The event will be held at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Manchester on April 30-May 1.  We already had plans to be in Manchester on Sunday, May 2, only, for a New Hampshire Fisher Cats game; I thought about getting a hotel room and coming up on Saturday, but decided against it.

But then, we decided we wanted to see “The Full Monty” at the Palace Theatre in Manchester.  The Hilton Garden Inn in town has a special theatre package, where you get a room, two tickets to whatever show is playing, breakfast the next day, and free shuttle transportation to the theatre.  We opted for the May 1 show, so we’d be in town the next day for the ball game.  We also got an excellent rate for the package, just $129.

Then, I got an email reminding me to register for CKC Manchester if I wanted to go.  I looked at the dates…the show is in the evening, the convention is in the daytime (well, the shopping part and some of the classes are)…so May 1 was doable.  So I registered…no classes yet, but that could change.  I’m more interested in just walking around in the Vendor Faire and seeing what they’ve got for sale.  I don’t want to pressure Mike to get moving so we have to get there in time for me to take any classes, plus, I don’t feel like lugging a kit of supplies along.  All I really want is to have a couple of hours to look around and shop.

Mike doesn’t have to go in with me, I just registered a day pass to the Vendor Faire for myself.  He doesn’t like going to these things, just as I don’t like going to his model train shows.  If we get into town before 2PM, he can always just hang out at the hotel bar and have a beer.  Once it’s 2PM, it will be time to check into the Hilton Garden Inn, he can go and do that, and I can just walk over when I’m done with the show.  It’s not a long walk, but long enough so that I won’t be wanting to use the fitness equipment at the hotel.

The reservation is in my name, though…would they let him check in without me?  I’ll need to find out.  I guess I could check us in at 2PM, and then go to the convention.

Anyhoo, it’s been a few years since I’ve been to one of these things, and I am greatly looking forward to it!  If you are interested in attending a CKC convention, here’s the website where you can see if and when there is one near you!

These are NOT available for sale on the Sizzix website, at least not at this time.  I have no idea if they ever will be or not.  You can see them there, but it says to “check your local craft store”.  There are also links to project ideas.  You can see the collection HERE.

So I guess it might be time to make a little trip up to Topsfield!  This collection is gorgeous, as is to be expected from Tim.  But it will be so hard to decide which to get first…I fear that i will be keeping the store’s epson receipt printer VERY busy!

If you have a store near you, go and check ‘em out!

So anyway, my subscription actually doesn’t expire until the March/April 2011 issue.  As is customary when a magazine folds, they will be transferring all existing subscriptions to another magazine, Scrapbook Trends.  Actually, I’m supposed to go to the site and convert my subscription over myself.

I think I’ve seen this other magazine before, although not very often.  I don’t think I’ve ever bought it.  If it’s what I think it is, it’s actually more like a high quality paperback idea book than a traditional magazine.

They publish other magazines, as well, all crafty-related, with ideas for everything from beading to home decors projects, such as decorating candle sconces. And if I send them $20 when I convert my Memory Makers over, I can get access to a whole boatload of back issues of all their mags, online.  I might go for it, that’s a lot of material for a low price.

But I hope that they’ll finish out my MM subscription with paper copies of Scrapbook Trends.  Online is nice, but I like paper books and magazines.

I guess this magazine folding is just another sign of the times.  Several years ago, a great mag called PaperKuts went under.  Then there was another one called Scrapbook Answers, which lasted maybe a year.  That one was very cool, as every issue came with a CD-ROM with all sorts of how-to videos and other goodies on it.  I was very disappointed when that one was discontinued.

With the economy being the way it is, I suppose that people aren’t buying as many scrapbooking and other craft supplies as they once did.  The companies that make these products are the advertisers in these magazines, and if they’re not selling as much, they can’t afford as many ads.

It’s sad, but what can you do?

These things are GINORMOUS!  You will need to buy the Extended Cutting Pads in order to use these in your Big Shot or BigKick machines.  They are too big to fit into the Cuttlebug, though.  Just so you know!

