KOLA Designs

I have completed another challenge and LOVE the result!!  I wanted to create a tote bag to bring along to CHA this Summer, and thought for a while about what words I could use to represent my style of crafting.  I wanted to do a play on the “reduce, reuse, recycle” we see so often.  I realized that the majority of my creations are given as gifts (either by myself or those who order them) and thought “Give” would be the way to end my saying… I use my Gyspy often to do my designs so that would be a good way to start, and nearly everything is created with the Cricut so there stood the last piece to the puzzle!  My new crafting mantra:

Design, Create, Give!

On to the actual challenge… I was required to use products from a specific company, Imaginesce.  They make some wonderful products and I bought the iRock quite some time ago.  I am ashamed to say I hadn’t even tried to use it yet!!  I love using gems and rhinestones on my projects but just resorted to the self adhesive ones most of the time.  Thanks to this challenge I finally pulled out the tool and the 1000’s of heat set stones I had gathered and used them to embellish my Cricut cuts.  WOW!!! I love how easy this tool is to use, and the durability it seems to create!  Those stones are on there for good!   Now the challenge requires using 3 products from their line… I’m hoping since I only had this tool that using 8 stones counts!  The gems don’t quite show up in the photo, but they’re on the gift ribbon, and on each of the “i”s.

Quick tips for using heat transfer vinyl:
Be sure to flip your deisgns, and cut on the *non plastic* side
Use a hot iron, and parchment paper in bewteen the plastic and your iron
Settings for the Cricut (that work for me): Speed: 3  Pressure: 3  Blade: 4

I can’t wait to bring this along to CHA in July!!