A “GRAND” Celebration

I’m happy to be playing along with other Waltzingmouse Stamps Design Team members in a party on a GRAND scale. A Grand Calibur scale, that is.

You may know that Waltzingmouse Stamps is a cross-promotional partner with Spellbinders. The WMS design team received a wonderful gift from Spellbinders right before Christmas; a Grand Calibur machine! I had seen the Grand Calibur at CHA last July and was so excited about it.  I’d like to give a special thank you to Spellbinders for their generous gift!

I have amassed quiet a collection of Spellbinders Classic and Petite dies, and have frequently been frustrated that I would have to cut one die at a time due to the size of the cutting pad on my Wizard. Well, not only is that problem solved with the Grand Calibur. With a cutting/embossing bed of 8.5 X 11”, I can cut several standard dies at one time.  What a time saver!

In addition to having the ability to cut several dies in one pass, Spellbinders has also released Grand Dies. The Grand die that I purchased was the Labels 14. The enlarged size is wonderful for scrapbooking, or even book making (as I have done with my project today). One feature that I find most attractive and shows that Spellbinders put a lot of thought into this product, is that the Grand Dies coordinate perfectly with the Classic Labels die as you can see in these photos.

Before I show you my projects, let me get some details out of the way first:

The Party began on Friday (see Claire’s post) and ends tonight.
• Folks who purchase anything during the 3-days, ending midnight, Sun 23^rd (tonight) will be entered into a drawing. One person will be randomly picked from posts over our 3-day event to receive their shopping basket free!
• We will also draw one random winner per day from comments left on one of the DT blogs just like we do for regular releases (only there will be three days of winners rather than just one!). Each winner will receive a free stamp set of their choice!
• We will also be holding a special challenge after the party. At the end of the event, we will invite you to CASE a card/project that you have seen from the 3 days. You will have one week to link your entries to the WMS blog post and then we'll pick a random winner for a prize. You may enter as many times as you like. One random winner will receive a set of Grand Nestabilities Dies - Grand Labels 4 and a set of stamps of their choice!

To better your odds of winning, be sure to visit the entire Design Team members’ blogs. The OTHER DT ladies at the party with me today are:

Sandie

Belinda

Jennifer

Laurie

Now I’d like to share with you the projects that I created using my new Grand Calibur machine from Spellbinders:

I wanted to make a recipe book which I would use to jot down recipes from long-time family favorites to pass along to my daughter (should she ever decide she wanted to cook…lol). I selected some lovely Echo Park patterned papers to use for my covers.

Then using my Grand Labels 14 die, I die cut two pieces of patterned paper and one piece of chipboard. After cutting the die cuts in half, I had the two covers for my book.  The chipboard was sandwiched between the two patterned papers, adhered with PVA glue. To insure a good seal, I burnished it with my brayer to flatten out any tiny air bubbles.

Using Victorian Fripperie, I stamped the image onto matching cardstock and trimmed out the image before adhering it to my covers. I added a panel die cut with my regular size labels 14 dies on which I stamped my “Superior Hand Baked & Edible Goods” image that acted as a title for my recipe book. From there I added embellishments of lace, flowers and brads.

After die cutting several pieces of cardstock as pages, I stacked them all together and added the binding with my Bind-It-All.

The first thing you see upon opening the recipe book is an invitation to “dig in” and enjoy.

You can see that a ribbon bookmark was added to aid in “marking the stop” of that very favorite recipe.

A gift like a recipe book must have a matching card to announce its arrival, so I used some scraps left over from the project and created this card using the Frame it set complete with an image of a yummy cupcake embossed with iridescent embossing powder and embellished with a pearl.

I was able to die cut my Eyelet Borderabilities and my frame for my cupcake image all in one pass with the Grand Calibur.  I LOVE that!

That’s it for me today. Be sure to stop by the other DT members on today’s hop, and don’t forget to leave them a little love for your chance to win!

{Supplies} *note “/” separates recipe book supplies from card supplies

Stamps: Rescue Remedies, Victorian Fripperie / Frame It, Spring Baskets & Victorian Fripperie

Papers: Be Mine Collection (Echo Park), Pure Luxury Bubblegum Pink, Pure Luxury Ivory, Gray/same for card

Inks: Cobblestone (Vivid) Milled Lavender (Ranger Distress Ink), Tuxedo Black (Memento) /  Cobblestone, Milled Lavender

Accessories: Grand Labels 4 Die, Regular Labels 4 Die, Maya Road Chipboard Butterfly, Glossy Accents, Zva Creative Butterfly Bling, Making Memories Jumbo Pebble Brad, Pebbles Dandy Dots, Pink Lace Scallop Trim, Thin Chipboard used on Recipe book to give covers more thickness, Bind-It-All /  Spellbinders Eyelet Borderabilities, Labels 15 Die, Zva Creative Tiny Pearls, Iridescent Embossing Powder