Explore Giveaway--- Link inside !!

Hey there, posting this for all my readers. This place is giving away a free CRICUT EXPLORE !!!

The Idea Room Cricut Explore Giveaway !!

Go check it out and enter to win !!

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Corinne

Internet HELL Day...

UGH !!! I am sooo frustrated !! I had a horrible day yesterday, and today, all I wanted was a relaxing day of crafting. So what happens when I wake up this morning? Our internet is out, due to Routine Maintenance, and I can't use my Explore. So what do I do? I call T-Mobile to set up a one day Wi-Fi Internet HotSpot so I can use the internet on my Laptop and my explore. Well it worked great for the internet, but not so great for cutting with my Explore.... in fact, not at ALL with my Explore. So I just designed a beautiful card, tried to save it,  and the Internet crashed.  UGH AGAIN!!! So I gave up for a while and took a nap, and luckily when I got up from my nap, the internet was working finally, YAAAAAY !!! So I go to log onto to Design Space, and guess what, I have to upgrade it... which is great, except it took forever and was a pain in the butt. Then after that I finally get logged into DS and am ready to design a card, and discover my trial subscription has run out !!! UGH !! So I go to log onto cricut.com to renew my subscription and I can't get their website to open. It keeps giving me an error message !!! Finally after messing with it for about 20 minutes I come up with another creative solution, Use my old browser, Mozilla Firefox, to log onto Cricut and renew my subscription. It worked !! FINALLY I was back in action. I designed what I think is a beautiful card, cut it out, and put it in a little baggie. I have 2 doctors appts tomorrow, one where I have to wait 30 minutes for my dad to be seen after me, so I will have something to do during all that time. I have scissors, adhesives, embellishments, everything. and all in my big purse I bought this weekend. (Pictures of my Traveling Storage Solutions will be posted tomorrow hopefully, these are only to tide me over until I can get my rolling scrapbook storage tote. But I LOVE my purses I bought and will definitely be keeping them after I get my real scrapbook tote. But I gotta tell ya, I'm super excited about the tote I'm getting !! It will hold just about EVERYTHING !! Anyways, it's getting late and I will add more tomorrow. 

Thanks, 
Corinne

OLD INFO!! SEE FUTURE POST(S) FOR UPDATED INFO!! Some info Regarding Frequently Asked Question Regarding Cricut Explore!!

THIS INFORMATION IS NO LONGER CORRECT, THEY HAVE DONE AN UPDATE TO THE SOFTWARE AND MADE IT MUCH EASIER. I WILL POST THAT INFORMATION VERY SOON !! Thank you, Corinne -- 04.21.14

Ok, I just got off the phone with Riley at Cricut Explore Customer Service, and I asked her several questions I have seen floating around here in post or comments. So here we got:

** WRITING AND CUT FEATURE: Ok, she gave me step by step instructions on how to do this, if you have an easier way of doing it, please feel free to contact me personally and I will amend this post. (I ask you to contact me personally rather than post it in the comments because it will make it easier to keep my blog updated as well.
Here are the steps: (and yes, I tried them exactly as written and they worked like a charm!!!)

STEP 1 – Choose Background to write on.
STEP 2- Change layer to Write (from cut)
STEP 3- Ungroup Background.
STEP 4- Type It out
STEP 5 – Ungroup Text (remove background if necessary)
STEP 6 – Press CTRL and Select Each Letter and Layer/Background.
STEP 7 – Right click, ATTACH
STEP 8 - Cut Put Pen In Clamp A and Press GO !!

**  MACHINE BEEPING: If your machine beeps with every cut, especially Intricate cuts, THAT IS NORMAL. It is the engine/motor that makes that noise. There is NO way to turn that off,

**  LIGHT(under under-carriage): If you machine has a light that works, lucky you, but if it does NOT work, THAT IS NORMAL, the light is there for future purposes where they plan on adding a printing functionality, (Print and Cut Feature) No ETA on that yet.

Hope this helps all helps at least 1 person!!!

I will be posting more later on, I just wanted to get this info on here asap!!

Hello there, 
So it's been a few days since I have written in here, mostly because I've been too tired, and the irony here is that I woke up Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed at 3:30 Am!!! So I thought I would make this short and sweet and show you the last couple cards I've made!! 

