The time has come to announce our first Cricut Cartridge winner. There were 31 people who entered. I wonder why not all of you took the opportunity: maybe next time.

I used random.org, and the winner is #2, Melissa Lake. Melissa, I need you to email me your mailing address and which cartridge you'd like to get.

Our next drawing for a free cartridge will be when our list reaches 500 subscribers, so please spread the word about the opportunity to win a cart, and we'll see how soon we can give away another cartridge.

I was a good girl this year and Santa brought me two new Cricut cartrigdes:

Everyday Paperdolls Cricut Cartridge

Cricut Alphalicious

I just love the Everyday Paperdolls cartridge.  This cartridge is very user friendly and you can create a variety of dolls.  Each accessory or layer has simple to follow directions, there is no paper waste when cutting, since you are cutting only the accessory you select.

I created this fun winter layout of my daughter.  I customized the snowsuit girl paperdoll to match her hair color and clothes.  The snow border is an extra on the paperdoll cartridge.

The font is layered with a shadow and I added Stickles to add sparkle to my page.

Snow Day

I have always enjoyed the scalloped pre cut papers from Bazzill and other various companies.  When I learned that you could cut these papers with your very own Cricut Expression I just knew I "had" to upgrade my original Cricut to an Expression.  So how do you do this?  I'm going to give you a brief tutorial below.

Apply your paper to your cutting mat.  Insert it into your Cricut.  I decided to use the Storybook cartridge because it have various scalloped circles, squares, and other shapes.  For this page I chose the scalloped square.  Press the Fit to Page button.

Your Cricut will scan the page size for you.  Press the cut button and you'll see your Cricut figure the size the cut needs to be.  It will automatically start to cut your paper.  After removing it, you'll have a 12x12 scalloped sheet of paper cut to your liking.

Another tool I love to use is the Martha Stewart punches.  On this border I used the Spiderweb punch to go along with my Halloween theme.

Lastly I cut a smaller scalloped square to match my page and accented with a stamped image.  This is a simple layout that is quick and easy to do.  It took me 15 minutes to make all my cuts and layout the page.  For someone that is short on time for scrapbooking these types of layouts are perfect.

Have fun and happy scraping in 2010.