Questions

First, my lovelies, let me say that I'm sorry I haven't kept to my promise to myself of blogging once a week. Life really hit us hard in January with the death of The Senior Sports Fan and then the brief illness and death of the younger of our two Goldens, Chance. I'm going to try to just forgive myself for that and pick up and start over, an idea from Jessica Wesolek, who had vowed to post every day in March, then got the flu. I'm glad she's feeling better and I'm even more glad to pick up her idea of not dropping the ball just because of a glitch, no matter how major or minor. So on with the post.

My question to you is:

What tools do you most cherish, need, have to have in your art-making?

I love my Tim Holtz scissors, my Tonic paper cutters, my wooden brayers, the Making Memories tweezers, to name just a few.

Have you ever bought a tool and wondered if maybe it was a foolish purchase, a waste of money, only to find that you constantly reached for it, time after time?

All of the above were just that to me! Is it that way for you too?

It's just something I was thinking about. I've wanted a craft cutter for a long time and have never been able to decide between a Silhouette, a Wishblade, and a Pazzles. It didn't take a long time to discover that the Silhouette, the Craft ROBO, and the Wishblade were exactly the same cutter, all made by Graphtec, a company that makes industrial plotters and cutters. The difference is in the software that comes with it. If you have Adobe Illustrator, it makes sense to buy the Silhouette so that you can use designs from it to cut original designs instead of being dependent on the designs sold by the company that sold the machine.

I've been round and round on which one to get and even if I should get one at all. The nearly $400 price tag was holding me back. How could I justify paying that much when I didn't know how much I'd use it.So about ten days ago, I came across a huge sale and got a Silhouette for $99! (Google and you'll find it.) I'm learning to use it and was just tickled silly with the first two pages I cut. Between ordering it and receiving it, I had my doubts about whether I should have bought it. But when I took that first piece of paper out of it, I thought that it just might become one of those tools I want to use all the time!

Stay tuned to find out!