Oval Crop-A-Dile

American Crafts "We R Makers" just came out with an oval Crop-A-Dile and it just arrived this week. This new tool only punches an oval at 1/2" inch unlike the original Crop-A-Dile which lets you punch your hole at different measurements. This new tool comes with gold oval eyelets and washers in a set of 25. If you should order different colours of your oval eyelets those are sold in sets of 50. They have gold, silver, and the brown oval eyelets and washers on their website but they say they are hoping to stock different colours soon. Here is the new Oval Crop-A-Dile:

Wanted to make a Halloween tag so I went through my stash of dies but my dies all have a circle at the top for a round eyelet and many of these circles are further into the tag than 1/2" inch. So to make my tag I used a Spellbinders tag set from the stash:

I put the tag die on a piece of black card stock and I traced around the outside of the tag die for my tag shape. Used the trimmer to cut this tag out. Wanted to have a piece of printed card stock on the front of my tag so I used this same Spellbinders tag die and traced the INSIDE of the tag die onto the printed card stock and again used the trimmer to cut this out. Here is a photo of this tag:

With both the black card stock tag cut out and the printed tag card stock cut out I used a corner rounder punch on the bottom of both to curve the bottom. Used liquid glue and put these tags together. Once those were together I used the Oval Crop-A-Dile to make my oval punch at the top of the tag:

Put the oval eyelet on the front of the tag and the oval washer on the back of the tag and attached them using the new Crop-A-Dile:

This oval shape allows for use for a thicker/wider ribbon or trim than the standard circle eyelet allows. The washer also finishes off the back of the tag so the eyelet is smooth like the front is. Here is a photo to show the thicker trim I put through my oval eyelet on the tag:

I used black mesh tied with crinkled seam binding for the top of my tag. For the ghost I used an old Sizzix die from the stash and cut him out of white glittered card stock:

The "BOO" on my tag is a die from a stash die set and I cut that out of orange glittered card stock and used liquid glue to put that on the tag. Added orange gems from the stash for some sparkle on the tag:

Happy they made this new shaped Crop-A-Dile tool. It is easy to squeeze to set the eyelet/washer on the tags. Lots of ideas for using it on projects besides tags....

Crafting away.... and then the phone call.....

Busy in the craft room yesterday and die cutting and gluing away when my PIC (stamping partner in crime) sent a text asking if she can call me -- told her yes and the phone rings..... She was listing an appliance for sale on Facebook Market Place and she came across a sale listed for paper crafting items but this sale was yesterday morning and it was now afternoon. My PIC contacted the seller and the seller said we could come over now so she called me to ask if I wanted to go along with her to shop?? Ahhh... SURE!!

So I met her at the house and we shopped for an hour or so. This seller used to be a demonstrator for Fun Stampers Journey so she had a lot of their products along with so much more.... I was happy to bring home new in the package Fun Stampers Journey card stocks:

These are packs of 25 sheets and I paid $6.00 each pack - Stampin Up has their 8 1/2 x 11 card stocks in packs of 24 for $14.00 so I was happy to find these!! I also bought a bag of glue dots/foam squares/foam tape for $2.00 for the bag:

Inside is:

Bought two stamp sets with matching dies:

These die sets were $5.00 each and look brand new:

and

Also this Diamond Press shaker set:

The second sheet of dies in this set has two shaker bits dies included:

I also picked up a baggie of a die set and I put them on a magnet strip for storage. I think I paid $2.00 on these:

Happy to be able to shop this sale! She had the white cubbies and Sterlite drawers for sale,Totally Tiffany, tools, machines, card stocks, punches, steel ruled dies, storage items, trims, ribbons, twines, etc. Certainly nice of her to let us both shop after her posted hours for her sale as well.... Always happy to find more items for the craft room at great prices!

Halloween Tags

Cash or Stash - Went through my Taylored Expression tag/sentiment sets and I decided to make some Halloween Tags for holiday projects ahead.... I used the Taylored Expressions "Pennant Parade-Halloween" sentiments set for the sentiments and I used their "Tag Team" die set for the tags. Here is a photo of the tags I made:

For the tags I used white card stock and the tag die set is a set of three tag dies. I have never cut them apart so I die cut the three of them out of white card stock as one piece for the Misti:

With that cut and placed in the Misti I cut out more of the white tags for stamping. With those cut out I placed three of the tags in the tag cut card stock in the Misti for stamping:

Used three of these sentiment stamps for stamping:

I stamped all the die cut tags using black ink and I stamped them all as an assembly line fashion. Once they were all stamped I took out the Halloween card stock bin and went through that looking for small printed card stock scraps for the tops of the tags. Since I never cut the three tag dies apart it was easy to cut out three tops for the tags with one pass in the die cutting machine. But although all the tops were die cut out I needed them to be all the same length and since they are small....

