announcement insert with Cricut Artiste

Oh, my, it has been way too long since I've been able to craft or had anything to post here and it's good to be back, although I won't be posting regularly until my daughter's graduation is over.  Such a busy time but I don't want to miss a single moment of this special time in her life!

That said, what little crafting I am currently doing is generally graduation themed but this project could work well for diy wedding or shower invitations as well.  For a number of reasons, our family is having an informal gathering at our home the day of graduation and my daughter's reception a week later.  Plans were going smoothly until I realized I was going to have to include some kind of explanation as the actual announcement doesn't mention a reception at all and there wasn't enough room on the formal invitation to explain...  so I did what any Cricut loving paper crafter would do and I crafted an insert.

I wanted the insert to fit in the 4x6 inch envelopes that came with the announcements I was using.  I started with 3x4 inch shipping or address labels and used my pc to type up my announcment and center it on each label.  Then I used the CTMH Artiste cartridge for the Cricut and chose the image featured on the card function on the letter "k" (see p.58 of the booklet).  I sized it to 4 inches height so that my 3x4 inch label fit the center area.  I chose to use the "hide" feature of my Gypsy (the bottom right of the 6 function icons on the Advanced tab) to hide or omit the little diamond shape cutout toward the center of each side of the card, but that was just my personal preference to ensure the sticky back of the labels didn't stick anywhere/to anything it wasn't supposed to.  So with the image sized and altered to my needs, I again used my Gypsy (or you could use the Cricut Craft Room) to repeat the image and arrange each one as closely as I could until I was able to fit 6 of these images on a page.  Once graduation is over, I will play with the newly updated Cricut Craft Room which I'm told is now compatible with Gypsy files, and I will try to upload the cut file I created for this project.

One word of advice if you use plain cardstock and want to embellish it as I did (using CTMH's "Love Life" set #1482), stamp each image after you've cut it and removed it from the cutting mat.  I tried random stamping my CS prior to cutting and even though I thought I had waited long enough for the ink to be completely dry, some ink was still picked on the small runners that hold the paper down while it's being cut and it made smudgy lines on some of my cuts.  While this was minor in this instance and I was still able to use all my pieces, it could be more of an issue depending on the project.

One of the things I loved about this project is that I was able to find a stamp image and choose colors that really complemented the image on the main announcement and I *LOVE* the new Champagne color, it's a warm neutral that complements almost any "pop" of color and it just lends an elegance to every project I've used it on so far.

Happy crafting to all and congrats to all the new graduates out there!

Annette