Good Morning Summer!

Yes, I know that officially summer doesn't start until June 21 (or something like that) but we all know that in our hearts, summer started yesterday. :-) 

We had a nice, long weekend. Hubby did some work in the yard. I played in my art room. We cooked lots of yummy foods. Overall, a very nice time BUT we both have today off as well so the fun continues! lol

I have been in hyper card mode this past week. I didn't realized that I was until I pulling all the photos for today's post. My My I was a busy girl.  :-)

I needed a Father's Day card for hubby (from the cats). Hey, don't judge me! ;-)

I used Create a Friend for this little fellow. He normally holds a spatula (great for BBQ invitations) but I switched that out for the cat dish from the Meow cartridge. The background is embossed with one of the folders from Cuttlebug's Retro Kitchen set.  I had the Explore write on the apron because it just looked like it needed something.
It is hubby's job to feed the babies their canned food every morning....and they let him know if he is running late. Boy do they let him know! lol

Next I made this little diaper bag card. All the parts come from Doodlecharms (except the tag). I cannot take credit for this design, I found it on Pinterest. You can see it here http://liveloveandscrap.blogspot.com/2010/08/diaper-bag-shape-card.html She has a wonderful tutorial video and she has all the measurements on her blog.
I love that the bear and bottle are removable from the pocket. So cute!

Last Friday, Joann's was having a sale. Cricut cartridges were $19.99. Now I need more cartridges like I need a hole in my head. But c'mon! $19.99! So I picked up Cindly Loo and Birthday Bash. This adorable Snail is from Birthday Bash. The background layers are from Elegant Edges. The pink layer was embossed with Cuttlebug's Musical Flourish. 
I let the Explore write the Hello on the card. How can you not love a machine that 'hand writes' for you? Especially when your hand writing is as bad as mine?! lol

But we are not done yet folks! lol

Saturday we headed out to one of the local strawberry farms. There is nothing like fresh strawberries! These were so sweet and juicy. I could have eaten the entire box....but I didn't lol
Instead I made this card. How can you not smile when you come face to face with a happy bowl of strawberries? The berries come from Simply Charmed. The tablecloth from Elegant Edges. I embossed it with one of the folders from Cuttlebug's Paper Lace set.

Yesterday, in the Let's Learn Cricut Explore facebook group, someone posted a photo of an oven box they had created. It was so adorable! She tried to share the file (you can share your cutting files with the new Design Space---how cool is that???) but I couldn't get her file to cut. I kept getting errors. (she has since fixed her file and I can cut it - woohoo)  But after all that trying, I was really in the mood to make an oven lol  I decided to make an oven card and see if I could add a 'twist'. The oven door really opens! But it also opens in the back as a card as well so I can add sentiments or a message inside. :-)

The stove image is from Suburbia, the pot and pan come from From My Kitchen, the oven mitt and phrase are from Nifty Fifties, the tab that holds the door closed is from Artbooking but I know I have seen them on I think Tags, Bags Boxes and More or Fabulous Finds and the steam coming out of the pot is from a cup of coffee on the Winter Frolic cart. I also welded the steam and a small circle onto the phrase to create the question mark.

I had so much fun designing this card that now my mind is swirling with more ideas for other similar cards.

I sat down late last night (since I didn't have to work today - yay) and created the following card.

Yep, a toaster where the toast comes out. :-)

The toaster is from From My Kitchen, the bread is from Wild Card 2.
My thought was that you could write your message on the part of the toast that is inside the toaster or on the back. This morning I tweeked the design and turned the toast into an actual card you can open. That is what happens when you create way past your bedtime....better ideas come when you are fully awake lol
But, last night I did add a note to the back of my toast. :-)

That is all I have for you today (I am sure you are very thankful for that lol) But I have already designed a refrigerator that I hope to get cut sometime today ;-)

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

I love my playtime!

