We Appreciate!

Gulp!! I can't believe it, another year has passed me by, and there is so much going on that I look back and wonder if I showed everyone near and dear to me how much they mean to me? I've already missed 3 birthdays this month, was a bit behind on getting back to customer questions, and the poor designers have been left to pull together another great newsletter. I wonder where the time is going already, as I have hit the middle of my first month of the year and it's all just a blur!

First and foremost, I so appreciate the designers at Paperthreads! They are so fun and easy to work with, it's been such a great year! Not too often you can get a group of 15 ladies together and have a happy jolly good time! But we really do! We are really having fun at what we do, being creative and able to use our energy making things fun.

Next, I'm so appreciative of the support you all have given to the Paperthreads forum and store throughout the year! You are all what makes it happen, and if you think having 15 ladies get along so well is an awesome feat, think of how TERRIFIC it is that we have a forum of over 5,200 members sharing ideas, thoughts, information, talents, and just plain old friendships! It's really such a blessing!

The designers really wanted to give back to you in a way to show how much we enjoy the time we spend with you all in this virtual world we have created. So, on January 21st (YEP, MARK YOUR CALENDARS, IT'S THIS MONDAY!) we are hosting a Customer Appreciation Day like you've never seen before! Pop in for a minute or two and participate, or stock up on the chocolates and diet cokes (iced tea for me!) and join us for hours of fun that day! We are going to be having some scrappin' challenges, easy to win contests, and for the FIRST TIME in Paperthreads history, ALL downloadable products in the store are going to be on SALE!! Yep, the sales will range from 20% to 50% off!! So make sure you check it out!!

Oh....and....shhhhhh...you heard it first here.....We will also be introducing and announcing our NEWEST Designer that day, and you will be able to get all her files for a GREAT introductory sale price!! You won't want to miss it!

Many thanks to all,

Michelle Hessler, Paperthreads

IN THIS ISSUE:

We Appreciate

Forum Member of the Month

Inkscape: Welding Letters to a Shape

21 Designer Tips & Tricks

Gallery Picks

Using an Overlay

Link It Up

Product Review: Grungeboard

Great Freebies!

Funtime: Using Stencil Bridge

Forum Member of Month

by Michelle Hessler, Paperthreads Designs

This always seems like such a hard task, to go through and try to keep track of who did what in the forum, because we have so many wonderful active members! Slowly but surely we will be highlighting those that we feel have made a great impact towards the success of the Paperthreads forum! This month I get the task of choosing the Forum Member of the Month!  It was really hard to pick just one person, but I decided to choose someone who’s been on the forum for about a year now, she's participated in the swaps, and for the most part has been pretty quiet on the forum! Lately though, she has been popping in there, welcoming the newest members, offering words of encouragment and answering a few questions here and there! It's this kind of activity and enthusiasim that we love in the forum, because it is our way of paying it forward, and soon those she has helped or encouraged will become new active members of the forum!

A special thanks to kabebout, aka Karen! We appreciate you sticking around and giving back to the community that helped you get started with your cutter! The more we share like this and continue to bring the things we learned into questions and answers in the forum, the better place we will become for that next new owner that is struggling!

For being chosen as the Paperthreads Forum Member of the Month, kabebout will be receiving the Game-opoloy designed by Paperthreads Designs!

Inkscape: Welding Letters to a Shape

by Carrie Schwartz, Carrie's Creations

Once you learn some basic steps welding letters to a shape is really an easy task that you can use over and over again in creating some awesome files!

In this tutorial I will show you just how to do that and you will also learn a fundamental step in art or design.  When creating anything from scratch there are basic foundations that should be learned.  If you look around you with the eyes of an artist you will see that every form is made up from shapes.  Think of a cat, his eyes are the shape of squinted ovals, it’s ears like triangles it’s head an oval and so on.  Once you begin to sketch out these shapes you can then bring them all together to get one form, the cat.  This is like laying a foundation and the beginning of design.  When you start to look at items in this way you can begin to create just about anything.

CLICK HERE and start making your creations today!

21 Tips and Tricks from the Designers!

by Paperthreads Design Team

Check out this list we compiled for you!! Here are some great scrapbooking and cutter tips we've compiled for you, and think you will find handy!

