Pinterest and One More Good Thing

I know, it's been OVER a year since I've posted to my blog. No excuses, life just moves fast these days and as Ferris said, if you don't slow down and enjoy it, you might miss something. Well, I'm not missing much but I'm not slowing down to write about it.

Over the past year, like many others, I've become completely addicted to a little website called Pinterest. I don't know which I enjoy more, the recipes or the DIY stuff. I've made my own laundry soap, cooked all kinds of new foods, C.A.S.E.d any number of craft projects and worked on organizing my home via someone else's plans. Time and time again, I find myself drawn to one blog that I never tire of.

If you haven't yet checked out One Good Thing By Jillie, I highly recommend you stop whatever you are doing and go there now. I promise you will not regret it. Thanks to Jillie, I've made my own laundry soap. I haven't used fabric softener in over a year, and I have my homemade cooking spray in the kitchen. This doesn't even begin to touch the tip of the iceberg of information you'll find with Jillie. So don't walk, RUN to her blog and see what you find that will simplify your life!  Oh, and you are welcome!  (Because I know you'll thank me later. ;o))

My apologies

After a lot of careful thought and consideration, I have removed my links and affiliation with Your Handwriting, Your Font. While I still believe that Dana is one of the very best people to create your personalized font, she has become overwhelmed with requests and some personal issues and is way behind on delivery. I feel certain that with sufficient time to recover and catch up on past orders, she will be back in business. Until that time, I don't feel comfortable recommending her service to my followers.

If you have ordered and not received your fonts, please contact Dana via email and request an update. Unfortunately, I don't have a phone number for her, only an email address.

Estrogen Therapy . . . . . Ahhhhhhhhh

Most of the time we are Wives, Moms, Daughters, Sisters, Aunts, Taxi Drivers, part-time teachers, cooks, laundry ladies, yard maintenance experts, shopping professionals and every once in a while, just women. But a couple of times a year we get together and turn into giggling girls. We ditch the makeup, wear our fun PJs and we tell stories, eat too much dinner and still find room for cookies, sip a glass of wine and play with paper, ink, glue, stickers and most important of all, our cherished photos. I know I've mentioned it before but dang I love scrapbooking retreats! Remember how it feels to laugh so hard that no noise is coming out of your mouth? Laughing so hard that you're really truly afraid you might wet your pants? Smiling so much your face hurts? Giggling late into the night. Getting so tickled that you look at your friends and just one word sets you all off again. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love these girls.

And here we are:

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.

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.

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.

=============================

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.

Make The Cut Settles Cricut Software Lawsuit With Provo Craft

If you have purchased a copy of the MTC software, please read this article. Provo Craft is now suing another 3rd party software creator, Sure Cuts a Lot.

The good news is, if you already have MTC set up and working with your insect cutter, it will continue to work. If Provo Craft issues a firmware update for the machine itself, they may block the software from working. In that case, MTC has been barred from creating an update to work with any future version of Cricut firmware. As long as you don't update your firmware, your machine should continue to work with your bug.

Personally, I believe this is an extremely shortsighted decision on the part of Provo Craft and a sad indicator of their limited vision. I originally bought an expression because it was an cheap cutter that I could use to express my creativity. Well, guess what. I got what I paid for. A CHEAP cutter. I will most definitely be going back to my Craft Robo and saving all my pennies for a Gazelle or a Cougar. It really is a shame that no one at PC has the intelligence to see reality and to work WITH MTC to maximize their market. As it stands now, they will be losing a LOT of business. Way to shoot yourself in the foot PC. Nice move.

All the other cutters require a software to make them work. They all work together with MTC and SCAL to ensure that their machines remain compatible to give their customers the maximum amount of creative ability possible. The insect cutter was the only one that didn’t. They wanted into the market that used a computer so they came up with Design Studio software. What they didn’t want was for anyone to actually use their own imagination and creativity. They want you to only do what they give you on the carts. ALL of the other cutters encourage true creativity.

