by Sandy McCauley | Jan 8, 2011 | Events and Retreats, Retreats, Uncategorized
It’s official! We’re having a KNK Retreat in Florida!
If you plan to attend, please make a $100 deposit to hold a spot:
A maximum of 25 people can attend!
Come join us in Tampa for a weekend of rockin’ Klic-N-Kut classes, demo’s, and loads of fun! Julie, Barbie, and I can’t wait to meet you!
Event: “Klic-N-Kut Spring Forward Retreat!”
Date: Friday, March 18 3:00 pm – Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:00 pm
Location: Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore
The cost of the retreat, excluding hotel, is $395. For this price, you receive 5 excellent meals, free goodies, 6 – 7 classes, 3 – 4 demos, class notes and files, dozens of free videos to take home, cutting materials and prizes! The room will open at 3:00 pm with the Meet and Greet starting at 4:00 pm. Dinner will be served at 6 pm, followed by a class, demo and workshop. Saturday the 19th will be action packed with classes, demos, challenges, games, and 3 full meals. On Sunday the 20th, after breakfast, we’ll have one more class and workshop or demo. Participation in all classes and demos is optional, so you can head out, at any time, to enjoy some local Tampa attractions. We also encourage you to bring your laptop and/or cutter, but it’s not a requirement to join us, as we will have extras available and will seat everyone for sharing, as needed.
Your hotel room and travel expenses are separate. We have a wonderful deal with the Hilton of $109.00 per night single or double occupancy. If you live locally, you are not required to stay at the hotel. If you want a roommate, please note it in the form below and return to Barbie and she will help match up attendees. Rooms must be reserved no later than March 1 to lock in this rate. You must mention the “KNK11” when you call the Hilton directly at 813-877-6688 (our reservation contact is Nan Graves). If your spouse would like to join us at mealtime, let us know as soon as possible, and we’ll find out the cost for that.
This weekend retreat is available for up to 25 attendees and we’ll have a waiting list in case of cancellations.
So reserve your spot by:
(1) Emailing me at smccauley45@cox.net to let me know you want to attend. If you do not receive a response within 24 hours, then please post a message at the bottom of this post and I’ll email you directly. Sometimes emails get lost! I’ll then send you a short form to complete.
(2) Sending a $100 check or money order to our event organizer, Barbie Creech. I will send you Barbie’s address privately after you let me know you plan to attend. : ) If you prefer, we also accept Paypal payments.
The deadline for making the deposit is January 20th and the $295 balance will be due by February 20. If you need to pay the balance in installments, then two $100 payments may be made by the end of January and the end of February, and then a final $95 payment made at the retreat..
Details on classes and demos will be provided after I have gathered information about all of you and what you want to learn! : )
Can’t wait to see you in Tampa!
Sandy
by Sandy McCauley | Nov 12, 2010 | Events and Retreats, Retreats
Pre-Scheduled Klic-N-Kut Retreat: Tampa, Florida March 2011
Let us know if you are interested !!!
The next KNK Retreat is planned for Tampa, Florida during the weekend of March 18, 2011. We need a certain number of sign-ups in order to have the event, so I’m requesting feed back if you might be interested in attending. Note: that this is not a commitment on your part to attend… just an indication that you might want to attend based on the date, location, cost, and content of the retreat!
Location: Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore
Date: Friday, March 18, 2011 3:00 pm – Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:00 pm
The cost of the retreat, excluding hotel, is currently set at $395. (A payment plan will be available)
For this price, you receive 5 excellent meals, free goodies, 6 – 7 classes, 3 – 4 demos, class notes and files, dozens of free videos to take home, cutting materials and prizes!
Your hotel room and travel expenses are separate. We have a wonderful deal with the Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore of $109.00 per night single or double occupancy. If you live locally, you are not required to stay at the hotel. If you need a roommate, we’ll do our best to match you up with another attendee so that the room cost can be split. Also, if your spouse is coming with you and would like to join us at mealtime, let us know in advance, and we’ll find out the cost for that.
If interested in this retreat, please respond to this post OR email us privately at:
Barbie Creech: bcreech469@aol.com
Sandy McCauley: smccauley45@cox.net
We will then provide you additional details as they become available PLUS first opportunity to officially sign up and make your $100 deposit! Again, this is not a commitment… just an opportunity to let us know you are interested. Hope to see you in Florida next March!
by Sandy McCauley | Nov 5, 2010 | Free Files, Quilling
Judy K, famous for her amazing cupcake wrappers, took the quilling flower idea from my prior post to the next level! (She’s REALLY good at doing that! Just look at those cupcake wrapper files! lol).
