Die'sire Create-A-Card Die from Crafter's Companion

I hardly write any product reviews, mostly because I love most of the stuff I buy, and I am brand loyal. I stick to brands I like and I've never really been disappointed with whatever they come out with. One of the brands that I've supported is Crafter's Companion. My very first markers were Spectrum Noir, and I loved them. That is until I gave in and spent on Copics. But still I bought the Spectrum Aqua when they came out, which I've also now ditched in favor of Zig Clean Color Brushes. And since I'm really brand loyal, I splurged on the entire collection of Spectrum Noir Blendable Pencils. Even though I think it's ridiculous that they don't sell the pencils individually, for the love of Crafter's Companion and Spectrum Noir, I bought it anyway. I was fairly satisfied with it, until I tried Prismacolor to see what the fuss was all about. And as if I haven't been burned enough, I just recently purchased all the Spectrum Noir glitter pens. When will I ever learn??? What is wrong with me?

So last week, when HSN was having the papercrafting special on TV, I again bought in to the much raved about Ultimate Tool. What can I say, Sara Davies is just way too good! How can you not give in to what she was selling? I couldn't resist. I bought the Ultimate Tool with the bonus DVDs, and I also bought the Create-A-Card Swirls and Curls. I would've bought the Garden collection, which is really what I wanted, but they sold out, and at $34.95 I figured I'd settle for the Swirls and Curls.

Like any other crafting sisters, I was so excited when I got the email notification saying my order has shipped, and I'm getting them in 2 days. The package arrived Saturday, perfect timing! I couldn't wait! I opened up, checked out the Ultimate tool, popped the DVDs to make sure they play on my Mac. I've seen reviews on HSN about these DVDs not being Mac compatible, but fortunately, they worked fine for me.

I then opened  the Create-A-Card, so excited to create my first card using this unique die that supposedly does not cut the entire thing, but allows you to die cut only one side, leaving the other edge as part of your card. Here's what it looked like the first try. You'll see some overlapping, because after running it once on my Big Shot, it didn't cut through. So I positioned it again and tried to run in through my machine 3-4x again.



It still did not cut through. As you can see a big portion of it was not cut through. So I turned it upside down and tried to redo it again using my other end of the cardstock, this time continuously for 8x at least. Each time looking to see how far it went. If it cut through or not. After 8x, I thought this should be pretty cut through nice and clean already.



But look! It still did NOT cut through! I decided to take a blade and slice off the rest, but then the white core of the cardstock started to show, not to mention the back part of it tore as I punched through those holes. And who am I kidding, why bother when I can't use this piece to make a card anyway. I decided to just ditch it.

I am very disappointed. I remember on HSN Sara was saying these are high quality dies, that it can cut through these intricate designs. I remember hearing that even the Cricut can't do this. I didn't buy these because of that statement. I honestly bought it because I liked how it only cuts one side/edge. I loved the samples shown on air. I really wanted the Garden collection, but settled for this. But if this is how their dies are, I think I'm not even going to bother waiting for the Garden collection to become available.

I am a big Crafter's Companion fan. I own a lot of their stamp sets, and truly believe their items are really nice. This is my first die purchase, and probably will be my last. I've never been this disappointed with a die I've owned. And I have 5 full Artbin Die cases full of dies. At some point I wondered if it's user error, but then why would it have cut the rest?

I've yet to try the Ultimate tool. Will post what I think of it when I get the chance to create a project using it.

Just A Note - Get Well Soon

Hi everyone! It's a rainy cold Sunday here in SoCal. While most dread this weather, I actually love it! Love the breeze, and love the coolness of the air rather than dry and hot.

My share today is a get well soon card I made for my daughter's teacher. She's going to be out for awhile and my daughter and I wanted to give her a card to cheer her up and wish her well.

I used My Mind's Eye Now and Then paper pad for the background paper. The stamp set I used is from Crafter's Companion Moonbeam Meadow collection - Just A Note.  I colored the image with Zig Clean Color Brush and added a ribbon to top it off.

The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn Get Well Soon. It seemed to fit the box perfectly!

Hope everyone has a great Sunday! Keep warm!

Marci with Camera Photo Album

Hi Everyone! Today's share is a photo album that features Marci with Camera from La-La Land. This is one of the projects we did at the last annual retreat. I love the monochromatic look of Marci, and how everything looks so great against the black background.

This is what the inside looks like. There are 5 pocket folders for you to insert pictures, and each pocket is decorated with patterned paper front and back. There is a blank sheets in each pocket that serves as a tab divider, and the tab label is from stamp set accessories that came with the November club kit. I believe this Marci was 2014's November release. The tabs say "Date Taken", "Place Taken". 

This is one of my favorite Marci images from La-La Land. Just way too cute! Enjoy!

