Good Friday morning to everyone! Whew, what a busy week. Seems I was stuck at home (actually a good thing as I got a lot done and read MANY books) for weeks, and then everything piles in at once.
Have many of you wondered, as have I, just how long our framelits and thinlits will last, or how many items you can cut with them before they are too dull to work anymore?? Well, read on, and I will give you a clue.
I do considerable volunteer work for a few organizations, and each one seems to think I have NOTHING else to do! HA! Well, maybe they are right, in that if I was overly busy I wouldn’t have time to read MANY books, right?
Needless to say, I try to put my crafty ways to good use where I can. One of the organizations for whom I volunteer is having a fundraiser banquet Sunday. We have been very busy preparing for it….lining up other volunteers to help with serving, decorating, clean up, providing food, sponsoring tables, advertising, gift bags, etc. etc.! It is great that we have a good number of folks willing to help.
Each attendee will have by their plate a clear bag with some goodies in it, including (the point of this blog) flower shaped seed paper.
What is seed paper you ask? Well, the Botanical Paperworks web site will explain it better than I can, but basically seeds are IN the paper, so you plant the paper and things grow. COOL!
Our banquet theme is ‘Sowing Seeds’ and we thought seed paper was appropriate to include for each guest. I wanted a rather large die cut, preferably a flower, as the seeds in the paper are of wildflowers. Alas, I had no flower die large enough that really looked like a flower, so I substituted the doily from the new Dear Doily Bundle. I do think it rather looks like a flower, don’t you ?
Guess what? It cut this many and shows no sign of dulling.
Well, just how many is that, you ask? This many!
We expect 160 guests, and the seed paper comes either 8.5″ x 11″ or 11″ x 17″. I traced around the die on a sheet of both sizes to see which would be the most economical. I could get 12 from an 11″ x 17, so we opted for that size.
We wanted a scripture about the mustard seed parable on the paper, so I cut out one of the shapes, scanned it and copied and pasted 12 on an 11″ x 17″ sheet in Photoshop. I kept the layers so I could delete them later.
Then I typed the text in and copied it to each shape on the sheet. Next, I deleted the shapes and printed. Since our logo color is Purple and the seed paper (which comes in several colors) is lavender, I put the text in purple. I had to cut the paper into 3 strips so it would fit in my Big shot.
It was then a simple matter to use the die and my Big Shot to cut each shape.
Now, as to how many? You can do the math, but I will save you the trouble. 17 sheets times 12 per sheet equals (drum roll please) 204. I will confess that I wasted about 8, as on the first two sheets printed I had them too close to the edge to cut a nice looking, centered verse. So, 204 minus 8 equals 196 shapes cut with my doily.
Wa-Hoo Kachoo! That is a lot of cutting. (took me over an hour cutting them ONE-AT-A-TIME) But, my Big Shot and my doily framelit were up to the task. My shoulder is another story, but we won’t go there. Bear in mind that this paper had SEEDS in it, which your Designer Series Paper and card stock do not. That means that the nearly 200 cuts I have could probably be doubled, or even tripled! In other words, YOUR THINLITS AND FRAMELITS WILL JUST KEEP WORKING FOR YOU.
Now you have it….information you can actually use. I firmly believe that if you don’t bend the heck out of them, your dies will last longer than you!
I hope this post encourages you to think outside the usual uses for our dies and stamps, and apply them to other areas in your life.
I also used the “All Things Thanks” stamp set, and the wishing well from the “Bright Wishes” stamp set, and my Gorgeous Grape Classic Ink Pad to stamp the Thank You gift bags to be given to our donors. They turned out beautifully.
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Wow, just WOW! (I have to broaden my vocabulary!) BUT, I’m speechless!! You tired me out with all that you did to arrive at the beautifully finished product. Our hospice gives out paper with seeds in it. We planted Forget Me Nots but they forgot us 😦 I hope yours fare better in the soil you have in Iowa. Someday you’ll have to tell us what you’ve read. I haven’t been able to read since Perry went to be with the Lord…no desire yet. We always read together and talked about what we read.How long have you been volunteering?
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LOL, Karen! You are such a scream! Your Forget-Me-Nots forgot you??? Too funny, though it isn’t funny when we have high expectations and nothing happens. So, I am sorry you had such an experience. I do hope ours grow lovely flowers.
Actually, it wasn’t anything difficult to do, just time consuming. However, that is pretty much what volunteerism is about, isn’t it? Time? I have always volunteered for church things (by always I mean since I was in high school), and then volunteered for things at my kid’s schools (room mom, PTA, Music Boosters, Sports boosters, making costumes for plays, etc). However, between being somewhat selfish and working, I hadn’t done much since then (except volunteering to babysit grandchildren), until I semi-retired. So, how long? In some ways a long time, and in others, only a few years.
As for reading, I hope you can once again enjoy reading one of these days. I don’t read much of substance…mostly fiction. A couple of favorite authors are Lincoln Child and Karen Kingsbury, but I have many.
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Sweet project! I’m sure that the recipients loved them! 🙂
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Great dies! And the banquet is Sunday, so we will see if they like them or not.
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Oh how wonderful! I love the idea of seed paper as gifts for your banquet attendees – and putting in the time and care to create this beautiful presentation will mean as much to them as the gifts themselves! And what a great piece of info on the durability of our wonderful dies!! Excellent all the way around! Hope the banquet goes really well and that y’all have a super good time! 🙂
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THank you Mary for your great comments. At least I know you read the whole thing, the point of which was to showcase the durability of SU dies. With proper care (not putting them inadvertantly in the trash or bending them out of shape) they should last forever.
I hope our attendees like them as much as I do. They also get a free meal, thanks to our sponsors, so everything they donate will be tax deductible. Our local Pork Producers are providing the pork chops and cooking them, one of the local restaurants is cooking and providing the potato casserole, and a lady who bakes and sells cookies is providing the cookies. We only had to buy salad stuff and green beans. Dinner rolls provided by a local grocery. Win Win Win!! So, I am planning to have a good time.
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hi there I am going to assume you live in the states but I am very curious about your seed paper can you tell me where I would find it please….I live in eastern New Brunswick Canada and I really liked this idea and wanted some for Sunday School thanks for now. I called some flower shops and they never heard of it either ..thanks for now Carolyn I love your blog as well thanks ________________________________
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Thank you Carolyn. There is a link in the text of the blog for the technical paper works if the length does not work contact me again please
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AMAZING! What a labor of love! I can’t believe it only took you an hour to cut that many one at a time! I feel like it took me that long tonight to cut 16 flowers! ☺️ I love the idea of the seed paper and the verse is perfect. Hope it’s a big fundraiser. Thanks for sharing, not only your process and product, but the durability of Mr Big Shot and the dies! Definitely quality dies. Hope you’ll share the bags too.
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Susan, I really appreciate that you took the time to comment. I wasn’t going to post that, but I really did think folks need to know just how great these products are. I will post about the bags today. Just slow getting started.
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