Category: Holiday

Use Cricut Contour to Create a Sunburst Layout

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This past week, I shared my Fourth of July sunburst layout with you for the Here Comes the Sun blog bop. This red, white, and blue layout looked like a firework exploding on the Fourth of July. Did you happen to wonder how I created that background? Well, today you are being blessed, because I am going to show you how to make a sunburst background of your own in Cricut Design Space.

To make this background, I used an image from the Artbooking collection and altered it with the Cricut Contour Tool. The Contour tool allows you to hide a portion of an image by removing any unwanted cut lines or contours. In Windows or Mac, the Contour Tool is located on the right side of the Canvas below the Layers Panel. In the Android and iOS app, you can find Contour under Actions.

Before you start to Contour an image, you will need to select it. For my project, I duplicated the image twice. One image will create the Kraft background and the other two images are going to be used to create the red and blue sunburst rays.

To create the first set of sunburst rays, I selected one of the images and clicked on the Contour Tool. When the tool is selected, a Hide Contour window opens with a close-up view of the contours, or cuts, on the image. You will see the contours in the image photo and as a list on the right side of the window.

When you click on the cut line you wish to hide or select the contour to be hidden from the menu at the right of the window, the hidden contour will change to a lighter shade. This indicates that the portion of the image chosen will no longer show as part of the image and will not cut.

On my project, I removed the background image and selected every other sunburst to create the red striped rays. I repeated this process with the second image to create the blue star pattern rays.

Once all the contours had been hidden, I could cut out my project from the pattern papers in the Stars & Sparklers collection. The rays fit perfectly into the background design and could easily be added to my project.

After assembling the Sunburst background, I added my photo, some stickers and Cricut cut stars, and a few star-shaped wooden images.

If you would like to learn more about using the Contour Tool and watch this layout come together, I have created a simple tutorial and process video for you.

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For those who missed out on my original post showing the layout, here are a few photos of the embellishment clusters. You can learn more about how it all came together, here on my blog, and check out some other artwork showing you how to use sunbursts.

I hope that today’s project inspired you and taught you a few new tricks in Cricut Design Space. If you are wanting to learn how to use your Cricut machine and would like to create some projects in Cricut Design Space, I invite you to join my Cricut Classroom.

Each week, I teach an hour-long Live class which is recorded and uploaded to a classroom website. You are also provided with free project links and downloadable notes for your Cricut Classroom Notebook.

Join the Cricut Classroom

Make sure to check out a few of my other Cricut tutorials, here on my blog and my YouTube channel. My hope is that you dust off that Cricut machine and create something new.

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here is a list of some supplies I used today (View All My Supplies Here)

A Father’s Day Fancy Fold Card

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I truly enjoy teaching new techniques and showing crafters, like you, how to use supplies you have in your craft room. This past month, I began a new series on Facebook called Fun Fold Friday, and this Father’s Day card is just one of the projects I created in May. If you didn’t have a chance to join me, you can view the video at the bottom of this post.

This simple version of a double flap card was easy to make using a standard A2 size card base. After removing half of the front panel, I added some blue belle and black pattern papers from a variety of paper collections.

The flap on the right side of the card was created using some additional cardstock, pattern paper, and tags cut from our new Mix-In pack. One of the pattern sheets in that pack is full of wonderful banners and tags which I also used on my Daddy’s Boy layout. Those layers of tags and banners add such a fun element to the design.

On one of the tags, I added a tassel of black embroidery thread to mimic a fishing fly. I thought it would add to the theme of the card which includes some images from the My Dad Rocks stamp set.

The images themselves were stamped using Espresso ink then shaded with a little watercolor paint. Since these inks are water-based, they did fade a little when the paint was added, but I like the way it turned out.

If you like this Father’s Day stamp and need a few more ideas, click here to see another card I created.

Along with this Father’s Day card, I also shared how to make a similar card using our Lovely collection. This double flap card design looks so beautiful, yet it is so simple to make once you learn a few little tricks.

For those of you who missed Fun Fold Friday, here is a link to the video from my Facebook page that you can view.

If you wish to see more Fun Fold Friday tutorials, you can visit my Facebook page and follow me online. I will be posting the schedule of upcoming tutorials in my Events so that you know when the next Fun Fold Friday will take place.

Thank you to everyone who joined me for my first live events. I hope you enjoyed these projects and were encouraged to try something new.

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Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. By clicking on those links and making a purchase, you are helping to support my small business. This is at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.

Father’s Day Crafting Adventures on Craft Roulette

Published on by Miss. Carrie's Creations1 Comment

This past week, I had the opportunity to be a Guest Crafter on Craft Roulette, and oh, boy, did I struggle. We got off to a rough start, then I froze when the wheel spun, and partway through, we lost sound. Despite the technical issues and mishaps, I was able to learn a new technique and create an awesome Father’s Day card.

Before I continue with my cardmaking adventure, let me tell you a little more about Craft Roulette. Every Friday night, you can join the creative community as they watch Mary and a special guest crafter create a project based on the parameters set by the craft roulette wheel. Yes, there is a genuine roulette wheel with 96 crafting parameters (331,776 possible combinations) and, once that wheel starts to spin, you never know what might happen.

The minute I woke up Friday, I had a strange feeling that something wasn’t going to go well, and wouldn’t you know it, we had one mishap after another. It all started when Verizon wouldn’t allow me to connect, causing a little domino effect. The show started later than planned and we went right to spinning the wheel. 

Now, I have been on Craft Roulette two other times and the wheel was kind to me, but my intuition told me that tonight was going to be different. The first spin presented me with an easel card which was a project I wasn’t familiar with and MY BRAIN FROZE.

These past few months I have been in a creative slump and this just made me weak in the knees. I may have made an easel card once, long ago, but the cogs in my brain seized up and everything just stopped moving.

Thank goodness for Mary! She did an amazing job explaining how to make a simple easel card. After her demonstration, I started to feel a little better and knew that the other three parameters were simple enough for me to process and handle. I started to work right away at creating a Father’s Day card using the My Dad Rocks stamp set.

Of course, once I started to get comfortable we had another little hiccup. I could no longer hear Mary or her producer Stephen. I must have sounded a silly talking to myself because Mary starting writing me a little note letting me know that they could all hear my little craft room conversation.

Eventually, the sound came back – after we lost the connection – but it wasn’t very good and I could no longer talk with Mary. At this point, my hands were shaking, I kept making stamping mistakes, and I was frustrated with my project.

Despite all the messes and mistakes, the crafting community had such wonderful comments, Mary and Stephen were super supportive, and I learned a brand new technique. I finished my card and was able to see a very unique creation made by Mary. Take a look at all the FUNN we had.

Every time I have an adventure, I process what happened, maybe cry a few tears, and make a mental list of what I have learned. This episode of Craft Roulette gave me an opportunity to try something new.

  • I am now comfortable making a simple easel card and plan on making a few more in the future.
  • After a month of rude comments and mental insecurities, my spirits were lifted by Mary and her creative community as they continued to cheer me on.
  • Despite my human nature to want everything to be flawless, I need to remember what my friend Julie said “Better done than perfect.” Sometimes, you just need to call it finished.
  • A creative slump is an opportunity to let go of expectations and accept new adventures.

Thank you again to everyone to joined us and for all of you who continued to watch through the little hiccups. I hope you were inspired and that you plan on trying something new.

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