Angie's Kitten Rescue

I know not everyone is a cat person. My husband is most certainly not a cat person...at all...ziltch. Still, it is so sad to see so many cats running around loose. The last few years there has been such an increase in ferral cats in the area that I live. It breaks my heart to see their skin and bone frames, matted fur and often injured little bodies. One effective way to reduce the number of cats running wild and suffering under harsh conditions is to make sure that kittens receive their proper immunizations, are spayed or neutered and are found loving homes to adopt them. My friend Angie does just that. She rescues litters of kittens and cares for and loves them as they proceed through to their new homes. She opens her home and her heart to all these little fur balls and asks nothing in return.

I would love to adopt one of her sweet kitties, my German Shepard would love a playmate, but we have kids with allergies. So in a show of support for this great lady I am trying to raise some money to help out her cause. Kitty chow and litter are not cheap, let alone all the vet costs.

So I put a little bundle together that you can bid on to help out. Please visit my ebay listing

Ebay Listing

January Gecko Galz Feature: Art Journal

Hello and welcome to everyone visiting me from the Gecko Galz blog. First of all I want to say how thrilled I am to be part of the 2016 Gecko Galz Design Team. The wonderful papers and images are entirely my style. The creative group of ladies that are on this team are so inspiring to work with. 2016 is going to be such an exciting year.

I decided to use the beautiful stamp that the Gecko Galz provided as a freebie for all of you. It was the perfect sentiment for the art journal that I was creating for 2016. I paired it with one of their other digital stamps from the Fairies Stamps digital stamp collection.

 I printed the images off separately on my HP Inkjet printer. I started with the Beauty and Truth stamp and coloured over the foliage and banner with pencil crayons. I then began shading with my spectrum noir alcohol markers being very careful not to allow the ink to saturate the paper so much as to smear the inkjet image. I found it works best to colour small areas in isolated patches and allow them to dry before colouring the adjacent spaces.

The incredible fairy image comes to life with just a few highlights on her dress and some bold blue on her wings.

After the images were completely dry I adhered the fairy to the sentiment and began highlighting using stickles in pink, green, yellow and silver.

Using some purple and white paint along with a bit of teal glitter paint I created a background on white cardstock.

 I adhered the cut out coloured image to the background and then used mod podge to add it to the cover of my art journal. Making sure all the wrinkles were our I gently dabbed an extremely light coat of Mod Podge over the entire image and background paper. Let me stress.....extremely light. Once that layer was dry I applied another coat of Mod Podge to the entire page.

Using some adhesive backed gems from the Dollar Tree, I outlined the image border and also the page border.

I am so excited to use this new journal for all my inspiration notes this year. Working with the ladies on the Gecko Galz design team, I am sure that it will be filled up in no time.

Be sure to grab the free stamp and also visit Gecko Galz store to purchase the fairies stamps collection.

If you love working with the Gecko Galz products be sure to show off your creations and get inspired by following the Gecko Gals Challenge group on facebook.

DIY Planner Pages: Cricut Explore Slice Feature and Gecko Galz Ephemera

Well we are finally coming to the end of this particular project. I hope you are feeling confident in your ability to use the upload and print then cut features of your Cricut Explore.

Today we will take those lessons and combine it with the Slice Feature. I have to tell you this is one of the most useful functions on the Cricut Explore. Having the ability to cut shapes inside other shapes makes it so easy to mass produce elements for classes and clubs.

Lets go back to our Cricut Design Space and insert one of the images from Gecko Galz that we have previously uploaded.

 Next you will want to select the shape that you are going to use for the planner page. I am using a cut from my Artbooking cartridge but many cartridges has page shapes you could use.

Click insert image, cartridges and the filter to your cartridges.

Select the shape that you think works best with your image. Choose insert.

Cricut Explore Air™ Machine + Ultimate Machine Set

DIY Planner Dividers: Print then Cut Feature with Gecko Galz Ephemera

So yesterday we walked through how to upload silhouettes to your Cricut Design Space. That is the option that I find that I use most often. Sometimes however you will want to use a particular image as the background for your project. You could always trace the pattern onto the image and fussy cut it. A more efficient way to do it is to upload the image directly into your Cricut software.

In this example I will be using images that I received from Gecko Galz. These incredible images make a wonderful backdrop for my cuts.

Begin by logging into your Cricut Design Space software. Then click on upload image just like we did in the tutorial yesterday. This time we are going to browse to the folder where we saved the images from Gecko Galz. You can see in the picture I already have a few in use.

Once you select your uploaded image from the library you can click the cut button. This will take you to the Print then Cut dialog. The first time you use this feature it will need to run an alignment (much like a new printer). The image must be printed on white paper in order for the Cricut to read the registration marks. Once prompted print the image on your printer and then adhere it to the cutting mat. The Cricut will make all kinds of beeps and bumps as it reads the registration marks on the paper. Once it has figured out where on the mat your image is it will quickly do all the fussy cutting for you.

Tomorrow we will explore (no pun intended) using Print then Cut images along with the Slice feature to create the lovely planner pages I showed you on Monday.