JoolieSews: Getting more from a Cricut Cartridge

I purchased the Elmo's Party Cartridge for my Cricut. It is a great cartridge. I don't have little children anymore and this cartridge is really geared toward a party and having Elmo as the theme. I think Elmo is cute and I purchased it because Provo Craft has come out with several party type cartridges like......

Elmo's Party

Batman

Superman

and somewhat Sweet Treats.

I decided to get a couple and maybe someday I would use them for a party I go to or even grandchildren. To my surprise I think there is more possiablities than I thought or maybe I am just looking with a different eye. So first I just did a simple image for fun. I cut the main character and the shadow.

He is cute, but I should have cut out the black part of the eyeballs instead of drawing them in with a gel pen. I still think he is a keeper and he will be made into a card. Okay so then I tried the Elmo envelope. I made it small so it could go on a gift with a card.

This is such a great idea! It really makes the envelope a little more special. So then I got an idea.

You could think this could be Oscar the Grouch or maybe even a frog. I need to add a mouth and make it look more like a frog. When I got the idea of the frog, I went on to try other images as a frog.

I took the Elmo I first did, cut him in green and then cut around the body with scissors, cutting off legs and arms, while rounding the tummy. I used the legs of Elmo for the legs on the side of the frog. Then I cut his arms for the front legs. I think it was okay for my first frog. Okay a couple things I learned that I will pass on and maybe it will help someone else out. I should have used my ink on the edges of all the parts before I put him together. So I tried another and made him bigger. I really like how this one turned out.

Then I have some other idea from this cartridge. I will make them up and bring them to you. I thought it would be fun to challenage myself on each cartridge and see if there was a different way to use the images then the one way presented, like I did with the Elmo and the Frog. I used to teach at a local Bernina dealer and in this one class a lady spoke up to say, even though she couldn't afford the top of the line machine she felt it was important to figure out all she could do with what she has. She said she had found so many possiablities. I thought about that and got a couple of very important things from that. You tend to do more with what you have when you have less. I had my first embroidery machine and could only afford a couple of embroidery cards for the machine. I found so many possiablities by challenaging myself. When we have sooooooo much then we don't always appreciate what we have. The other thing I thought of at the time is maybe I don't look to see every possiablity in something. Like, do we learn how to use every feature on things we have? I know I don't know everything on my MP3 player. I am sure my computer can offer more. So with that being said, I was going to use this cartridge and challenage myself and see what I can come up with, maybe do the same with some of my other cartridges. The ladies words have come to me so many times since she said them many years ago. Time for me to put them to use.

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope it will be the best ever for all of you.

~Julie