You can see a selection of the Bigz XL dies at Sizzix.com.  However, as I said, Sizzix has teamed up with Stampin’ Up! to offer some more designs that are exclusive to SU.  One of these is the Matchbox die…you can cut out the shapes to make a most adorable little matchbox, in which you can put candy or other tiny goodies.  I just got this in the mail the other day, and it is SO cool!  I’m sure I will get a lot of use out of this one!

These dies measure a whopping 13 inches long by 6 inches wide.  They can cut through paper, cardstock, felt, and other materials.

If you are looking for a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, please visit my friend Annette Stewart.  Her blog offers many fun ideas for using SU products, and also has a link to order online directly from her.  It doesn’t matter whee you live, she will ship your orders anywhere.  She also offers some cool clubs, one of which I am a member.  And, once again, long-distance members are accepted.  Each month, a different member gets to be the *hostess*, and that means FREE STUFF!

If you visit Annette and buy anything, please tell her I sent you, ‘k?  Thanks!

I have just about all of the popular die-cutting machines – the Sizzix BigKick and SideKick, the QuicKutz Squeeze, and the Cuttlebug.  And those are just the manual machines.  To be honest, if I could only have one, knowing what I know now, I’d probably just have the Cuttlebug.  It can use dies from all other companies, and it takes up a lot less table surface real estate.  It even takes the new Sizzix Bigz dies, as well as their Texturz embossing plates.  I thought those would be too big to go through the Cuttlebug, but I recently got some, I tried it, and they do fit.  So I may be downsizing my craft area a bit, since I lack a lot of space, and put all of the other machines in storage until I decide what I feel like doing with them.  For all I know, Sizzix might come out with even bigger dies that won’t fit into the Cuttlebug, and I might still need that BigKick some day!

Then there are the electronic cutters.  There are several out there, most of them too expensive for me to ever think about buying.  But when I found the original Cricut on sale at Michaels for not much over $100, I said, what the hell, and bought it.  I love it, but the cartridges, even when they are on sale at half price, and pricey.  I only treat myself once in a while, when they are on sale or clearance.  Still, considering the cost of regular dies, they still give you a lot for the money, including the fact that you can cut in several different sizes.  You can’t do that with Sizzix, etc. dies!

Anyhoo, I’ve been through a lot of personal crap lately, and I decided I needed some more retail therapy.  So yesterday, I decided to no longer resist the cuteness that is the Slice machine from Making Memories.

Like the Cricut, it uses cartridges, in this case called “design cards”.  The design cards are little SD cards, just like the ones you use in your digital camera to store your photos.  Each one contains a variety of shapes and/or fonts.  And like the Cricut, these can be cut in various sizes…in this case, anything from 1″ to 4″.  Not as wide a range as even the regular Cricut, but still, good enough for most scrapping and card-making needs.

Unlike the Cricut, you can only cut one shape or letter at a time with the Slice.  And you do have to hold it down as it cuts.  Some users have complained about this, but it honestly doesn’t bother me.

The Slice is a bit “greener” than the Cricut.  While the Cricut uses disposable sticky plastic cutting mats, the Slice uses a glass mat…the paper is held in place with a repositionable adhesive.  I’ve read that some people have tried, with success, using repositionable adhesive to reuse Cricut mats, although ProvoCraft, the manufacturer, does not recommend this.  I can’t personally vouch for this because I haven’t tried it, but if I do, and it works, I’ll let you know.

The Slice also has the advantage of having cordless operation.  It does come with an electrical cord, and it certainly can be used with that.  But the cord also is a charger…plug it in for an hour and the Slice is fully charged and ready to use sans cord.  This is excellent for taking to crops, because sometimes, you are not near an electrical outlet.  I used to go to crops in a church basement, and I never got a seat near a power cord.  If they ever start those crops up again, I would definitely bring my Slice.  It’s small (base measures 5″ x 5″ square), and very lightweight.

