Yippie for my Big Shot!

Thanks to the wonderful information imparted by my new favorite blog, LollyChops, I recently discovered I could use my Sizzix Big Shot to cut felt. This opened up a whole new world of crafty goodness for me, since I had been mulling over the possibility of doing so, but was not yet sufficiently inspired to actually Google it to find out. I took her word for it, sandwiched a piece of regular ole craft felt (I am not yet cool enough to have actual wool felt, but give me time) between my cutting plates and the die, and off I went…

er, off I went…

Ahem, I said: Off I went!!!

Ok, so it didn’t go. I could not for the life of me get the machine to “grab” on to the sandwich formed by the felt and the die. (If you’ve ever used a hand cranked die cut machine, you’ll probably know what I mean).

Just when I was starting to be crestfallen that my pathetic second class felt wouldn’t work because it was some weird thickness or something, and I would have to shell out mucho bucks for real wool felt, I wondered, “what will happen if I turn the ’sandwich’ around and feed it through the other way?”. Sure enough, It Went!

So, the lesson here is: Linda is not the brightest light bulb in the chandelier. Although in my defense, I only started die cutting very recently, and so it is not yet second nature to me like it is to some people.

Linda’s intelligence level aside, I managed to cut some lovely “top notes” felt with my Stampin’ Up! Top Notes die. I cut orange, black and purple for a halloween themed pin cushion and then got really adventurous and decided to feed the red and white felt through together for my Christmas pin cushion. Lo and behold, it worked! I have not yet gotten up enough nerve to feed through 3 thicknesses of felt at once, even though Lolly says it will work, because I only have one set of the clear cutting thingies and with the creaking and cracking noises that I got from just two thicknesses I am afraid that three may be too much for it. Maybe once I have a standby pair of plates to fall back on I’ll give it a go.

So, what am I planning to do with my lovely “top note” shaped pieces of felt you ask? Well, as I mentioned ever so subtly (not) earlier, I am going to make pin cushions. I know that’s nothing too spectacular, but when you (foolishly) signed yourself up to make 12 Christmas-y handmade goodness thingies and 13 Halloween-y handmade goodness thingies and you only have a limited time to make them and you are not by any stretch of the imagination Martha Stewart, you can’t possibly make every single item so fabulous that the recipient immediately starts drooling upon receipt of the items. So, my Halloween-y partner will be getting as one of their 13 days of halloween a lovely black and orange and purple pin cushion. And my Christmas-y partner will be getting a red and white one.

Anyway, the whole purpose of this post was to mention how thrilled I was about learning I could cut felt with my big shot, and that has long sense been conveyed, so I’ll cut it off here.

Until next time!

My new (current) favorite blog

So, I have been working on some craftiness lately in between my three, yes, three, jobs. I am doing (er, hosting) several swaps on swap-bot for Halloween and Christmas, and so whenever I have a spare moment, I try to get in some great craftiness. Well, in the course of looking through all the cool swaps on swap-bot (it’s an awesome site; really it is. You should just go on over there and check it out. But after you finish reading my post, of course), I discovered a fabulous blog called Lolly Chops. Now, I have only read a few of her posts so far, but that was just enough to make me realize that I of course had to go back and read her entire blog. She’s quite a prolific writer (and crafter–I honestly don’t know how she gets it all done) so it will probably take me a while to catch up, but everything I’ve read so far has been fabulous. She has awesome crafty ideas, always provides great resources and links, and is a great writer. (read, it’s actually fun to read her blog). So, if you are looking for a great new blog to become your current favorite, go over and check her out.

Oh, and I’ll try to be sure and take pictures of all the cool Christmasy and Halloweeny crafty goodness I’ve been generating, but no promises. I mad the cutest felt stuffed pumpkin today. Honestly it wasn’t all that fancy, but since I only recently learned to sew , I’m pretty darn proud of it…

Meeting bloggy friends and life in general

I recently found out that one of the bloggy ladies who I follow has a shop very near where I live. So last Saturday I headed over to check out her shop. Lo and behold, I lucked into her actually being there that day, and so I got to meet The Graphics Fairy in person. She’s a very sweet lady with a wonderful vintage-ish, French-ish shop called, appropriately, Fleurish. I didn’t have time to shop that day, but I definitely plan to head back out that way with some free time and spare cash to sort through all the lovely things in her shop.

Since I last blogged, many things have changed in my life. I have found a new church here in Leesburg, and sing in the choir. I now work nearly exclusively from home. I went through a non-arty stage and have recently rediscovered the joys of creating beautiful things. I got a lot of walls painted in my no-longer-new place. I got a new boss. I got another new boss. And just in general went about living life.

I can’t guarantee that I will blog with any sort of consistency. But since I have been thinking about blogging for several months now, and have been putting it off because of the dreaded “first post after the loooonnnnggg break syndrome”, it is possible that I may do so somewhat regularly. We’ll see.