Visual Designs by Chris

Chris Durnan

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Archives for January 2010

Happy Valentine’s Day card – CD00650

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This is the most recent addition to this quarter’s QMC over at Visual Designs By Chris and the More Team!

Seems like everyone has Valentine on their minds and “Love is in The Air” ! This digital cutter file has two layers. The card body also has the heart shapes cut into the front of it. To set that off, there is a second layer that slips in behind the front and includes the greeting “Happy Valentine’s Day”. It is really effective and I love the way it goes together.

You too can get this, and many other digital cutter files, by joining this QMC in the Store.

Of course, I have used my Stickles to outline the hearts, I love these things! and I used a few little extra hearts on the front to add a little more.

Thanks for looking,

cheers, caz

Digi-Cutter Files offered in SCUT, GSD, KNK, WPC & AI (SVG) at www.visualdesignsbychris.com

It’s the Reveal… but be quick…

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So like I said yesterday the reveal is here for the January grab Bag. Woohoo! But with the reveal the price increases to 8.00 still the price of the files per piece is a great deal and you have lots to work with this month. If you want to see larger images, visit the designers blogs (posted yesterday) and if it si after I awake… visit the product in the store.

Here is the But be QUICK part.. I am autoposting this to my blog which means if it is early and you are on the east coast… I am just barely thinking about going to bed. or I am hitting that snooze alarm. Or just so thankful my hubby takes the kiddo to school most days. but the reason I tell you this is you may still be able to get it for $7.00 if your quick.

And the next part… If you have the grab bag and keep an eye on our weekly challenges.. next week you can participate and win the February Grab Bag.

We always have LOTS Going on. It is soooo much fun!!

Also, today is the sales flyer day where you can find out all the deals. So if you are not subscribed at the store. On the front page right hand side you won’t get these great deals right to your in bin. So stop on by and subscribe. We only send twice a month because we don’t want to fill up your email box and take you away from using your cutter for to much. Just long enough to get some great deals…

And from there….. Here are the files uploaded to the current QMC. If you are not a member of the current QMC you can still join… Soooooo.. Here are pictures of the files I uploaded this week. I am working off the topic request list and other items.


If you are a current member of Jan-Mar. Here is the direct link to the forum.

Another BUT Be Quick!!
And this is the LAST weekend you can download the Oct-Dec Membership. Please get in there and download as soon as you can. I extended the stay so everyone could not worry about it over the holidays. Here is the private link for that section of the forum.

If you need something to do this weekend, please visit the forum and check out weekly challenges and our Monthly Sketch Die cutter File Challenge.

As Always

Have a Wonderful weekend!
and ENJOY!!
Chris
Chris Durnan, designer at www.visualdesignsbychris.com
GSD KNK WPC AI SCUT files for your personal digital cutters for use with scrapbooking, cardmaking and other hobbies. Whatever your creative mind can come up with!

My files work on many machines. Some of them are: Klik-n-kut, Pazzle, Wishblade, Silhouette, Cricut, Craft Robo. Some of the software involved with these machines are: Funtime, Scrapbooking, WinPC/Signlab, Inkscape, Create & Cut, Illustrator, KNK Studio, Robomaster, DesignMaster and the list goes on….. Enjoy!

And our cutter file “freebies” are kept in the forum. We add to them as we can.

Things I’d like to see.. The Zutter Kutter & Distressor

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Well because I have an affection for cutters. Anything with that word in it piques my interest. My favorite tool in my craft room is a professional grade scoring board. You manual score, but at the same time I have score 500 invitations for a non-profit one time and it went so smoothly it was worth every penny. I used it in my former life managing a print shop and it was one of the things I had to have when I left.
So this is the Zutter Kutter mentioned to showcase at the CHA next weekend.
My understanding is it has an adjustable blade height, And scores as well as a guide on the left and right. I love that! I like to have my guides. Cuts up to 13 inches, foam board, art board. I have been thinking about a new trimmer for my craft room. this might be the one I look into. Takes less space then my scoring board. With the price tag I have seen mentioned around the web for 170.00 possibly. I might have to hold off for a bit, but if it is worth it. It is worth it. 🙂 nothing like a crisp and perfect depth score.
And next as seen in different places is the Zutter Distressor. I also am interested in this product because on many occassion I give up with the distressing. My hands just ache. A friend of mine told me this may be directly related to my gluten intolerance which I soooo like better then.. “you are just getting old” so i will have to look into that a bit more, but if this little machine works. I am interested to see how it really works because there is not a lot of great info about it out there yet. Then it has a wide channel to distress multiple papers at one time. We shall see. Another one I will be interested in.

If you see anyone with video showing these two machines at work on their blog from CHA.