It’s also surprisingly affordable.  The Slice machine itself retails for $149.99, but you can often find it on sale.  It is currently on sale at Joann.com, and there’s an everyday discount price over at Scrap-Mart, a site I highly recommend because of their low prices, free shipping on many items, and very fast shipping, too.  They carry the Slice and many of the design cards and accessories for it, all at prices below MSR.

The design cards retail for $39.99, which is more than half what a Cricut cartridge costs.  And, as I said, you can find them on sale for less than that.  Scrap-Mart is selling them for $29.99 each.

The machine comes with everything you need to use it right out of the box.  You will get:  the machine, a 6″ x 6″ glass cutting mat, a small tube of the repositionable adhesive and a foam applicator, six cutting blades (one comes already installed in the machine), tools for removing and installing the replacement blades, the “Basics 1″ design card which has one font and lots of shapes, the power cord, and an instruction booklet.

I had a chance to play with this today, and I love it so far.  I’ve tried it on regular scrapbook paper, as well as lightweight cardstock, and it worked very well.

If you are spacially-challenged, yet still want the versatility of an electronic cutter, the Slice is a good buy.  It’s cute and it’s fun, and I’m glad I bought it!

Michaels has finally gotten with the program and has been offering their 40% coupons via email.  You used to only be able to get them if you bought the Sunday paper.  But, as you may have heard, newspapers aren’t doing very well, more people are getting their news from TV and online.  Both A.C. Moore and Joann’s have been sending email coupons to their subscribers for years now; Michaels has only started this within the past six months or so.  I’m very happy about this because we stopped getting the paper completely.

Here is the latest Michaels coupon.  It is good through Saturday, March 14.

And here are a bunch of Joann coupons, for various types of items.  These can be used either in-store or online.

Happy crafty bargain hunting!

If you order $50 worth of product from Stampin’ Up, you may pick one free item from the brochure.  No limit to the number of fifty-dollarses you can spend, each fifty bucks earns one free item.  All Sale-A-Bration items are limited edition. only available through this special promotion.

You can also earn free product by finding a Demonstrator and hosting a workshop…free item for each $300 that is sold at the workshop.  If you want to become a Demonstrator yourself, well, there is free product giveaways involved with that, too.

If you don’t have a Demonstrator and want one, please visit my friend, Annette Stewart.  From her blog, you can learn more about the promotion, download an onkline copy of the brochure, and place an order online.  If you do order anything from her, please tell her I sent you!

VSN is a monthly magazine which is really like no other in the industry.  In fact, it is one of the few “stamping-only” publications still iin existence.  The former Rubber Stamper magazine has been absorbed by Crafts & Things…it’s still a good magazine that has plenty of stamping projects…but it also features sewing, knitting, and crafts other than stamping.  This might not be the magazine for you if you are not interested in any of that other stuff.

RubberStampMadness is still in existence, although I wasn’t sure about that for a while.  I haven’t been able to find it at my local Michaels or A.C. Moore stores in quite some time now…in fact, I think Michaels quit carrying it, because it’s been well over a year since I have seen it there.  RSM is still in existence, but they have dropped down from 6 issues per year to just 4.  Is this a sign of the bad economy?  Are people not stamping as much as they used to?  I don’t know.

Then there are the Stampington magazines, such as “Stampers Sampler” and such.  These are very nice, high-end looking publications, great for getting ideas for projects, but not as high on technique as I’d like.

Another one is Scrap & Stamp Arts.  I personally like this one because I have been published in it a couple of times.   This one combines stamping and scrapbooking, and people who don’t scrap tend to be put off by articles on that hobby.

This leads me to Vamp Stamp News.  It still comes out 12 times a year, and it’s 100% stamping…no scrapbooking, no knitting, no ads for wholesale products aimed at store owners; the ads are all for retail consumer stamping products that anyone can buy.

