French Manor projects

I recently joined the "Cricut Circle" which is a subscription club for the Cricut electronic cutter.  There is a message board for Provo Craft and their products (of which the Cricut is one), and there has been a lot of talk about this club - pros and cons, what Provo Craft should have done and what they should have not done.  Whatever.  One of the big hot buttons was the first cartridge - one exclusive to the Circle members called French Manor.  A number of people like it, but a number of people want to (and have) put it up on eBay as soon as they got it.

From the pictures we could see online before joining the Circle, the cartridge looked interesting.  I got my welcome package yesterday and eagerly flipped through the handbook.  There are so many possibilities with this cartridge!

There are two "card" features in which the shapes are cut "into" a card.  Wait - that's not quite right.  This is hard to explain.  You can cut out a card with indicators of where to fold.  Other stuff is cut out until the shape remains.  Does that make sense?  No?  Well, let me show you a very quick card I made this afternoon:

I used two sided paper and stamped the saying on a separate piece (in case I screwed it up).  Yeah, I could have embellished it more, but I don't think it's necessary.  I think it's pretty cute!

And then my husband says, "Why don't you scrap something using this cartridge?  You haven't scrapped in quite some time..."  True.  I looked for quite a while until I found the perfect subject.  Christmas, New Year's, and Valentine's Day wouldn't work... Nothing with the cats... Scrapping with Sylvia or Jackie might work, but this cartridge wasn't out then... 

Oooh!  The Milwaukee Public Museum's Behind the Scenes Tour!

No, the Museum's offices don't have chairs piled on top of armoires and other furniture, but I thought the idea was cute.  I added a table for a few of the ceramic pieces, a postage stamp outline for a journaling box, a frame showing my husband's goofy side, and a lion for extra "oomph".  I even used tin foil for the mirror for the vanity.

I was very pleased with this cartridge, and I know I only scratched the surface of what can be done with it.  I can't wait to see the other Circle-exclusive cartridges!