Gypsy review

I used my gypsy for the first time earlier in the week to make those piggy cards. Now, I was one of the few people that was not in any way excited about the gypsy and never thought that I would want to buy it. But, my old laptop broke and I'm only on a mini laptop for now and my DS doesn't work on it since the screen is too small. I decided to take the plunge and bid on one on ebay. I ordered from seller proudparents2005 and got a great deal. They seem to have plenty of them and shipping was quick. I'd definitely recommend them to anyone wanting to buy one. Best deal I've found.

My fave option on the gypsy and what really got me to finally want it, is they have currently added the option to hide features. This made it possible to save TONS of paper by not having to cut things I wouldn't use.

 Since I made 20 of these, I did each separate thing in a row. Cut all the paper together, stamped all the faces in a row, etc. That way I didn't have to constantly keep switching tools. Made it go soo much faster. If you are making things in bulk, I definitely recommend the assembly line style.

For the pig base (the darker pink layer), I used main pig image and set it to 2.75 and set the cricut on autofill. That set it at 20, which was perfect! So with 1 piece of 12 x 12 cardstock, I made all the bases. Since I wanted to use the cute pig face stamps (They are from Peachy Keen stamps...Critter faces medium size), I didn't need all the layers. I decided to use layer 2 since I wanted the dark pink to show through on the ears, feet, and hands. This is where the gypsy came into use. I was able to hide all the other cuts so that the face parts didn't come in. After I made one on the gypsy w/o the extra cuts, I was able to copy the image 4 times and lay them side by side. Then, to make it even easier, I was able to select all 5 across and copy that 3 times. So I was able to quickly make 20 hidden faced pigs to fit on one mat!! Seriously LOVE this option.

While that layer saved me tons of time, the next cut I did is where I saved all the paper that I would normally have cut. I still wanted the layer with what looks like a dress?! But, on layer1, the dress cuts with another pig layer. Well, here I hid all the face cuts AND the pig. Then I copied just the dress 19 times and laid them all in a row. I saved a whole sheet of cardstock by having this option! No more waste!

Sorry, I'm so wordy as usual. But, I wanted to share how happy I am that I got the gypsy. I recommend it to everyone now! I still can't believe how quickly/easily it won me over. I now wish I'd bought this ages ago when it came out (although I sure saved a lot of money by waiting). If you don't already have one, go get one! If you have any other questions about it, let me know!

The paper I used is all Stampin up, the punch is my free one from Sale a Bration (I'm impressed I remembered to use a punch for once), stamps are My Pink Stamper "Punny-licious" and Critter Faces from Peachy Keen, the ribbon and flower are from Michael's. Also used white gel pen, blue stampin write marker, chalk, watercolor pencil and blending pen for coloring the pig face.

Hope that helps anyone who has been thinking about the gypsy. :)

Rhia's pigfarm & Superstition Farm

A few weeks ago, I saw a post from my fave local farm, Superstition Farm, about how they were selling some stuffed piggies that a 9 year old girl made to raise money for the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary. I was touched that  someone so young could be so involved in something she's passionate about. So, I messaged the farm to let them know that I would donate some cute pig cards they could sell as well to help her out. Figured it was the least I could do, plus it gave me an excuse to buy the Create-a-Critter cartridge that I've been wanting. :) Win/win right?!

Well I finished them up and dropped them off to the farm today. Here's a pic. For the crafters that follow, I'll have a more detailed post about what items I used and a review of my the gypsy since I got to use it for the first time on this project. Quick review is I love it! lol But I'll tell you why later this week.

 I made 20 total, 10 "stinkin' cute" and 10 "hog wild"

If you'd like to check out Rhia's FB page, look up Rhia's Pigfarm. I bought one of her cute stuffed piggies today too. Her name is Swirly. I'd post a pic but I can't find my SD card!

And if you are local, please make sure to support your local dairy farm, Superstition Farm. They have a FB page as well. Some of the nicest people, super clean farm, and cool shop. I bought some fresh milk and some new milk mix ins today too. :)

Cricut circle

Did any of you get the email that finally explains the Cricut Circle? It's pretty much what I guessed it was and like I thought, it's WAY overpriced in my opinion. It's a membership based program and you get 4 exclusive cartridges a year. That's really the only major benefit. The other stuff (discounts on cricut.com for example) are no use to most people since most buy online at other places to save money. It's $275/year or if you do quarterly payments, it's $80/quarter. So much money for what you get. Especially since you don't even know what the cartridges are yet.

Anyone considering signing up?

I'm also not very impressed with the Cricut Lite cartridges that are exclusive to Walmart. The only one I will probably even buy is the Slumber Party one since it has different images than other carts and it's cute. But, again, I think these are overpriced. They only have 50 images and limited extras for layering. But they are $40. I don't even pay that much for brand new regular carts. I think PC is making it really hard for most crafters to be able to keep buying their product. They are releasing too much in one year IMO. Between the cake, gypsy, cricut lite, and cricut circle. And it's all soo expensive!

