Atherton Family Notes

This page was made with our 2008 Christmas card.  I think it turned out really well.  It took a lot more work than we usually spend on our cards since Sandi and I had to design it, write the poem, take the picture and then build prototypes, followed by cutting out 50 of them (with the Cricut, of course), stamping them, gluing them, and folding them.  It was quite a production.

I wish we could take all the credit for the idea, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to Frog’s Leap Winery, which sent us a similarly-designed card last year at Christmas.  They make good wines too.

Technorati Tags: carissa, celia, Christmas, christmas card, cricut, digital scrapbooking, ken, poem, sadie, sandi

Local Tags: carissa, celia, Christmas, christmas card, cricut, digital scrapbooking, ken, poem, sadie, sandi

 Format this post for printing

Yesterday, I posted our 2008 Christmas card, and I decided to share the pattern, just in case anyone is interested.  It’s a fairly simple design and easy to use in most cutting programs, such as Sure-Cuts-A-Lot for the Cricut Expression.  If you scale the image to fit exactly the size of the cuttable area of a 12×12 mat, the pattern will yield a card the same size as the one we sent.

A close-up of the card front:

A close-up of the card back:

Here’s how the card looks folded up and ready to mail in a 4×5 envelope:

Enjoy!  You can download the pattern here.

Technorati Tags: Christmas, christmas card, cricut, freebie, snow, snowflake pattern, snowflake patttern, sure-cuts-a-lot, svg

Local Tags: Christmas, christmas card, cricut, freebie, snow, snowflake pattern, snowflake patttern, sure-cuts-a-lot, svg

 Format this post for printing

Here’s a scrapbook page I made using last year’s Christmas pictures of Carissa, Cece and Sadie.  I was inspired by a random piece of abstract art I saw at Deviant Art (which, incidentally, is a great place to hang around if you need inspiration.)

I made the page by cutting out strips of paper with the Cricut and then pasting them onto a plain black background.  It’s hard to tell from the scan, but the green strips are attached with thick glue dots, given the whole page a slightly 3D effect.

Technorati Tags: carissa, celia, Christmas, cricut, ken, paper scrapbooking, sadie, sure-cuts-a-lot

Local Tags: carissa, celia, Christmas, cricut, ken, paper scrapbooking, sadie, sure-cuts-a-lot

 Format this post for printing

Yesterday, I posted my “Christmas 2007″ scrapbook page, and today, I’m sharing the pattern for any interested Cricut/Sure-Cuts-A-Lot users.  This pattern is much easier to do on the Cricut Expression, but it can probably be adapted for the smaller format devices if desired.

Here is the what I intended the pattern to look like:

If you compare it to the final assembled version, you’ll notice that I ended up placing the strips a little closer together.  To make up for that, I added a white strip of “snow” to the bottom of the page.

Also, if you plan to make this page, be aware that the pattern does not include the blue strip at the very top, either.  This is because you can’t cut a 12″ x 1″ strip very easily on the Expression (at least, not without wasting a lot of paper).  I cut this strip by hand and added it separately.

Here are the files you need to cut this pattern:

• blue.svg  Once you import it into Sure-Cuts-A-lot, set the size to 10.5″ x 10.1″ to cut the strips at full size.
• brown.svg  Set the size to 1.6″ x 1.55.”
• green.svg  For some reason I don’t fully understand, this file retained the 12″ x 12″ outline of the original page, so set the size to 12″ x 12″ and align it so that it cuts inside the safe area of the mat.
• green2.svg  Set this one to 12″ x 12″ also.
• yellow.svg Set this one to 1.6″ by 1.6″ to make it the size that appears in the composite pattern above.  Alternately, you can use one of the built-in shapes from Sure-Cuts-A-Lot to get the same effect, which is what I did ultimately.

I used very simple, primary colors for this page, but I think that it would also look really good if cut using certain patterned papers.  If you decide to make this yourself, I’d love to see the results!

Technorati Tags: Christmas, cricut, freebie, paper scrapbooking, snow, sure-cuts-a-lot, svg

Local Tags: Christmas, cricut, freebie, paper scrapbooking, snow, sure-cuts-a-lot, svg

 Format this post for printing

It’s that time of year when I start working on our annual family Christmas video. This will be the ninth year we’ve done it, so I guess I can call it a tradition now.

