Monday 18 January 2016

Poker Pop Up Card

Just before Christmas I had a voucher for Dreaming Tree who sell SVG files for use in electronic cutting machines. I purchased a few files including one for a Poker card which I thought would really suit my brother in law. 

I sat down Saturday afternoon to make it with my Cricut Explore, a new blade and a new mat (I didn't realise how blunt my blade was until I put the new one in)

The files were very easily to upload to Design Space but there were quite a few layers which also meant a lot of paper and card stock. 
And that's not all of it!

The instructions were really helpful for cutting the pieces. I then used the YouTube video on their site to help with the construction. It was pretty self explanatory but the video really helped with positioning. 

And this is the final card:


It took about 2 hours with all the cutting and layering. I also made the matching envelope. 

The only negative I would say is that it's hard to see the poker chips front the front (it looks more like a no entry sign front behind the queen) and also next time I'd used black card instead of the dark blue suggested. 

This file is usually $1.99 and can be found on 3Dsvg.com

Friday 1 January 2016

Minnie Mouse Chevron Heat Transfer Vinyl - Cricut Explore

With just over five months until my trip to Disneyland Paris I decided to get my bum in gear to sort out some t-shirt designs. I have only used Cricut heat transfer vinyl before which was pretty expensive for a small amount so I ordered some vinyl from MDP Supplies. I was able to get 1 x 0.5 metres of iron on vinyl for less than the price of the Cricut vinyl. I decided to buy white and black vinyl for stretch fabrics (so it has some stretch to it), pink holographic/glitter and printable heat transfer vinyl. The printable one was in A4 sheets so it will go in my printer and I'm hoping to try and print and cut characters with my Cricut Explore from my Disney Cricut cartridges. 

The only thing that put me off buying from MDP in the past was the cost of postage as its via courier and dye to package size, although I could collect from store, but an option came up for Royal Mail for just over £5 and it arrived the next day (New Years Eve!)

So today I decided to have a go at making a design I saw on Pinterest which was a chevron Minnie. 

To make this I used the Mickey and Friends Cricut cartridge (Minnie's bow and Mickey Ears), and for the chevron I used Chevron Pattern Overlay from the Edge to Edge cartridge (in the Cricut subscription). Ignore the file name, I saved it quickly omitting the 'v' from chevron



I duplicated the bow and Mickey head. I then welded Minnie's bows to give me just one piece. 

With the Mickey head layers I made it so I only had the white outline and main Mickey head shape, highlighted them both and then used the slice button to give me a frame. Then with the other Mickey head I only had the White back layer and this is what I used to slice the chevron.

After highlighting the Mickey shape and chevron I sliced, and after removing the pieces I didn't want, was left with what I needed.




I then put the two Mickey pieces together and welded them.



If I just wanted a Mickey shape I would have stopped here but I wanted a pink bow to make it Minnie. I wasn't keen on layering my vinyl so I placed the bow on the Mickey shape where I wanted it, highlighted the bow and head shape and sliced them.




After removing the cut parts I was left with the below so both pieces fit together without overlapping.



I then cut this out of my vinyl. I found that the glitter vinyl is quite thick, and the vinyl for stretchy fabrics is quite stretchy (as you would expect) so found it best to double cut both times on the iron on + setting which helped when weeding.

My normal cutting mats are a bit unsticky so I decided to use my (very underused) light mat and it was just perfect for this so I think I'll be using that more now for vinyl projects. 

Now I just have to decide what to iron this onto!