I have a feeling these two items will be on my Christmas wishlist for next year.

Please post a comment so I can go check them out. I am not headed to CHA this year as I am using my weekend getaway to spend time at the KNK Retreat with Sandy McCauley in February.

Have a wonderful day and if you see something that interest you for CHA Jan 2010 send me an email. Things are popping up all over the web.

Don’t forget.. tomorrow is our Grab Bag Reveal… How is that gonna work??

Well folks the designers will be revealing on each of their individual blogs. I will be getting up and getting the kiddo to school.. Then I will sit down and hit the store and change the price to $8.00 for the reveal price. So if you think you might want it. there is a small window of opportunity to get it for the early non-reveal great deal of $7.00. Yes it’s a gamble over a dollar. But hey it’s worth it! So don’t forget to hit the sites.

Here is Darcy’s Blog, Sharon’s Blog, Tina’s Blog. Watch to see what great files they added.

Really this is a great group of files at such a steal from such great lady designers. After January they will individually be offered in the store, but won’t be sold together again! Lots of fun!

And can I tell you. I have seen most of the February Grab Bag files already and they are soooo worth it. I wouldn’t miss it at $7.00

Have a wonderful day!! woohoo!! Almost Friday.

Enjoy!
Chris

Chris Durnan, designer at www.visualdesignsbychris.com
GSD KNK WPC AI SCUT files for your personal digital cutters for use with scrapbooking, cardmaking and other hobbies. Whatever your creative mind can come up with!

My files work on many machines. Some of them are: Klik-n-kut, Pazzle, Wishblade, Silhouette, Cricut, Craft Robo. Some of the software involved with these machines are: Funtime, Scrapbooking, WinPC/Signlab, Inkscape, Create & Cut, Illustrator, KNK Studio, Robomaster, DesignMaster and the list goes on….. Enjoy!

And our cutter file “freebies” are kept in the forum. We add to them as we can.

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So we had a recipe swap at the Forum and it spanned over a few months. (I hope we do it again) I did two sets each time because I knew I would use them for gifts. We ended up with just a tons of recipes. I wanted to give them to my friends and we are horse lovin’ folks. So I gave my hubby an idea, but these are 6×6 and it wasnt tall enough. I left it with him to think through and these great angled hangers are what he came up with. I wanted to use horse shoes. so they are awesome. Here they are from the front view. I divided up the recipes and also put some blanks on the back for them to fill out. All those recipes we have from magazines would be good glued on.

And this is with it lifted up. So with a larger binder ring they could add on more.
And here is a photo below where they lay over backwards so you can easily read the recipe you are cooking.

And here is the back of them. All in all. I think they can out pretty nice. I have an extra so I think I might locate some photo sleeves and make one into a photo flip book.
This was fun because I love to work on things with my hubby and so when he came up with the angle and the way to get them taller. (I originally had two horsehoes tipped together at the top. ) Anyways, It was a great project and everyone who received them liked them lots. Thank goodness my hubby welds. I will have to take a picture of his weld job for me for Christmas. It was awesome.
We had a great weekend. Slight change of plans, but lots of fun anyways. Hope you had a wonderful one to! Now on to a great week!!
Enjoy!
Chris
Chris Durnan, designer at www.visualdesignsbychris.com
GSD KNK WPC AI SCUT files for your personal digital cutters for use with scrapbooking, cardmaking and other hobbies. Whatever your creative mind can come up with!

My files work on many machines. Some of them are: Klik-n-kut, Pazzle, Wishblade, Silhouette, Cricut, Craft Robo. Some of the software involved with these machines are: Funtime, Scrapbooking, WinPC/Signlab, Inkscape, Create & Cut, Illustrator, KNK Studio, Robomaster, DesignMaster and the list goes on….. Enjoy!

And our cutter file “freebies” are kept in the forum. We add to them as we can.

https://www.visualdesignsbychris.com/921/

Yeah it’s the weekend…

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Rambling alert… I don’t have a whole lot to say… I just wanted to wish you a Happy Weekend!! So if you need it short and sweet there it is!!

And for those who listen to me go on and on.. Pull up a chair. ha!

So today is a little chilly here. My hands are just aching. I wonder when that started. When did my hands start to ache when it got a little chilly? If someone says it is age, I AM IGNORING that comment. I told my hubby this week. I wasn’t getting older. It just is what it is.. He just smiled at me knowingly. ha! This was after my talk about skates. ha!