Storage Tin

My aunt had asked for something that she could put on her nightstand for a small amount of storage. I couldn't decide what to make and then I realized I had a couple of storage tins in the closet that I never got around to using so, I decided to see what I could come up with.

The paper is from Imaginisce "Twitterpated". I love the set since it has cute birds and rabbits and foxes. The So Tweet stamp is also from the set and I heat embossed it using a black embossing powder. I adhered it with modge podge and did a layer over the top as well.

Unfortunately the handles were broken from shipping so I used a few coordinating colors of ribbon and threaded it through the handles holes instead.

Last week, I got a GREAT deal on about 21 tubes of Tim Holtz alcohol ink and I've been itching to try it. Well, since I was using tin, I figured I'd use it for the top. If you've never used these before, you totally should! I sponged on 3 coordinating colors and then added the gold mixative. It was clogged so it came out WAY too much! Luckily with the inks, it doesn't matter and you can still get a really cool effect. After I got it all on, I used some blending solution to lighten it a little bit and give it a better blend. I LOVE the way the top turned out. I can't wait to use the inks again.

I heat embossed the deer and bunny using gold embossing powder. Both the animals are from Stampin Up "Forest Friends". The tree, "life is good", "love," and "happiness" are all rubons from SU "Bright Delight". To add a little dimension, I popped up a polka dot flower. I couldn't find a matching smaller flower, so I sponged a white one to match the dots. Then added a corduroy brad from SU.

I hope she likes it.

Mini album

Get ready for a picture heavy post! Since I was sending my aunt the tin, I decided to also make a mini album for her too. I used a lot of scraps and random pieces from my stock so I won't be able to say what brand some stuff is, but I'll try. Almost all of the patterned papers are from 3 different sets so I'll abbreviate throughout in case anyone is looking for a certain type of paper. The 3 main sets I used were Prima Marketing Rock on Love (ROL), Die Cuts with a View "Glitter Sweet" (GS), and Die Cuts with a View "Rockstar" (RS).

I bought a few of these photo albums about a year ago on clearance and they have just been waiting for me to do something with them. I really should get better about using stuff I have before buying more! Well, the album by itself, while cute, is just too boring for me. I made a mini layout to fit inside each 4x6 page.

 The pages are accordion style rather than the usual flip through albums. So when you first open, you see the "Family" page. The pink paper and the guitar paper are from ROL. One of my cousins plays guitar so I added 2 pages with them for pics of him. I LOVE the metal key I found in my embellishment drawer. It's from Making Memories and has a little bird on it. I need to buy more of these! The Family cut is from Cricut "Home Accents". Cut at 2 inches.

The journaling mat and green paper are from ROL. The black and white paper is from scraps and the pink is from RS. Hard to tell, but there's a cute gem that says sisters in between the pink photo mats. It's from Etcetera. They have really cute epoxy stickers with different sayings and images.

Blue paper is from RS and the patterned paper at the bottom is from my scraps. I cut the top note from Accent Essentials at 2 inches an then added lines for journalling.

Papers from ROL. The polka dot is a sticker border.

This starts the backside. Memories is cut from Home Decor. Green paper from ROL, pink is from GS. The rest is just random embellishments.

Blue paper from GS and there's another of those epoxy stickers. This one says cute as a bug with a little lady bug. The guitar paper is from RS.

Papers from ROL. All the rest is random embellishments.

Top paper is from scraps and the blue/brown patterned one is from RS. This top note was cut at 3 in. The blue and the pink ribbon are Stampin Up. Blessed Life are both rubons from 2 different sets that just happened to go together.

After all of the embellishments, it was too thick to close! Well, after all that work, I had to figure something out. I went to my hair bow drawer and found this really cute flowered hair tie and it matched perfectly. It holds it together and the bow fits right at the top to hide the clasps.

See, told you lots of pictures! But this was a really fun project and surprisingly was fairly quick. I took it one page at a time and wasn't too worried about being too matchy matchy since I just wanted bright colors that went together. I also was really good about using my scraps for all the plain colored mats. I usually end up grabbing a new piece of paper and cutting it, but I resisted and I easily found matches. Now if I could just stick with that, maybe I'd be able to close my scrap file folder again!

Gypsy

I have been eying the Cricut gypsy for awhile not but could never justify the cost since I'm not sure I'll love it. Well, with the new updates, it can do so much more than when it first came out and after watching some fellow bloggers videos, it's made me want one more. But, again, they are pricey. I got lucky though and won a bid on ebay for a great deal. For $130, I got the gypsy, the floral carrying case, the Heritage cartridge and the Hannah Montana cartridge. Plus, it was free shipping! When I figure the difference between what the extras would have normally cost at my fave discount online store with a 20% off coupons and shipping, it's like getting the gypsy for only $40. And considering that all this stuff in a Michael's/Joanns would have been around $450 even with their current sale, it's a steal!

Anyway, just wanted to share my excitement! If you are looking for a good deal on ebay, check out the seller proudparents2005 That's who I got it from and it looks like most of the bundles (without the HM one though) have gone for under $140 so it looks like you can almost always get a great deal. They also have a ton of cartridges for around $20. I can't wait to get it and start playing with it!