This is not a fancy, glossy magazine, and it’s not as thick as the others.  But it is also not loaded down with pages and pages of nothing but ads.  What it IS loaded with, though, is tons of useful information, product reviews, techniques, and more.  What is even more amazing about this magazine is that it is owned and put together by one woman, Nancie Waterman.  Of course, she publishes artwork and articles contributed by readers, but she does all of the work in putting it together each month, and writes a lot of the stuff herself.

Each issue has a primary technique theme; this month’s is Resist Techniques.  Several months ahead of time, Nancie announces the techniques as “challenges”, challenging the readers to create and send in work with the chosen technique.  She publishes the best of the work sent in the magazine, and it is accompanied by detailed articles about the technique for that month.  Each issue also contains articles and tips about other techniques, as well.

You will NOT find VSN at Michaels, A.C. Moore, or any other chain craft store.  Nancie sells only to independent stamp stores, and by mail order to individuals (single copies and subscriptions).  There is exactly ONE stamp store in the entire state of Massachusetts that carries it, and it’s a pain in the butt to get to that store each month.  There used to be another store that was much closer to me that had it, but they went out of business.  So I decided to subscribe so that I’d never miss an issue!

You can visit their website to get an idea of what to expect from the magazine.  If you want to see an actual issue and there is no store near you that has it, you can order a single copy for $4.00.  A year’s subscription costs $36, two years is $62.

If you can only afford to get one stamping magazine, VSN is the one to get.  It’s by far the best value for the money, given how much information is jam-packed into each and every issue!

I had not taken advantage of this in a while.  But when I saw the Retro Metro alphabet set for only $20 (retail $149.95), I had to grab it!  Good thing I did, as it is now sold out.

Sizzix.com has a $25 minimun order, so I picked out a few more dies I’d been wanting, some of them also marked down.  I got the Animal Dress-Ups Santa Outfit, for my Animal Dress-Ups Kitty that I already have.  I also got the Animal Dress-Ups Girl Outfit, but I got mine for just six bucks.  Finally, I got MacKenzie’s Cat Latte, which was not marked down, but it’s cute and I wanted it.

But hey…I saved $152.48 off retail…not that I woud have paid retail, at least not for the alphabet set!  I have many Sizzlits alphabet sets, and I never paid full price for any of them.  I either got them really cheap as Tuesday Teasers, or on sale/with coupons at Michaels or A.C. Moore.

You can check Sizzix.com every Tuesday to see what will be marked down for the day.  In case you forget, you can sign up for the Sizzix Scoop, a free email newsletter which will remind you of Tuesday Teasers and other special sales.

I just love finding bargains like this!

This technique is called “one sheet wonders”, and no, I did not invent it.  It’s made the rounds of various crafty message boards over the years.  I used this technique to make Christmas cards to send out, but this would also make a nice gift of coordinating note cards.  Just package it up nicely, in a box or in one of those cellophane bags from a craft store, add envelopes and tie it up with a ribbon, and voila!  A nice and inexpensive gift!  Not as fancy as a dream trip to vegas, but hey, times are tough!  A handmade gift shows that you put some thought and effort into it, much nicer than buying some cheapy bauble at the dollar store.

What You Will Need:

• One 8 1/2 x 11″ sheet of patterned paper
• Four 8 1/2 x 11″ sheets of cardstock, color coordinated with the patterned paper
• Ruler
• Scissors or paper trimmer
• Adhesive
• Your choice of embellishments (die-cuts, stickers, additional paper/cardstock, etc.)
• Template (provided below)

Each sheet of cardstock is to be cut in half on the horizontal, to make two cards that measure 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches.

This is the template for cutting your patterned paper. You can click on it to see a larger one.  What I like to do is flip my paper over to the blank side, and measure and mark it that way.

See the squiggly line between the two pieces for Card #3? Make that cut with a pair of deckle-ediged or other decorate-edge scissors, if you have them.  If not, just carefully tear it, you want sort of uneven edges here.

Once you have all of the pieces cut out, it’s time to go to town and assembe your cards.   There is no right or wrong way to do this.  So I’ll just show you what I did with mine.