I decided to use the top of a Post It Note where the adhesive is to help me cut out the tag tops. I used a ruler and measured 3/4" in and used a pencil to make a line. This made it easy to line up the die cut tag tops on the adhesive side so they would all be the same size:

I lined up my tag top pieces along the line:

With all the tag tops across the Post It Note I turned this over and took it to the trimmer and trimmed off the tag tops to the edge of the Post It Note:

Put the tag tops on the stamped tags and decided I wanted a strip of solid card stock below the printed tag taps so I used scraps and cut them using the trimmer to different sizes:

With all tag tops and solid strips cut out I used liquid glue to put these onto the stamped tags. I then used scissors to trim off any extra card stocks that were longer than the width of the tags:

Will keep these with my Halloween projects that I have already started to tie onto treat holders and such for projects ahead..... Glad to have these finished and certainly glad to be able to use the stash for all of these.....

Well... it was only a dollar....

Picked up the LawnFawn "Let It Snow" sentiment hot foil plate last week at the Recraft Creative Reuse Center in Greenville, SC for one dollar. Here is a photo of this hot foil plate:

Wanted to hot foil this with the Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil machine using different colour foils. First try I hot foiled it using silver holographic foil:

I could see from this try that there was something on the surface of this hot foil plate. I let this plate cool and I decided to clean the plate off using the 70% Isopropyl rubbing alcohol from the Dollar Tree and a clean paper towel. Here is my second attempt hot foiling this plate and this time I used solid silver hot foil:

This piece turned out better but still there was some residue on the hot foil plate. I let this hot foil plate cool again and this time I cleaned it using nail polish remover (w acetone) and a clean paper towel. Tried a third time and again I used solid silver foil:

Much better foiling results. Now I can figure out how many shims to use with it so that the dots around the sentiment will foil better but happy the nail polish remover worked as this will be a good hot foil sentiment plate to use for Christmas or winter cards/projects ahead. 

Another road trip on last week of vacation . . .

Left in the dark yesterday morning for our trip to Greenville, SC to shop the Recraft Creative Reuse Center store. DH drove myself and my PIC (Stamping Partner in Crime) to this store we have shopped before. As with any recycling store craft product donations change so you never know what you will find. This time I did find a few items to bring home to my craft room - or the Warehouse as DH refers to it...... 

First:

In the above photo on the back left is the "Never Ending Fringe" die set from Essentials by Ellen which is Ellen Hutson. I have many of her stamp and die sets and love her storage envelopes and although she closed her online store you can buy her products from her store on Amazon - in the search bar type in Ellen Hutson and her items will be shown. I paid $4.00 for the fringe die set and I already have two or three projects in mind for that die set.... the die set on the right is from Hefty Doodle and that was also $4.00 for the set and this is their "Big Shadow Box Die" set. All pieces are there so I was happy about that and this die set should make making shadow box cards very easy. The foil hot plate in the lower left from LawnFawn was $1.00 and that is their "Let It Snow" sentiment and after you hot foil it it can be die cut out using a circle die for your card or project. 

Also found two more stamping/card making items:

Stamp from Taylored Expressions for $2.00 is their Building Blocks-Cool Additions and that is shown with the Whimsy Stamps "Slimline Connected Rectangles" die set and that was $4.00. There were steel ruled dies, stamp sets, ink pads, bling, stickers, card stocks, Cricut machines galore, Xyron machines, washi tape, etc. and other items for sale but I wanted to shop the fabric/fibers sections.... Found bags of fabric pieces packed by colours for $2.00 per bag:

This photo shows the bags turned over to show more of what is in each bag:

Happy lots of fabric pieces in each bag and all bags were $2.00 each:

After fabrics I went over to the yarn section. They had large bags filled with different yarns but all of the same colour family in each bag. I did not need all that yarn as I was mainly looking for eyelash yarns and happy me I found them... Sign said $1.00 each skein or fill their bag and the bag would be $3.00 so I filled the bag:

Took a photo of all the yarn out of this bag:

Will be working on new projects using these new fabric pieces and yarns and was happy I was able to find them for a good price..... We left there and I wanted to stop at a quilting store nearby in Simponsville, SC so off to there we went. It is the Marietta's Quilt and Sew Shop and it is fantastic. They have beautiful fabrics, notions, patterns, books and the like. WELL worth the trip to that store for sure! My PIC was able to find some fabrics for her fabric ornaments she makes so another great stop for shopping for us!