It has been one of those weeks where I am just dragging through mud trying to get everything done. We have so much fun stuff going on around here. And also there is alot of fun stuff going on online in the forum. challenges with prizes, and sketches. just so much to do. Tonight I plan to play with my cutter. Put something together instead of just test cutting. I am posting a file to the QMC this evening and hopefully after I have a good sample for a picture will be posting another. That makes me happy. The QMC is my favorite. as is evident by my lack of uploads to the store. I have 300 some files, but many i just cannot find the time to upload individual files sometimes. 🙂 I am working on that because I constantly get requests from my blog for a file to be added to the store so it can be purchased. Yes I need to get that more organized. It is in the works.

This week my son celebrated his puppies 1 year birthday. I got a little lecture on how to have an “appropriate” celebration for a dogs birthday by a 5 year old. HA! last night we went out to smack the tennisball. Here is the visual… 4 traffic cones, in a horse arena, one 5 year old, one 1 year old border collie, a tennis ball, and a metal t-ball bat. So my kiddo puts the ball on the cone which has the top cut off and he just whacks it good and the dog runs for it and brings it back. And again whack it hard the border collie runs and brings it back. That kinda dog training is priceless and to see him beam when he gets the ball back every time. Even more priceless.

The two cricut 3rd party softwares out there are battling it out with the features. My vote is still for the Make the Cut software. I just love some of the features and think the developer is phenomenal. Also, the e-craft is coming out at CHA. I am interested to see how much those little tabs really stick to cut without a mat. I am not a preperforated business card kinda person. I don’t like little “hanging chads” for lack of a better description. But alas. I am very interested to see it function. (Yes, I am looking at my counter space and clearing it off some. ha! How can I not.) I, also, got a new software this week for my hubby that is very cheap and has alot of added features. One being exporting dxfs. I am intersted to see how clean they are. I am slightly getting the “software junkie” shakes. But I am trying hard to not load it til I have at least 6 new files in the current QMC. And the KNK Retreat is coming up in Phoenix. This one is close to home so I am going. Should be fun. I can’t wait. It is over Rodeo Weekend, but I will make do. haha! I am really looking forward to it.

This weekend we plan to play with horse and head back to the arena. Our horses are ready to get moving again. You can tell they are slightly miffed about not going anywhere when you go out to feed. We took a few months off and I think are ready to get back into the swing of it. Since it is chilly we are during the days again. (65 today yikes! haha but it is windy. I am such a wimp I know) So I will be able to take nice pictures again with the sunlight and video. And this weekend I will also get to see my Brother Matt who lives in New York as he is down for a visit. I haven’t seen him for about 3 years I think. I don’t talk to him often, but at the same time when we see eachother the feeling of family flashes right back. So we hopefully get to see my brother in Phoenix as well and nieces and nephews. really should be alot of fun. just to sit and BS.

I, also, had a friend offer me her in-line skates. So I might try those out in the quest to hang out and just have fun with the kiddo. She says they are new in the box! Woohoo! Excited about that.

Really all in all it has been a great week and hopefully next week I will get slightly a bit more accomplished! just a bit! ha! The weekend with my guys is a worthy reward! Thanks for listening to the rambling… Love my life!

Hope you have a great weekend as well!

Enjoy!
Chris


Chris Durnan, designer at www.visualdesignsbychris.com
GSD KNK WPC AI SCUT files for your personal digital cutters for use with scrapbooking, cardmaking and other hobbies. Whatever your creative mind can come up with!

My files work on many machines. Some of them are: Klik-n-kut, Pazzle, Wishblade, Silhouette, Cricut, Craft Robo. Some of the software involved with these machines are: Funtime, Scrapbooking, WinPC/Signlab, Inkscape, Create & Cut, Illustrator, KNK Studio, Robomaster, DesignMaster and the list goes on….. Enjoy!

And our cutter file “freebies” are kept in the forum. We add to them as we can.

January 2010 Sketch Challenge

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2010 Has arrived, and so has a new sketch for the VDBC sketch challenge. Head over to the forum to check it out. The sketch is very versatile sketch by Becky Fleck of pagemaps. You can find this month’s sketch and accompanying cutter files here: VDBC. I can’t wait to see your interpretation of the sketch. Rosalie
hasDigi-Cutter Files offered in SCUT, GSD, KNK, WPC & AI (SVG) at www.visualdesignsbychris.com

Layout created with CD00639

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Another Year begins and so does another QMC at Visual Designs by Chris. This layout uses CD00639 – Out Of This World which was a file available in the last of QMC in 2009.

I took the file and enlarged it to fill my 12X12 inch page to work as my background. I applied a style to the Title to raise it and make it stand out.

This is a picture taken of my son recently acting silly, as usual! I did ask him why all the pictures I have of him lately have him sticking out his tongue, but he just laughed. I guess it must be a teen boy thing! LOL

Nevertheless, he truly is “Out Of This World” to me!

