My New Awesome Toy - A Spellbinders Grand Calibur!

Hi everyone! First of all, I would like to invite you all to come back tomorrow for the 2nd annual March of the Snowmen Blog Hop! Last year's hop was so much fun and we had many talented ladies participate......I can't wait to see everyone's snowman creations this year! Plus, a lot of the girls, including myself, will have blog candy available to win.....more deets on that tomorrow! So, come back at 8 am EST on Tuesday morning, January 25th.....it will be a blast, I promise!!!

Now, I am so excited to share with you my new toy......a Spellbinders Grand Calibur die cut machine....woo hoo!!!! What is so special, you ask? Well, Spellbinders came out with some jumbo cutting dies, perfect for scrapbooking, larger shaped cards, and tons of project ideas. The Grand Calibur has an extra wide "mouth" for the jumbo dies and larger cutting plates to fit. I own a Spellbinders Wizard as well, and I still love it, but the cranking mechanism is a bit noisy. The Grand Calibur is smooth as butter and makes no noise while cranking the handle. This is a plus if you don't want to wake the household during a middle of the night crafting binge!


The plates for the Grand Calibur not only fit the largest of the cutting dies, but you can also save time by using many dies at the same time. Shown here is my card, designer paper layer, and sentiment panel, which will all be cut in one swoop!



I have cut and folded my cardstock to make a shaped card. I taped the Grand Labels One cutting die to the cardstock so that the die won't cut all of the way through at the fold of the card. By the way, the Grand Calibur and Wizard will both cut through both layers of cardstock beautifully!



Here I have flipped over and placed the dies and paper on the base plate so that the cutting edge is up.



Place the Cutting plate on top of the papers and dies.



Insert plates into the Grand Calibur and crank the handle while holding onto the top of the machine. (I know....I'm not holding the top, but I had to take the photo, right?!)



So, here is my shaped card, still attached at the top, my designer paper layer, and my sentiment panel. By the way, most of the time, there is no need to run these through a second time with the embossing mat since the impression is already there from the first cutting! I love anything that saves time....yay!!!



Here is my finished card. The sentiment is from "Faith - the Full of Grace Collection", the designer paper is SEI "With All My Heart", the pearls (and flowers) are Zva Creative, the crocheted lace is by May Arts, and the sentiment panel was cut with Spellbinders Labels Four.


I have used the following challenges in the making of this card:
Crafty Pad: Something Girly;
Paper Cutz: Open challenge;
Raise the Bar: Nesties, Embellishments, White;
AI Factory: Anything Goes;
Belli Challenge: Letter P: Pink, pearls, pattern paper, paper piercing(Fogotten embellie: paper roses);
Christian Paper Crafts: Wednesday Case Artist.....Sabrina aka Okimom2girlz....I did not case one card in particular but used her style as inspiration with lace, flowers, and swirly pearls;
Creative Cottage: Shaped Cards;
Papertake Weekly: Ribbons and pearls;
Crafty Cardmakers: Flowers.


Thanks so much for stopping by today! Have a very blessed week! Don't forget to come back tomorrow morning for the March of the Snowmen!!