I still can't believe we are in the middle of May. I swear Christmas was just a couple weeks ago! But I am very thankful the winter weather is gone. :-)

 

 

I have squeezed in lots of play time over the past couple weeks. It is sometimes a struggle to balance life and play but so worth it in the end when I feel happy and have a stack of lovely things to share. :-)

 

 

I'm going to start with my Cricut projects

 

 

Last weekend we were supposed to go to a citywide yard sale. As I have mentioned many times, I love yard sales and flea markets. I love coming home with lots of treasures and art supplies for very little money! But last weekend it was raining so hard that if you were outside more than 10 seconds you were drenched (and freezing cold). So, after attempting a couple houses, I gave up, came home and put a batch of chili in the crockpot.....and created this...

 

Just a little something to remind myself that even rainy days aren't all bad. She comes from the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge.

As we were eating our chili (and homemade cornbread) for dinner, we watched Despicable Me. And I just had to make a Minion card. I found a Minion svg file and downloaded it into the Explore. It cut out great!

According to my Google searches on the Minion language, Bello means Hello.....who knows but it looked cute to me lol

Even though I have already mailed out my Father's day card to my dad, hubby still needed one for his dad. The fishing creel is from Everyday Paper Dolls, the pole and fish are from Outdoor Man.

Yes, I know, you can only catch one fish per line but the card just looked so much better with two. Artistic license lol

Hubby's aunt is turning 90 next month and loves all the cards I make for her (to the point that she carries them around to show all her friends - and yes, she is out and about golfing everyday, lunches, works out at the gym.....I hope I am half as active as she is in my later years!!!). I made this card using Freshly Picked for the potted geraniums and Elegant Edges for the 'tablecloth'. The tag is from Picturesque.

My mother-in-law's birthday is in July and since I was in card making mode I went ahead and made up one for her as well.  I used the brand new Anna Griffin Summer Soiree cartridge for the butterfly card base. The layered butterflies are from Paper Lace.

I managed to find a little bit of stamping time as well.  I love the CTMH Give a Lift balloon set .
I used ultra fine black embossing powder to make the lines really pop. I then tinted it with watercolor pencils. I used distress inks and water to tint the flowers.

The back is blank so I can use it as a gift tag on some future date.

And finally....yes, I am almost done lol  I loved Tim Holtz May 2014 tag. I like them every month but some months call out to me more than others. This is one of those months.

I wanted my tag to be a reflection of things I love. I have a seashell because I would rather be at the beach than any place else. The dragonfly I tangled onto a game tile years ago then tossed it into a drawer because I couldn't decide what to do with it. I love dragonflies, I love zentangles and I collect hundreds of various game tiles for art projects. The postage stamp is there because I snag stamps wherever I can to use in projects of all types. They are such cool little works of art.  I love and collect vintage buttons (I have at least 10 quart mason jars full lol). The moth is rubber stamped, how could I showcase things I love and collect without having something rubber stamped??? As for the brass flower...well, I liked how it curved around the hole in the tag and I have had that thing sitting in my ephemera drawer for at least 20 years and thought it finally needed a home. :-)

And lastly, the debossed word....this is from Tim Holtz new ShadowPress embossing folders. They are so cool!!!
I embossed it on kraft paper as a test to see how it looked figuring I would use a different paper for the actual project then couldn't decide on what paper to use. I let it sit for the night and woke up with what I thought was a great idea...I would antique it! I love antiques!!! It fit perfectly with my theme! I swiped a few strokes of Ceramcoat Alpine over the paper. Once that was dry I applied a coat of Americana's Weathered Wood crackle medium. You have to wait at least 3 hours (so I hit the yard sales for a while) then I made random swipes with Ceramcoat's Ivory over the top making sure to let some of the green and the kraft paper show through. Lastly, once the paint was dry, I rubbed Distress Ink Walnut Stain all over and then buffed off some of it. I love how it turned out!

I hope you all have a very creative week! We have a 3 day weekend coming up. I am hoping to squeeze in a few hours of art time (between all the BBQs and fun) :-)



So many ideas, so little time

I feel like I have been spinning in circles this week. I have so many things I want to do and just can't find the time!

