Disney Character Cricut Cartridge Reference List at Pursuing the Magic

Today, on my Disney blog, Pursuing the Magic, I posted a list of all the Disney characters available on Cricut cartridges.  The characters are listed in alphabetical order, followed by each cartridge you can find them, as well as how many images available for that character.  It is a great reference if you are looking for someone specific for one of your Disney projects.

To check it out, head over to 

Disney Character Cricut Cartridge Reference List

at Pursuing the Magic

Cricut's Best of Pixar ~ It's a Bug's Life

When I first purchased the Best of Pixar Cricut cartridge, I was pretty excited about all it had to offer.  I had a little concern about the difficulty of creating some of the characters because Disney cartridges are so detailed, but since I am a huge Disney fan, I just had to have it!  In my post Cricut's Best of Pixar ~ Nemo, I found the Nemo characters I created were not as difficult as the princesses or Cars characters (these links will take you to my reviews of each).  I took this as a positive sign that maybe this cartridge would be a little simpler.  On the scale of difficulty, the Bug's Life characters fit somewhere in between the Cars images and Nemo images.

Whenever I get a new cartridge, I always "test" out the images at 4 inches.  This is simply because if I were making a card, this would be the size I would use.  I decided to create Flik first.  Flik only requires 4 cuts: the base, his exoskeleton, outer eyes, and eyes.  The body pieces were very detailed and narrow, but they were easy to cut and remove from the cutting mat.  But, the eyes were so tiny, I couldn't use them.  (See my photo of the eye by a centimeter ruler).  So, at 4 inches, my little Flik had no eyes.  I then recreated him at 6 inches.  I was more successful at getting the eyes off the mat at a larger size.

One of the things I really looked forward to with the Bug's Life selection on this cartridge was for my Disney's Animal Kingdom pictures, especially the ones of the Tree of Life. Unfortunately, there is a limited selection for Bug's Life.  There are 6 images (3 characters, 3 icons) I can make: Flik, Princess Atta, Dot, the Bug's Life logo, a princess saying, and a leaf.  Not much selection compared to the Nemo characters, though I do understand it is not as popular a movie as Finding Nemo.  Of course, if they were to add all the Bug's Life characters there would be the same issue for the level of details and difficulty, and most likely, they wouldn't all fit on one cartridge.

So, though I do really like the images I can create from the Bug's Life section of the cartridge, I was a little disappointed in the limited selection.  It would have been nice had Hopper been included, but that is because he would be a great addition to my Disney scrapbook pages dedicated to the Disney's Animal Kingdom attraction "It's Tough to be a Bug."

You can find my Flik in my post over at Vacation Field Guides.  He makes an appearance in a Spring Garden craft I created with my girls!  See if you can find him!

Cricut's Best of Pixar Cartridge ~ Nemo

I am so excited that I finally have purchased the Best of Pixar cartridge!  I had a little time to test it out yesterday.  This cartridge includes images from five Disney-Pixar movies - Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, and Wall-E.  Since there are so many images on here, I decided I will review each movie over the next week or so. 

Finding Nemo is a personal favorite of mine.  This was the main reason I purchased this cartridge.  Not only are the characters great for all types of projects, but they will work perfectly for all my scrapbook pages for The Seas with Nemo and Friends Pavilion at Epcot in Walt Disney World.  The characters include Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Nemo's school friends, Crush, Squirt, Bruce and Nemo's friends from the fish tank in the dentist's office.  In addition to the characters, there is an icon for each.  These include anything from the logo for the movie title, to jellyfish, to Bruce's shark buddies.  I love the icons because not only will they be great embellishments for Nemo themed projects, but also any ocean themed projects I might create.

We made a Dory (Emily's favorite) and a Nemo.  Normally, I find the Disney cartridges to sometimes be a little tricky to cut and put together, but that is simply because of the tremendous detail to each character.  If you read my review of the princess cartridge, you know that I find those to be most difficult to use.  But making the Nemo characters was actually quite simple.  For the Nemo I created for this card, I only needed four colors and four cuts. Dory required six colors, but was still easy to assemble.  So far I really like this cartridge!