So PC, you can have the clones. You can have the unimaginative. The rest of us will move on. I’m just sorry I wasted any time, effort or money on PC. However, I will be saving all my pennies for a new Gazelle or Cougar cutter. Not one more penny of my money will go to PC.

And so it begins . . . .

So I guess this confirms my last blog entry. I'm terrible! There's a lot going on in my life but not much that I think is worth sharing. For instance, you can't possibly be interested in our heater going out, or my root canal, broken tooth and subsequent crown.

Christmas was just as wonderful as always. Baby Boy came home for a couple of days and for the first time ever, did all his own shopping this year! What a pleasant surprise and I must stay, he rocked the gifts for everyone. The night before New Year's Eve, my sweetie and I celebrated 20 years since the night we met. The New Year's Eve celebration was quite, just me and my sweetie.

The good news is that now I can share with you some of the projects I did before Christmas as gifts. I'm still lovin' my Cricut and Make The Cut!

I'm a bad blogger.

I really am. I intend to post more often but I get busy. And then I'm torn between wanting to post about what I've been working on and not wanting to bore you to tears. I just don't think the things I do in my daily life are that interesting. See, my days are usually filled with job hunting, errands, visiting my grandmother, and exercising mixed with computer time on various message boards and Facebook. Sounds thrilling, huh?

Right now, I'm working on Christmas presents. Today, I played with MTC for a while and got some artwork ready. As always, click on the image to enlarge. I'll share the files here for anyone who's interested.


Easter Bunny.mtc file here


4th of July.mtc file here


Every Knee Shall Bow.mtc file here

Busy, busy, busy!

I have been a busy little bee for the last couple of weeks.  I did my August retreat at Rockin' R, fantastic, as always!  Thanks Rena. 

I've also been working on a card swap coming up at the end of September as well as my Mom's birthday.  Mom loves to send cards to her friends and she loves sending hand made cards.  To hear her tell it, you know you sent a great card to someone when they send you back a thank you note for your card!  My biggest fan.  What can I say.  She's my Mom.  :o) 

As if that wasn't enough motivation, my friend Joanie started a new blog and Stampin' Up business.  She's posting a daily blog entry with TONS of wonderful ideas, projects, hints, tips and videos.  If you haven't seen it yet, you MUST go visit Joan's Daily Stampede.  I get so much inspiration from her and I shamelessly C.A.S.E. (Copy And Share Everything) her ideas.  Visit her blog and leave her a message.  Trust me.  You won't be sorry.  You WILL be enabled and you might even start searching for your local SU demonstrator to place an order of your own.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  :o)

So, here are some of the things I've been working on (click on photo to enlarge): 

I Did It!!

I finally downloaded a black and white drawing and used Make The Cut! to create a piece element for my scrapbook pages.  I know. I should have already done this but I hadn't until now.  I had fun doing this and it didn't take near as long as I thought it would.  And bottom line, it looks great!  I cut the black background, the green face, red hat and white eyes, collar and hat fur.  Then I used the Cricut Gel Pen Holders I got from Amy Chomas to let the Cricut draw his facial details.  And Voila!  There it was.  The perfect Grinch for my page.  Enjoy! Free MTC File: Grinch

Life is just too short.

Do you ever have those events that come along in your life that seem so innocent or inconsequential at the time, but later you discover they are life changing moments?  Uh huh.  Me too.

Last week I lost a friend.  Nothing unusual, right?  We've all lost someone, somewhere at some time in our lives.  Sometimes it's a close relative and it shakes our world but we understand that because it's family.  After all, when Grandma or Uncle Fred or the neighbor down the street dies, it's sad, maybe even tragic, but it's part of life.  Usually it's expected.  They were old, had cancer, or even had a history with risky behavior and dangerous living.  While it's still sad, it's not totally surprising or unexpected.  But every once in a while, one comes along that just feels like you've been sucker punched.  Cut off at the knees.  Blindsided. 

