A very kitsch Christmas

I do like this fawn stamp. It reminds me of an image painted on a cot from when I was little. I'm not sure if it was a cot that I slept in or if it was a toy cot I had. Or whether it even was mine or I just saw it & coveted it. But anyway, it reminds me of that.

All the stamped images apart from the tree are from the Avery Elle Kitsch Christmas stamp set.

I just love its 60s retro vibe. I coloured all the images with Pro Markers. I'm not an experienced Pro Marker-er, but I think they turned out pretty ok. 

The Christmas tree stamp is from the Concord and 9th stamp set O Christmas Tree.

Each of the stamped images was cut using my new Scan n Cut. It was what can best be described as a learning experience!  It loved cutting the images from the Avery Elle set, as they are all nice, clear line drawings. It cut every one of them without an argument. 

However, I only had about a 60% success rate with the Christmas tree from the Concord and 9th set. It scanned them all OK, but for some reason it simply would not recognise some of the images when it came to converting them to a cutting file. I did try repositioning those images elsewhere on the cutting mat, and for a few this did the trick, with it recognising them on a 2nd or 3rd scan. But some it simply would not pick up. Having looked at them I can't see why. To my eye they appear the same as the images that cut OK - same ink colour, and a clear, unsmudged impression.  I guess it's to do with the detail on the branches of this stamp - miniscule variations in my stamping that the eye can't detect but the scanner can. I expect that the more I use the Scan n Cut, the more I'll be able to predict which stamps it's likely to "get on with" better. Awkward little bugger.    

The label is one the pre-set shapes that comes with the Scan n Cut machine. Why, yes, I *did* use it on yesterday's project too. Why, yes, it *is* the only one I really know how to use at the moment.

I am very pleased with this card though, and the strength of the machine is that I stamped and cut out the individual elements in large batches so I can now go & make multiple copies quite quickly.

I bought both stamp sets from the UK, from Seven Hills Crafts, which has a great selection of stamps and dies from US designers.

hot air balloon thank you card

 

I made this card with my newest baby - a Brother Scan n Cut! I've had it a couple of months now, and while I seem to have mastered cutting out stamped images pretty well, the more advanced design functions are still way beyond me.

For this card I used the Scan n Cut to cut out the centre of the postage stamp. It also cut the stamped balloon image out too. I re-sized the label, which is a standard image which comes with the software, to fit the size of the postage stamp and cut that too. I also cut out the card blank too. Well, why not?

It really does cut out stamped images very crisply and cleanly, and as I have a bit of arthritis in my hands it's great for that alone. That said, I'm rather less impressed with some of the other features. I can't get it to create an even and centred faux stitched image no matter how hard I try. I've followed Mel Heaton's very clear Youtube video to the letter and also re-calibrated the machine multiple times, but I still get a wider margin on one side than another. I'm also getting an uneven cut, with theleft hand side of anything I cut pretty much always needing two cuts to go through the card, no matter what the blade depth or how thick the card. I'm told that this is a known issue among other users, but so far there's no fix for it, which is a bit annoying.

Hopefully I'll post more in due course.