I’ve started looking back over the old videos both to be inspired and to avoid repeating myself. I watched our first one, from 2000, tonight. It looks so old and grainy! Digital video has come a long way in the last 9 years.

I don’t really remember what made us decide to make the video.  It was the first year that we had a child (Carissa) who was old enough to be interesting at Christmas time.  We sent the video out with our Christmas cards on a CD.  Now we just route everyone to our website.  Trust me, the extra time I get to finish the video now is very important!

It’s been my rule of thumb that we need to get about 30 minutes of our rather amateurish camera work to end up with 30 seconds of passable video.  As you can imagine, that means that we capture a lot of video during the Christmas season.  We’ve tried to keep the video about the things we do during Christmas and not make the video an activity in itself.  But there are always some concessions, and in this first video, the concession was having Carissa say “Merry Christmas!” at the end.  The amount of work that we put into that was pretty funny and as a result I added the extra footage to the credits (which I then had to extend to match the length of the extra footage!)

Anyway, we had enough fun putting the video together that we’ve done it every year since.  The kids have enjoyed it, too, as they’ve gotten older, and they like to go back and watch the old ones sometimes.

If you’d like to see our 2000 Christmas video, you can download it here.  It may or may not play on your computer, depending on what codecs you have installed.

Technorati Tags: carissa, Christmas, christmas card, christmas video, ken, sandi, video

Local Tags: carissa, Christmas, christmas card, christmas video, ken, sandi, video

 Format this post for printing

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we found a simple pattern to make 3D snowflakes.  We made several, and the girls gave them all away to their teachers.  They’ve been a real hit at the schools, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of them being made by local school children in the near future.

We decided to make a few more to use as Christmas decorations and hang them in the house for our Gingerbread party tomorrow.

Here’s what they look like:

We also made one by using two different types of wrapping paper an interweving them.  It looks really neat, but the wrapping paper we chose isn’t stiff enough to hang up, so it’s been relegated to being a table decoration. 

Update: If you are interested in making your own snowflake, you can get the pattern and instructions here: The 3D Kirigami Snowflake Pattern

Technorati Tags: Christmas, gingerbread, gingerbread party, house, ken, kirigami, sadie, snow, snowflake pattern

Local Tags: Christmas, gingerbread, gingerbread party, house, ken, kirigami, sadie, snow, snowflake pattern

 Format this post for printing

I was hoping to have a post already to go this morning, but I didn’t get time to prepare it.  Our big Gingerbread party is today, so the post will have to wait until tonight.

Hopefully, we’ll get some good pictures at the party and I can post them!

Technorati Tags: gingerbread, gingerbread party

Local Tags: gingerbread, gingerbread party

 Format this post for printing

Sandi finished her big gingerbread project late Friday night (actually early Saturday morning).

(more…)

Technorati Tags: Christmas, germany, gingerbread, gingerbread church, sandi, villingen

Local Tags: Christmas, germany, gingerbread, gingerbread church, sandi, villingen

 Format this post for printing

Saturday was a beautiful, snowy, cold winter day here in Indianapolis and we went downtown with Sandi’s cousin Rob and his wife Mary Ann, who came into town for the weekend from Phoenix.
(more…)

Technorati Tags: Christmas, indiana, indianapolis, ken, sandi, snow, soldiers and sailors monument, winter

Local Tags: Christmas, indiana, indianapolis, ken, sandi, snow, soldiers and sailors monument, winter

 Format this post for printing

Well, we made it through the Gingerbread Party, and the girls had a lot of fun.  This is the 4th year that we’ve had the party (including once in France).  Some of the kids we invited have been to the party three times now and have become quite the veterans.
(more…)

Technorati Tags: carissa, celia, Christmas, digital scrapbooking, France, gingerbread, gingerbread houses, gingerbread party, sadie

Local Tags: carissa, celia, Christmas, digital scrapbooking, France, gingerbread, gingerbread houses, gingerbread party, sadie

 Format this post for printing