The past few weeks I've been kicking around the idea of buying a Spellbinders Wizard. Although I have a Cuttlebug I've been disgruntled because although I could cut the Nestie shapes on my Cricut I couldn't do the embossing. Somehow, by accident I came across Penny Duncan's blog and low and behold, there was a link for a tutorial she'd done on cutting the Nestie shapes on your Cricut and then emboss them on your Cuttlebug.
I began rifling through Penny's offerings of free SVG;s (cut files for the Cricut) and I couldn't believe how many files she had created and was now offering to the public for free... I thought it couldn't be true because rarely do people do anything this enormous and then give all their hard work away freely, but its true.
Penny has laborously generated just hundreds of cut files, including a ton of Nestie type shapes she calls "Shaplies" and then figured out a way to cut extras at a reduced size and push them thru the Cuttlebug so they are now embossed. I've been so happy to think that maybe I wouldn't have to put out the money for a Wizard and all the templates afterall but I still needed to try out the tecnique on my own before I'd become a true believer. Just tried it, and sure enough they work and they're beautiful.
If you have a Cricut and you have a Cuttlebug or something like it, then you can also have these great Shaplies by going to Penny's website and downloading the free files.
Now my next issue was trying to figure out how to make paper roses and be able to color them in the colors I choose but after trying to find Mulberry paper I was starting to think it might be more costly than it was really worth until I went back to Penny's page and found that now she's added a tutorial and the cut files for paper roses just like th ones you buy at the craft stores but these are made from something you probably have in the house... coffee filters.
I'm starting to think that Penny Duncan is a crafting fairy godmother of some type... she reads the minds of those crafters who are budget minded and then she works to make our crafting desires possible. This week alone she's saved me a bunch of money. I figure the least I can do is donate thru her blog and then come here to tell you all about her and give you a link to her site so you all can see how gifted and generous she is. Hopefully you'll download some files of your own, maybe something you've been looking for and just couldn't find or something that you wanted but thought was too expensive. Whatever the reason, you really should take a stroll over to her site and check her out. She'll inspire you to rise to her level of kindness and generosity.
