It's HERE!!

 For some time I have thought about buying the Brother Scan n Cut machine ... but kept putting it off. I watched and watched other crafters using their Scan n Cut machines in their craft rooms for many different types of projects .... but being a "newbie" to this machine I mainly wanted one so I could use it to cut out stamped images I have that do not have matching die sets  --- ALL of the Whipper Snapper Design stamps I have -- LOTS of bunnies/Easter images.....   also a couple of years back I had picked up the Some Bunny stamp set from Simon Says Stamp:

This stamp set was $2.00 at a crafters used stamping sale. I brought it home and checked and Simon Says Stamps did not have a matching die set for this stamp set. Finally broke down and bought my Scan n Cut machine:

When my machine arrived I thought to try it out I would stamp and then scan and cut out the bunny from the Some Bunny stamp set. The photo below shows the bunny stamped and cut out on the left side - the bunny on the right has a white border around it - as dies would cut it out:

Absolutely love the Scan n Cut and it will certainly gets lots of use in this craft room for sure. Plus you can stamp your image once or fill a whole page and the Scan n Cut will cut them all out so quickly!! Happy I finally bought it! Lots of stamped images I can use it for - perfect for stamp sets with no matching dies or punches..... LOVE it already!

Road Trip

Yesterday was a road trip to Charlotte for this crafter. As in years past the Paper Crafters Muse store in Matthews, NC held their annual Customer Yard Sale where store customers clean out their craft rooms of new or gently used items and sell them at this sale. The store owner, Daphne P. would organize this sale for her customers. The day of this sale Daphne would also have some great sales going on at her store so you could shop her sales and then check out the Yard Sale goodies. . .  My PIC (stamping Partner In Crime) and I have been to every sale. . . 

This year was different - in late April Daphne P. passed away so Francis, (who worked with Daphne at the store), has taken over running the store at this time. Francis organized this sale and yesterday was the sale:

The sellers had their canopies set up in the back parking lot and lots of goodies to be had:

I took these photos when I arrived and since they were still setting up I shopped inside the store first ...  Once I finished in there I went outside - 

Canopies on both sides of the parking lot and lots of products -- one seller had a working Minc System with some accessories she was selling for $15.00 -- a few sellers were selling the Stampin Up Big Shot machines, lots of Stampin Up stamp sets, punches, ribbons/trims, dies, ink pads, trimmers, score tools, and card stocks, markers, stickers, vinyl, etc.. . One lady had all Close To My Heart products, a few Cricut machines and programs, storage items, etc.  Basically any cardmaking/scrapbooking items you would need were somewhere to find.... Lots to shop for but I only bought a few things....

I did not have any list of any items to look for but was happy when I found this set:

Stampin Up sold this Little Treat Box bundle for $53.00:

SU has basically priced itself right out of my craft room but buying items gently used or even new at these used stamping sales works for me! Here is a photo of the die set:

Not sure if the die set was ever used but only one of the stamps in the set was used - happy me that I paid well lower than half of the original cost of this SU bundle AND with no shipping it is a win/win for me! Another seller had dies/hot foil plates for sale for $1.00 each -- yes, one dollar each. I picked up these items at her booth:

Some other items -- the Lantern die set was $5.00 and the two other die sets were $1.00 each:

Inside the store Francis had different items on sale each hour of the sale. Also in the store was a huge basket of items that were from Daphne's craft room -- each item, no matter what it was, was $5.00 and that money is going towards new items for the store now that restrictions are being relaxed due to the pandemic with more people vaccinated each day. I had seen a sample in the store of a cute box that Daphne had made and decorated but the Lawn Fawn die for the box had been sold out - so I was happy to find this die set in the basket as well as hearts for Valentine's Day:

It was nice of Francis to continue this fun sale and looking forward to seeing all the new items she brings into the store in the future. Frances also made a speech at the beginning of the sale reflecting on her time with Daphne and how the shop received so many cards after Daphne's passing. I had taken a few card making classes of Daphne's and she was so kind and patient and very talented.  It was sad to shop her store without her being there but hoping for future success for the store that she worked so hard to make for us. 

Francis said she has all the card/3D items Daphne had made for the store and she is planning on putting them all together in one section of the store in honor of Daphne and the making of the Paper Crafters Muse. That will be nice to see as I have shopped her store when I could make the trip there since she moved to Matthews and opened it.  Thanks to Frances for continuing this sale and for continuing to help keep Paper Crafters Muse open! 