Cricut Deals on eBay

With my most recent "deal" found on eBay, I decided this would make a great entry for my blog.  I had never been on eBay in my life.  One of my friends mentioned she had gotten some great deals on Cricut cartridges through eBay.  Around here, the only craft store within 30 minutes is a Joann Fabrics.  It is so small though, they do not carry Cricut cartridges.  You have to order them.  This isn't great for someone who is looking to pick up a cartridge that day, but it does make me really consider the ones I am going to purchase - no impulse buys!  Other than that, the next store that sells Cricut cartridges is over 45 minutes away, and I rarely make it down there since my daughter has severe car sickness.

Move Over Photoshop, Make Room for Cricut!

My Cricut has come in handy yet again!  After many frustrating hours of trying to create a logo for my Disney blog, Pursuing the Magic, on photoshop, I decided it was time to turn to my Cricut.  What I ended up creating was just about exactly what I was looking for. 

Since the base paper I was going to use was a 12x12 sheet of patterned paper, I decided I would use that as my logo size.  I didn't see any need in cutting it.  I adjusted the size once I scanned it into my computer.  I then used my Storybook cartridge to create the blue frame.  To get this to just the right height, I used the "Fit to Length" feature (you can see my post Cricut's Fit to Length Feature & Toy Story Green Alien Glasses for more information on this feature).   As you can tell, I went to my most favorite cartridge again, Everyday Paper Dolls, to create my three kids.  I didn't plan to include that part in my logo, but how could I talk about pursuing Disney magic and not have that directly related to my kids?  My son did inform me after I was done that I forgot to make Emily's bear, which is never out of her hands and even has made the last two trips to Disney with us.  That  may need to be a later addition.  For the title, I used the Mickey Font cartridge, which I am finding to be one of my favorite font cartridges, especially since I have been working on my son's first year scrapbook.  I also used the Mickey Font cartidge for the Mickey Ears on my Joey paper doll and the Mickey Ears Icon on the "P" in pursuing. 

This came out much better than any attempts on Photoshop, though I am sure that is simply due to my photoshop skills, not the program itself!

Cricut Cartridge Review ~ Disney Dreams Come True

As you may already know, I am a huge Disney fan, so as soon as I purchased my Cricut, my goal was to get all the Disney cartridges available.  I was very excited when my family purchased the two princess cartridges, Dreams Come True and Happily Ever After, for me.  But I now have a love/hate relationship with them.  Let's start with what I love.

First, between the two cartridges there are 8 princesses, along with princes and supporting characters.  Dreams Come True includes Ariel, Belle, Jasmine and Pocahontas.  Happily Ever After includes Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Mulan.  My daughters love all of these princesses, so I have tested out both cartridges extensively.  Just for an example, we'll talk about Jasmine.  You have the option of creating Jasmine in several poses, including two with Aladdin, as well as individual Abu and Genie.  There are also several icons to make, such as an elephant, the magic lamp, a slipper, Jasmine's headwear, and several others.  There is a great selection of embellishments that can be made just from the icons!  Each princess has her own collection from her story.  There are also frames and corners to match each fairy tale.

My Top 5 Viewed Posts of Home

It is amazing how fast a year can go by and I think 2010, by far, has gone by the quickest of all!  Of course, my dad tells me the older I get the faster it will go, which is somewhat concerning! :-)

As a little recap of my blog, I figured I would share my 5 most viewed posts for the this year.

#5 Family Room Renovation is Complete! Pierre and I are lucky to have my dad, our personal handy man, living just 2 miles away!

#4 Warm Apple Crisp For a Cold, Crisp Fall Day There are so many amazing cookbooks and food shows out there that when I find a recipe my family likes, I just have to share it.  This recipe not only is delicious, but I love that my kids love to help make it too!

Getting Organized ~ I Finally Have a Craft Area!