Rather than use pre-made patterned paper, I made my own by stamping on an 8 1/2 x 11″ sheet of white cardstock, with red and green inks.  The kitty with holly stamp is from Magenta, the solid holly stamp is from Posh Impressions, and I don’t remember where I got the pawprint and “Meow” stamps.

Cards #1 and #2 are pretty much identical.  You can orient the cards any way you want, here I did one with the fold horizontally and one vertically.  You can see how I repeated the kitty design on the solid colored card.  I stamped it with white pigment ink, and heat embossed it with white embossing powder, to make it stand out.  I spelled out “Meowy Catmas” with die-cut letters…the ones here are from Quickutz.   But don’t go looking for these specific fonts, they’ve long since been discontinued.  Sorry!

If you don’t have a die-cutting system, you can always use letter stickers, which are pretty inexpensive to buy.

Finally, I finished these off by adhering ribbon, as shown.

The rest of the cards are after the jump.

For Card #3 (top), I arranged the pieces on a green card, with the deckle-edged cuts facing out.  I love to mix it up with the fonts.  “Meowy” is an old Sizzix font, and “Catmas” is once again from Quickutz.  I finished this card with circle punches and a die cut cat head (also from Quickutz).

For Card # 4, I matted the stamped/patterned piece on red cardstock before adhering to the card.  I used yet another Quickutz alphabet here, and the die-cut kitty and his scarf came from Sizzix.  This little Christmas tree in the corner is a punch from Marvy Uchida.

For Card #5 (top), I matted the three patterned pieces onto green cardstock, and then again onto gold.  The font is, yes, you guessed it…another Quickutz font, cut from the same gold cardstock.

Card #6 – I matted the patterned piece onto more of the same gold cardstock.  The little kitties are from a Sizzix Paddle Punch, and the font is from yet another old Sizzix alphabet set.

Card #7 (top) was made by matting the patterned piece onto green cardstock, accented with punched-out circles, from gold cardstock  The layered oval tag is from a Sizzix die, and I used the same Paddle Punch kitty as in Card #5 above.  I accented it with a green brad.  I attached the brad to this BEFORE adhering the whole shebang to the card, that way, the prongs of the brad do not show when you open the card.   Die-cut font is from Sizzix, as well.

Finally, for Card #8, I matted the four little patterned squares onto gold and green cardstock, and die-cut kitty heads (Quickutz) from red and green cardstock.  The alphabet font also came from Quickutz.

What about the inside of the cards?  Well, if they are darker colored, as these are, you have two choices.  You can write in them with a white correction pen or marker, or you can mount white paper inside and write on that with a regular pen.  Here is what I did with these:

I computer-generated “…and a happy mew year” and printed on plain white paper.  I cut it out as shown using a new Sizzix die…it’s called “Top Note”, and Stampin’ Up sells it.  If you don’t have a die-cutting system, you can just cut a rectangle or whatever other shape you want, by hand.  A tip…write on this BEFORE you adhere it inside that card.  That way, if you screw up (as I often do, I have terrible handwriting), you didn’t ruin the whole card.

Finally, you should sign your work, on the back of the card, just like Hallmark does!  Many card makers have stamps custom-made for this purpose.  This one came from a company called VistaPrint, and is very inexpensive.  In fact, I got mine for free, I just had to pay shipping.  I think they still have this offer.

I used a punch, also from Stampin’ Up, which coordinates with the die-cut on the inside.  Or you can just sign your name by hand if you prefer.

Speaking of Stampin’ Up, if you are looking for a good demonstrator, may I recommend my friend Annette Stewart?  Her SU business is called Ink, Paper, Scissors…ROCK!  You can check out her blog by clicking on her BlogAd at the top of the right sidebar.  She offers a fun newsletter, special clubs where you get a free project and materials to make it, and much more.  She’s in New Jersey, and I’m in Boston, so yes, she accepts long distance customers.

Anyhoo, I hope that this will inspire you to try your hand at card making.  Use your imagination, and whatever materials you have  hand, and have fun!