Autumn Cigarette Cards

Working on this and that in the craft room and I finished the cigarette cards I made for upcoming Autumn projects I will be working on.... For my cards I used card stocks for my prints -- this first printed card stock is from Hobby Lobby:

this next printed card stock I used is from Echo Park:

I tried to stay to the size the cigarette cards were so my printed pieces are 1 1/2" x 2 3/4". The second print is the frame around my printed fronts. To simplify cutting these all out I used two smaller dies from the Waffle Flower A2 die set - this is a die set I keep on the work table in an acetate envelope I made for it for storage:

I used the die that matched the size I needed for the prints and then the next larger die for the frame piece behind the print. After I cut that frame piece out I also die cut out a piece of scrap white card stock to put behind the prints. Here are the two back frame pieces and the printed front pieces of some of the cigarette cards:

Once all my pieces were die cut I sponged the edges of all the print fronts. Using a glue stick I covered the white frame piece and then put the printed frame piece on that. Used the glue stick behind the printed front piece and put them on the frame pieces. Set these aside to dry.

Once dried I used a clear Wink of Stella pen and added a little sparkle to the card fronts:

Here is a photo of the finished Autumn Cigarette Cards:

I will be making more of these as they will get used on tag fronts, bag fronts, treat holder fronts, tucked into a journal or whatever autumn project should come along - they would also work for paperclips as well. 

When I was getting out the inks to sponge the edges of the prints for the fronts of these I pulled out my Stampin Up Pumpkin Pie ink pad..... big surprise for me when I opened it up:

These little bubbles have happened on other Stampin Up ink pads I have - usually red - and as they were this is now in the trash.... this is one of the many reasons my Stampin Up ink pads are being replaced by other companies one by one -- Close To My Heart and other companies that have better quality of products.  Too much money wasted to end up in the trash.... but I will shop around and find another colour close to this by another company where this will not happen as Pumpkin Pie is a favorite colour for fall projects that I make every year.  

No long sleeves needed . . .

 Great idea when the MISTI and other stamping platforms became available for us stampers. . .   soon we found out skin and plastic do not make a smooth combination.... in came the long sleeves.... 

You cut your card stock to the size you need, put the cling/poly stamp in the MISTI for stamping, ink it up, close the door and now you need to pull your long sleeve over your hand so it can glide smoothly over the door of the MISTI while you add pressure to help transfer the inked image onto your card stock in the MISTI.....

Here and there we are seeing other crafters using different tools to use with the MISTI to help transfer the inked image to card stock. I had seen a video on YouTube where a stamper used a dry erase board eraser over the top of her MISTI.  Simple idea and affordable so I bought myself one of the dry erase board erasers.... The shape of this eraser is rectangle so too large to sit in the center of your hand as you apply pressure to your MISTI door.  Then another crafter had someone make her a tool just for this purpose and this shape was a circle - which works well in the palm of your hand... 

Wanted to bring in a "bling factor" to mine to match my beaded pokey tool I had recently made for my craft room.  Something that will get lots of use but also cute sitting on the craft room work table... Off to Home Depot and I bought a package of 4 of the Heavy Duty Felt Pads that are 3 inches and are sold in the furniture pads/slider department -- in my HD these items are on the cabinet hardware aisle. 

I explained to DH that I needed a 3 inch circle cut out of scrap wood and an old door knob. He has a plastic bin filled with door knobs and door hardware and happy me he had two glass door knobs and now I have one in the craft room.  He cut the wooden circle from scrap wood, sanded it smooth, and he attached the door knob to the center of this circle. Here is the first photo of this:

I used red acrylic paint and painted the circle red to match my pokey tool. Once that was dried I peeled off the protective piece of paper from the felt circle and using E6000 I put the felt circle on the bottom of my new stamping tool - here is a photo of the finished tool:

Between the weight of the glass door knob and the wooden circle this new tool works quite well with the MISTI.  It just glides across the MISTI door with very little effort transferring the inked image to my card stock. The 3 inch felt circle fits perfectly on the bottom of this:

Here is a photo of this new tool and the beaded pokey tool I had made about a month ago which is getting lots of use in this craft room:

Fun to personalize these two tools for my craft room.  Both would make fun Mother's Day or birthday gifts for stamping friends. 

