My Valentines card was a real flop!

Siiiigh... I'm still a little irritated at my machine, and more irritated that it is user error! So, I had my file ready for Valentines, went to the store and bought all the same "type" of paper in the colours I'd need for the card and was all excited at my first big project.

(GASP! Using whole 12X12 sheets, cutting to 8.5x11 to feed through the cutter!!!) I was really spoiled with my QK revolution because I became a TRUE BONAFIED SCRAPper... key word being scraps!! I was able to use up such small pieces by placing them right over the die cut and wow, I could use up a sheet of paper until there was nothing left of it! I really miss that. I miss scrapping too... this has taken up so much time int he learning and experimenting with it :(

... back to the drama!

So, I send the base card to cut and used some advice I got and copied and pasted the exact image 3 times and woudl you believe even though it test cut OKAY!!! The darned card cut what I designed but not all the way through... AGAINNN!!! Grrr how frustrating. No amount of "exacto surgery" could help what I had left to still cut so I was so so soooo disappointed. I honestly don't know what the heck happened :P Needless to say I did not continue and waste even more paper - but packed up the lil one, went to Walmart and spent $5 on a freakin card!!! Grrrr! A nice val card for hubby mind you and CHEAPER than the paper I just bought but so so soooooo disappointing!

Anyway, until we meet again, this is a pic of the unfinished Valentines pop-up that I attempted to create myself. The pop-up is a bit of a problem because I can't alter the outline so the "tabs" are dashed cut instead of a complete cut so lil Taz still separates from the card. I can't tell you enough, despite the new 5.1 version with it's welding, etc - I can't wait for the KNK Studio that I plan to purchase from Sandy at http://www.iloveknk.com/. That woman is just a cutter's angel I tell you. She gets it! She's designed it, cut it, got the Tshirt, wrote the manual and advises on software! WOAHHH!!!! She's my hero and I am buying the program that she endorses, and going to take advantage of the video tutorials she offers with the purchase and from her website. I seriously am salivating and cannot wait!

Speaking of cutter angels, my Guru-cutter friend, Cyndiana Jones flew in to save me when my cuts 'looked like a sugar-loaded 2 year old with a machete made the cutz' hahahaa! I was able to clean my no-sticky-enough cutting mat thanks to her :) Check her out at:

Cynful Designs, For A Little Bit of EveryBling! Silhouette Certified by QuicKutz, 07/21/2008

https://cynfuldesigns.3dcartstores.com/

http://www.cynfuldesigns.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpecialtyPapers/

Examples and Project/Item photos below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8134592@N05/collections/72157608190810771/

Have a great day and I promise when I figure out the Taz card I'll share it with you so stay tuned ;)

Tying Perfect Bows

I've been brainsorming some wedding invitation and paper decor ideas with a friend and came accross this great website that we are ordering some stuff from, and these tutorials too so I thought I'd share :) More to come in April on the wedding invitations, etc.

Click on the picture for step-by-step bow-tying techniques:

Cruising the pretty blue ocean

Today we're cruising the Caribbean Sea :)
I'd have to say this is pretty close to what heaven must be like.

But I wouldn't be having this much fun and not remember you sooo....

... While I'm cruising the Caribbean Sea in February, I'd like to celebrate my 1st Pretty Little Things blogoversary with all of you wonderful and inspiring people who've become part of my daily life by thanking my BBFF's with some BLOG CANDY!!! See this post for details and I'll absolutely ship anywhere in the world!



· ´¨¨)) -:¦:- -:¦:-
¸.·´ .·´¨¨)) Live with integrity.... -:¦:-
((¸¸.·´ ..·´ Create with passion!
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´* -:¦:- NikkiNix

RoboMaster Software

Hi all,

This was posted on the CRFun Yahoo group and I thought you may find it helpful!

From: Anna D. - hey every one here is the link if any one wants the gsd converter,it's to change it so you can open it up in the older versions.
http://www.ukscrappers.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=243671&highlight=converter

"it will convert GSD files created by Robomaster v5 in to files that can be opened with Robomaster v4.4."

