy! I am an SCAL user and I still love my SCAL. I had to use it this weekend to make my sign for the Race for the Cure board I made for our team. We had a fabulous time. If you want to know more about the race, go to SeeFluffyRun to get more details.

But at the end of Saturday I started to play with my Gypsy. I decided the best way to learn how to use my Gspot was to go to the Design Studio form at Cricut.com and see if I could recreate some of their designs. The above one is from LOLOGRL. She converted the Sizzix Scallop Favor Bag into a Design Studio cut. I then made it into a Gypsy cut. Eventually, you will be able to take DS cut files and convert them to Gypsy and vice versa. But until then I will play with them. Here is LOLOGRL's Blog. Thank you LOLOGRL!!!!

You have got to visit Bug Junkie

You have to drop by BugJunkie's Blog. She makes the most amazing shape albums with her Cricut and Design Studio. I haven't scrapped in months and she has me going. Not to mention, I bought into the Gypsy. I bought mine at HSN on flex pay and received additional goodies. Okay, back to what I was saying. Bug Junkie's shape books tell a story by themselves. The one she is demoing on her blog is a Halloween Album. Now if you go to her blog, she will tell you the Cricut cartridges she used. I don't have many carts so I had to use SCAL to make my book.

I know, I know. Why did you buy a Gypsy if you don't have a many carts, or go to crops and you have SCAL 1 and 2? I don't know but I do know that I am on a quest to buy carts. Because I spent alot of time searching the Internet looking for free SVG files and finally had to create my own for the haunted house. I spent all day looking for them. As soon as I remember where I got them, I will come back and add the links for SVG files. As for the haunted house, leave me a comment and I will send you a copy of the SCUT file. Or I can send you the whole SCUT file for the book. I DID NOT ORIGINATE THIS BOOK. GO TO BUGJUNKIE AND LOOK AT HER GREAT VIDEO. I AM MERELY TAKING THE ONLINE FREE CLASS AND LEARNING AS I GO.

Not only am I making a great book but I am learning so much about Design Studio. We are about 75-80% done on the book. I'll put up more pictures when I finish.

Happy Scrappin'

It is here at HSN!!! Come get it!!!

Can you believe it! Todays Special Value at HSN is the Gypsy. You can't buy it yet at retail stores and even if you could, why would you pay full price and get just the Gypsy. I ordered mine at HSN and I can't wait until I get. For 299.99 and 5 flex pays of 59.99 I get the following:

• Gypsy
• Battery charger
• 2 preloaded carts (Gypsy font and wanderling)
• Don Juan Cartridge (previously exclusive to the Create)
• Battery charger
• travel sleeve
• Traveling case for Gypsy and battery charger (cute pink and black exclusive to HSN)
• Car charger

You don't want to miss this. Here is the link.

http://tinyurl.com/cmm2tw

Don't miss out.

I've been on a Journey

So I have been MIA on my scrapbooking blog. Not because I have been busy making projects. I have been MIA because I was busy starting a new habit, running. And I love running. But before I start scrapping again, I had to establish a strong foundation in my running world. If you want to read about it, check out SeeFuffyRun.

I am excited about my next scrapping project: Race for the Cure. I am running in the Houston Komen Race for the Cure in October. I am an 11 year survivor and one of 18 women in my family that have heard those scary words, "you have breast cancer." I started a team: Team Boob Troop and I want to do a mini album about our run. I can't wait.

But even more exciting is the Gypsy by Provocraft. It is a handheld version of Design Studio that will hold all your cartridges in one device that you can take to any crop and hook to any Cricut and cut to your heart's desire. Here is a picture of it.



It is amazing and HSN will have it as their Daily Special on September 24th at 12:01 am. So for all us Central time gals, that is 11:00 PM on September 23rd.

Here is what it will include:
- Gypsy
- Preloaded Gypsy Font
- Preloaded Gypsy shape card
- black and pink carrying case
- black an dpink skin cover
- car charger
- USB cord
- ac adapter
- stylus
- Don Juan cartrige and overlay

$299.99 $59.99 flex pay with $11.20 for 4 day shipping!