Always happy to shop these recycle stores - nearest one to us is Reconsidered Goods in Greensboro and I am happy it is easy to get to but on vacation??? Always fun to make the drive to SC to shop the Recraft store in Greenville to see what items I can bring home that I did not know I needed.... hahaha  Thanks to DH for driving us there and then to Simpsonville for the quilt shop and then home... Another fun day trip....

Spellbinders Press and Foil Plate/Die Set

Bought the new Spellbinders Press + Foil plate/die set that just came out "All Occasions All-In-One". This set has sentiments as well as a matching die to cut them all out. Here is a photo of this set:

I hot foiled the plate using black, white, and smooth pinks card stocks. I used gold, blue, silver, red, and pink foils from Spellbinders for the foiling. Once all the hot foiling was done I then die cut out all the sentiments using the one piece die that matches the one piece sentiment plate:

Now I have a stash of these sentiments for the stash for future cards and projects:

This photo shows the foiled sentiments:

My PIC (Stamping Partner In Crime) had gifted me two pads of this smooth card stock from Scrapbook.com and I used pink card stocks from those pads to hot foil on. The paper foiled beautifully so happy to be able to use different card stocks in different colours. This sentiment plate has lots of sayings so they will work for lots of projects/cards. Nice addition to my hot foil supplies and the set hot foiled with no over foiling at all. 

More projects -

First photo of this post shows more of the small milk cartons I made using the new We R Makers Carton Stamp Board I received this week:

Went through the printed card stock scraps and use those to decorate my small milk carton boxes. Here is a photo of the sides of the boxes:

To cut out the square card stock pieces I used a square die set from the stash that would fit on the panels of this box. Used bulldog and binder clips from the stash to close these milk cartons. Ribbons or a beaded dangle can hang from all these closure clips to dress up the boxes. This Carton Stamp Board makes three sizes of a milk carton treat holder and they go together quickly. 

This other project shows more of the laminated napkins I put together last week and for this project I used a Pocket Die set from the stash by Poppy Stamps:

Die cut the tag/pocket out of the laminated napkin with a matching print for the back which folds to the front of the tag and this gives you the pocket:

I put a piece of scrap white card stock in the pockets to show them for the photo. To put this tag pocket together I trimmed the laminated napkin front to the tag off at the bottom so that the back tag would have room to fold flat for the pocket and not to be bulky:

I used liquid glue and glued the tag part of the laminated napkin to the tag back piece. Folded up the pocket and again used glue to keep pocket tabs in place. For the tag hole ring piece I die cut that ring die out of the printed card stocks I was using for the back/pocket part of the tag so they would match. Die cut out two of these ring pieces and used glue to put them at the top of the tags. Used more of the twine from the stash to tie on at the top of the tags. This photo shows the back of the tags:

Easy tag to put together and the liquid glue does not show through the laminated napkins as they have more of a rice paper texture than a vellum finish using the laminating pouches. 

Another sold out new product......

Maymaymadeit on YouTube and other crafters were showing the new We R Makers (used to be known as We R Memory Keepers) new treat holder set "We R Makers Carton Stamp Board". Being a new product to the market it was sold out and on back order on most online stores... I was able to buy one off the American Crafts website in stock and it arrived today:

Took it all out of the box:

This new board comes with a full sheet of stamps to decorate the box and it also has holiday icon stamps included. This milk carton board makes three sizes of a milk carton treat holders:

Photo above shows the board right out of the box and it has a stylus on the right side that slides into the board for easy storage. All score lines and markings are easy to read for whichever size milk carton treat holder you would like to make. Love the one page directions with how-to photos on both front and back:

Love that I can use an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of card stock for this treat holder depending on the height of the box I make. Using scrap white card stock I stopped crafting my current project so I could try out this new tool to the craft room to see if it is as easy to use as was shown on YouTube and yes it is!

Cut my card stock for the smaller box - did all the scoring:

Folded on the scored lines, clipped the bottom flaps and ready to form my milk carton treat holder. To hold my sample closed I am using a mini binder clip from the stash but I could also close it with a bulldog clip, paper clip, or mini clothespin:

I plan to add printed card stocks to my box - it is folded every 2 inches so I could use a 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" square piece of card stock and put them on all four sides of the box. Also could measure and put prints on the front and back top flaps. This milk carton box went together quickly and I am happy I was able to find it available for sale! Another great product from We R Makers!!