Coloring with Color Pencils

Hi Everyone! I've been missing in action the last couple of weeks because I attended Copic workshop and certification classes. Add to that I've been trying to finish 2 color pencil images I've been working on.

Today I finally finished the 2nd one and thought I'd share them with you. Coloring with color pencils takes I'd say 3x the amount of time compared to alcohol markers. My personal opinion.

This is November's Tiddly Inks Create and Learn project from Kit and Clowder. I used Prismacolor Premiere Pencils to color, and a white Molotow pen for the stars and sparkles. I have to admit it took me a long time to finish this. It was a bit challenging. From the tree to the gift sack and roof, I pretty much struggled on those points. Obviously I still need a lot of improvement, but overall glad that I was able to finally finish this.

This 2nd image was December's project. This one I enjoyed coloring very much. I didn't have to redo or repeat much, and I loved coloring the transparencies in the balloons. I love the slightly monochromatic look by just using Cool Greys. I wish I have a ton of time, because this is one image I'd love to color using Copics. This image is by The East Wind, and I again used Primsacolor Premiere pencils to complete this.

It takes so much time and effort to color using color pencils, but it's so worth it. I love the focus and concentration I pour into it. It makes me more aware of details, and partly I think it trains me to have more patience, because this is definitely not a quick job.

Have a great week ahead!!

Planner Tab Dividers

Hi everyone! To continue my post from yesterday, today i'm sharing the tab dividers I made for my Simple Stories Carpe Diem planner. I used scrap papers from Close to My Heart to create these tab dividers and added pockets so I can store little note scraps here and there.

Ideally the sides of the pocket should close, but since I used only scrap papers and they're not the ideal size, I made sure I just glued the sides really tight. That also means these are just meant for small stuff, like coupons for example, since these won't expand. Given the thickness of my current planner anyway, I'm not sure this can go even further.

I also put labels on the tabs so I can identify what each pocket will be used for. I made 12 of these, but since it's redundant to keep posting the same thing, I just picked my favorite CTMH papers to show. Now I'll be able to take my coupons with me, or perhaps some grocery list and never forget where I placed them since this planner will be with me most of the time anyways. Love how these came out vs. buying pre-made ones that are a bit expensive out there. And best of all, I get to utilize my scrap papers!

Enjoy!

New Year New Planner

Happy New Year everyone!

With the new year comes a new planner. And yes, this year I've been on some kind of a planner craze.  I've been an Erin Condren fan for the last 2 years, but this year, seeing the surge of planners out there, I thought I'd venture out and try something else. After reading how other people use different planners for specific purposes, I decided I'll try that this year. My EC planner will still be the mother of all planners, but now that I have Simple Stories Carpe Diem planner too, I think I shall use this mostly for the home. Part of my New Year's Resolution is to cook more home cooked meals this year,   spend more time baking with my daughter, and just keep up with house chores.

Because the Simple Stories Carpe Diem planner does not come with dates, I thought I'd make mine a little extra special. Yes I could've penciled in the dates or use those date dots, but since I want to dress up this planner, I thought I'd go the extra mile and actually make it more interesting. The EC planner comes dates, and I never for the last 2 year thought of decorating it, until I got the Carpe Diem planner.

This is how my "dashboard" looks like. The Carpe Diem planner is A5 in size, and I love that it's a ring binder instead of the coil one like EC. This allows me to add more pages and inserts. The flexibility alone is a big plus. The leather is also of great quality, and given all the adds I've already put it, it seems to be holding up very well. I also love the fabric black and white polka dot lining! As you can see on the left it has 4 slots of varying depth so you can insert whatever you like. I use it to insert sticky tabs. Underneath it is also a slot for bigger inserts, and as you can see I have more sticky tabs. I used a spare insert from La-La Land's dies (I happen to have it lying around my table), and thought it holds my sticky tabs really well, that way they won't clutter my dashboard insert, and I won't lose them. I love how I can easily carry everything with me now and have so many sticky design options.

Here's a look at the monthly view, all of which I picked a design or designed myself images from the Silhouette store. I used the Print and Cut feature for all these date stickers. I decided to also do some random dates just to break up the monotonous pattern of the dates. For February I tried using Heidi Swapp Minc machine and ran these heart date stickers using Rose Gold foil. I am a bit disappointed by how it turned out. Not sure if it's the size of the stickers or what, but most of them came out with black bubbles.

The next few months are the same, I picked images and colored it in with patterns or colors, and just added dates over it.

 

This way my planner won't look boring. I hardly get to put much on the month view anyway since the boxes are too small, so instead of cramming my agenda on the month view, I will utilize most of the weekly view, hence I thought why not just decorate it! As you can see I tried to put a theme on each month, and for months that really have not much significance, I went with something simple like a teddy bear, or leaves to signify fall.

I'll post some more pictures of how I did the insides or weekly view. Just different image designs really. I've also created some tab dividers of my own. I'll share that in my next post.

Happy New Year!