I have been giving classes at both of our local A. C. Moore stores on how to use the "Cricut Expression" machine; which is an electronic diecut system. It seems that many people have purchased a "Cricut" machine but aren't sure on how to use it and honestly the instructions that come with the system are not the best and many purchasers are looking for more. I was in the same boat, till I decided to teach myself by playing around with the machine and the cartridges I had. The result was that after a couple of false starts I am now confident enough and knowledgable (?) enough to actually try and help others. Tomorrow I have scheduled my last class for the summer and was asked to create a couple of cards to illustrate the various options available on the cartridges. I decided to use a Christmas theme and using the "Joys of the Season" cartridge I created the following two examples.
The fist card I actually used the "card" option of the cartridge. I wanted to create a simple classy card that could be, if needed, made multiple times in a very small amount of time and with little effort. I started by cutting the card from white paper and backing it with gold paper. As always, for me that was just not enough. So I started by adding a gold frame with a marker to emphasize the central design. Then using "Stampendous" stickers I added the gold text and the gold stars. Similar text and stars are available on the cartridge and could actually have been done using the "Cricut" and gold paper.
For the second card I chose the same design but opted for the multi colored layered look. I started with the "background" option of the design and cut it out of gold paper. Then I cut the image from green paper. Finally I selected the "layer" option which I cut out from red paper. The result when assembled is a three dimensional holiday wreath in festive colors. Again I couldn't leave well enough alone and added a "Hallmark" sticker text. Again the text could have been done using the "Cricut".
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