Croppin' Train Express - September 11

Thanks to EVERYONE that attended the September 11 Croppin' Train Express event! We had a full house, and it was great! Build your own deli sandwiches for lunch and a delicious roast, with carrots and potatoes, for dinner! It was fun to see what projects everyone was working on - so many ideas! We'll rest a few days and then it's on to more planning, etc. for the Fall 2010 Croppin' Train Scrapbook Retreat week-end.

Imaginisce I-Rock

I finally got my hands on the I-Rock tool by Imaginisce! For a couple weeks, everyone was sold out!

The I-Rock is battery-operated, and has a metal stem that heats up, allowing you to adhere pre-glued gems to paper, fabric, etc. The heated metal stem melts the glue enough to allow the gem to stick. If you don't like the placement, you can re-heat the gem (again, melting the glue), move it and there's still enough glue to re-adhere it somewhere else.

The only 'problem' I've had with it is having enough patience to wait the (approximately) 15 seconds it takes to adequately melt the glue. Overall, it's really a cool tool, does a good job of adhering the gems and is very quick and easy to use. Following are some pictures of the first time I used it.

These are some of the accessories I purchased. Each round container has different gems in it. The flowers have gems that can be glued in the flower's center. The templates are made of a light-weight teflon-like 'fabric' - they're not plastic. One template comes with each package of flowers and gems.

Here I'm using one of the Flourish templates on an Independence Day layout I had done earlier. It was very easy to use. You can actually put the gems in the corresponding holes, adhere them and then lift the template away. Well, the pictures and text aren't really cooperating tonight, but, I think you get the idea of how this works. :)

We'll be demoing the I-Rock at the November Retreat.

Back to School Purses

For our freshman college daughter and her three roommates, I made these purses. Each purse contained a matching beaded pen and two binder clip note holders, along with the snazzy sunglasses on the front, of course, These were really fun to put together; surprisingly, the actual purse goes together pretty quickly. You can't really see it in the pictures, but each purse is lined with coordinating paper.

Back to School Backpacks

I have several projects to share with you. For the little grandchildren, I made these miniature backpacks and put a gift card in each one, along with a couple sweet munchies, of course.