Thursday, June 30, 2011

Creating Cards

So most all of my mojo these days it tied up with card making rather than scrapbooking. I'm not giving up on scrapping but I am following my muse where it leads. Right not, it's leading me down the folded paper path. I picked up some new stamp sets and a couple of new templates at the Great American Scrapbooking Convention earlier this month at the Arlington Convention Center. I've played a little bit and had a LOT of fun. I'm going to spend tomorrow playing again and if I create something I can share, I may have to post 2 days in a row. Egads!! Imagine! For now, enjoy these. (click thumbnails for larger images)

This first one was the most fun to create and was given to my FIL for Father's Day. He's a farmer now retired and chomping at the bit. He still wears jeans and boots every day.
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This second one was for my own Father on Father's Day. In retrospect, it doesn't look anything like my Dad, nor does it resemble his style. It was mostly a great way for me to play with my Copics and wish him a Happy Father's Day at the same time.
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Thursday, June 9, 2011

Your Handwriting, Your Font

I hate to journal. I know, I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. Do you hate it too? Mostly it's because I don't like my own handwriting but years ago I accepted the fact that my handwriting in my albums is a little piece of myself I'm putting in with the photos, papers and embellishments. Whether I like it or not is irrelevant. What is important is getting the story down, in my own words and by my own hand.

I love typing my journaling because it allows me to correct my mistakes, misspellings and change colors, sizes and shapes. Well, I'm here to tell you that I've finally found the perfect match. Dana at Your Handwriting, Your Font is a magician at turning even my hen scratching into a font that I'm proud to put in my albums. I'm posting some examples here so you can see what she has done for others.




Here's what she did with my cursive handwriting:

Amazing! And if you go right now, she even has a couple of fonts that you can download for free! I ordered my own font once before from a cheapie place online and honestly, it's not usable. The letters don't line up and it doesn't look like the way I really write. That's because they didn't work with it to perfect it the way Dana does. I highly recommend you check out what she's doing over there. Order your own font(s) using one of the order buttons in my left column and have it for the rest of your life! You won't be sorry.

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On another very happy note, I'm pleased to announce that I have a brand new cutter in the house! Yippeee! I am now the proud owner of a Black Cat Lynx. Let me tell you this is the very BEST cutter company in the market today. (My cutter is their smallest model. The larger models, called Cougars, come in sizes up to 24" wide.) My Lynx will cut hair thin images in very small sizes as well as giant image when called for. It's a commercial grade cutter made with the crafter in mind. It's about 4 inches taller than my previous cutter and maybe 2 inches wider. The measurement between how much better this one cuts compared to the previous one is a percentage too big to compute. I can honestly say I will never, ever have to buy another cutter unless it's to purchase one that will cut wider. And guess what? Black Cat makes those too! The best news of all? BC is the only company that will take my cutter back as a trade in on a new one!!! How's that for backing their product? And customer service is second to none. The owners of BC will bend over backward to see that you are not only satisfied with your machine but they provide two different forums for you to take advantage of the instructional and the social side of cutter ownership. I can NOT say enough nice things about these women. Neither can other owners.

Just recently I was at the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington, TX and I was talking with the Pazzles ladies about different things our cutters will do. I mentioned I owned a Lynx and one of them immediately started gushing about what absolutely fantastic people the BC ladies are! Talk about affirmation! They had no reason to champion their competition but sing their praises they did. This of course led to a longer conversation about some of the other cutters available on the market and boy did I learn a lot that afternoon. The very best part is I came away knowing for sure, AGAIN, that I had made the correct choice in going with Black Cat. If you haven't seen these machines yet, I strongly suggest you check them out. The US location is That's Scrap and the UK location is Thyme Graphics. There is also a website that supplies all kinds of materials that will work in these cutters called All That Jazz. Want more? Then please be sure and check out the new Black Cat Users Forum for some of the friendliest people you'll ever craft with.

If you've hung in with me til the end, I thank you. May you have a happy crafting day.