Thanks for looking,

cheers, caz

Digi-Cutter Files offered in SCUT, GSD, KNK, WPC & AI (SVG) at www.visualdesignsbychris.com

Nerf guns!

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My guys are playing nerf wars around the house! I don't remember them hurting so bad when they hit you when I was little!! Rule #1 if you hit Mom she will get you and tickle you. Playing the "giggle fiddle" my favorite instrument! Have tons of fun and always… Enjoy! Chris
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

First time Skating…

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So before Christmas we got to see some friends from Chicago at Skate Party. We also got to see some friends from Tucson at the Skating Rink. and our soccer coach “Coach Terry”.

My kiddo loved it so much he begged for skates for Christmas so last minute we found some. And I have a feeling that on the list for birthday this year will be a skating party.
Here he is hanging out with Dad… and the wall… He did really well by the end and even went out on the big rink to skate to “the rock band song” Some song from our rock band game he just had to listen to on the big rink!!


Here are our two friends sons. They had a great time

This is the my Mother is evil picture because he is going back to Chicago and so I won’t see him and I don’t get to see him and your making me leave the rink so I am not going to smile for your DARN picture” look.

And this picture is the other friend (they are cousins). And the smile is after a quick talk and reminder that we are going to get dinner with if you “find your smile” otherwise we won’t. In retrospect I think he was really coming down with the cold and why he was having a hard time because he never does, but these pictures are about 2 minutes apart and he is definitely the trooper and had so much fun at dinner.

He really had such a great time and so did we seeing everyone. Life gets so busy. Who knew in order to get some meeting time you would have to do it on 4 wheels with a rubber stopper. SOOOOO Much fun!!
And I must say one thing the Skate Rink looks the SAME as it did when I was in Junior High. The same. and the carpet was still damp and musty like it was way back when.
Really we had soooo much fun! Miss our friends and look forward to seeing them again. And we will be at the skate rink again soon as my son has his own skates!! and he will be practicing more on our patio I am sure. Since he was sick I let him practice for a bout ten minutes going up and down our hallway. then he couldn’t do anymore because he was starting to cough. So much fun. and next time I am gonna wear skates to. woohoo!! And no pictures then I do this weird bobble head balance things with my arms out like a balance beam gymnasts. it is not pretty. but I’ll do it because when you do it with a hubby and five year old .. it is always fun… Love my life.
Enjoy!
chris
Chris Durnan, designer at www.visualdesignsbychris.com
GSD KNK WPC AI SCUT files for your personal digital cutters for use with scrapbooking, cardmaking and other hobbies. Whatever your creative mind can come up with!

My files work on many machines. Some of them are: Klik-n-kut, Pazzle, Wishblade, Silhouette, Cricut, Craft Robo. Some of the software involved with these machines are: Funtime, Scrapbooking, WinPC/Signlab, Inkscape, Create & Cut, Illustrator, KNK Studio, Robomaster, DesignMaster and the list goes on….. Enjoy!

And our cutter file “freebies” are kept in the forum. We add to them as we can.

My son’s project for Dad .. the Money Bank

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All right so this adventure to build Dad something for Christmas came with lots of perusing the local Ace Hardware. Since we couldn’t figure out how to make an “everything maker” and with the time we put in at Ace we TRIED. We decided on a money bank for Dad. One big enough to catch all his change when he got home. So here is my kiddo with the vented mask on because he wanted to spray paint the bottom part.
So here he is spray painting the container for the bottom. took alot of work, but got it done. (and yes those are horseshoe prints from another project.

Here is the top piece. The kiddo picked the piece of plastic plumbing to put in the top and practiced dropping change in it to make sure it would work well. Development and Testing Department there.

And we cut white vinyl letters so he would know what it is. And excuse the sideways picture, but here it is all together. Alot of fun!! The planning process was sooo much fun. And practicing our Darth Vader voices with the painting mask on. That was fun. Really just great to work on it with him. So wonderful ! And Dad was happy to!


Well that is that project. More to come. Sorry about the sideways.
Enjoy!
Chris
Chris Durnan, designer at www.visualdesignsbychris.com
GSD KNK WPC AI SCUT files for your personal digital cutters for use with scrapbooking, cardmaking and other hobbies. Whatever your creative mind can come up with!

My files work on many machines. Some of them are: Klik-n-kut, Pazzle, Wishblade, Silhouette, Cricut, Craft Robo. Some of the software involved with these machines are: Funtime, Scrapbooking, WinPC/Signlab, Inkscape, Create & Cut, Illustrator, KNK Studio, Robomaster, DesignMaster and the list goes on….. Enjoy!

And our cutter file “freebies” are kept in the forum. We add to them as we can.