Plus, we are starting the 'busy season' in my family. My parents like all their holidays smacked up together so we have Mother's Day, then dad's birthday, next is Mom's birthday and then Father's Day. That is a lot of shopping and a lot of cards to cram into a 4 week period! lol  To add to that, since they don't live near me, I ship everything together to try to save a little.  Needless to say, I had to get busy finishing up my cards! (Mother's Day is only a week away ya know!)

In case you missed it, here is the birthday card in a box that I made for my mom a couple months ago. (see I really try to not wait until the last second lol)

I had made her a Mother's Day card around the same time but, although I like it, I decided to make another one...yeah I don't understand it either.

The flower pot with flowers is from Freshly Picked, the tag is from Picturesque, the blue thingy is from Elegant Edges. I let the Cricut Explore do the writing on the tag. I embossed the top of the background with the flowers from Cuttlebug's Plum Blossom set. And those are button brads in the centers of the flowers.

 



Making cards for my Mom is so much easier than making cards for my Dad (or for men in general). Why is that?

Over the past week I had to figure out what to make...

My Dad loves his truck....he has so many bells and whistles on that thing! lol
Here is a picture of it.

I tried to recreate it on a card. The 'background' trees and road as well as the truck are from Outdoor Man. The background shape is most likely from Elegant Edges. I used a shiny silver cardstock that was actually packing material from something. It worked great for all that chrome! lol

And then we have Father's Day. I embossed cattails onto the cardstock using Darice's Nature set. The geese are from Outdoor Man. And of course I let the Explore do the writing. Can I just say that I am so happy that the Explore writes! My handwriting is HORRIBLE so now I have nicely written cards! Yay!

And of course we have a graduation in June. My niece is graduating from high school. Poor thing, her school colors are blue and gold (ugh! I am a buckeye...we do NOT do blue and gold!!!) And her gown is going to be that obnoxious gold. Yuk! Hating yellow/gold as I do, I just couldn't put that horrible of a color on the card....sorry lol  I did my best and toned it down to a light yellow which is still sort of bright but not glaringly so. (it is a little brighter in the picture than in person) ;-)

The grad is from Paper Dolls Teen Scene, the numbers are from Art Deco. I swiped the glasses from one of the boys on the cartridge....he was wearing sunglasses in the shape I wanted. I took his sunglasses, welded the lenses to the frames which turned them into glasses. Now she looks just like my niece. You can't really tell in the photo but the shoes and glasses are purple....that girl loves her purple! lol

But I played this week too....sometimes you need to do stuff just for you!

I experimented with stamps and the Cricut. I love stamping but am not always a fan of cutting out my images lol  I stamped my image then filled it in and went a bit outside the lines. I then scanned this and imported it into Design Space. I let Cricut cut it out and then I stamped on the cut.

This is a stamped I carved of Tucker at least 15 years ago....he was going through his chubby period.

I then did the same thing with one of my favorite stamps, a yowling cat from Mars Tokyo.

I need to work on lining up the stamp on the cut but you get the idea.

And finally, I just got an order from Close To My Heart. I am in love with the Balloon Ride paper pack (X7180B) and the Give a Lift stamp set which has 2 gorgeous balloons as well as some sayings and other goodies (D1581)!  The swirls are from the Skylark Scrapbooking Workshop set (D1591). I also added some 'postage' from the retired set Vintage Post Card.

This week looks like it is going to be another busy one....plus I just found out I am going to be a grandmother (we need to find another, not so old sounding, name for that) so that means another card to make :-)

If you are interesting in the Close To My Heart papers and sets I used please check out my website www.CherylWrede.ctmh.com

So they tell me it is the weekend

Fridays just don't seem as great when you have to work overtime on Saturday but at least I only had to work a half day today...which means the rest of my day is play time!!!!! :-)

As promised (although a few days later than I had hoped) here are the photos of my Close To My Heart kit.