Long time no see

So I have been MIA for a couple of months. Well, I have been MIA on my scrapbooking blog but my running blog is pretty active. That is why I haven't posted to this one. I had to take a break from scrapping. It was consuming my time and my health. I needed to get healthy and I wasn't going to do it scrapping. Not that I think scrapping is bad, I just needed to step back and get some balance in my life. So I have devoted 10 weeks to a running program. Since then, I have become a runner and ran my first 5K. Once I graduate from my training program, I will start adding scrapping back to my life...hey a mini album about my running.

If you want to know more about my running, vist me at SeeFluffyRun. Meanwhile, my father's 80th birthday is coming up and we are throwing him a party. So I thought I would share the invitation I made for him. My sister sent me a picture of him that I have never seen, so I used it. I used Photoshop elements to change the size and bought an element..darn...I forgot where...and I used it. Enjoy!

Cupcakes....For Real!!

My daughter turned thirteen last week. I can't believe it. We did not do the cake thing but she wanted to take cupcakes to her 6th period class. So about 11 am, I started to make her cupcakes and I realized, "Yikes!! I don't have any toppers for the cupcakes." So I ran upstairs to my craftroom and die cut some butterflies with my Cuttlebug. I cut 36 to be exact. One was for the base and the other folded and hot glued on top of the other. Twenty five minutes is all it took. Thank goodness because I finished just in time to get the cupcakes to school.

Mini Album of Favorite Things

I started this mini album in Canada, during Spring Break. I didn't even know what I was going to use it for. I just started making it. Well last week I decided to put my favorite things in there.

I am in love the the Basic Grey Valentines paper. I can't remember the name to save my life. I used three mirrors in the mini album. See if you can spot them.

Happy Mothers Day!

I just wanted to pop in and wish all you a Happy Mother's Day and share my mini album I made for my mom. It was inspired by Teachnpea at 2peas website. Somethings to look for:

• I cut the Voila Felt strips to mimick the antenna and tail of the butterfly.
  
• I also used "Thanks" Ribbon to tie a hidden picture to a page.
  
• I used Ephemera digital element from PCLayers.com to do all my journaling.
  
• The "Thank You" on the journaling is the font "Albemarle Swash" (the same font used for some journaling stickers from Making Memories Love Notes Tiny Alpha stickers
  
• I aged and distressed my jounalling tags with Tim Holtz Distress ink so that they matched the paper from My Minds Eye, "Out and About"
  
• Distressed Wild Saffron embellishments so that they weren't so bright.

Glass Mermaid

I just had to share a wonderful little shop I found recently, The Glass Mermaid. It is right here in Seabrook. This is actually their second location. The original was destroyed in Ike. But it is scrumptious. Every time I go in there, my head just spends and I feel drunk. There are just so many beautiful things to see. She has colorful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and I absolutely love chandeliers. She has unique jewelry and what nots. Oh, and if you love all the girly stuff, she has pink rubber cleaning gloves that are trimmed in a faux fur and bling. There is a matching apron with leopard trim and a laundry bag with trim and a beautiful crystal belt. You just have to go in to see all the beauty in this place. It really lives up to its name "Glass Mermaid". It is all blinged out and full of fantasy.

They even have classes and parties in glass mosaic making. More on that later. I plan to have a girls night out at the Glass Mermaid. We will start out with wine and appetizers, move on to glass mosaics then travel five minutes over to Kemah Boardwalk for a nice dinner and to listen to live bands.

Card Candy

I thought I would share a picture of the Card Candy I made for a swap. I am a member of Cricutscraplifters yahoo group. I had so much fun making these. I hope everyone will enjoy them!

Happy National Scrapping Day!

I love this day. Scrappers around the world unite. Well, I have some plans with the family but I plan to scrap tonight. Enjoy!