Susan we a friend to me.  She prayed for me. We traded jokes online. We called ourselves "sisters" along with 14,998 others in our online community.  She lived in Florida.  I live in Texas.  We met once, face to face at a retreat a couple of years ago.  I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her but I did meet her, even gave and got a hug.  In the modern day business world, I would have described her as an associate.  Even a friendly associate.  But last week while home alone, Susan passed away.  Suddenly and very unexpectedly.  She left behind a husband and two grown daughters.  I found out Tuesday morning and by Tuesday afternoon, I had cried more than once.  It would not be the last time over the next couple of days.  More than once I've sat down trying to figure out why her death has hit me so hard.  We were friendly but it's not like we were best friends.  Was it because she was so friendly?  Was it because she was a true prayer warrior for many of my friends?  Or was it because it was so very expected?  Was it because it could have been me?

I haven't quite figured it out yet but I do know that I'm not alone.  Many of my "sisters" have said that her death also hit them harder than they expected.  I do know this:  I will miss Susan, but more than that, I will miss her prayers.  I know that my own nightly prayer list has gotten longer and more detailed this week.  I try to remember everyone I've said "Yes, I'll pray for you" so I can mention them by name. Truth be told, I hope I remember this feeling for a long time and I hope it keeps me on my praying knees a bit more than it used to.

So if you're the praying type, say a prayer for me.  I'll say one for you too.

If a tree falls in the forest . . .

We lost a 30' pear tree in our front yard yesterday. A big storm come though on Friday and it split the tree near the base. The split portion fell on the house and irreparably weakened the rest of the tree. Yesterday, they took it down. The entire tree. I watched the entire process and recorded it with photos, of course. It took the professionals a mere two and a half hours to destroy what took nature 23 years to build. We now have a wall of branches and stumps on the curb waiting for Wednesday's big trash pick up day. I know it's probably silly to some of you but to me, it's just terribly, terribly sad.

All of our neighbors came out to talk, commiserate and visit with us while it was coming down. All except the bizarre neighbor to my left who thankfully, is moving out this weekend. As she came out, saw what was going on, and went about her business, completely ignoring all of us in the street watching and visiting, it only confirms my poor opinion of her. I hope she'll be happier and maybe more friendly in her new neighborhood. More, I hope the people moving in will be better neighbors to us.

The damage to our house is minimal and limited to the gutters and a few shingles on the roof. I should be thankful for that but I just can't seem to get there. I look at our home and I see naked. The one remaining tree will need to come down before too much longer because the tree that fell provided a lot of support for it. Now it looks terribly lonely as it leans over my soon-to-be new neighbor's driveway. I hope they weren't counting on it for shade. We will put in a new tree out front, a Live Oak, in the coming weeks but it can't possibly catch up to to it's predecessor while we live here.

I posted some photos of the process on Facebook if you want to see.

Do unto others

I was raised on that philosophy. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Now that I'm older with a grown child of my own, I try hard to live by it too.

Occasionally I am blessed with requests to create albums for other people. I am always flattered, a little nervous and of course excited. I work to create an album I would want someone else to create for me. If I'm not happy with something, I assume my customer won't be happy either. Since I'm an addicted scrapbooker, creating albums for hire feeds my need and gives me an excuse to sit and work.

I recently completed a wedding album for a returning customer. This is the first book I've used MTC in and I can honestly say, I believe this is some of my very best work. MTC let me create images on my own and made it SO easy. My customer was thrilled with the result and so was I. Bottom line, that's my goal. I know there will be many more jobs in my future but this will stand out as the one where my scrapping changed slightly. Thank you MTC!!

Shared with her permission, just a few pictures of some of the MTC creations in this album:

Oh the Shame!!

I have a deep love of scrapbooking. I really love saving all of our memories in beautiful albums that I create. I can proudly say that our son will have every photo I've kept in albums that are made from archival quality materials and they will last until his children's children are tired of seeing them. I love the embellishments, the papers, the rich colors. I use ribbons, fibers, stamps, inks, chipboard, grunge board and paper. But, I have a deep dark secret.

