My first Cricut Craft Room Project!

Hi friends and fellow crafters!
I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend! I am attempting to re-organize my craft room as part of my New Year's resolution to become better organized. Now that my two soaps are gone, (yes, I watched All My Children and One Life To Live) I now have an extra 10 hours a week to get it done!
Thursday afternoon I was cleaning out my paper shelves, and I came across my wireless adapter that I ordered quite some time ago for my Cricut Expression 2. Being of short attention span, I quickly forgot about the papers I was trying to organize and went about the business of seeing if I could get my wireless to cut something using the Cricut Craft Room. I placed it in the machine, couldn't get it to work, called Comcast, our Internet provider, who having no clue what I was asking about, told me to call Provo Craft. So I did, and a rep told me she didn't think the adapter was compatible with the WEP channel I was using on my router. So I did the only thing I could do, I messed with the router settings. Naturally, I had disastrous results. I ended up losing my lap top's connection. Again, I did the only thing I could do, I attempted to fix it. LOL! Not a good idea. I spent 5 hours trying to get my connections re-established. I call NetGear only to find that my router is 1 year old, so no longer covered by any warranty, but I can get the Gear Head service.....for a price. Yeah, for $89.95 I could get unlimited assistance with my router and other computer problems. I could have paid $39.95 for a 1 time issue fee, or $69.95 for 6 months worth if assistance, nah, I took the 1 year option because I can say with much certainty, I will be calling them again. LOL! After spending about an hour on the phone with the Gear Heads, my Internet was running again and he explained that the adapter would work just fine with the router. He did admit that he wasn't sure what a Cricut was, but he thought he could get it to work. LOL! It was late, and my son was getting tired of sharing me with the computer, so I said I would call back in the morning. Friday morning, I went to my Expression to see if it would connect, and it did! I didn't have to call the Gear Heads, it was a happy moment in my craft room! I didn't have the chance to use the Cricut Craft Room, but yesterday, I finally created something.
Anyone who follows Tim Holtz knows that he was giving previews of his new products for the Winter CHA this week. I am still on my spending ban and I knew I shouldn't even look, but I did. I love his products enough to test torture myself! I was OK, until I saw his On The Edge Sewing Die This is my type of die-cut. I was motivated to see if I could create a version of it using the Cricut Craft Room, and went to work on it.
I used several carts to create my version. Art Nouveau for the base, which can be welded to a page later. The scissors are from Cricut Everyday, the spool is from Country Life, the buttons are from Paisley and Wild Card. I couldn't find a bobbin, so I used a circle from Country Life, copied it, then re-sized the copy and copied that 4 more times to make the holes in the bobbin. Clear as mud, right? Here's how it looked in the CCR. The two colors are actually layers that cut as different mats.

Here's how it cut.

 Below is my rough draft, I was just messing around with the pieces to get an idea of how they would look.

I went with a real button to see if I would like it. The jury is still out on a real button. I think it's just the button I used, it was a reject from a layout and laying on my table, so I grabbed it.
I was so pleased with my version of Tim Holtz's Die Cut. I want to tweak the spool of thread, but for now I will keep this one. I have been wanting to make a mini book about crafting and this will be included.
One problem I did encounter is that when I originally tried cutting it, I couldn't establish a good connection between the CCR and my machine, I realize now it was because I didn't have a cartridge in the machine. silly me! Well, I figured I would cut it as a Gypsy file, and imported it to my Gypsy, but when I opened the file, nothing was welded and the design was all over the place. I don't know if I missed something in the save, or if it's a glitch. I'll try another file and see what happens. If anyone knows why this occurred, let me know. I'd be very grateful!
Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Happy Crafting!

Colleen