Christmas Crafting Ideas by Flyingpig - Its Good To Share.

dizzytina

craftfairies wrote: »

Morning Ladies!!

Craftygranny - you make a brill PA thank you!!!

I have thrown the box away for the purple candy cames but there were 12 for £1 im not sure about flavour, vant taste or smell at the mo but when i am feeling better i will investigate!!

Die Cutting Machines - On my home page there is a list of all the machines i have had and still have (must update that with the slice elite!)
I do currently have a big shot and a cuttlebug, they are both great machines. For me my fave is the bigshot, but space is not an issue for me, the bigshot just feels that bit sturdier and i do like to try and cram as much as i can through it!! On the other hand the cuttlebug is compact as it folds up (i store all my cutting mats in a little basket and my bug folded until i want to use it) they both operate on a sandwich type system where you layere up your dies and paper with a selection of cutting pads to get the correct thickness. With these machines all you need to replace are the cutting plates them selves but you can get a lot of use out of them i have useded mine till they were so warped they cracked, taped them together and used them some more!!! from memory plates should be under a tenner to replace. the only other costs involved are the dies them selves which do vary somewhat depending on the brand and size - a set of nesties will set you back around £16 (although some places do 4 sets for £60 so you could club together to save a little) and you can oftem pick up sizzix sizzlits dies in a sale for about 2-3 pounds.
Electric Machines - i would say your choices are between a robo (or silhouettte - same machine) and a cricut (i have both) i have the 12x12 cricut but seeing as you were looking at the slice which only cuts as large as 4" you could cope with a 12"x6" cricut in the 12x6 range there is the original cricut (these are no longer made but you may find a good deal on one) and the cricut create - i have had both and while the create does have a couple of extra features there is not really any difference in performance. Fo me there is a great range of designs for the cricut and if you layer the designs up they look great, a lot of the cards i post have some cricut cutting invloved!! you can also get several different softwares (SCAL being one) that allow you to hook your cricut up to cour computer to create your own designs and cut any font you have stored or can download. That leads nicely onto the robo which is a computer run machine - you can pick up the lite version for about £99 but there is quite a learning curve with this machine, these days robo users can access the quickutz online store which you pay a monthly subscription to and get so many design downloads with that.

Only wanted to give you a little over view of everything but happy to answer any questions!
if you are looking at a manaul machine but funds are tight it does pay to shop around and most places offer free shipping too
Lisa x

Hi Lisa,

Wow you clearly are the die cutting expert:D. I have a cricut original that i bought on ebay with some cartrdiges and i do love it but i don't get that much time to use it or mess about with it. I know Seths Gran mentioned cutting vinyl with hers and i would love to do more with mine. A couple of questions how do a cut through card (rather than paper which is all i have done so far) and where do i get vinyl sheets from that i can cut with my cricut and do i need a special blade etc. Sorry for the questions i'm just hoping you (or anyone else) might know.
Thanks
Tina

dizzytina

Love all the fab makes on here. Hollie i have a cricut which i got on ebay for £110 including 3 cartridges,mats and other things and it was hardly used.

Lisa which cartridge did you use for the monkeys?

Just thought i'd share some things i made this week..

cheekycat1

Hi,
WOW so much gone on since I last looked.
Can't believe how quickly things move on.
I think we need to teamup as to our locations and bulk buy machines to get better prices, have a big pre christmas meet up!!!!
So many of us are thinking about getting machines at the moment.
Will have to take some pics and post what I have done recently up this evening. Got to wake little one now for a feed before school run starts
So little time:o!

mary-op

lil -love the DIY snowman idea............I've got some choc.matchsticks..........think I'll have to get to the sweetshop and have a go at this one..............can cover a gravy tub with snowman paper and pop it all inside...............:T

Gina_of_course!

I so knew this thread would not only give me inspiration but would also cost money... been to get the Elizabeth Shaw bogof and a whole host of other sweets.... got a couple of bags of mixed lips and teeth... My teenage niece has a check up on her brace on the 22nd Dec so will make a bag of teeth for the dentist.... 'All I want for Christmas'...

Thanks again for the inspiration.

pointofnoreturn

Hollie84 wrote: »

thankyou Lisa,i really do want the cricut now but at £150 there not cheap :eek:
so will see what money i get for xmas and also put some of the money im making from my gifts into buying one after xmas i think unless OH wants to be really generous this xmas

Hollie - re the Cuttlebug with no instructions on ebay. There is not really much to the instructions that come with the Bug tbh but if you did go for it I can scan the instructions I got with mine and email them to you. The provo website also has good info on how to layer up for the Cuttlebugs and other machines that they do.


Just looked on the provo site and they have a download of the manual here.

craftfairies

Miss Tine - you certainly could use tis in a bug, you would need a pair of these and that opens up the world of the bigz XL dies HERE (the link is to the sizzix site but they are a bit cheaper if you shop around)

Dizzy Tina - I cut vinyl all the time, its great, i used it maily for glass etching, but if you get garment vinyl you can use it for printing onto t-shirts too!! I get my vinyl from a company called the transfer press - just google that and it will show up! Settings for vinyl hmmm i think i tend to use high presure and balde 4 but it does depend on how new your blade is. For card in the cricut it depends on the thickness of the card and also the fires and colour, my thickest card i cut on max blade and max pressure and thats fine, take it down one for bazzill type thickness but its really trial and error i think

I have used reate a critter for the monkeys - its a great cart for cute things!

RustyFlange

Hi all,

Haven't been keeping up with this thread but thought I would pop on and post a picture of a sweety bag I have made. I have another few to make but just done 1 quickly.

I have seen some of the things posted on here and have seen plenty like this from Americans who make stuff like this all of the time so imagine most of the ideas come from there!

Anyway one of my bags.



The diecut on the top was orange card, but I used a pad and black ink and distressed it, the ink has sunk in to the card and left dark veins which looks fab!

Also some of you may have seen them already but if you have a home bargains near you then they have stickers in which are halloween related (not just halloween could be used for other stuff) I have been buying these stickers since they first started stocking them, I love them but never seem to actually make things with them!

mummyslittleboy

My New sizzix die has just arrived:T:T

But I can't use it untill the cutting pads arrive :mad:

I have just bought this die

http://www.sizzix.com/product/1031

Can't wait to use it

craftfairies

oohh mummys little boy i love that die
this is my fave project with it