Don't let it happen to you - - -

 Last July on YouTube I came across a video from ScrapbookingMadeSimple announcing they would be holding their annual online Warehouse Sale the end of July. In order to order from the online Warehouse Sale you had to watch a video she made about shipping.... So I watched the video and figured her shipping times were extreme and surely she would ship before she said she would and when the sale began I placed an order . . .  Thankfully it was for only $40.00 - which is a lot of money but certainly not as much as others may have spent....

That video about shipping had said she fills all orders for current items first and she would fill orders from the Warehouse Sale here and there, as time allowed, and it could be up to five MONTHS... I placed my order on July 24th, 2020 and today is mid April 2021 and I just checked the status of my order and it still says "Payment Received". . .  I had never heard of her before so this was my first order. I decided she must really be backlogged due to the Warehouse Sale so on Sept. 10, 2020 I placed a small order of current items to see how long her normal shipping -- that she says is "within 30 days" would take . . . 

That ordered arrived December 18, 2020 --  three months after I ordered it. I totally understand things are taking longer due to the pandemic but she is in California and I have ordered from other shops in California and I have received those orders in usually a week after I ordered them! Throughout this year I have ordered from SimonSays, MFT, Altenew, Rubbernecker, IOStamps, The Greetery, Kat Scrappiness, Spellbinders, and SU and I have received all my orders in a timely fashion. 

I check my account periodically to see if my order is even being pulled or shipped and the status has not changed. I emailed and asked about this time frame and received a "pandemic time frame" response. How is it then that the other stores are able to ship out their items in a timely fashion??? I checked to see if she is a member of the Better Business Bureau and she is not. I checked around online and found some people had left posts about their experiences with her - one lady ordered over $100 in items and 8 months passed and no product arrived. She said she emailed them and told them to cancel her order and she wanted a refund and the response she received was that she could NOT get a refund and she would have to wait..... 

I just feel if you are not going to ship my items for 9 months OR SO then you should not take my money until you are ready to process my order. How can she even hope to build a solid customer base of loyal shoppers with this shipping problem? Why would I recommend her to any other crafter????

The way I look at this is I am out $40 but that is all I am out and nothing she sells can I not find elsewhere. I had not heard of her before so I did not know any of this but maybe this will help the next crafter not to order from her. I have never had a bad experience with the other online websites I have ordered from but if I can save another crafter their crafting money then it was worth it.  Just don't let this happen to you . . . 

Online orders

Received three orders this week and thought I would share them. Elizabeth Craft Designs had a sale and I picked up quite a few dies at sale prices:

Fun projects ahead with these dies -- I also picked up two of their new released dies as well:

I also bought some dies from Rubbernecker.com that are from Kitty C. at KittieKraft. She used to do a lot of work with Impression Obsession (IO Stamps) but is now with Rubbernecker. She is Kittie747 on Splitcoast Stampers and she is known for her layered cards and beautiful work. I bought these dies for cards and tags since they are the perfect size:

One more purchase is from The Greetery and I had never ordered from them before:

I had seen a couple of cards using these dies and I esp like the cover panel design for a card front. Lots of new items to add to the craft room and basket of "waiting to be used" products.... Lots to keep me busy for sure!

Bunny Bag Topper

 Used one of the Bunny Paperclips I recently made as a bag topper on a small bag:

Used solid card stock that matched some of the colours in the fabric I used for the ears to make the bag. Used a small gift bag die from my stash to cut out the bag. This is a small bag and it is 3 3/4" high and 2 1/2" wide. Inside is some paper shred and a few pieces of small chocolates for an Easter treat.  Cute and easy project -- again the bunny paperclip paper is from Gi Kerr on YouTube and the pattern is easy to follow. Good project for scraps as well as small bows. Also the bag is free standing so could be made for table setting treats as well. 

Gnomes for Easter Card

 

Too cute Gnome die set in the new release over at IOStamps.com (Impression Obsession). I die cut all the pieces and sponged the edges and then assembled the Gnomes:

This die set has 26 pieces so I cut apart the pieces I had to cut apart but for the rest I left them all attached so I do not lose any of them:

Fun and festive for the Easter holiday! Bought other items from the IO release and hoping to work with those products next . . . 