You read the list and it sounds like a lot of stuff but then you get the box and you dig in and it seems like you will never hit the bottom! I had a blast unpacking it...even hubby stood by watching in amazement lol

So the huge deal this month is the free Cricut cartridge of your choice with your kit. I chose the Artbooking cartridge because I want to make more art journals (not that I ever seem to put anything in them lol)

Here is what you get when you order a Cricut cartridge from Close To My Heart.....not just a cartridge!

 

Check this out! You get the awesome cartridge with 700 images and a font! PLUS 3, yep THREE coordinating stamp sets AND a set of 3 coordinating chipboard elements! How cool it that?! And just think, that was the Freebie in my kit and my reason for signing up! I am not disappointed. :-)

Now onto the rest of the kit...

CTMH has scrapbook 'kits' called Workshops On The Go. They include supplies and instructions to make at least 2 page layouts....or a ton of cards lol
The kit this month has the Skylark Workshop On The Go. It includes the Skylark paper pack ( 6 printed papers and 6 coordinating cardstocks), a coordinating stamp set, 3 additional sheets of cardstock, some acrylic flower embellishments and some slate striped twist ties. I love the colors of these papers!

 

Next came the Skylark extras....a package of 24 sheets of the bulk printed papers and a set of the Skylark Complements. These are printed chipboard embellishments.

Digging deeper I found 3 more stamp sets! Two of them compliment the Skylark set really well and then there was a full alphabet (upper and lower case)

Still digging.... look at all these supplies!
3 stamp pads (which go really well with the Skylark papers), 3 acrylic stamp blocks, 2 types of embellishments (teal flowers and metal triangle studs), teal ribbon, scissors, stamp cleaner, stamp cleaning brush, glue pen and a bottle of liquid glass. Oh, and a sponge for inking edges or whatever you want. I think that covers everything in this picture lol

But I'm not done yet!
I received 2 spiral bound books. Originals has card examples and lots of layout ideas and Reflections is the same thing but for scrapbook layouts. Both of these are really cool books with tons of ideas and gorgeous photos!

Everything else in the box was business supplies....you know, catalogs (which I must say are heavy, gorgeous and feel awesome in the hand!), order forms and stamp sets to give out to hostesses. I didn't figure you wanted to see those lol

So, have I used any of this stuff yet? Why yes I have lol  Not much, I have been pretty busy this week, but I managed to grab a few minutes of art time.

I made this card using some of the papers, stamps and my artbooking cartridge.
The teal and grid papers are both from the Skylark pack. The bird is from the Believe in Yourself set (#C1574). The 'Sweet' stamp is from the Sweet & Lovely set (D1571) that came in my Cricut bundle. I cut the heart background with the Artbooking cartridge. Oh and look, some of those gold metal studs! :-)

I also worked in one of my art journals this week. I wanted to experiment with cutting a stencil with my Cricut and then figured what better place to use it than in my journal. 'Live in the Moment' is from the Skylark stamp set (D1591) that came in the Skylark workshop. 'Believe in Yourself' is from the Believe in Yourself set (C1574). I cut the hexagon grid from Artbooking and used it as a stencil with the CTMH inks Lagoon and Desert Sand. And then I liked how the stencil itself looked with ink on it so I added part of it onto the page. Oh, and the little bird on the lower left, the blue larger layer is part of the paper, the brown top layer is a stamp from the Believe in Yourself set.

So there you have it! Or maybe there I have it lol

Either way, all of these wonderful products can be yours if you would like. For the month of April 2014, Close To My Heart is including 1 free Cricut bundle of your choice in the consultant kits. You are not obligated to every sell anything or buy anything else so you are basically buying your Cricut bundle for $99 (plus shipping and tax) and getting all these other awesome products for free!

If you are interested or have questions please visit my site at www.CherylWrede.ctmh.com

Ok, no more commercials! From now on, I will note if I use CTMH products and give you the name and such (just like I have always done with all my other supplies over the years) and will have my page link at the bottom of the post but won't be hounding you to check it out....I promise!

A new Journey begins

I am all about learning new things. If you have been here before or scroll through the many years of my blog you will see that I am always trying out new techniques and supplies (I love learning new things and having new toys lol)

Well, this week I started another new journey. I signed up to be a Close To My Heart consultant?

