Blog Hop with Miss Kate Cuttables, Out on a Limb Scrapbooking, and Xyron

Hello everyone! There's lots of fun going on this week during our blog hop with Miss Kate Cuttables, Out on a Limb Scrapbooking, and Xyron. I'm here today to share my project with you all.

For our blog hop, there are awesome giveaways up for grabs from both Miss Kate and Xyron. Don't miss out! See the end of this blog post for more details...

Did you know Out on a Limb Scrapbooking is a sister company to Miss Kate Cuttables? In fact, if you love the Miss Kate Cuttables cut files, you can find the same adorable designs at the Out on a Limb Scrapbooking store, all cut and kitted up into page kits!

We were each given a layout kit from Out on a Limb to work with -- and they are all so adorable! I had the Fun at the Circus kit to work with. Here's the layout I created:

I love it! I started with the adorable pre-cut page kit pieces and put everything together, using my Xyron glue stick and 3" sticker maker.

It was so easy to run the pre-cut pieces from the page kit through the 3" sticker maker, then layer the pieces together.


I inked everything with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Frayed Burlap. I then used my Kiwi Lane templates to cut and trace my background pieces:

• Clara Lane 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B
• Strips 1/2", 1"

The papers are just random bright patterns from my stash. This was the perfect page kit for combining lots of bright colors. Finally, I added these gorgeous jewels from The Royal Castle Shoppe. They are so easy to apply with just a little dab of clear-drying glue -- and they add so much shine and fun.

Love!! Here are a few close-ups:

I love how it turned out! Thank you Out on a Limb Scrapbooking and Xyron!! You can really do so much with these page kits from Out on a Limb Scrapbooking and adhesives from Xyron -- go check out all the options and pick out something fun that you would like to play with.

To enter the giveaways this week for the blog hop, be sure to follow my blog and then comment on my post here today -- then head over to the Miss Kate Cuttables blog to see the rest of the projects and enter the giveaway!

Until next time...
Stay crafty!
Lissa :)

Note: This post does include affiliate links. If you buy an item through these links, I will be paid a small amount in advertising fees. All opinions are my own.  I appreciate your help in support of this site. Thank you!

Blog Hop for Xyron and Miss Kate Cuttables -- Plus a Giveaway!

Update 3/11/14: Congratulations Sue D --  you are the winner of the Miss Kate Cuttable gift certificate. Email me at MightyCraftyDOTmeATgmailDOTcom to claim your prize. :)

 Hello all! We have a fun blog hop for you today with an amazing team-up between two wonderful scrapbooking companies: Xyron and Miss Kate Cuttables!

Plus, I'm giving away a gift certificate to Miss Kate Cuttables to celebrate. Read on to find out how to enter...

I was thrilled to join in on this blog hop -- Xyron creates my absolute favorite go-to adhesives. I use their glue and tape products every day in my paper crafting projects. As part of this blog hop, Xyron generously sent us some amazing goodies to play with:

I was excited to get started and see how these new products worked. For today's blog hop, I created this layout:

And let me tell you, those new Xyron adhesives were perfect when putting together my die cuts from Miss Kate Cuttables. I combined these cut file sets from Miss Kate:

Camping Backgrounds and Overlays

Fireside Fun

Gimme S'mores

To create my layout, I used The Great Outdoors collection and the Happy Camper collection -- both by Echo Park. After I cut everything out with my Silhouette and inked the edges, I used my new Xyron adhesives to put everything together.

The 3-inch Sticker Maker was so easy to use and gave me a perfectly even layer edge-to-edge on my delicate die cut pieces, making them super easy to layer together.

I used the High Tack Tape to really stick those edges down too.

And finally, the Glue Stick with the awesome corner edge was perfect to glue down my background overlay and all those little pieces on my die cuts.

I just love how this project turned out -- thanks to Xyron and Miss Kate Cuttables!

I hope you will head over to the Miss Kate Cuttables and Xyron blogs for more blog hop fun and inspiration:

• Xyron blog
• Xyron products
• Xyron Facebook
• Miss Kate Cuttables blog
• Miss Kate Cuttables store
• Miss Kate Cuttables Facebook

But before you go, be sure enter to win a fabulous prize from me -- a $5 gift certificate to the Miss Kate Cuttables store. And believe me, $5 at Miss Kate's store gets you a ton of electronic die-cutting awesomeness. :) To enter, just do one of these:

• Subscribe to my blog (in the left nav) via Google or email and leave a comment on this post telling me you're all signed up.
• Like my Facebook page and leave me a quick post there telling me you did it.

I'll announce the random winner on March 11. Be sure to enter before midnight MST on March 10. 

Good luck and stay crafty!
Lissa :)

Product Review: Xyron Creatopia Shapez

I've become a bit of a die-cutting fiend lately. I love cutting my own letters, borders, and journaling shapes out of any paper I choose. I currently have a Big Shot die cutting machine and a Quickutz Revolution. Both machines are great. But it was a bit of a pain to have 2 machines, storage- and space-wise. Plus I like to add adhesive to my paper before cutting it, so I had a third large machine in play - the Xyron Creatopia. I LOVE my Creatopia for putting an even layer of adhesive on my die cut projects. But having to get out all three machines while I was scrapping made me not want to get any of them out.

So one day I was browsing around the web and discovered that I could get a die cut machine that fits inside my Creatopia - the Creatopia Shapez. And I realized that all my prayers were answered. (Okay, I can get a little overly excited about little things.) And we had a garage sale coming up, so if I could sell my Revolution and my Big Shot, I'd have a single machine to do all my die cutting and adhesive-ing (a word I made up). That got me really excited.

I ordered the Shapez set from Create For Less (it's out of stock right now, but you can still get it from Xyron.com). I had to try it out as soon as it arrived.

The process of taking the adhesive cartridge and rolling wheel out of the Creatopia is easy once you get the hang of it. And the die press fits right inside the Creatopia - the platform then folds down to make a nice surface to roll the plates through. Cutting-wise, it works just great, the same as the Big Shot but a bit wider at 6.5" instead of just 6".

You can cut with every kind of die - thick or thin. You can emboss too (in fact, an embossing mat is included, which I had to buy separately for the Big Shot). I was even able to cut with a long Sizzix border die and the long border cutting plate I had for the Big Shot. I had to shim it up a bit to get it thick enough to go through the Shapez cutter, but it worked just great too.

If you want to learn how to really use your die cutting machines, you need to take the A Cut Above class from Online Card Classes.

I know it says it's a card-making class but it's so much more than that. The class covers traditional die-cutting machines and Silhouette/Cameo die-cutting. There are so many moments of "Oh - so that's how you do that..." I can't even begin to tell you how much I learned from this class. It definitely gave me the confidence to get out my die-cutting machines - traditional and electronic - with every layout I've been creating.

Cork letters cut with the Quickutz 4x8 Chocolate alpha die

Overall, I am so very happy with the Shapez die cutting machine. It does everything I did with my Big Shot machine but integrates with my Creatopia so that I have just a single machine to do everything. If you already have a Creatopia and you like to die cut, the Shapez machine is a great solution. If you don't have a Creatopia, you should get one. I'm just sayin'...

On a related note, I was able to sell my Big Shot and my Revolution in my garage sale - so I was able to pay for the Shapez as a break-even deal. Which was a big deal to me since I'm trying to keep to a budget for my scrapping habits. Yay me!