How I Spent My Long Labor Day Weekend

 

I am sure it will come as quite a surprise to all of you but I didn't work myself to death trying to accomplish a million projects or renovate something.  Instead I did something I rarely do, but plan to do a lot more of and a lot more often.  I spent the vast majority of my four day weekend crafting.

 

A week ago my girls surprised me on my birthday with a Sissix Big Shot die cutting machine.  I have pined for one of these for a very long time, but was never willing to make the investment, especially as I was more interested in getting myself debt free.  My very generous girls gave me the die cutter and I couldn't be any happier about it if I tried.  I put it to work!

 

One of my favorite types of crafts is paper crafting, in particular I like to make greeting and Christmas cards.  I'm not sure what it is about paper, but I love it.  All the colors, textures, styles, prints, you name it and I thoroughly enjoy it.  If there was one thing I could hoard it could quite easily might be paper.

 

I bought some new die sets

Last week and also over the weekend I did something else I rarely do.  I spent some money.  On craft supplies.  Yep, I sure did.  I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up four sheets of their loose scrapbook paper for a whopping 25¢ a sheet as well as a pack of colored cardstock and a 50 count set of multi colored gel pens.  I may have a slight obsession with pens as well as paper.  I only spent $15 there, but my eBay and Amazon orders were slightly more.  I have no regrets.

 

I made a boatload of die cut embellishments

I paid a couple visits to Amazon and eBay as well for envelopes, more paper and something I'm really excited to receive and you'll probably think I'm nuts.  But!  I purchased two boxes of used vintage greeting cards.  I love to cut apart greeting cards and use them to make new ones.  It's weird, but it is something I really enjoy doing.  And I've been out of cards for quite some time so I decided to just buy some.  They were super cheap and I should have plenty to last me a good long time now.

 

I spent a fair amount of time with my Sissix and some new dies I had ordered from Amazon cutting components to make paper embellishments.  I cut and folded a gob of card bases in white as well as various sizes.  And I designed a boatload of greeting cards I plan to make.  I also made some of those cards and really impressed my girls.

 

So what do I plan to do with all of the cards I plan to make?  That is a really good question.  I will use some of them of course to send to friends and loved ones.  However, I am toying with the idea of selling some of them too.  Finance my hobby and see if it can be somewhat self supporting.  I have an Etsy shop that I could stock and reopen.  What do you think about that idea?