Preservation Arts

Forgotten Friday: My Very First Spellbinders Projects

In preparation for the CHA Spellbinders Blog Frenzy, Margie asked me what the first project I ever created with the Wizard was. That took me on a fun little stroll down memory lane and through my digital files. Here’s the scoop on how it began…

I started papercrafting when my son Isaac was born over six years ago. At the time we lived in Cleveland and many of my friends were scrapbookers. I attended church with Becky Higgins, and while we were not close friends, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how much she really inspired my taking up the hobby. It was her baby article in the May 2003 issue of Creating Keepsakes that sealed the deal for me. I saw the issue while in the pediatrician’s office and would not have picked it up to read if I hadn’t recognized her on the cover from church. After reading the article, I really wanted a scrapbook like hers for my baby.

Becky’s fabulously clean style wasn’t quite what came out of me from the start. I began to find myself scouring magazines and websites to learn new and innovative techniques. I especially gravitated toward stamping and the newly popular “grunge” look. Scrapbooking quickly became a creative outlet for me that I hadn’t experienced before. I’m still fully dedicated to preserving memories, but I wholly embrace the art of it all. (Hence the name Preservation Arts!)

In my thorough cover-to-cover examination of the February or March 2004 (I think!) issue of Creating Keepsakes, I ran across a small half-page ad about a “Universal Die-Cutting & Embossing System” called the Wizard. I was intrigued by the idea and did not yet have a die-cutter. Hand cut titles were very popular at the time and I was interested in ways to cut letters that didn’t involve an x-acto knife.

I emailed Stacey to find out more information and found out that her little office was just a few miles down the freeway from where we lived. It was so fun and exciting to see Stacey demonstrate her invention to me. I was immediately enamoured with her and her machine. As soon as the machines and dies were ready (handmade by her husband Jeff), I purchased one of the very first ones and took it home with me.

The first dies I had were the original daisy die and the star and moon… the old ones that Jeff made out of aircraft aluminum. The first project I created was with shrink plastic and the spellbinders Totally Texture Sheets.

Not long after I met Stacey and got my Wizard, she asked me for help with several projects. I started playing with lots of different ways to use die-cuts and many wizard-specific techniques such as photo transfers, charm embossing and more.

I created the beach page shown here with one of Stacey’s photos to be featured on her first appearance on the PBS show Scrapbook Memories filmed in May, 2004.

That summer, I started traveling with Stacey and the two of us taught classes and gave demonstrations all over the country, including Camp Memory Makers, the Great American Scrapbook Convention, Creating Keepsakes Conventions, and more.

I served as officially as Spellbinders Education Director until August 2006 when I took time away to work with my mom and be with my family. I am absolutely loving being on the design team. I missed the creative challenges that being a part of Spellbinders brought to my life.

If you got this far, props to you for reading all this. Have a wonderful day!