Mixed Up Saturday featuring Magazine Review

 

💜💚💛Happy Birthday 💛💚💜

Margaret 

xxx

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

Please join me in wishing our lovely Margaret a very Happy Birthday, I hope you get to eat lots of cake 🎂 🥮.  I know that Pops will spoil you rotten making sure you have all of your favourite things.xxx

We are off to a Cake sale and Coffee Morning in the village hall to raise money for Macmillan so we will go and buy some cake, the local ladies bake some delicious looking cakes, so I am looking forward to that.  Other than that we have to get rid of our tomato plants and the French Bean plants, but the weather is supposed to be terrible so that might not happen.

What have you all got planned? 

Karen's New Diecutting Machine 

Karen decided to go for the 'Go Power ' die cutting  machine by Couture Creations to replace her Platinum machine.  I am literally so excited for you to have your first Electric die cutting machine Karen and I have to say that after reading all of the really positive feedback comments on this machine I had decided that this would probably be my next big work horse die cutting machine,  I am really interested to hear your feedback too Karen both initial thoughts and also as you get use to it in a few weeks time.  Thankfully our Karen has written a little introductory review, which is something really useful as we know that we are all totally honest with each other!  

Karen's Review...

The pressure on this machine is powerful So much so it has left an impression on the B plate

So far it is cutting all of my dies I have, ones by Spellbinders, Sue W, Tonic and various others including those from China

The embossing mat is extra thick and embossed like a dream including folders that are quite shallow 

The “mouth” is easy to feed You do not have to ensure all of the plates are exactly lined up

The downside The base, plate A is quite heavy to pick up (I am used the base being fixed on the machine - Platinum) The C plate does warp ever so slightly but rotating it and turning it over has straightened it again

The embossing mat is so thick and the pressure is so good that it scared me slightly when the mat slipped backwards My old tan embossing mat works fine 

It also takes the Heartfelt Creations Flower Shaping Molds and Hot Foil Machine dies.

I have not had to use the metal shim yet

The dies that come with it are good but maybe we as crafters would not necessarily buy them

I love it so far

Thank you so much Karen, it sounds like a great machine, please keep us updated XXX

Simply Cards & Papercraft 

Magazine Review 

I treated myself to a couple of Magazines that I like the look of, so I thought I would share it with you too...

This first feature shows you different ways to make the most of your Free gifts, there is a feature showing you how to use the dies to make a stamped background.  The different little stamps have created some great backgrounds.  There are some quite nice cards to be honest. 

This feature is a guide to the 'StampCuts' range from Creative Expressions, it looks like you ink the die (which creates the stamped image) as well as die cutting.  It looks a bit messy, Im not sure if want ink in my die cutting machine, the cards that she has made are nice, but I think you could achieve the same by using the Poinsettia stamps and dies that you already have.  What are your thoughts? 

I love lace so these cards really appeal to me, all of the cards that Sandra Rayner has Designed are lovely Feminine cards but not to over the top, I think that less is definitely more with lace.

Helen Griffin makes some amazing 3D Craft projects, she has used the Free dies to create sone fun Christmas craft ideas here, I particularly like the gift boxes.

I would love to be able to do Calligraphy,  my hand writing is terrible 😫, Lou Collins makes it look so easy though, Not that I would ever right a Christmas Dinner Menu, its pretty much the same every year in our house!!! 🤣😂

The Magazine has some free SVG cutting files, which have been used to make some fun Christmas projects, I always forget to check out the free downloads with Magazines!! 

We all have a collection of embossing powders that we use for sentiments or to make colouring a little easier on stamped images, Teresa Morgan shows you different techniques to achieve some fun backgrounds,  try adding Embossing powder to modeling paste or texture paste for a glossy raised 3D background.  The card with moth on has a lovely coppery frame created by triple embossing (adding 3 layers of embossing powder). I do this to sentiments sometimes it looks really effective,  I was inspired by Jenny Maguire !! 

These lovely cards were made with Heartfelt Creations 'Holiday Collection '.  There are some lovely cards here, I think that you could create these cards with things already in your stash. 😉

These cards are so pretty, I love the colour scheme too, They have veen made with a Poppystamps Die set called 'Fern & Daisy Pop Up Easel" it looks as though you can use the whole piece as a background or chop into it to have individual fern/foliage pieces.  

I absolutely love all of these 'Clean & Simple' designs that Claire Rhodes Brandon has designed, one 'Top Tip ' I read is to use Watercolour card when just embossing a die into your card as its fibres are more stretchy and it is less likely to crack! I will definitely be giving that a go.  So many inspirational cards in this feature! 

John Lockwood demonstrates 'Two Jays' Finger Stamps, which look to me to be exactly the same as 'Card IO' stamps,  where you use lots of tiny stamps to create a pretty background image.  Some nice cards featured, I think i'll stick to my Card-io ones though. 

These lovely cards are all made using Altenew products,  the flower featured is called a 'Balloon Flower' i'm not sure if that's a variety of flower to be honest it doesn't look like a balloon.   I really like it though and as with all Altenew stamps you have lots of layers that build a lovely detailed image, they come with matching dies too, which makes it even easier to create beautiful cards. 

This last feature shows us how to 'Carve stamps', you can start by carving a design into vegetables, I am guessing it will be quite basic, simple designs to start with.  Plastic erasers can be used too, although they aren't very big, If you have had a go and enjoy carving your own stamps there is a a specific prodict by Speedball called 'Speedy Carve Block' you can draw your design onto the block and use a Lino-cutter to cut it out.  🤔😲🥺 This one is definitely not for me, I am way to nervous with a sharp blade!! I would be fun to create your designs though. 

That's all for this review,  I have another magazine so maybe I will do one next Saturday too.  It's fun to see new products and get some bew ideas for products we already have. I hope you enjoyed the review my lovelies xxx.

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Ladies I hope that you all stay warm and dry this weekend and get chance to relax and unwind,

Sending Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra

xxxxxx