Tip for Making Memories Trimmer Owners

Here's a tip for those of you who may own the "Making Memories Precision Paper Trimmer." In a moment of inspiration (that maybe wasn't too wise!), I decided to use it to cut thin chipboard. After that, it seemed to want to rip any paper I tried to cut, giving it a distressed edge look. Unfortunately distressed edges were not what I was after!

If you've had this happen with this particular paper trimmer, try these steps:

1. Slide the red button (located at the top right in the photo above) in the direction of the imprinted arrow.
2. You can now remove the silver slider bar.
3. Remove the rotary trimmer black plastic part from the silver slider bar. (i.e. remove the black thing you slide when you're cutting; it's the part with the "M" on it.)
4. Check for any tiny strips of paper that might be stuck in the cutting groove in the base of the trimmer. Remove any you find.
5. Here's the cool part! One of the great design features of this trimmer is it's self sharpening blade. When it starts ripping paper, it's usually because the blade has dulled. Take the black casing you removed in step three, and place it in the cutting groove but without the slider bar for now.
6. Move the casing along the cutting groove. As you move the casing, very slightly apply pressure so the rotary blade is moving along the left side of the cutting groove. You may hear a light metal-to-metal sound, similar to the sound a knife makes when it is moved along a sharpening stone. Do this several times to resharpen the blade.
7. Reassemble the trimmer.

Just like magic, it cuts clean and smooth again! Hope you don't find yourself needing this tip but in case you do, give it a try. (And maybe another tip is don't cut a big stack of chipboard with your "paper" trimmer! Ha!)

When the weather outside is frightful...

...it's a great time to stay inside and scrapbook! Hope you all weathered the recent snow and ice storms; wasn't it the perfect opportunity to scrap the day away?!

Here's a little project we wanted to share with you. Heidi Swapp always provides lots of unique products and her new mirror album and embellishments are no exception. The album is a mirrored front with a hard chipboard back. The inside contents are up to you! For our cover, we used glittered chipboard letters, a mirrored butterfly, and crystals from Prima.

Here's a look at one of the inside pages:

To create the weathered look of the "My Girl" title, we used a Ranger ink blending tool. If you love the look of inking with the infamous "cat's eye" shaped ink pads, you'll be in love with this tool. The foam applicator attaches to the bottom with velcro. The foam is specially formulated to resist ink so it is applied to your project rather than absorbed into the foam. It is great for creating muted ink tones on your papers as well as for inking the edge. Another plus for this little tool is it allows you to utilize all your larger ink pads for ink distressing... perfect for when you have a large ink pad in the "perfect color" for your project. (The applicator can also be used with felt strips rather than foam. The felt is used for applying adirondack inks... this allows you to add color to metal embellishments. Very cool technique!) The title letters are from a stamp set, also by Heidi Swapp.

We also want to share some sneak peeks of a couple of upcoming classes. Join us on February 5 to create Valentine cards for those special ones in your life. We'll be making eight cards using the new line of Basic Grey papers.
Also be sure to join us on February 21st to create this chocolate chipboard minibook. The book features pages of many different shapes and sizes; we'll be using Bella Boulevard papers and embellishments.