From Pic to Chirp - Or should I say from Pic to Personal Cutting Machine... lol.

So I have had a few inquiries about SCAL, re: Handy Manny page for Whimsical Wednesday and I know I have few avid SCAL users who are new here, so this post is for you!

So grab a coffee...(Diet lemonade OK in this one

Indy Mermaid... No jokes planned so far. lol- Ur too funny! ) 

Sit back and prepare to be SCAL'd. 

See something you like and wanna cut? (Images of course! - Hot firemen excluded!) Then check that the image is relatively simple, check it doesn't have copyright (and if it does make sure you write source down for credit if it says personal use only). If you want to cut a digi image, check the designers Terms Of Use first. A lot of designers state you can not turn the image into SCAL and rightly so. 

For kids characters, free coloring in pages are perfect.

  Find a colour pic and think about what layers of paper you may need. 

This one I'm going to lose the shadow, have a shadow cut in purple, top layers in purple and red, white eyes, etc. 

Then open SCAL,  TRACE IMAGE, locate your image 

and Click Preview

Click OK and then even though it looks complex on the SCAL mat, don't worry! 

Resize the image to how big you are going to cut it.

Then in OBJECT Click on BREAK APART

(This makes all the shapes individual)

Now before you go any further, add a few pages using this button here:

 and copy your exact shape a few times using COPY and PASTE. (in the Edit tab). 

Now, start sorting out your layers. Delete any unwanted shapes for a background layer. Just click on a shape and push delete. 

For this background one I deleted all the inner shapes, this gives me a guide on where to stick the colours. 

This one below will become the little red square on his side.

(To make it easier to cut, I create a new page and colour the tab red, so that when I cut all my shapes, I load the right colour in according to the tab and press cut!

Seperate the eye pieces, sort them onto the right colour page. 

 Now here's the cool part about SCAL

I'm left with these shapes that I need to make into rectangle type shapes to cut as bottom layers.

Click on the NODES function

Then if you click on a little sqaure which indicates a line change, you can drag to wherever you need it!

THEN to get rid of all the inside nodes, Click on the DRAW TOOL

And click on all the inner nodes and they will disappear, leaving you with the outline. 

KEEP CLICKING!!!

Done, two perfect shapes for cutting! 

Once you have all your basic shapes, (don't bother with the itty bitty bits!) load the right coloured paper and hit Cut!

Layer... and you are done... 

First time make take a while but you'll get it!

Still heaps of time to enter the Whimsical Wednesday Interactive Challenge!!

I'll be back later with a Bo Bunny layout I am working on! 

Card Creations and More 'Inspired by" Challenge.

Over at Card Creations and More by C you'll find three great challenges for July. I saw this 'Inspired by" challenge and LOVED it. 

I rarely copy ideas directly I have seen (hence the recent arrival of my merthing!) but I have read so many great blogs and mags and this was a chance to copy one of my favs. I don't often do girl layouts, so it's nice to copy a master at it. This is my layout:

And I copied Sandra Gerdes' 'So Cute' LO. Click here for her blog post.  This is her layout as also featured in Scrapbooking with the Experts:

 

Now lots of blogger friends already know that I ramble on, but last week you found out I have endless inner dialogue too...but there's more!!!  Not only is that party going on in my brain, but ALL day long I sing songs in my head as well, multi-tasking with inner dialogue.  

My brain is a very loud annoying place to be... WHY am I rambling all this??? (with an inner dialogue that is screaming STOP rambling!!! and 'Here comes the sun' by Nina Simone on endless repeat today). Well, sometimes with such a head party... songs I hear become so internalised, I make them my own... So while I am on a copying spree... this is also stealing Taylor Swifts 'Best Days' and making it my own story. I don't listen to Taylor much at all, but this song when I heard it was so close to my own story.

Two thefts in one day. *hangs head* I'll get off on good behaviour because it's my first offense. lol. 

All the detail in Sandra's layout is amazing and I tried my best to copy with my own twist on it. 

Hate the hair that fell on my work pre-photo. I'll use it as DNA tracking system in case someone steals my layout idea that I stole from Sandra! lol!  

I used SCAL swirls with pink Cri-kits pens, cut a bazillion Accents flowers - used only about 30... doah! 

Then proceeded to clock up a few kilometres on my white and pink gel pen's scribble-o-meter. 

I used some cute Doodlebug brads and a few Candi and some new heart shaped i-rocks...Imaginisce is finally saying, "Phew... she used our products NORMALLY"

Thanks Christina for an awesome challenge! I have loved following your blog for a long time. You make the cutest whimsical cards. 


If you didn't see my big announcement last night...scroll down to my previous post (if this one hasn't taken the whole length of my blog). 

Flaunt it Fridays #8 Give a Hoot Challenge!

Yesterday for Stephanie at Always Crafting I completed a challenge about an elephant... Today Stephanie is sponsoring the prize for Flaunt it Fridays which is the bear in a bin cut from Give a Hoot...eek! The elephant was tough enough... but a bear in a bin!!! Oh NO!!! But as always: the idea came to me and I love the page I created. 

 My car really is always a mess. The boys don't like car trips and food is a great distraction, as a result, there is juice boxes, food packaging, apple cores and lots of other rubbish to clean out when home. (When I can get to it!) Not to mention the tonnes of toys and other distractions in there!

It has been nicknamed the 'Wheelie Bin' by my parents and some of my girlfriends. So funny. The bears represent me and my two boys. I used stamp masking and Peachy Keen Stamps 5/8" to just stamp the eyes from the everyday faces collection. If you are interested in learning about stamp masking click here for my mini tutorial. I must get more Peachy Keens. They really make a character come alive.

 

I don't have Give a Hoot cartridge so I cut my own bin with Sure Cuts a Lot. I was having trouble layering the bears as I tried to cut them out in Bazzills. But then Jacob, my scrapping assistant, had an idea:

 Watercolours and my aqua pen, so I ended using the water coloured pencils on a lot of the page, including title, dumped rubbish and for the definition on the dump truck.

The dump truck comes from Everyday Paper Dolls and so does the road. The Wheelie bin font is from Hannah Montana, the Daddy Girl font. 

Thanks again for a great challenge Flaunt it Fridays. I love your challenges! 

See you tomorrow for Cheap Chirpin' Tuesday!

Sweets for my sweet! What a Fantabulous Challenge!

Challenge Me Monday #43 over at Fantabulous Cricut is Sweet Shop! Incorporating something sweet into your project. 

I've been thinking about this crazy idea for a while, so I thought I'd see if it would work... it turned out a little bit cute, a little bit sweet and a little bit quirky! 

I used the cute ladybird from Create a Critter... Gave him a huge mouth in Sure Cuts a Lot2 and a sweet tooth! 

What says 'cute' more than Peachy Keen Stamps! Oh so cute!

I hand drew the bunch of flowers and the arm. 

I also had to draw the ladybugs eyes, as I didn't own any Peachy Keens big enough to make it look right.

The rose is made from a flower out of New Arrivals. Tomorrow I'll post up how to make these cute flowers, (click here for tutorial) just in time for Valentines day! I added a sweet chocolate treat to the centre of mine.They look AWESOME in a small bunch of about 8 and for very little cost or time!

Thanks Fantabulous Cricut for another awesome challenge!