As I started to organize all my scrapbooking materials, I realized that the number one thing I need to do before getting started is create a working craft area.  Before now, basically, my materials were piled on a table in our computer room.  Though the table is designated for my crafts, it is normally covered in mail, laundry, toys and whatever else isn't in its normal spot.  So last night I cleaned it off and got organized!

The best thing I found in this house to use was an item I have been cursing since I bought it.  When my daughter Hayley was just a toddler, we decided that the perfect addition to her Disney Princess themed room would be the Disney Princess toy organizer.  It has three shelves and nine showbox sized buckets you place on the shelves.  What a perfect way to organize toys, right?  Not quite.  Whoever invented these, obviously, had no children.  The concept is wonderful, but the reality is these should be called "How Fast After Mommy Organizes the Toys Can I Dump Them Out."  Ok, not a practical name, but really the only thing this was used for was dumping the toys out and me explaining yet again how to put the toys in.  Let's just say, this "organizer" lasted about a week in my daughter's room before I gave up and purchased totes with lids that only I could open!   But everything happens for a reason, and it is now the perfect addition to my craft area.  The nine buckets with no lids make it very easy for me to get to my materials quickly.  Plus, I can see exactly what I have all at once.  There is even space underneath for my paper trimmers that lay flat.  Even better, as you know, I am a Disney fanatic and having the Disney Princesses decorating my craft area is quite nice.

I also wanted to share my tip about the paper trays I have (the white totes with three drawers).  I purchased these months ago, because I made a classic rookie scrapbooking mistake - I have purchased more paper than I probably could use in a lifetime.  I swear that aisle at the craft store just sucks me in.  There are so many great papers out there I can't resist!  These trays have come in quite handy.  I have organized my paper by color, with other drawers dedicated solely to Disney paper, holiday paper, and patterned paper.  But when I was looking for something like this, I went to all the craft stores and they were just too expensive, even with coupons.  So I checked out our local WalMart.  The totes were pretty dusty and beaten up and there was only one.  I was looking for at least three.  I asked the WalMart employee about when they would get more and she gave some of the best advice.  She said to go online and order the totes from there and have them shipped Site to Store so I'd get free shipping.  Plus, she said that they come in their original packing, so there is no dust or dings in them.  I raced home and to my surprise, not only did they have them online, but they were cheaper than they were in the store! 

So now I have no excuse to not get some crafts done around here!  As you may have read in my post Disney Scrapbooks ~ Here I Come!, my first project will be finishing my 2006 Disney Trip scrapbook, which is nearly complete.  I look forward to testing out my newly organized space!

How do you organize your materials?  Feel free to share a link or comment below with your best tips for oragnizing your craft space!

Disney Scrapbooks ~ Here I Come!

One of my favorite ways to look back at my family's Disney trips is to scrapbook them.  I create one scrapbook per trip.  I also have another Disney scrapbook that is a timeline from my 1st trip as a teen in 1986 to my most recent trip in 2010 as a mom of 3.  Now I say have, but really all I have done is the plan for it.  I have been waiting to get my hands on the Sandylion Disney Mega Pack of paper before beginning.  I already have all the Disney Cricut cartridges, except the two new ones (see my post New Disney Cricut Catridges! for more details), which I hope to acquire soon.  So I was quite excited when not only did my parents give me the Disney pack of paper for Christmas, but also the 2010 Disney Parks Scrapbook.  I am all ready to get started. 

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to try to complete one Disney 2-page scrapbook layout each week.  If I stick to that plan, my 2006 one, which was Joey's 1st trip, should be completed in just a couple of weeks since I am basically almost done with that.  Then, on to my 2008 trip scrapbook, which was Hayley and Emily's first trip.  Then, onto my 2010 trip.  That sounds like a lot but really, I have them all planned out and somewhat started.  I just need to make the time for myself to do it.  Plus, I don't know about you, but I find I work on a lot of different scrapbook projects at once.  Right now I have about 5 projects started.  It gives me the opportunity to work on whatever I am most inspired to do at that moment. 

Keep checking back to see some of my layouts!  If you have any Disney layouts you'd like to share, leave me a link in the comments below.  I would love to see them ~ I am always looking for inspiration!