Happy scrappin'

Nikki

I'm loving the weld function in the RM 5.1 software

So I am still not edu-ma-cated on the inkscape software yet although I now have it installed on my machine. However, I did manage to download the new RoboMaster 5.1 software last night from Quickutz for my original Silhouette machine and it has the weld function so I played with it and made a cute card for my Mummy that of course is yours to play with - ENJOY!!

Have a great day!!
Nikki


P.S. The jpg here is of my first test cut, afterwards, I did clean up the top and bottom ribbon holes to be smaller for the start of the ribbon line and also edited the width of the ribbon holes to be narrower and closer to the width of the ribbon too, so although I haven't cut it again, I am pretty sure it will be even cuter now! I added the "Mummy" cutout using the Lucida Handwriting font that is similar to the QK Marisa font.

2nd stop - St.Vincent and the Grenadines

1st stop on the cruise is St.Vincent and the Grenadines.

But I wouldn't be having this much fun and not remember you sooo....

Happy blogoversary to meeee ;)

While I'm cruising the Caribbean Sea in February, I'd like to celebrate my 1st Pretty Little Things blogoversary with all of you wonderful and inspiring people who've become part of my daily life by thanking my BBFF's with some BLOG CANDY!!! See this post for details and I'll absolutely ship anywhere in the world!



· ´¨¨)) -:¦:- -:¦:-
¸.·´ .·´¨¨)) Live with integrity.... -:¦:-
((¸¸.·´ ..·´ Create with passion!
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´* -:¦:- NikkiNix

My first swap file is just about finished !!

... and it's pretty darned cute if I may say so myself !!
I think I've racked up about 15 hours in the last 2 days working on the darned thing and getting ideas and techniques and all that, so I hope y'all will like my card, here's a teaser...
So that's it.... that's all you're going to get today until I can get a volunteer to help me with one simple straight fold-line (grrr!) that I can't get right, and then more help with converting to the file types to be submitted and finally then and only then I'll cut it, assemble and take a pic of my cute lil' thing!!

So... stay tuned!

My Name is Nikki and I'm admittedly a GSD-aholic

Siiigh... well, my cutter-world is getting a little better, and my life as a Future-CutMaster slowly seeming a teensie bit more possible, mostly thanks to my dear "virtual friend" Sandy McCauley over at http://www.iloveknk.com/ who was kind enough to give me a really workable set of folder names so my filing system is looking really really organized :) Thanks as well to my Yahooligan friend "Lana" who suggested putting a JPG next to the cutter file for ease of finding exactly what you want. An organized mind and life is a happy one for me (OMG I'm sounding sooo anal - haha!!) Here are her file folder organizing suggestions - thanks Lana!!

3D Projects; Animals; Baby & Children; Basic Shapes; Beach things; Birds; Boxes & handbags; Bugs & Insects; Cards; Cats & Dogs; Celtic Designs; Chinese symbols; Christmas; Corners, Banners & Borders; Craft Patterns; Easter; Envelopes; Farm Animals; Flame Designs; Flowers; Fonts; Food; Frames; Fruit; Furniture; Garden Stuff; Girly Things; Halloween Goodies; Lace Patterns; Male Things; Mats; Mosaics,grids etc; Music Stuff; Objects; Ornament Designs, Paper Dolls & Clothes; Pinstripe Designs; Print & Cut; Retro; Get-well, Doctor; Special Birthday's & Anniversary; Sport; Star Signs; Tags; Teddy Bears; Templates; Tribal Type Designs; Tropical; Valentine; Vehicles; Wedding; Winter Things & Scenes; Word Books & Mini Books; Words

hi ho, hi ho, It's off to cut I go...

thanks to Sandy and Lana and all my Yahooligan friends

hi ho, hi ho, hi ho, hi ho, hi hooooo,

and all the generous GSD sharing people cutter land...

hi ho, hi ho, hi ho!! :)

So, I've made a few *original* creations, that I've uploaded to share with you, but please note, I am not crazy enough to attempt to CUT them without having the software to tweak them once I figure out what I need to clean up the cut, so downloader beware, youuu may have to tweak em!! Juuust wait until I can save up enough 'coffee money' to buy Sandy's software, and really focus on her tutorials, I'll just continue collecting files and perhaps for the first time since I got the Silhouette, maybe I'll do some old fashioned scrapbooking this week - GASP!!!

