A Gypsy-rific transformation

A long, long time ago in a town not-extremely-far-away, a 12 year old girl made a metal toolbox, even though she was scared to death of the rivet machine.  It was Shop class in Junior High, and she was proud of her finished project.  A number of years later it was spray painted (purple, of course):

Yup, you guessed it - that girl was me.  I'm sure your first clue was that the toolbox was painted purple.  Second clue:  It's my blog.  :)

I know I've talked about the Cricut and the Gypsy a fair amount on this blog without any real explanation of what it is, so I thought I'd give you a quick description/demonstration using this toolbox and some purple vinyl Steve got me for Christmas.

The Cricuit is an electronic cutting machine.  You can cut shapes or letters out of paper based on what cartridges you have.  You plug the cartridge in, choose your shapes and what size you want them to be, then cut.

The Gypsy is a hand-held design tool that stores your cartridges and lets you design with any or all of them before you cut.  This is a huge paper saver, as you can plan where on the cutting mat the shapes will cut, and how big they will be.  Before the Gypsy, you had an idea of what the final size will be, but not necessarily how much paper you would need to cut the shapes out.  The Gypsy also lets you see ALL of the Cricut cartridges, not just those you've purchased.  This can be pretty dangerous.   (Oooh... THAT cartridge is cute!  Oh, look - if I had THAT cartridge I could decorate the kitchen!  {Steve got me that one for Christmas, but I have yet to decorate the kitchen.  All in good time!})

Here is a picture of the Gypsy's screen with a cutting mat filled up with shapes and letters:

As you can see, I filled it up pretty well.  If I'd really wanted to, I could have fit a few more shapes on it.  This project uses the following cartridges: Cuttin' Up, Designer's Calendar, George and Basic Shapes, Gypsy Font, Gypsy Wanderings, Gypsy Wanderings, Home Accents, Plantin SchoolBook, and Walk in My Garden.  Whew!  That's a lot.  I wanted a number of different kinds of simple-shaped flowers.

So, after the shapes are placed "just so" on the cutting mat, I plugged the Gypsy into the Cricut and let it cut.  Here's a video of it cutting with a surprise guest appearance:



I sure hope that works. It's my first video!

After the cutting is finished, here's what it looks like:

One thing about the Cricut is that very small pieces tend to not stay put on the mat:

This cut worked well, though, and I was able to get all the shapes plus a few hand-cut negatives onto my toolbox:

I think it's adorable, even if Steve thinks it's perfect for a 12 year old girl.  Yeah, back when I made this in 1983 or 1984 I would have LOVED it, just like I do now.