Decorated Pokey Tool

 Had seen these on YouTube using various pokey items and for my version I used items from the jewelry section on sale at HobbyLobby.  The package has two of these stainless steel "pokey tools" and with them being on sale for 50% off a package of two was $1.50 - which is .75 each. I used beads and spacers from my stash and I made three of them:

Easy project to put together. I used the E6000 glue to adhere the beads/spaces to the tool. I also made a little dangle to hang off the loop at the top to dress it up a bit. These tools have a rubber tip that fits over the pointy end and I put them on these once the photo was taken. Good use of stash beads and spacers and also pretty sitting in the tool caddy on the craft table. Lots of videos on YouTube for this but I do not know who this idea originated with but a fun project for sure! Here are photos of these upright and you can see the side dangles on each one:

Bunny Up

 This post is about some of the projects I have made for this Easter -

First are the lined baskets I made in different colours:

For the baskets I used a berry basket die and I used #110 weight card stock from Mikes. To line the baskets I used different prints from the stash. I cut out the two pieces for the basket from the solid card stock and then two more basket pieces for the lining. I put the printed card stock on the solid card stock using the ATG. Once they were adhered I used a basket weave embossing folder and embossing my basket pieces. With the embossing done I put the basket together using tear and tape:

With the basket assembled I added a half paper doily from the stash and one of my bunny rosettes I had made over the summer for Easter to decorate the basket fronts. Filled the baskets with paper shred and chocolate treats. 

Next are bunnies that I was inspired by Gi Kerr on YouTube.  She has directions and suggestions on these bunnies using her pattern and they were too cute not to make:

She shows how to make these bunnies using thin jute twine - I used what jute twine I had from the stash on the bunny in the center with the peach bow and for the rest of my bunnies I used burlap I had on a roll and fabric scraps for the ears. I used the 1 3/8" circle for the head piece and for my bunny ears I used a small oval punch I have in my stash by Paper Shapers. For my liquid glue I used the Fabric Tac which worked well with the fabric. Nice thing is these have a paper clip so you can clip them on a journal page or a paper project -

Very easy to put together and each bunny looks so different with the different fabrics and ribbons that you use. A big thanks to her and her idea! She has lots of great videos so be sure to check her out. 

Also made some butterflies by "HappyBird's Glitter Nest" on YouTube for the top of the mini egg cartons that I sprayed with re-inkers and 91% rubbing alcohol.  I had bought these mini egg cartons long ago and the first attempt to colour them with the re-inkers did not work -- finally I decided to just use them as plain egg cartons and here are two photos of those:

Was looking around on the internet since I still have some of the mini egg cartons in the stash and I wanted to use them this year. Figured out why my first attempt to colour them was not successful - I had used a lower amount of alcohol in my first attempt - I think it was like 50% or somewhere around there.  So I had to spritz the cartons a lot to get the colour to take and all that did was make the carton really wet and since the alcohol level was lower it did not dry quickly. This time I used the 91% alcohol level and the cartons took the colour well and they dried quickly. The colour was also more even with the higher alcohol level:

I made blue, mint green, and yellow cartons. As in her video she shows how she used different colours of card stocks for the butterflies and all of them have the same clear glitter combos on them and the card stock colour shows through the glitter. Easy butterflies to put together and IRL they really sparkle and shine in the light. "HappyBird" has a lot of videos on YouTube and she explains everything very well and goes through each step so you do not miss anything. I did not have the punch and other items she used but I had enough similar items in the craft room to make my butterflies. Fun projects for Easter! Glad to have found her videos and how to's on Youtube. 

No where to be found . . .

 Different videos on YouTube featuring Easter crafting items for DIYers from the Dollar Tree . . .  Loved the wooden bunnies and wooden ovals/egg shapes that Anna Wight had shown on a couple of her videos for Easter projects. Off to Dollar Tree to pick up the wooden bunny and the wooden ovals/egg shapes. . .  Easier said than done... after stopping at a LOT of Dollar Trees I was only able to find the wooden bunny shapes at a store and this bunny I have is a bit different in shape than hers but I was happy to find them. Here are photos of the bunnies I made following her ideas for inspiration:

I only had one type of wire in my craft room and I did not have time to rust it or the bell as she had but I still like the bunnies.  I also had to buy the Glitter Dust she had used on her bunnies as I did not have any on hand:

These sprays I used outdoors as you need good ventilation to use them.  They are a dry spray and so they dry much faster than a shimmer mist would. Here is a photo to try to show this glitter dust on the bunny:

While shopping all these Dollar Trees I found makeup brushes that are smaller than I have:

I was able to find wooden oval shapes at Hobby Lobby and I am finishing those up this weekend and plan to post photos of those when they are finished. Also at all these stores I went to none of them had the newer paper crafting items shown on many YouTube videos - no dies and other new items so guessing they are not available in this area.  But was happy to at least find the bunny shapes......