Scrapping Good Time

Everytime I get together with my "scrappers" we do something fun. Typically we spend enough hours together that we get slap happy by the end of the evening or weekend. At our most recent gathering, we decided that before we got to that point we thought we’d invite a Close to My Heart representative in to share some things with us.

Close to My Heart is a direct sales company that offers scrapbooking, stamping and cardmaking materials. Recently, the organization added Cricut cartridges to
their offerings. They are EXCLUSIVE to Close to My Heart. So of course when a
scrapper learns something is exclusive, limited, only available for a short window - we just gotta have it!

During our session, of course, I ordered one of the cartridges available and I knew one of my fellow scrappers in the group had another cartridge. It's a match
made in heaven as we will be able to swap cartridges between our machines. Oh wait, what is a Cricut you ask?

A Cricut is an electronic die cutting machine. You insert a programmed cartridge
into the machine and select the images, letters, characters and size of the
same you wish to cut. You insert your paper into the machine and lickty split
you have a creation ready for converting to a sticker, folding into a box or
envelope and many other do-dads. It's a scrappers wet dream and worst
nightmare!

The Cricut is addicting. Prior to the Cricut I owned a manual die-cutting system
with a crank handle and metal die cut shapes. What I liked about the system was
the labor of love you put into making each cute little die cut heart and letter
to adhere onto your card. But it took HOURS to get anything done. With the
Circut your elements are cut quickly and precisely. The down side is wanting to
cut every piece available on a cartridge so you so can feel it and touch it and
show others what you've just cut. Additionally, there is a learning curve with
the keypads. In the beginning I found myself cutting the wrong shape because I
pressed the wrong key configuration and wasted paper. Over time it became
easier to use the machine.

Most recently I used the machine to make die cut flowers. Once the spiral for the
flower is cut you roll the paper up to create a three dimensional flower. I
used the flowers to make centerpieces for Milwaukee Achiever Literacy Service's
30th anniversary celebration. I posted a picture of the centerpieces in my last
blog post. Relative to my last submission I stated that handmade items are
generally invaluable and you rarely get paid for your labor in a project if you
try to turn around and sell it. The beauty of this particular project was that
my materials and time are tax deductible, but it benefited a worthy cause. Additionally, I have way more paper than I know what to do with so donating it to Milwaukee Achiever was the best thing I could have done with it.

Morale of the story...scrap because it makes your heart feel good.

Until next time.

Office Manager by Day

Jewelry Direct Sales by Night

Scrapper on the Weekends