Hearts in unlikely Places - Ornamental Iron

(This post originally appeared on the Everyday Cricut blog where I was the Guest Designer for the week of January 10-14, 2011)

Hi, it's Diane again.  I am really enjoying this week as guest designer and I want to thank you for all the nice comments.  It's Thursday already and I have so many Valentine's ideas and projects I still want to share with you.  I hope you will continue to visit my blog, Capadia Designs, so you won't miss the ones that don't make it into this week's posts.

The Ornamental Iron cartridge would probably not be the first cartridge you'd think of for a Valentine's Day project, however, with a little imagination any cartridge can be used for far more than you might expect.

One of the elements that caught my eye was this one - it certainly looked like a heart to me!

When you use "hide selected contour" you can make the heart shape even more obvious.

 This screen shot shows the lines that were hidden.

 

I used this design to create a card topper.  In contrast to the many layered card from yesterday's post, I kept this one super simple.  I cut it from white Core'dinations gemstone cardstock.  I really like the soft shine of this cardstock and it cuts very well in the Cricut.  Because there were a lot of thin lines, I did a 2 times multi cut with the pressure at 4 and the blade at five and the cut was perfect.

I needed to change the image to fit the A2 card by setting the width at 3.75 inches and the height at 5 inches.  When you do this, the proportions are thrown off and the lines at the top and bottom of the design are thinner than the side bars.  I corrected this by welding some additional rectangles to the top and bottom.  It isn't difficult to do, however there are some tricks involved to getting the lines even and I will add the technique to the list of videos I am compiling to make for the projects I have been showing this week.

The sentiment is cut in red glitter vinyl.  Whenever I want to use words in a very tiny size on a card, I use vinyl because I know I can get a clean cut and the adhesive will already be on the tiny cut - this saves a lot of time.  If you use matte black vinyl it looks like printing.

You do not need the deep cut blade to cut vinyl but you do need to remember to change your settings.  If you forget, you will get a mixed up mess as you see on the left side above.  There was too much pressure for the thin material and my blade chewed up the vinyl at blade depth 6 and max pressure. 

The goal is to create a "kiss cut" and cut the vinyl cleanly while leaving the backing paper intact.  You can see that in this view of the back side of the vinyl.  I find that blade depth 4, medium pressure and medium speed work very well.

Here is another close view of the cut on the card.  Even the tiniest spaces like the one above the heart will cut cleanly in vinyl.

Here is the simple card - once again I added some red gem stickers and a fancy vintage jewels sticker from Creative Charms to make the card sparkle.  Someone left a comment that it must have taken a long time to glue down all of the gems on the card I shared yesterday.  These gems are sticky backed so it is a quick and easy job to place them on a card and they really stay put once you have placed them.

You may be wondering why I am talking about this card but the photo at the top of the post was of something entirely different...

I've made several variations of cupcake "cages" - I really like the lace look of the sides with the stability of a full base.

I thought that this image would make a Valentine's Day version of the cage.

There are lots of nice heart shapes that are perfect for Valentine's Day projects.

 Here is the finished cage cut - occupied by a yummy cupcake!

Once again, with all of the thin lines I did a 2 times multi-cut with pressure at high and blade depth at 5.  The paper I used is from K & Company and probably would have cut well with just one cut but, with so much detail, it helps to have the second cut to be sure.  When lifting a delicate cut like this from the mat I use a wide putty knife that I got at the hardware store for a couple of dollars.  It really helps to have such a wide surface.

After lifting the cut, I score along the sides and across the tabs.

 

Then I fold everything in along the score marks so it is ready to assemble.

I generally use Scor-tape to assemble boxes and 3D objects because it is neat and easy to use.  There is no drying time and the tape is very strong.  You can also tear it by hand as you place all of the tape on the tabs.

Here you can see how the sides are folded up and the tabs attached to keep the shape of the box.

The pink paper and hearts make this quite festive for Valentine's Day treats.

This is a cupcake from Starbucks which is a large but not super large cupcake.  You can tweak your design to fit various sizes of treats.

You can also use something like this for a candy holder - here is an Easter example.

The files for the yellow and green cages can be found at THIS POST on my blog.  Information about the file for the blue cage is at THIS POST.  If you want me the "clean up" and post the heart file please leave a comment on my blog and I will try to do that soon.

This is yet another vinyl cut that I used for something interesting - you can find out what I did with it on my blog, Capadia Designs, at THIS POST.

I don't think there were many questions in the comments today.  One thing I need to clarify is that Design Studio works great on Windows 7 computers.  I had given information about getting the updates because the version on the CD when you purchase Design Studio will not work for Windows 7 machines.  The current updated version is fully compatible with Windows 7 - I run Design Studio on one Vista computer and one Windows 7 computer with no problems.

I'll try to read through all the comments to find any other questions later today so I can answer them on Friday.  Today we were in a Winter Wonderland - is there a lot of snow where you are?


Have a great Thursday - I am looking forward to one more day here tomorrow.

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