I'm LOVING my new Cricut Explore!!! It's makes cutting intricate details seem like its cutting through butter !! I've never made such intricate cards in my life !! Check out a couple more!! 

I also went back to Michael's and spent WAY too much money, but got a new sheet of cling stamps and FINALLY got myself those acrylic blocks you need to mount them too. I also got some color embossing powder, new ink pads, and some embellishments. I got a new box for my inks, and I need to go get 2 more, one for my every day stamps, and one for my embossing powders and stuff that goes with it. 

I also think I may have found a solution to the Magnetic Spice Rack/ Embellishment storage idea. Over in there ribbon department, they have these packs of 30 tins for something like $12.99, maybe $19.99, either way, it's a phenomenal deal compared to how much the real thing cost !! (They cost as much as $150.00) and I would just buy the magnets there, and glue them to the bottom, then spray paint a cookie sheet maybe a Bright Pink or something, and stick 'em on !! Voila!! DIY project success, and lots of storage to boot !! Next month maybe !!

Anyways, tbat's all I've got for right now, I'll ttyl, 

Corinne

So much to talk about!

Hello all,  I really do have several different topics I want to cover, so please forgive me if I jump around a bit. 

I'm pretty excited because I am FINALLY getting a Cuttlebug embosser and die cutter,  and I did it without having to pay full retail and am still getting a NEW one!  Originally I ordered it from a guy on eBay,  but then today my dad (whose account I used to to buy it) got a message saying that he was actually out of stock and wouldn't be able to fill my order,  he promptly refunded the money and suggested Amazon.  So I checked out Amazon,  and even with shipping it turned out to be a buck cheaper,  but the downside is I won't get it until between the 14th and 17th of April,  which is kind of a bummer since I've already bought one of my favorite folders for it.  Oh well.

I've decided that it time to part with some of my duct tape collection,  just the duplicates that are mostly still in packages.  I think we've figured out that I will make more money selling them individually than as a lot as originally planned. I will also be selling my old Cricut as soon as I can find the bag for it.  I need the money this month.

Jumping around again,  we finally got that coffee table I had been working on out of here and in to storage and brought my super awesome table home, and Holy cow!  I have SOOOO much more work space,  even with the one side down.  I just LOVE it!

I will edit this with some pictures and more info later. .. Until then!
Corinne

My First Self-Designed Card On My Brand New CRICUT EXPLORE !!

Well, I finally figured out how to make a card on my new Explore. It took me a couple of tries to figure out how to do it, and I still haven't figured out the Writing feature, but that will all come in due time. For right now, I am very happy with the card I made !! 

I just love the Swirls design on the front combined with the shine in my paper!! And the Green behind it really makes it POP!!

 For the inside, well, I haven't really done much of the interiors of cards, I've mostly focused on practicing the front sides, to be totally honest. But on this one, I did the inside mostly by hand with the exception of the stamp you see. 

I just LOVE owls, and I LOVE this stamp. Details below.

 I used Washi tape for the first time on this card, I really like how it turned out, then I added a little foam heart sticker to it. I used the Fiskers Dragonback special edge scissors on the white image with the owl, and then some old pinking sheers from my sewing kit (a big no-no! but they are OLD!) for the brown circle. I then added a chain like silver ribbon across the top, along with adhesive runner on the back of it to hold it in place. For extra strength, I added for Silver Glitter Brads. 

What do you all think of my first Self Designed Explore Card?? I'm really quite pleased!! This thing cuts like a champ !!

Hope to hear from you guys!!
_______________
Corinne

My First Cricut Project

Hello all, 
Well as promised, I got my first project done today, but I consider it cheating a bit because I used one of their pre-made Card projects, really just to see how the layering, cutting, scoring and writing tools worked. I still have A LOT to learn about this baby, but it has a lot of potential !! I can't wait to master it !! 

Here it is, the Explosion Card !!

This was written with the writing feature on the machine!!

 What do you all think? Maybe not the most original, but the colors were my own !!
Well that's all I've got for now, I'm going to watch some "How-To" videos and create some projects!! 
___ 
Corinne