You might ask why? She doesn't scrapbook!
So true, I only scrapbook once a year to document our yearly anniversary trip (which was last week btw). BUT I do rubber stamp! A Lot! And I have loved CTMH (Close To My Heart) stamps for years.

So, why now?
I will tell you! Close To My Heart is offering such a great deal for the month of April 2014 that I just couldn't resist!

The standard consultant kit costs $99......and you receive approximately $300 in product plus business supplies. Now that in itself is a great deal. But wait! There's more. For this month of April 2014 they are also including your choice of a CTMH Cricut cartridge! That by itself is a $99 product because you don't just get the cartridge, you get coordinating stamp sets and chipboard embellishments!

So, for April only you are receiving $400 worth of product for only $99! Being a huge stamp lover and obsessive Cricut user, I just couldn't let this pass me by.

Here is what comes in the kit (mine actually arrived a few minutes ago and it is so heavy I honestly cannot lift it so have to wait for hubby to come home and help me....but I will post pics asap)  :-)

Contents of the New Consultant Kit Include:

• Read Me First Letter
• Spring/Summer 2014 Idea Books (qty. 10)
• Hostess Order Forms (qty. 25)
• Customer Order Forms (qty. 25)
• Close To My Heart Color Swatches (W471)
• Spring/Summer 2014 B&T Duos™ Sampler (W1127)
• Petite Perks™ Delicate Wings Incentive Stamp Set (qty. 5) (W2028)
• Reflections™ Scrapbook Program (9037)
• Originals Card Confidence Program™ (9036)
• Workshops on the Go™ Skylark Scrapbooking Kit (G1072)
• Skylark Complements Dimensional Elements (X7177C)
• Skylark B&T Duos™ Bulk Paper (BULK322)
• Skylark Bulk Resin Flowers (BULK340)
• Durables Triangle Studs (Z1928)
• Teal Shimmer Trim (Z1918)
• Lagoon Exclusive Inks™ Pad (Z2195)
• Desert Sand Exclusive Inks™ Pad (Z2118)
• Slate Exclusive Inks™ Pad (Z2173)
• My Acrylix™ Hopscotch Alphabet Stamp Set (E1028)
• My Acrylix™ True to Life Stamp Set (C1575)
• My Acrylix™ Believe in Yourself Stamp Set (C1574)
• 3" × 3" My Acrylix™ Block (Y1006)
• 4" × 5" My Acrylix™ Block (Y1012)
• 2" × 6½" My Acrylix™ Block (Y1010)
• Non-Stick Micro-Tip Scissors (Z1836)
• My Acrylix™ Stamp Scrubber (Z1782)
• My Acrylix™ Spritz Cleaner (1778)
• Bonding Memories™ Glue (1512)
• Sponge (Z697)
• Liquid Glass (Z679)
• and Cello Bags (qty. 25) (W1152)

(Some items may not be shown. Contents are subject to change without notice.)

Plus your choice of one of the three CTMH Cricut cartridges: Artiste, At Philosophy or Artbooking. 

I ordered Artbooking because I love making art journals. Everything in the picture comes with the Cricut cartridge! How cool is that???

 

 

Check our this video on how to become a consultant.

 

CTMH loves to have new consultants but they also understand how awesome this deal is for Cricut users that just want the cartridge and they are fine with that. (you can check out all 3 cartridges at CTMH)

 

So, if you would like to sign up (to sell or just take advantage of this awesome deal) you can go to my CTMH page and sign up.

 

Or if you have questions, you can leave a comment on this blog or go to my CTMH page and click the "contact me" link at the bottom of the page. I would love to answer your questions and be thrilled if you would like to join my team!

 

But, if you would just like to shop, I am fine with that too. Feel free to browse my CTMH page...make sure you check out all the awesome stamps, inks, papers (oh such gorgeous papers!!!) scrapbooks, Crush books and so many other supplies.