I hate to Journal. There, I said it. I confess. In this area of my books, there is a serious hole. I don't really mind my handwriting, most of the time. What I do mind are the mistakes. They didn't have a name for it when I was younger but I see bits of dyslexia in my writing. Letters transposed now and then. For years I've told others that this is just a part of who I am. That if my writing were perfect, my son would have no idea who created them. I strike out or cover the mistakes and move on. In truth, I really hate it. Since I type much better than I write, I'd like to computer journal but it goes against everything I have taught others about scrapping for years. Your handwriting, good or bad, is a piece of you that you place in your albums right along side the photos and the embellishments. I really believe this so I tend to avoid writing at all. NOT a solution I'm happy with. Until today!

My friend Dana now creates beautiful fonts from your own handwriting! And yes. I know. There are others who do this but, NONE until Dana that have taken my handwriting and worked with me until it actually is a very nice usable font that [insert gasp of surprise] IS my hand writing! Finally freedom! I can now journal on the computer, in my own handwriting and add it to my albums!! The result is so nice that even my school teacher mom would be proud of my penmanship. :o)

If you are like me and dislike writing in your albums, or just want a font from your handwriting for any reason, go see Dana! She will be thrilled to help you create a personalized font you can be proud of too. See Dana's blog SVG and MTC Files. Thanks Dana!

Don't 'cha LOVE new toys?

I know I do. I see a cool gadget and I just gotta have it. If it has anything to do with my crafting addiction, so much the better. So I was bouncing around in the MTC! forum and happened upon Amy Chomas' blog. What an incredible talent! And she has cool toys!! Naturally, I had to have them, or at least one of them. I pre-ordered the Cricut Embossing Tip Kit. It wasn't due to arrive until the end of the month but guess what my USPS man delivered today? You got it. Took me all of about 15 minutes to get it open, loaded into my bug and creating. It's nothing fancy but just a sample. I can't wait to try it on vellum and some nice card stock.


Click on image to enlarge.

Check out Amy's blog (see my Blog List in the right hand column) and see the things others are creating.

A new look

I'm getting a bit better at the posting thing. If you've been here before you can see I have a new background pattern (thanks to scrappinblogs.blogspots.com!) that fits much better with me than the standard templates available.

I've been asked about MTC! a lot lately and I have to say, I'm still lovin' it. The forum is a huge source of information, tutorials and dare I say it? Even a few new friends. Always a good thing, right? I've even chatted with Andy, the creator a few times in the new live chat room. I'm pleased to say he's just as nice as I'd been told he was. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!

It appears that the Easter sale price of 27% off is still available. I don't know how long it will last but it's the best price I've seen so for and I hope you take advantage of it!

Remember that if you purchase through my link, I will gladly give you an hour of my time to help get you started. If you're local, we can get together, if you're not, we'll do it over the phone. If you purchase, please email me when you want my help. Til then, Happy Scrappin!

I need a Retreat!

Yeah, okay. I'm an addict. From the first time I did it, I knew I'd do it again and again and again. I just couldn't resist! It makes me feel SO good. I feel relaxed, creative and happy. I laugh all the time and have sore ribs afterward. All my friends do it. Most of the time we do it together. In fact, I'm already planning to do it again in about 3 weeks and then later this summer, mid-August. No, I don't need an intervention. I won't check myself into rehab. I don't have a "problem", I LIKE my habit! Yeah, it can get expensive, but I manage to find the money somewhere. To date, I haven't had to resort to crime to afford it so what's the big deal? I'm not hurting anyone. Maybe you should try it too!

I'm talking about retreats. I love LOVE going to scrapbooking retreats with my girlfriends. It's always a different group but many times some of the same people are there. It's ALWAYS fun. Occasionally there's some drama but the drama queens usually fade away. We're low maintenance, high fun, giggle addicts who love to get together and crop.