One of my favorite gifts

I thought I would share one of my prized possessions. Years ago my sister made me this church out of a birdhouse. I have moved about eight times since she gave me this church. It always gets a prominent place in my home. It currently sits in my scrapbook room on a bookshelf. It is one of the inspiration pieces of my decor in my scrap area. Every Monday, for the next few weeks, I'll either share an inspiration piece or how I incorporated it in my room. Thanks for stopping by.

Expressions, Yudu and Your Story...OH MY!!!

I just had to share about this great give away from 225 Cards & Gifts. Ok, here is how you play. It is a blog hop. Click on the magazine above and it on will take you to the starting point. Answer their question on their blog and then hop over to the other 11 blogs and answer their questions. When you are done, you will have visited 12 great blogs and enter 12 times for a chance to win either a Cricut Expression, a Yudu or Your Story. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! So hop over to the first blog and get to it. YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT (MST) ON SUNDAY APRIL 26TH. They will draw the winner on April 28th. Good luck!!

Keychain

We bought a new car last month and I have been in search of the perfect keychain. I decided that I am going to try to make my own. This is the first attempt. I didn't realize there were so many details to beading. I originally thought of making some kind of picture charm jewelry from Lea Sanders. You have to check out her blog because she has some amazing work on her site. have watched hours of youtube videos about beading. I have been to several stores to look a their beads and key chains. I still have two more picture frame charms to add but I think I am going rethink the design of this one.

I have to add an addendum to my blog entry today. I want to thank Nancy W. for helping me with my blog couture. Check out her blog...she is dripping with creative juices. And her scraproom is to die for. Maybe I can get her to come to my place and help me get my scraproom in order.

Sure Cuts Alot

I have received some questions regarding Sure Cuts Alot (SCAL) but I don't know how to respond individually so I thought I would respond here in a post. SCAL is a third party software (very similar to Design Studio from Provo Craft) but it allows you to cut any TTF (most fonts are TTF) that you have on your PC or Mac. Yes, unlike Design Studio, SCAL can be used on a Mac.

You can get it here. Craft Edge is the original company that created SCAL but I understand you can get it cheaper from other people. Just google SCAL and I am sure you will find some good deals on it.

But even more exciting is that you can also cut shapes with SCAL. It comes with some basic shapes but you can cut SVG files with it also. If you google SVG and scrapbooking you will see there are many people out there that are gracious enough to create SVG files and share them for free. THere is also a yahoo group for SCAL that gives you more information and file sharing. But be warned the yahoo group is very active and will fill your inbox very quickly.

So to recap:

SCAL is a third party software that allows you to cut any TTF font on your computer and any SVG file. SVG files can be found online by googling for them and you can download more fonts by going to www.dafont.com .

My 15 Seconds!

I can't believe it!!! I was looking through my May/June Scrapbooks etc. magazine when my name just popped off the page. What the?!?!??!!? And then I realized why. They quoted one of my forum posts at the Scrapbooks etc. site. Eeee gads!!! I am such a dork but this made my day. Heck, it made my week!!

Tax Time

Happy Tax Day! Kinda funny actually. Sunday we celebrated the day Jesus paid all our debts, then the government asks us to pay them. I guess even our government is too big for Him. I'm kidding. This is what happens when you let me go wild with sugar. Yes...Lent is over and on Sunday morning at 12:01 AM, I attempted to eat some banana cream pie. I say attempted because when I got it home from Krogers, that is a grocery store, it was completely frozen. I knew I had to be up early for church because I was greeting this weekend, so I just went to bed.

By the time I got around to having my sugar rush, a piece of a rabbit shaped coconut cake, I was tired and disappointed. I would upload a picture of my failed attempt of a cute Easter Bunny cake but it looked like a mad crazed evil rabbit. Okay, maybe black frosting should not be used for the eyes, the nose, the whiskers and the crooked smile. He looked more like Heath Ledger as the Joker, than a cute Easter Bunny. I tried to save a step by adding the coconut to the frosting before frosting the cake, so he looked like he had the mumps. Are you getting a visual? Okay, whatever you are seeing in your head, it was scarier.