 

***Remember, the offer of the Cricut cartridge with your kit is only good through April 30, 2014!

 

Watch for photos of my kit coming in the next couple days and projects using my new 'toys' very soon. :-)

 



More exploring with the Explore

Since I am still in my free trial period (you get 2 free weeks of access to over 25000+ Cricut images when you buy the Explore-after that time you can buy a subscription) I am playing with lots of images from cartridges that I don't own....so beware.....picture heavy post. :-)

I am still exploring uses for vinyl and am totally loving it! I put a couple dragonflies on our glass door and they look so cute (no picture). Minnie has swiped at them a couple times from her cat tower thinking they were something she could play with. So far they are still stuck tight. :-)

On Monday, after work, we went and got new cell phones. Am I the only one that finds this both fun and infuriating. It is fun to get new toys to play with and pick one that has all the features you like but at the same time you are then dickering over the price, the amount of data...the hidden charges. Ugh! Sometimes I just long for the days of the phone hanging on the wall. But then how could I check Twitter while I am at the grocery? (just kidding, I never check twitter from anyplace but home.....I just don't care THAT much lol)

But to get back on track.....I had that new phone in my hot little hands for about an hour when I pulled out the vinyl and prettied it up. :-)

This cat image if from the Chore Chart cartridge and is about 2 inches tall. Notice how precise the whiskers are cut.

Now, I am one that when I get a new device like a phone or tablet, one of the first things I do is go online and order a vinyl skin for it. So, this was so much fun to create my own vinyl and make my phone unique to me. But for some reason I never put a skin on my iPad mini that I got last summer. I loved how my phone turned out so I grabbed the iPad and vinyl'd it up too!

The doily is from Edge to Edge and the monogram is from Miss Kate's Cuttables. I am still in awe of how the Explore can cut these doilies! The entire thing is only about 4 inches across and yet all those teensy pieces are cut perfectly. (and a nightmare to weed lol)

And as I think I mentioned in another post, hubby wanted something on the dishwasher so that he could differentiate between clean and dirty so I made him these...

We can move a magnet between the 2 of them.  :-)

Here is a closer look. The he is from the Barnyard Babies cartridge. I flipped one of them and I hand-cut the mud. 

But I cut paper and cardstock this week too lol

Because my free period is almost up, I cut out several images that I know I will use in the near future. I will doctor them up and assemble them later but here is one I completed yesterday. He is a puffin from the Seabirds and Shells cartridge. I colored on his details with Prismacolor pencils. I probably should have painted the white on his face but too late now lol  He is just a little guy, about 1 1/2 inches tall.

And finally, the Explore can cut SVG files. Yes, I know if you have the SureCutsALot program you could already do that. But I didn't. And I don't own a Silhouette so I have never played with SVGs before. I am finding tons of free images online and I love freebies!

Miss Kate's offers a freebie of the day so you have to go check every day but it is totally worth it!

This is her Pretty Bug from earlier this week. But don't worry, if you miss out on the freebie, you can still buy it from her for a very small price. 

I used a printed cardstock for the body (it was some sort of peeling paint looking thing lol) in what I think is a nice bug green. The wings were embossed with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder and then I rubbed ink over them to highlight the dots. The base is another doily, from Edge to Edge this time cut at about 5 inches.  Isn't she cute? I was going to put her on a card but instead she now hangs over my work computer because she makes me smile.

But Miss's Kate's isn't the only place I find freebies.

Check out this adorable Pot Belly Bunny. He is the freebie of the week over at Little Scraps of Heaven.

The background paper was just hand cut in a rectangle and I used a corner punch to perk up the corners (nothing like doing it old school lol)
The text box was cut from.....hmmm.....hard to say, there are tons of rectangles out there but probably from George and Basic Shapes. I let the Explore do the writing for me. :-)

And one last picture. Hey, I warned you up front that I was bombarding you this week! lol

This was not a freebie but I still found him online from a site that does offer a freebie of the week. This is from the Cats Collection at Treasure Box Designs.