For Mother's Day weekend I'm going away with my online SS girlfriends. We're headed back to Salado for the weekend. In August, I'll be headed to Temple with some of my old CM friends and a few of my online girls as well. My groups are starting to blend together. I'm thinking that May to August is just too long without a retreat so I may try to put something together in June too. Hmmm, off to check calendars.

Here comes Peter Cottontail, hoppin' down the bunny trail . . .

Just about the time I think they can't make it a better deal, they surprise me.

Yesterday I spent a little over an hour watching the first Make the Cut! Webinar with the program creator, Andy. Those of you who know me know I'm a bit of a geek. Computer software just makes sense to me. I learn easily and enjoy the learning. Well this is no exception. Every time MTC! releases a new version of the software, they blow me out of the water. There are new features, new capabilities and yes, new tutorials. Before I can even think, "What have they done here?" someone has a tutorial out showing me exactly what they've done.

With this last version release Andy added layers to our toolbox. With layers we can more easily break apart images and color code them for ease in cutting. He gave us a glimpse of what goes on in his head and ladies, I can't WAIT for the next release. This guy understands our scraping needs and wants to give us a easy to learn, user friendly tool. AND HE'S DOING IT!! He wants our suggestions. He listens. He cares how it works.

If you haven't got MTC! yet, now's the time. If you're curious, go download the trial version for free and play with it. You will NOT be disappointed. If you still aren't sure, go to the user forum and view some of the tutorials. Read the reviews of other users. Play with it.

Can you tell I've been bitten by the MTC! bug? Join me! It's fun!

Card Front Swap

What's that?  A Card Front Swap is a group of friends who sign up to make fronts for cards and swap them.  In this case, I'm in 7 groups with 4 people in each group.  So, for each group, I make 4 card fronts that are the same, package them, mail them to the swap hostess, she collects everyone's card fronts and swaps them.  I get an envelope back in the mail with 4 different fronts, one being my own.  This is a great way to create 1 card design and get back 4 individual ones.  Here's what I've been working on. Click on the Thumbnails for a larger picture.

Thinking of You


Thank You


Generic Female


Generic Male

New Software update! New features!

So, this morning, I get the email below from our software creator Andy.  A new updated version of MTC! is now available.  I opened MTC! on my desktop and yep, there's the message telling me there's a new version available.  Click on it, go to the website (close MTC! in the background), click on download, and the .exe file saves to my hard drive.  Close the website, click on the .exe file and within seconds, my new version is up and running.  WOW!  I can now print from MTC!  MTC! can also be used by owners of other cutting machines.  And layers!  How cool is that?!?  Oh!  Most importantly?  There are already tutorials available for all of the new features in the MTC! Forum.  

I'm tellin' you.  This Software just gets better and better and better.  Kinda like the Energizer Bunny.  If you haven't tried it yet, go download the fully functional trial version today and give it a test drive.  You're gonna want this.   OH!  And just because they are great guys, the 15% off sale has been extended until March 21st!

Greetings!
Hello and Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day! We have been very busy over at www.make-the-cut.com and have released a new version of the Make The Cut! software.
If you tried Make The Cut! but you weren't sure about it, how about giving it another shot. We completely revamped how the software works and we all believe this is the greatest software ever created for the Cricut!
Thank you for your interest in Make The Cut! Please read on!
Sincerely,
Andy
CEO - Make The Cut, LLC.

Version 2.2.1
Make The Cut! now brings:
FULL FEATURED PRINTING
You can now print your designs to your printer in full color. Make The Cut! also has a "wireframe" option which allows you to cut to:
Craft ROBO
Silhouette
Gazelle
Blue Wishblade
and more!

NEW SHAPE SELECTION TOOLS
You can now select shapes and resize, rotate, warp with ease!

LAYERS
You can now stay organized inside your projects with the use of layers!

AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!
It doesn't stop here, folks! For a full featured list of everything that has been added or updated, please visit our forums.
 
15% Off Sale!
Make The Cut is offering 15% off it's already low price until March 21st! If you haven't purchased Make The Cut, now is the time.

You can go directly to the discounted order page by clicking this link.