Not only did she create some really beautiful chrysanthemums, including tracing a scan of an actual chrysanthemum leaf from her garden, but she also chalked her flowers to add extra dimension and used them to decorate some adorable little gift boxes:
But that’s not even the good part! Judy create a cutting file for a little device to make the quilling easier. She calls it her quilling helper and she cut hers from Grafix craft plastic:
I also cut one out from her file, but made it a little different. I cut mine from thin chipboard and then glued three together to form a nice thick version. I then poked the center hole with an awl and then was able to slip my quilling needle through that hole.
Here are the links to her quilling helper, if you want to cut out your own:
Quilling Helper in KNK Format
Quilling Helper in SVG Format
Quilling Helper in EPS Format
Once again, I thank Judy for her generous sharing of files, her participation at the KNK Yahoo groups, and her support of this blog!
by Sandy McCauley | Oct 29, 2010 | Array, Free Files, Quilling
A while back, I found out about some Cuttlebug dies that allow you to create adorable flowers using a quilling tool. Now years ago, I had tried out the original quilling technique where you create all kinds of shapes by quilling long rectangular strips into little tight coils of paper and gluing them together. That was kind of fun, but didn’t excite me all that much.
However, when my close friend, Barbara Aras (who I affectionately call “Mom”) brought a set of the Cuttlebug quilling dies to our weekly Thursday Therapy crafting session, I was blown away with how beautiful and easy it was to cut and quill these “petal strips” into beautiful flowers! Then it occurred to me just how easy it would be to create my own custom flowers with different sizes and types of petals and leaves.
So, I’m sharing with you today, a base file that has a variety of flower centers, petals and leaves, which you can use for designing your own files. I’m also sharing three different completed flower files I designed and cut for the attendees at the recent San Diego retreat to do as a make and take. Here’s a photo of one of those:
Here are the files in KNK, SVG, and EPS formats:
Quilling Flowers in KNK format
Quilling Flowers in SVG format
Quilling Flowers in EPS format
Of course, the attendees were also taught how to take the base file and design their own! That’s the point of attending one of my retreats! : ) Fortunately, it such a simple process in KNK Studio, that I can show it in just a few screen quick shots:
Select a petal and size it to the height you want and then arrange over the left side of one of the rectangles. You’ll see, in the inventory file, that I have two sets of rectangles… pick from the upper set for shorter flowers or from the lower set for slightly taller flowers.
Next select the flower petal and go to Layout>Array. Make the following changes to your settings. Note that your spacing and the total number might vary from what I have. No problem! That’s the beauty in the designing of these flowers… it doesn’t matter!
Click screen shot to enlarge, then use back button to return
Now close that Array window, select your petals and rectangle and apply the Basic Weld. You’re done!
Now do another sized petal or a flower center or even a leaf. Just be creative and have fun!
Note, if you’re designing in a software program lacking something like the Array function in KNK Studio, then just manually copy/paste the petals and arrange along one of the rectangles. Then select all and weld. The petals do not have to be equally spaced in order to create one of these flowers!
For those who need to learn how to quill, here’s a link to one of the You Tube videos.
Quilling Demo
The only difference between my technique and what’s shown in this video is that I like to apply a small amount of adhesive (glue stick) along the strip before quilling to make it more secure. And, I also apply liquid glue to the bottom of my quilled flowers to make them even more permanent for a lot of handling (I do this since I take these flowers to demos, retreats, etc). Also, if you notice, as you are quilling that the petals seem to be clustering in the same spots, just unwrap a bit, and tear off the strip and glue down the end. Then move over a bit and start again so that the next petal will be positioned in one of the gaps in your pattern.
For those who do not own a quilling tool, here’s a link to the slotted quilling tool (Product 301) that I gave everyone at the retreat:
Quilling Tool
Also, I’ve learned that the Curling Coach (top right, Product 311) is supposed to be REALLY nice when quilling these flowers. I haven’t tried one yet, but I do plan to.
So… this is a VERY easy project! Have fun and feel free to send me any photos of beautiful flowers you’ve designed and created yourself.
by Sandy McCauley | Oct 25, 2010 | Free Videos, Reducing Nodes
Congratulations to Lori G on the launch of her web site, www.studioalohadesigns.com, selling her beautiful cutting files in .knk, .svg, and .gsd formats!
Lori contacted me a few weeks ago about the best way to reduce nodes in the file shown above. As all of the file designers know, it’s not critical having a lot of nodes in a KNK file as it will cut quickly and smoothly to digital die cutters. However, a file with hundreds of nodes is NOT handled nearly as well when cutting to a Cricut, Silhouette, Wishblade, or Craft Robo. So, I showed Lori, in a video, how I would handle reducing the nodes in this file and then decided the video I made should be posted to my blog and shared with all of you! Even if you’re not a file designer, you could be creating files that you’d like to share with your friends or family members who own the other cutters mentioned above. So, take note of how nodes can be eliminated without compromising the file itself.
Here’s a link to the video: Reducing Nodes
I wish Lori the very best with her new Internet store!
