Welcome to Day Two of “Adhesives Week!” I continue exploring glues and tapes so you can make the best decisions based on your craft and your budget. This is an adhesive I stumbled onto by accident. It just so happened I was asked to locate the Precision Point Adhesive Pen for a friend, and honestly- it was so much trouble to find a consultant, if figured that while I was at it I should buy a few for myself. I’ve […]
Archives for November 2010
Craft Product Review: Glue Glider Pro by Glue Arts
HEY! Welcome! I’m having an “Adhesive Week” here at Craft Test Dummies! We need all kinds of adhesives for all kinds of crafting, and I’m so glad to be able to share some new favorites with you. To kick of Adhesive Week, I’m starting with a paper crafting adhesive, the Glue Arts‘ Glue Glider Pro. For those of you who might be unfamiliar, the Glue Glider is a dry-adhesive dispenser, unspooling a perforated line of double sided tape. It’s activated […]
Craft Product Review: Glue Glider Pro by Glue Arts
Yes, it’s a Thankful Thursday…the MOST “Thankful” day of the year, in fact- Thanksgiving! Today I will be surrounded by my family in the comfort of my home, enjoying the food everyone has prepared. My husband is famous for his families’ sweet potato pie casserole, my Mom is bringing the Mandarin Orange Salad I’ve eaten since childhood, and my sister is bringing stuffing AND a new niece for us all to fawn over! Yes, I am thankful indeed. For my […]
Crafty Toys of Christmas Past
I was looking through some scrapbooks from my youth the other day, and I ran across some Christmas photos. There, in it’s faded glory, was my Lite-Brite, my set of Fashion plates, and that craft with plastic-flowers-you-put-on headbands. Man, what was that thing called??? Anyway, it got me thinking… I got so many great crafty toys as a kid, and I’m sure that influenced the crafter I am today. So I put it out there on Facebook, with the simple […]
Polyform Adds, Discontinues Polymer Clay Colors in Fall 2010
Image from CraftyGoat OR- SAVE OUR COLORS! So let me give you the story here. Earlier this fall, Polyform– the company that brings us Sculpey and Premo clay brands- announced that they were adding new colors to their lines. Here’s what I copied from their FB announcement: Polyform Products We are bursting with excitement – new colors with endless possibilities are just around the corner. It’s an unbelievable line-up with colors you requested. Have you ever imagined . . . […]
Craft Product Review: YourStory Bookbinding and Laminating System, Part 2 (Laminating)
This is the second of two parts reviewing the YourStory Thermal Bookbinding and Laminating System by guest-blogger Sara Carns. Make sure you read part one, as well…. Now to laminating! Well, this part is pretty straight forward. One thing to make sure of is that you are working around a clean area. The plastic pages are very static, so if you have any cat hair, stray glitter or embossing powder, it will be attracted to the laminating sheets and get […]
Craft Product Review: YourStory Thermal Laminating and Book Binding System, Part 1: Binding
Our guest blogger today is Sara Carns who owns the “Sarah’s Never-Never La-La Land” blog. Take it away, Sara! Hi there! I wanted to start off by saying how utterly excited I was when Jenny asked me to do a review for CraftTestDummies! Thanks Jenny so much for this opportunity! I hope you all enjoy the projects created for this review and don’t hesitate to ask any questions! When I first saw the ProvoCraft bookbinder and laminator, my head was […]
Craft Tool Review: Knipex
Today my crafty BFF and creative wonder Vicki O’Dell is sharing one of her favorite tools with us. A big welcome and thanks to Vicki! I thought I’d share with you my very favorite wire cutters and tell you why they are my favs. Why? Every crafter needs good wire cutters but you especially need them if you are going to do any floral design with what we call “permanent” botanicals or silk flowers. And I do quite a lot of […]
Tools of the Trade- Knitting Needles 101 by Krista Moreno
Today we have a guest-crafter and blogger sharing her insights about knitting tools. A big welcome and thanks to Krista Moreno! As I walk down the aisles of my local craft store I come across the knitting needle section. I become over-whelmed with excitement of the different colors, sizes and types of knitting needles and crochet hooks. I do have to admit I have given in to my temptation and purchase a ridiculous novelty item that either breaks or stops […]
CRI-Kits Product Review
Regular contributer Lisa Falduto kicks of this week of guest posts on CraftTestDummies. Lisa sure knows how to get us off on the right- and crafty-foot! So if you are anything at all like me, you love your Cricut! I can do amazing things with my Cricut like cutting fabric, cutting paper, cutting fun foam, cutting chipboard, cutting vellum, cutting, cutting, cutting….well, you get the idea! While cutting is a blast, did you know there is a product created by […]