New Disney Cricut Cartridges!

Did Santa deliver early this year???  I am so excited!  I just saw over at Obsessed with Scrapbooking that there are two new Disney cartridges being released for the Cricut this December!  The first one is Cricut Best of Pixar cartridge.  It includes images from the movies Finding Nemo, Monster's Inc., The Incredibles, A Bug's Life and Wall-E.  The second cartridge is Cricut Disney Classics cartridge.  This one includes images from Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Pinocchio and Bambi.  Just when I thought I had all the Disney cartridges, there are two more I must have.  I am quite excited to get my hands on these two cartridges.  If you want to see images from them, make sure you check out Obsessed with Scrapbooking to see them, as well as the other Hello Thursday releases for December.

By the way Robyn, over at My Pink Stamper, will also be dispaying projects from these cartridges! Can't wait to see what she has created!

Added 12/29:
Here's a link to Robyn's Disney Classics Cartridge 2-Page Layout
Here's a link to Robyn's Cricut Best of Pixar - Nemo Card

Cricut's Fit to Length Feature & Toy Story Green Alien Glasses

I have finally upgraded to the Cricut Expression!  I am very excited to be able to cut the larger images, as well as squeeze more colors of paper onto one 12x12 cutting mat than I could on the 6x12.  As excited as I was about it, I had no idea how to use any of the features.  At first this meant I just didn't use them.  As a mom of three I have to say honestly, anytime I make my way to my craft area, I usually have my three trusty helpers close behind.  I swear my kids could be outside playing and as soon as I sit down to work on a project, presto - there they are!  Oh well, it has been nice having their "input" on colors and sizes for my projects.

I decided this week to make a point to try something new on the Expression.  For my son's upcoming birthday, we are having a Mater's Tall Tales party (if you don't know Mater, he is the tow truck from Disney-Pixar's Cars).  Now I have planned out the cake, decorations, etc and suddenly, out of the blue, Joey says he wants a Toy Story cake.  Now if you have been following me for a while, you may have noticed I am a classic Type A personality. I plan things out for weeks and having a change in schedule can really throw me off.  So in a round about way I was able to convince Joey that we would make Toy Story cupcakes for school and keep the Mater theme for home.  Since he was pretty excited about that, I let out a sigh of relief and started planning the Toy Story themed cupcakes. 

Luckily I had just purchased the Cricut Toy Story cartridge.  As I looked over my options of things I could make for little toppers for the cupcakes, I noticed that there was the choice to create glasses.  There were three versions ~ Woody, Buzz and the Green Alien.  As I prepared my craft area to create 18 sets of glasses for his class, I realized I had no idea what size to make them.  Then it hit me, now was the chance to test out the Fit to Length feature.  I brought my son over and measured his face from left to right, which was 5.5".  I then set the size dial to 5.5" and hit the fit to length key.  The machine let me know that to create glasses with a 5.5" width, they would be cut at 3.5" height.  Wow!  That was easy.  I didn't have to print several sizes to find just the right one.  So I reset my height dial to 3.5, turned off the fit to length feature and cut the rest of the pieces out.

Here are the green alien glasses that Joey will bring to school with his Toy Story cupcakes (modelled by Hayley's toy dog named . . . Hayley).  He even told me this afternoon that he is so excited to have a Cars cake AND Toy Story cupcakes.  After seeing the Toy Story Green Alien glasses, he then asked if he could look at my Cricut Cars cartridge.  About a minute later, I asked him what he was looking for and his response was, "The kids in my class would love Mater glasses too.  Are there any Mater glasses on this cartridge?"

Thank you, Papercraft Star!

