First Cricut Project - Butterfly Wall Hanging

Well, my original 'first project' on my new Cricut was some elaborate (for my crafting abilities anyway) birthday party invitations for my daughter's birthday. When she decided to have her birthday party somewhere other than where we had originally planned, and invite more kids, I temporarily scrapped my idea. Tabled it, if you will. I think I will still make her invitations, but I haven't had any brilliant ideas that coordinate with the new location.

So...moving right along! A few weeks ago, I was going through some stuff in the basement and came across a large framed picture of my daughter when she was a baby. Not one of her better baby pictures, so I decided to remove the photo and make something on the Cricut to frame for her room. So glad I did because I really like the finished product. It is not perfect though, but she will love it nonetheless, and it was so cheap that if I ever decide to change it up again, I already have all the materials.

Anyway, using a butterfly from the Florals Embellished cartridge as my inspiration, I began my journey into the world of all things Cricut. Truth be told, the one pictured here is my second attempt at this butterfly. You see, when I made the first one, I wanted to use only paper that I had on hand, and I tried to copy the FE book as closely as possible, and I just wasn't happy with it. The colors were ok, but they had no texture and it was just sorta 'blah.' So I went back to the craft store yesterday and bought new paper, just enough for this project. Each paper had texture and I like this version so much better. Now, one thing I will say with the Cricut, is that (and perhaps this is because I haven't mastered it yet), it is fickle with textured/embossed papers. I had to trash some paper and ended up using a sheet from my original stash. I am not sure if I was using the wrong setting, though I did try a few different ones before I gave up on the paper. I think it might have be that some of the designs were rather intricate, using small/tiny cuts. Anyway, lesson sorta learned. If you click on the picture without the frame, you can see where some of the cuts were wonky and tore the paper in tiny spots. Oh well.

The other thing I had to do, which is what I'm not terribly thrilled about, is change up the matting. I did not want to go out and buy new matting, and since this was navy blue matting, and I didn't want to hassle with priming or anything, I decided to use coordinating scrapbook paper and basically, cut and paste. You can totally see it in the last two pictures. What I would do differently next time, is either buy a new matte, or decoupage the existing matte. But I just wanted to get it done and with all this said, I still like the way it turned out.