1. Save the little silica packets (the ones that say do not eat) that come in shoes and other packaging. Toss them in with your cardstock and paper stash to help keep them dry during humid days.
2. Save the small pieces of foam/sponge that come on your clothing to protect your garments from the marks left by hangers. Cut them into small pieces or strips and use them with your alligator-clip applicators to apply ink or chalk.
3. Purchase a cheap 6" plastic spackle or putty knife at the hardware store for under a couple of dollars and use it to remove lots of stuck on bits from your mat with one swipe, or to gently pry up delicate cuts. Other options are to check out the clay section of your craft store or the tooth care area at your local dept store - the clay tools or the dental pics there are much cheaper and work great to pick up corners of delicate cuts.
4. Save even more money...use those cardboard credit cards that come in the junk mail, they lift up those cuts from the mat too, and best of all, you've recycled!
5. If your carrier sheet is too sticky when it first comes out of the bag, place a clean T-shirt on it and lift off a few times.
6. For delicate cuts that are too small for a regular glue stick, try out the Sakura Quickie Glue Pen. It lays down a line of adhesive that is only as wide as a pen line, and it never clogs up. Cost is about $2.50, but it lasts a long time.
7. Use a disposable lint roller to remove fuzzies from your carrier sheet between sprays with Krylon Easy Tack Repositionable Spray Adhesive #7020. (Renews the stickiness.)
8. Add depth to your cuts with a plain embossing stylus for a fancy dimensional look.
9. Altoids Tins are a great place to store spare blades, and they don't disappear into your desk forever.
10. If you use more than one kind of blade with your cutter, (ie: regular, thick, or super-thick blades), mark the shaft of each type of
    blade with a different colored magic marker (red, black, blue) so you can tell at a glance which one you are grabbing.
    
11. Use a little alcohol on a swab to clean gunky buildup off of your blades once in a while, to improve cutting performance.
12. Clear pocket shoe organizer- can be hung on a wall or on the back of a door. Stamps, embellishments, and all sorts of things can be stored in the clear pockets and you can easily find and locate what you're looking for.
13. Place an empty basket on your workspace. Each time you finish using something, scrap paper, a tool, a punch, place it in the basket. Then, when you are finished scrapbooking that page, get up and take the basket with you. Put everything back away where it goes.
14. Keep a can of air handy, and when cutting chipboard, have your cutter do one pass then before it goes and does the second pass, use the air to blow off any debris that might cause the blade to shift in the second pass.
15. Have trouble getting the little pieces punched out of your cut design?  Use a dental pic or those plastic pics with dental floss strung on them.  The pointed end works great to punch those little pieces out.
    
16. Want to cut thicker material, like that grungeboard? Make a template from chipboard (that is the same/similar thickness to the material you are cutting) and cut out a rectangle from the center, in the same size as your material you are cutting (grungeboard comes in 5x8 sheets, so make that rectangle the same size.) Pop the grungeboard material in that open rectangle, load it on your mat, and roll it through. You won't have to worry about the material slipping or the rollers moving off of the material and getting stuck, as the rollers will be off the actual material and instead over the "chipboard."
17. Here's an age old tip, when wanting to create an even row of eyelets on your page, take a piece of the plastic canvas that you use for canvas sewing (like those little tissue boxes, etc) and cut one to the size of your paper or card. Use that as a template, as the squares on it are even, and it makes a perfect way to "space" your eyelets!
18. Store your stickles upside down to make them always ready for use.  When stored upside this keeps the air from getting trapped in the glitter glue... so when you use it will come out in a solid application with no unwanted air bubbles!
    
19. Sandpaper makes a great tool when your cut didn't quite make it all the way through, you don't have to start all over, use a little sand paper to get rid of any extra nibs of paper, or even to get you through that last layer that didn't cut well.
20. For a stickier mat to hold those heavier items in place, take your permanent adhesive sticker roll, and cover your mat! Make sure you use a permanent marker to mark the mat as having permanent adhesive on it!
    
21. Join Paperthreads and the Design Team, make 21 YOUR lucky number, as we celebrate YOU during our first ever Customer Appreciation Day!!