As those of you may know from previous posts, I am fairly new to papercrafting and using my Cricut.  I've had the materials for a while, but with three kids born in three years, my time to actually work on my skills has been limited.  Of course, now my oldest is 5 and my youngest is just about three, I find I can make a little more time each week to attempt a new paper project.  In order to motivate myself and build my confidence in my projects a little, I started entering my projects in different websites challenges.  For someone  like me, I love that these challenge winners are randomly chosen, so as long as I am brave enough to submit something, I can enter.   Well, this October, I entered a challenge over at Papercraft Star.  I just found out I won the October Grand Prize!  I am so thrilled.  It couldn't have come at a better time, since my children have all been getting over colds here and I had no time to even read any of my favorite craft blogs, nevermind participate!  It was just the lift I needed. 

Plus, what was even better I didn't even know I had won.  One of the followers of Papercraft Star saw the announcement that I had won and had not claimed my prize, so she contacted me personally.  That is one of the things I love about the cardmaking/scrapbooking/craft community, everyone looks out for each other.  That's what makes sharing my stories, projects and ideas so enjoyable!  So thank you, Denise, for contacting me, and thank you, Papercraft Star, for giving me the opportunity to win and share my projects!

If you want to check out my winning entry, here it is:
Entry for Papercraft Star's Challenge #17

My Pink Stamper Challenge ~ Something Cute

After completing two other challenges without using my paper doll cartridge, I decided for the "Something Cute" challenge, I would fall back on my old favorite.  I am always looking for cute cards to send out from my kids, but most cards in stores having sayings my kids would never say, or the content of the card actually has no meaning.  So for each of the grandparents this year we are creating "cute" Halloween cards that have plenty of room on the inside for my kids to draw special pictures and I can write in what they want to say.  So with that said, here is a cute Halloween card I created this afternoon with my daughter Hayley. 

I used the Paper Doll Dress Up and Martha Stewart Spiderweb Corner Punch.

If you submit a project and you are randomly chosen as the winner of the "Something Cute" challenge, you will win the Cricut cartridge Simply Charmed, which has a lot of cute images!  Good luck!

My Pink Stamper - Random Act of Kindness Challenge

My son started kindergarten this year and has been blessed to have a wonderful teacher, who has made him a kid who loves school.  He was stressed about it all summer and told us everyday he was not going to kindergarten, he staying in preschool forever.  It made for a long summer.  But I am happy to report everyday when he comes home from school and I ask him how it was, his response is "It was very good today!" or "Great!"  As a parent, I couldn't ask for anything more.

We decided this week to make her some special leaf candies using Wilton candy melts and the leaf candy molds.  Here is the gift bag that we created together.  We'll put the candies in Monday morning and Joey will deliver it to her when he gets to school.  I know a teacher can make or break a child's year, and I have to say Mrs. Towle has gotten us off to a great start!

To create the gift bag, I used Tags, Bags, Boxes and More and Doodlecharms.

Have you completed a random act of kindness today? I'd love to hear what it is!

If you'd like to be entered in My Pink Stamper's Random Act of Kindness Challenge, click here and enter a comment or a project.  You could randomly be chosen to win a set  of My Pink Stamper Stamp Set: Everyday Life.  Good luck!

My Pink Stamper Challenge ~ Something Winter

Robyn over at My Pink Stamper (great person to follow!) has posted a challenge to create something winter related.  I've decided for this challenge to actually challenge myself, meaning I could not use either of the Paper Doll cartridges.  These two cartridges, the Everyday Paper Dolls and Paper Doll Dress Up, are by far my most used cartridges.  Because of this I never branch out and try anything new.  So to challenge myself, I made myself create this using a cartridge I have but rarely used - Christmas Cheer.  I actually purchased this off ebay for on $18, which I am considering a steal since it is a retired cartridge. 

I created the house using Christmas Cheer, the saying "Thinking of You" from Alphalicious and I just couldn't stay away, I gave in and used the Everyday Paper Doll cartridge for the snow.  So, though I failed my own challenge in a way, at least this project didn't include a paper doll!  :-)

Do you have a project to submit?  Here's the My Pink Stamper Saturday Challenge.

