Weekend Plans

Once again, I am sitting here contemplating the weekend. It never seems like there is enough time! The weekend always flies past. Regardless, we plan to enjoy it as much as possible. My son and I made pineapple bread today. It came out pretty good and it seems to be a good solution to having a lot more fresh pineapple in the house than we can eat.




We are sticking to our usual weekend plan: scrapbooking, hanging out and video games. My hubby just took our son for an evening swim. It's nice to not have too much planned other than a lot of nothing. I am looking forward to using my new JBS Mercantile kit. It has some awesome bird papers inside which are perfect for me to document some of our feathered visitors. I still have not had a chance to use my encaustic supplies. Maybe this weekend will be the time for that. there are also some buttons to sort out and put away.

What are your weekend scrap plans? We have a thread going over at the forum for SNR magazine. We hope you pop in.

Mid Week Check in

I can't believe it's Wednesday already! This week is flying past which is both good and bad. I have had a lot on my plate. I wrapped up another tutorial for Scrapbook News and Review magazine. I have been exploring a new medium and really enjoying myself.

I still have not made time to get to play with my new encaustic supplies. I am happy though that there will be 2 classes at the Art Studio featuring encaustics and melt art. I am hoping those will get me on the right track.Meanwhile, I am still listening to This month's Masterful Scrapbook design class which features Art journal Looks for scrapbook pages. You will, of course, see a little bit more of that on some future pages.

Later today, I will be in Lain Ehmann's Scraphappy webinar. I am hoping to learn some more kit busting techniques. Can you tell I am an on-line class junkie? Learning new things from home rocks!

P.S> I did make it to level 100 on Gears of War 3 last weekend. I also re-uped and am now moving back up through the ranks. :)

American Crafts Knock Out Punches- reviewed

I recently got to try out the American Crafts Knock Out punches. I received them in a carry style case with 6 interchangeable punches:

image from American Crafts

 I was a little concerned at first how the quality would compare to other punches on the market. However, the punches are pretty sturdy and the wing guides are easy to change in and out without fear of them breaking(especially for a clumsy person like me). For the price( especially if you can find a kit on sale), this would be a great way for someone who has very few punches to grow a collection.

What I Liked: easy to punch with, compact and easy to store,the carry case makes them easy to take to crops, not heavy like some punches are but still durable, good price as compared to other punches on the market

What I disliked: nothing really, although it might have been nice to have something to catch all the tiny paper scraps from the bottom of the punch

I made a layout for Scrapbook News and Review magazine with the punches. It's grid based, so I though I would share a sneak of one grid section:

Overall, I think this is a great punch system. I was excited to see other punches for this system available on American crafts website. I hope they choose to offer those in a kit as well, although the individual price per punch is still pretty good.