Spellbinder's Wizard and High School Musical 2

Today is a very exciting day at our house! If you have any pre-teen daughters, you know what I'm talking about.......HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2 IS TONIGHT!!!!!!!! We have been waiting all summer and tonight's the night. My girls are having 4 friends over for movie night so I have some fun things planned, which you'll see at the end of the post....don't peek yet, you gotta see the Wizard demo first!!

Many of you have been asking what kind of die cutting machine works best for the Spellbinder's Nestabilitiy Dies. Since working with the Spellbinder's Wizard, I have to say that THIS is the machine I recommend. My only other experience with die machines is the Cuttlebug. I like how it works just fine but there are a few drawbacks to my Cuttlebug. For one, it's a cheap enough machine money wise BUT I have spent so much money in replacement spacer plates that have broken that it was becoming a frequent trip to Michael's to get new plates. And that added up dollar wise too! And the machine is made up of a lot of plastic so there was a LOT of cracking noises going on.

So why the Wizard for me? The main points that sold me on the Wizard are it's durability and that it is truly a universal machine. The Wizard is the only all metal machine on the market with NO PLASTIC and it accepts any other dies on the market! That means that this machine is gonna hold up for the long haul. The pressure in the Wizard is 3,000 pounds as the paper and die pass through the rollers. That's a LOT of pressure and it helps tremendously when embossing too. The embossed edges are crisp and clean and look STELLAR!! And you can also do things like flatten bottle caps, how cool is that! I couldn't believe it but it works!!!!! And the plates are very thick and durable, they WILL NOT crack, no way. The system works like a ratchet tool.....you slide your plates in and crank it back and forth, feeding the plates through the machine. And it works for both left and right handed people. The Wizards are available through Ellen's online store, along with the Nestability Dies and some other fun Spellbinder's Dies too. It is well worth the price if you are looking for a new machine.

Now onto my photos. I wanted to show you a few steps as to how to cut and emboss with the Spellbinder's Wizard and Nestability Die Templates. This first photo shows you how to create a *sandwich* with the various plates. You will hear me talk about sandwiches a lot and I'm not referring to your favorite PB&J. A sandwich is the way you layer your dies before placing them into the Wizard. To cut a shape (I'm using a scallop rectangle Nestability Die Template for this demo), here's the first sandwich layers you'll need: Starting with the bottom layer, you'll need the Cutting Mat, the Spacer Plate, the metal Die(cutting edge UP), cardstock, and the other Cutting Mat. See photo labels for a better visual. You sandwich this all together. You with me so far?

Then you place this sandwich on the flat purple surface of the Wizard. To get the sandwich to feed through the *wringers* (think old washing machine), you slide the sandwich into the wringer bars and then use the palm of your hand to manually turn the wringers. This catches the end of the sandwich and starts to feed it through. It's the slickest trick and works every time. The sandwich will go in about an inch and then you can work the handle back and forth until the sandwich slides out. Let me say that this sandwich will shoot out like like a cork gun if you're not careful. There is so much pressure that you need to be sure to hold the sandwich as it comes out.

What you'll have when you open your sandwich is your cardstock cut with the shape of the die. You can peel away the outter scrap of cardstock and discard. There you have it, your die cut shape. If you don't want to emboss your shape, you are done. Simply poke the shape out of the die and continue with your project.

But if you want to emboss your shaped cardstock also, here's the next step of sandwich making. Anyone getting hungry yet? Remove the white, thin spacer plate and grab the tan rubber mat. Here's the layers starting with the bottom layer: Thick Cutting Mat, Metal die with cardstock still in it (cutting edge UP), Tan Rubber Mat, the other Thick Cutting Mat. Make your sandwich and insert into the Wizard as I've shown above.

When you're all done, you'll have some fun cut and embossed rectangles like the ones I've done below. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the combination of cutting and embossing! So there you have it! It's easy peasy once you've done it a few times.

I also wanted to show you how I store my metal die templates. This photo below shows two sets of dies housed in one CD case. Each side of the CD case can store an entire set of dies. This means 5-6 dies on each side!! I use a magnet strip to hold them all in place. Try storing ten big punches in ONE CD CASE!

This photo below shows ALL of my sets of dies stored in ONE small metal basket! That's 50 or 60 dies all in one little basket!! I can't believe it hardly but it's true.....the storage factor HAS to sell you on these dies girls! Try storing 50-60 hand held punches. I know I don't have the room for that kind of storage!!

Well, I hope you will benefit from the tutorial of how to operate the Wizard and make Wizard Sandwiches!! Have fun and ask me any questions, I love to help!

Now onto my High School Musical project. Here's what I made with all of those scallop cut and embossed cardstock shapes. They are movie passes that are attached to a blue lanyard. I got the lanyards for free at Walmart. They were giving them away to promote HSM2 and had the little tickets attached. But at my Walmart they only had ONE ticket left. So I got the freebie lanyards and color copied the tickets at home onto white cardstock. I cut them out and adhered them to my blue recrangle scallop shapes. Then I attached them to the lanyards. I'm also going to cut some more scallop shapes in fun colors and let the party girls cut out magazine photos of the HSM2 cast, glue them on and then they'll have trading cards to attach to their lanyards too!! How fun, I can't wait!

Here's the ensemble of party decorations that I'll set up later today before the girls get home from school. We'll do the craft, then eat pizza and we'll have snacks and popcorn during the movie. I'm going to be in my stamp room but will probably be watching the movie too! By osmosis of the tv being on all day, I absorb all of these shows..so now I'm curious to see it too!!

Now I know what you're all thinking so I'll just answer your question now. YES, I AM THE COOLEST MOM EVER!!!!!!!!! Bwa ha ha ha!! I think I'll wear my lanyard tonight too!!

Here's the recipe for the yummy party mix that's shown in the party ensemble photo. I make this all the time for school parties, teachers, holidays. The kids LOVE it!

Microwave Sweet Party Mix

6 T margarine
3 T light corn syrup
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 large bag plain M & M’s (seasonal if you want it for the holidays)
1/2 jar honey roasted peanuts
4 cups Corn Chex
1 cups Rice Chex

Melt margarine, syrup and brown sugar in microwave for 1-2 minutes. Add baking soda and stir. Pour over cereals. Stir and cook in microwave for 3 minutes. Pour onto waxed paper and let cool. Add ½ bag of M & M’s and ½ jar of peanuts. I usually double the recipe so that I can use up all the M & M's and peanuts. Enjoy!!

Note: Use a glass dish if possible, as the liquid mixture gets really hot and will melt your plastic bowls.....trust me.