Without further adieu, I'm am very very happy to finally give you something you can work with *hopefully they'll cut okay*

DRUMROLL PLEASE.....

YAYYY!

Enjoyyyy... and please please share your final creations with me, I'd love to see them !

Sincerely,

Nikki

[edited]

P.S.

Top I learned, but not sure how to help y'all out when your version can't read the gsd file - open an .svg file in Inkscape and save as a .dxf. then load the.dxf in your version of the software. I have to figure out ho to make .svgs for you now ;)

Gettign the hang of it!

Well, with a whole day and night of practicing, I am gettig the hang of it. My files mentioned below show some of what I have done but now I am having better luch with - get this!!! Children's books! I have scanned some images because with a 10 month old, her books have very clear simple images - perfect for cutting, and most with a black outline so POOF! Great "outlines" are the result!

Still on the hunt for software that can help me edit and clean up a bit though - any advice??

Slooowly but surely...

... like a dinasaur, am getting this software to work and boyyyy is it ever painstaking! I have started a few .GSD files where I have pretty much had to trace the whole darned thing because the "get utline/trace" function SUCKS!! Anyhow, I haven't test cut these yet cause my eyes are dry and I am grumpy but I've uploaded them to my little download site, so BE WARNED, I haven't cut any of them, I'm just practicing!!! Any help you could offer owuld be muuuuch appreciated :) HELP!

• Bandaid - not as cute as I'd hoped
• Bazooples - I deleted a biiiig huge thingy that had a bunch of stuff attached, I wrecked the darned thing after tracing it for ovver an hour!! Here's the mess anyway :(
• Buck toothed Bunny - she's cute :)
• Ganesh - I've noticed that a lot of logos for businesses would make good cutting files cause they are clean and simple!
• Heart Card - Surely useful, I like to mat the background so the complimenting colour comes through. It was really sexy cut in black with a hot pink background on the inside peeking out :)

Remember I haven't cut any of these, so let me know how it goes :)

My first file swap!

OMG! What have I done?? I have put myself on the list for the Feb File swap in the easywishbladers Yahoo group! ACK! What the heck am I gonna do??? I have some ideas since the theme is love related, but it's not the traditional hearts and roses type thing. So here's my problem... I have IDEAS in my head that I can't get onto the computer screen with my darend Silhouette software... so do I take out my black sharpee marker sketch my darned idea and scan it and then hope to high heaven the darned "trace outline" thingy works this time? GRRR - btw the keyboard tastes like crap LOL!!!!

Does anyone have any suggestions about what software is the easiest to work in? Free or otherwise - guidance needed desperately asap please.

Santa brought me a Quickutz Silhouette for Christmas!!

... and, I am so in love with it... the possibilities are endless!!

The only problem is that I am obsessed with collecting GSD files *because* I find the Silhouette software is alllmost useless! It's pretty darned frustrating, but thankfully my little creative mind hasn't stopped imagining what I could cut and what I could do with this pretty fabulous invention!

There are so many supportive people I have found online that thankfully I haven't give up yet. BUT - I am yet to be able to get my "get outline" function to do anything of value, so this week, I will call QK Customer Support beacuse the person who answered my email-question was also, not much help at all! So, with a continued positive attitude, I look forward to many great cuts with this great little machine!

P.S. For the record, anything I share with you is for your persopanl use only and where I have altered images, I will give as much credit as I can; you should do the same - thanks in advance!

Join me on Facebook in these groups: Quickutz Creative Doo Dahs, let's REVOLUTIONize how we create with Quickutz and Creative GSD Pattern Swaps