Entry for Papercraft Star's Challenge #17

As you may have noticed from previous posts, I am somewhat new to using my Cricut, cardmaking and all that.  I have decided to force myself to expand my skills by participating in a few challenges.  Not only does it make me use some of the cartridges I have never tried, it gives me an opportunity to see how other people interpret different challenges.  Seeing other projects has certainly inspired me to try new things.  So here is a Halloween card I created for my son's kindergarten teacher.  I used my favorite cartridge Paper Doll Dress Up.  I know . . . I need to try some others, but I love "cute" Halloween and this cartridge does that!  I also used Lyrical Letters to created the word "Boo!"  I have owned Lyrical Letters for a while but haven't taken the time to use it.  It has a lot on there and I really need to test this one out more. 

I am entering this project in Papercraft Star's Challenge #17: Using a photograph posted on the site to inspire your creation.  I tried to use a lot of the same colors in the photo.  I didn't have anything with polka dots, so my background is "dotted" with stars.

Joey's Cars Room is FINALLY Complete

So you may remember from my previous post Joey's Disney-Pixar Cars Room, we gave Joey's room a complete makeover and gave it a Cars theme - his favorite of all Disney movies, toys, music, clothes, etc.  He is absolutely Cars obsessed.  But as mentioned in that previous post, his room still did not have a valance.  My mom though has come to the rescue, again!  We finally found the checkered flag material I had wanted and my mom created the valance for us. 

Joey was pretty funny when I put it up though.  He let me know that since the race flag was near the window, I should have put Chick Hicks, The King and Lightning McQueen over the window instead of DJ, Boost, Wingo and Snotrod.  I guess that just may have to be my next project!

Halloween Card for a Princess

As some of you may already know, I am a mom to two beautiful girls, who both love everything princess.  While trying to find a Halloween card for each of them, I couldn't find one that I thought was "girly" enough, especially for my youngest.  I decided to create my own, and here is what I came up with.

Materials:
Ribbon
DCWV Midnight Spell Stack (I love this stack!  I purchased the 12x12 solid, which included glitter, metallic and textured sheets)
Martha Stewart Spider Web Corner Punch
Cricut Paper Doll Dress Up Cartridge (you may have noticed in previous posts this is my favorite cartridge)

Here are some other projects that I used the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge:
Halloween Card #1
Halloween Card #2
Halloween Card #3
Halloween Gift Bag

My Pink Stamper "Spooky" Challenge

It is hard to believe that Halloween is just around the corner.  Where did this year go? 

As you may have read in my previous post, My Pink Stamper Website ~ I Love It!, that I am fairly new to using my Cricut and have gotten a lot of inspiration from Robyn to do more with it.  This week she has posed a "Spooky" Challenge.  If you would like to be in the drawing to win her "Spooky Puns Stamp Set," all you need to do is submit a Halloween or Fall themed project.  To see the full details, you can go directly to My Pink Stamper (by the way, if you are not already a follower, I would highly recommend it!).  Anyways, here is my project I am adding to the list of already incredible entries.  My three "helpers" helped pick out the paper dolls for the card - there's one for each of them!  Just so you know, the drawings are random, which is great for someone like me.  I know my cards are still pretty basic, but having random drawings gives me an opportunity (or the confidence!) to participate.  Plus, it is a nice opportunity for me to see what this Cricut can actually do and take inspiration from other people's creations!

By the way, when you read the details of the challenge, you can scroll down to see the entries.  As I was looking through, there is one that I just thought was amazing - entry #31 or you can check it out at Court's Crafts. 

In case you missed them, here are some previous posts about some Cricut Halloween crafts I've made (yes, they are all similar - I need to branch out a little and try to be more creative!):
Halloween Card for my 6 month old nephew's 1st Halloween
Halloween Card for my 3 year old nephew
Halloween Gift Bag

DCWV Diary Giveaway

Have you checked out the blog DCWV Diary?  Erin has a great giveaway this week for you scrappers who are working on fall and Halloween projects.  She is giving away a DCWV Midnight Spell Stack (this is great - I have it!), Amber Autumn Stack, and the Cricut cartridge Happy Hauntings.  Follow the link below to find details on how you can enter the giveaway - good luck!

DCWV Diary Giveaway