Cape Cod Layout - Free Images of the Week

Every week, Cricut offers a set of digital images available that you can cut for free using the Cricut Craftroom or Design Space.  These are often sets that relate to current holidays or the seasons.  With summer arriving Saturday and many people headed for shore vacations, this week's free to cut set from Cricut is New England Shore.

To find the free images each week, go to the Cricut website and choose "Make" at the top of the page.  Then choose "Free Images"from the menu bar at the top.  They usually change on Wednesdays.  The name of the image set and the dates it will be free are listed in the box superimposed on the images.  Don't be concerned that it says "Craftroom Exclusives" - these images are available in Design Space (I believe all or  nearly all of the digital image sets are included in the Image Subscription).

There are six images in the New England Shore set.  I decided I needed a break from furniture moving and craft room sorting (it's amazing how many pieces of half used paper can accumulate when you let it pile up!), so I sat down at the computer and opened the image set in Design Space.  There are six images and I cut them all.

I used the colors in the screen images as my guide for choosing papers.  My colors don't match exactly (in spite of the stash of paper in my room) and I did end up changing a few from the samples given.  I cut the items in sizes that I thought would work on a scrapbook page.  The height of the boat is 6 inches, the lighthouse is 9 inches tall, the anchor piece is 4 inches, and the mariner's compass, life saver and helm pieces are all 3 inches in height.

I clicked "Go" in Design Space and kept loading and unloading mats (12 in all) and in a short time I had all of the pieces I needed.  By doing all six items at once it was easy to coordinate the color scheme.  You can see a few of the pieces that I changed.  I wanted my light house to have a red side instead of beige.  I also substituted navy for dark gray on a few of the pieces.

Here are the fully assembled pieces.  They are easy to put together with the typical Cricut guidelines cut into the shapes to help you line things up.  I decided to make my first paper layout in a very long time with these shapes.  We vacationed on Cape Cod two summers ago and I haven't done anything with those photos yet so these cuts inspired me to start a vacation book.

As I was planning out my pages, I realized that I needed a title and also found that the anchor piece just wouldn't fit in with my plan for the layout. I decided to save that piece for a card.

I was just going to weld letters together for my title but when I typed "Cape Cod" in the search box in Design Space I discovered that there is a "Cape Cod" title oval in the Destinations Image Set,  I thought it was funny to see all of the results with characters wearing capes.  The word "escape" also came up in the search but I think it is better to be over-inclusive than to miss images.

The spot I had for the title was 4 inches wide so I wanted the title to be about 3.6 inches to leave a bit of a border.  When I resized the oval to 3.6 inches it was only 1.81 inches tall.  I wanted it to be a bit taller so I unlocked the aspect ratio (just click the little lock icon, highlighted in yellow above, to do this) and changed the height to 2.25 inches.

Here is the left side of my layout.  I created water and waves using my old Creative Memories Decorative Edge trimmer.  These were discontinued a long time ago but I imagine some of you might have one sitting in your craft space.  I cut a strip of paper four inches x 12 inches and trimmed the long edge.  I used the darker blue to make three wavy strips  and alternated their direction.  When you adhere the strips, you need to allow room for the photo mat to slip inside the bottom wave.

If you are interested in making this exact style of water and don't have the trimmer, leave a comment and I will try to make an SVG file to share.

The mariner's compass makes a connector between the two photo mats.  I really like the way the line between the two shades of blue in the star lines up with the edges of the mats.  This is the only cut that gave me a bit of trouble.  The direction indicators are cut into a circle that is about one inch in diameter so they are super tiny.  I made several cuts because most times three of the four would be fine but one letter would get snagged.  I think a size a little larger than 3 inches overall would be better for this cut.

The photo mats are all cut at 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 for a standard 4 x 6 photo.  I cut a strip of gray cardstock at 4 x 12 inches to put behind the lighthouse and the title to balance the water on the left side page.  Changing the beige to red on the lighthouse balanced the red boat on the left page.  The helm piece works as a topper for one photo and the top of the wheel just overlaps the upper photo.   You don't want any adhesive right at the tips to be sure that a photo can slip under.

This is the two page spread without any photos.  I will show you a digital trick for planning how to choose and crop your photos for the layout in another post.  The background pages are 12 x 12 plain ivory cardstock.  I choose it because it gives a hint of yellow but keeps the page from having a tropical feel.  If you had a lot of journaling to add, you could eliminate the lifesaver image and put it in that spot.  It is a little odd to have it up there but I thought it looked a bit like a cloud(!).

It was fun to do some paper pages.  I am a very simple and "flat" scrapper.  I don't like bumpy things on my pages - I save them for cards and other projects.  I also don't like to spend hours and hours on making a page.  I usually don't use so many die cuts on most of my layouts but the time I saved by using the Explore and Design Space made it easier to convince myself to use nearly all of them.  I really like the way images are complete and in color when you are choosing them.

If I can keep things moving along with reorganizing my space - and keep it cleared up most of the time - I will have more room to work on pages.  I tend to have my craft island get more and more covered with bits and pieces of projects until I am working in a space about 8 x8 inches!  (Does this sound familiar to any of you - leave your true confessions in the comments!).
Here is a tiny view of "before" - the island covered with so much stuff and boxes and shelves in odd places as they move to new locations. I hope to get most of the rest of the things moved this weekend and I may need a quick trip to IKEA to finish up my plans.

Cricut Sales

Here are the other deals offered on the Cricut site this week.  These are affiliate links and I appreciate it very much when you use my links to go to the site and shop.  You can always click on the Cricut image in the side column too.  Thanks for your support of my blog!

Digital Images are all 1/3 off.  If you bought the Explore with the Autoship from HSN, now would be a good time to use your $10 digital download code.  Click HERE to see the Digital Images on sale.

Cuttlebug Machines are $10 off - you can see them HERE.

Remember - you can get free shipping within the US if your order is $35 or more - so the Cuttlebug would ship free.  Just use the code FREESHIP35.

These deals are available until the 24th of June.

Happy First Day of Summer!  It has been beautiful here - not too hot and not humid at all.  Our fingers are crossed for this to continue for the next week or so.  We have lots more furniture moving and gardening to do this weekend.  Next weekend we'll have most of our family here for a big cookout party.  I am determined to have all of my craft things off the pool table before then!

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