Sometimes I have a hard time resisting cats. Especially when they look at you like this! lol

All the shading was done with Prismacolor pencils. And her designs already have the 'cute' eyes cut-out, all you need to do is add the details. I liked that as I was assembling this on my lapdesk in front of the TV and really couldn't be messing with paint and water lol

My free trial period is almost up and I do not plan on subscribing (not when I own so many cartridges) so we shall see how it goes. It has been fun browsing the entire Cricut library thought! There are sooooo many images I never imaged they had. But I found myself drawn to things I already own so I think that is a good thing. But, if I do need something I don't already have it is nice to have the option of buying just that one image.

Until next time, have a wonderful week!

Let's compare

I promised I would compare cuts from the Expression and the Explore so that you (and I) could see how it handles teeny cuts.

I'll admit, I was very curious. I love my Expression but after spending so much for the Explore (well, actually I used up all my Christmas Amazon gift cards ;-)  ) I wanted to see if I got my money's worth.

So let's start with the crab from the Fisherman's Wharf image I used on my tag a few days ago with the Explore.

The crab is pretty small. He is 7/8 of an inch tall and 1 1/4 inches wide.

Here is a close up of cuts from both machines (Expression is on the right).

Not bad, huh?! I was surprised that the Expression didn't 'munch' up the tips of the legs and claws more than it did. I am very impressed with my pink baby. But if you look closely and really compare, you will see that the Explore image is more detailed. Notice more definition in the legs, the cuts for the claws are more defined (meaning bumps and hooks) Is it enough to say one machine is better than the other? Not on this cut. Both are wonderful.  :-)

Now let's compare that rice bowl from last week cut with the Expression.

The original bowl was cut at 5/8 of an inch tall. I manually sized the bowl in Design Space to be the same height. A few others have commented on this issue and this was the first I have seen it (notice this did not happen with the crab above)

 

Here is the image from Design Space so you can see what was supposed to cut.

 

 

Explore cut the bowl larger than 5/8 of an inch. Not much bigger, it is just over 3/4 of an inch. I'm not sure why and I may try this again and see if I can get it to cut it at 5/8 but won't mess with the detail layer again lol.

Anyway, notice the detail cuts. Neither machine did what I would call a great job but you have to figure the detail cuts are about 1/8 of an inch tall so the fact that either one is even remotely decipherable is pretty amazing.
So let's compare the actual detail of the cuts. The corners and edges of the Expression cuts are rounded. But the Explore cuts are squared, just like the actual cut image. And even though the 'curls' got a bit munched up, the outside edges of the design are nice and crisp.

So, even though neither is perfect, you can see the Explore is still more precise in it's cutting.

I am thinking my Explore is going to be my go-to machine for all my precise and intricate cuts and my Expression is going to be THE machine for all my big projects....like today, I need to cut a couple dozen tags. I can load in a 12x12 piece of paper, hit auto fill and it will knock them out in just a couple minutes. The Explore doesn't have this feature and cuts at a much slower pace.

Each has machine has it's place and will both get used.  :-)

But I did more than just compare cuts yesterday. I played too!

I have a nautical themed bathroom....fish, seagulls, fishing floats... and we have a HUGE mirror (I am talking about 8 feet long and 4 feet tall. It fills the wall! So nice when we are both in there getting ready to go someplace. I thought it needed 'something'.

This was my first time layering vinyl. It looks like I didn't line it up right but that is because the bottom layer is reflecting in the mirror.  :-)

Hubby wasn't too sure about me decorating the mirror until he saw it then said we need seagulls in the upper corners. So an image search is in my future. :-)

And the Explore cuts SVGs. There are tons of freebies out there that are really cute! (I am all about saving money and getting stuff for free!) I found this little guy last night at Treasure Box Designs in their weekly freebies.

Isn't he adorable? Hubby is a sock monkey freak! He insisted I make him a real one years before the craze hit so it was no surprise that he swiped this guy from me and has him living on his desk. This picture is from the cabinet door on hubby's desk (I didn't even own him long enough to get a picture! lol)

I guess I am off to find seagulls for vinyl and whatever else strikes my fancy.

Have a wonderful week!