New Big Shot

This has been an exciting day so far.  I'm anxious to play with my new toys.

I also received some fun new dies in the mail, from Taylored Expressions and 123 Stitch.

More on broken Bigshot

In the previous post (HERE), I showed my broken Big Shot die cutting machine.  I have since analyzed it a bit more and asked for suggestions for replacing it.  Here are some of the results:

Inside all the pretty plastic housing are some gears that are connected to the rollers.  Some of the teeth are broken on the gears.  The smaller gear was attached to handle and the larger ones to the rollers.  I guess lots of years of use and probably some improperly, the metal gears broke.  It was a good machine and gave me lots of good use.

When asking for advice on a replace, another Big Shot topped the list, so I have ordered a new one.  If it is a good the old one, I should have it for the rest of my crafting years, since I'm now 80 years old.

Bigshot RIP

After 12 years of hard use, my original Big Shot finally gave up.  The rollers locked and wouldn't move with a die trapped between them.  My friend and I tried desperately to save the die.  We gave up on the old tired machine, but it refused to return the die to us.  The machine was dismantled with the use of screwdrivers and hammers.  Here is some of the results:

The die remains trapped.  Ellison really made that machine tamper proof.  This machine was an original made by Ellison before Sizzix bought the rights to it.  R.I.P.

One more butterfly card

Earlier this week, we had a lot of rain here in the desert.  That forced me to stay inside to play with my new toys from the holiday sales.  In the process of designing cards, I die cut extra butterfly elements.  Now, I'm trying to finish up using those die cuts.  Here's what I did with some of the left-overs.  The Hello die is cut out and inlaid into the background.

More butterfly cards

While I was designing the previous cards, I had some dies cut out.  I turned them into cards for my stash.

Front of card

Inside of card

Butterfly cards

I'm still playing with my recently purchased dies.  I used Memory Box butterfly dies for both of these cards.  The first one is a shadow box card with designs on both front and inside of card and the second is a regular card with all design on front of card.  The background is made with watercolors, using Twinkling H2Os and coarse salt.

Front of Card

Inside shadow box

Front of card

Inside of card

More balloon cards

I recently purchased a set of balloon dies from Simon Says Stamp.  There are 5 sizes of balloon dies in the set.  I used the 3 smaller ones and cut each of them from 3 colors of cardstock.  I arranged them on an embossed background and added strings and bows to each.  The strings don't show well in the photos, but they go to bottom of card.  This resulted in 3 birthday cards for my stash.  The sentiment dies are by Memory Box.

Balloon birthday card

I splurged during all the holiday sales.  This is my first card using the new dies.  The balloon die is from a set by Simon Says Stamp, as is the sentiment.  The balloon is cut from glossy gold cardstock.  The background is from a very old Mat Stack from Die Cuts With a View.  I added adhesive with my old Xyron before cutting the sentiment.  The string is some gold embroidery floss.