Craft Project: Creating Your Own Travel Journal
I always have such big dreams for scrapbooking my travels…I really do…. but truth be told, I’m just inconsistent. My birthday trip to Dublin, Ireland from 2008 is still sitting in a suitcase, and my amazing trip to London is in a box….somewhere! So I realized a while ago that I do better if I combine scrapbooking and travel journaling into one activity. In this fashion I can take notes on what happens day-t0-day, collect little bits of ephemera, and […]
Crafting on the Road- Traveling Art Kit
Pretty soon mi familia and I are heading off on an adventure to sunnier climes. Here in northern Ohio, things are getting a bit chilly, so we going to have one last flirtation with warmer weather before we hunker down with our winter crafting. I used to snap all kinds of pics when we were on vacation, and take a journal- expecting that when I got home I’d go on some big scrapbooking bender and come out with extensive photobooks, […]
Craft Product Review: Grand Calibur Die-Cutting System by Spellbinders
As much as I love my electronic die-cutter, there is a special place in my heart for a manual die-cutting machine. Sometimes you just want to cut out a little flower or something, and it hardly seems worth it to haul out the Cricut and fire it up. So today I’m reviewing one of the newest manual die-cutters on the market, the Grand Calibur by Spellbinders! Here’s the product description, as it appears on the Spellbinders website: The Grand Caliburâ„¢ […]
Craft Product Review: Nestabilities & Grand Nestabilities Dies by Spellbinder
A while ago I posted a great recycled soda can craft using the Nestabilities Dies made by Spellbinder- and then I realized that I’d never really reviewed them! If you follow CTD with any sort of regularity, you see these dies popping up all OVER my crafts. (I’ll have a list at the end for you, too, so you can see for yourself. ) So, you know the drill…what can it cut? Take a look… Another surprise- FOAMIES! It also […]
Craft Product Review: Quick Snippers
As an avid papercrafter, I love adding decorative details to my tags, cards, and scrapbook pages. To whit, I have a BUCKET o’ fancy-edged scissors. But what do you do when you want to go to a crop, or takes some supplies on a trip? Well, usually I just leave mine at home. However, Quick Snippers are about to change all that! To get to the point, Quick Snippers are the Swiss Army Knife of fancy scissors! It holds 6 […]
A Big Week in my Crafty Universe
If you’ve ever listened to Garrison Keillor, he starts out by saying, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon, my hometown…” My prologue goes like this: “It was a busy week at the CraftTestDummies World Headquarters….and OH, it was. And a BIG week, too. I was still riding high from being a finalist in the Plaid Trick Your Pumpkin Contest when I got a tweet from @CraftsDept (Martha Stewart‘s Crafts Department, to be specific.) Our faves from the Halloween […]
Craft Product Review: Derwent “Inktense” Pencils
One of the most versatile craft products you can have in your studio (right behind a good pair of scissors and a glue stick) is a nice set of watercolor pencils. While “regular” colored pencils are fine in a pinch, water-soluable pencils play “two-fer”: you can use them as both a pencil AND as a watercolor paint. Recently, the nice folks at Derwent (in the UK, no less!) sent me a set of their Inktense Pencils– as they say, can […]
Win a Spot in the Martha Stewart CRAFT FAIR!
Hey, Crafty folk! I take my self-given role as a “Craft Evangelist” seriously- so I had to do an extra post and share this with all of the marvelous artists/crafters/designers I know! Contests & Prizes : A Call to Crafty Arms If you are an independent artist or crafter, we want to hear from you! We are planning our annual holiday craft sale, which is held here in the company’s creative headquarters in New York City. Many of us on […]
Craft Book Review: Zentangle Basics
Lo, many moons ago I wrote a rather snarky post about Zentangles VS. Mandalas and how all the fuss really just seemed to me like a marketing ploy. (Let’s remember the $50.00 kit price.) So fast forward a few years and what falls into my hands? Zentangle Basics. The lovely and charming Marie Browning herself gave the the book to try out as well as a little video demo using Tombow markers at CHA, so I promised to give it […]
Craft Product Review: ecosystem Artist Notebooks
I love keeping journals. I don’t write in them religiously, but I do keep several going at one time for ideas, lists, art journaling, and as travel diaries. Usually I just buy what is on sale at the craft or bookstore, without any thought to the actual notebook- manufacture, recycled materials, etc. Until I received an ecosystem Artist Notebook in the mail, I had no idea. So what’s the big deal? Well, this is the notebook for crafters and artists […]