Cricut Tip Paper is Curling Up

Have you ever pulled cardstock off of a REALLY sticky Cricut mat to have it curl up on you?  Below is a photo of some cardstock I used for a recent project, and you can see how the portion that I peeled off of the mat has a curve in it now.

Yes, I can place it between some heavy books and get it to lay flat again at some point, but I also found something out . . . it is all about how you remove things that causes that curve/curling to happen.  

Most of us would use our spatula to pull up the excess paper, as shown in the photo below, and peel that away leaving the image we cut on the mat.

I found out recently that this is not the best way to remove the cardstock when that mat is SUPER sticky.

The BETTER way is to peel back the mat.

Below is a photo of two pieces where I peeled back the mat instead of the cardstock . . . see how the remaining cardstock is still nice and flat!  If you are making very large cuts it is also better to peel the mat away so that your cuts do not curl up. 

I plan to do another post about this showing the exact same cuts side by side, but peel the cardstock back on one and peel the mat back on the other.  I think that will really show the difference in the technique.

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Embroidered Patch with Oly Fun

My niece needed her name on her backpack, and since I have a Brother sewing/embroidery machine can also embroider my sister asked if I could help out.   Here is a photo of the backpack.  The problem was that the backpack did have a rigid frame, so it made it hard to get into the embroidery arm of my machine.

Instead of embroidering right on the bag, I decided to make a patch that I could sew onto the bag.  I used some black Oly Fun fabric from Fairfeld for this project.  I knew that Oly Fun would be the perfect fabric to use since it is great for indoor and outdoor use.  I did not want to have to worry about snow or rain getting on this patch.  Also, this fabric will not fray so there is no worry of the edges of the patch getting messed up.

The fabric was a great texture and weight to embroider on.  I decided to embroider an oval and then put my nieces name inside the oval.  Once I finished the embroidery stitching I trimmed away the extra threads and cut around the outside of the oval, close to the stitching lines.

I secured the patch with some fabric glue in the center, just to hold it in place while I hand stitched around the outer edge.  I think that since I used the black it looks like I embroidered right on the bag and it does not look like a patch.

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