Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 35th Birthday!  Normally, we don't make a big deal about grown-up birthdays in my family.  We usually just get everyone together for a nice dinner out.  Last night we went to our favorite pizza place for the most amazing Deep Dish pizza.  I have lived in the Chicago area all my life and I have tried a lot of pizzas, but I have to say that this little suburban place is the best!!  If you live in the Western Suburbs of Chicago you have got to try Barone's in Glen Ellyn.  They have been in business for a long time and their pizza is just wonderful!

So for my birthday, I decided to re-design my blog and I hope that you like it.  If you have any suggestions for it, please let me know because I love the feedback! 

I have also decided to celebrate my birthday by doing a week's worth of tutorials for you.  I will be featuring the eCraft, Make the Cut, and also some of my favorite SVGs from Lettering Delights.  With all the recent "unrest" with Provo Craft (makers of the Cricut line of die cutting machines), I have been getting a lot of inquires from people looking at the eCraft as an option for their future die cutting needs.  In light of that, I thought I would share a video today that showcases the eCraft and offers some tips to any eCraft owner on how to get the best possible cuts from your machine.  I have to give a big shout out to the members of the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo Group.  Most of the tips that I share in the video are not mine!  They came from the group and I just wish that I could remember who exactly offered these suggestions because I would love to personally give them the credit and to thank them for sharing!



I have been asked by some people to compare the eCraft to the other die cutting machines out there, and I am afraid that I really can't do that.  There are two reasons for this, the first is that the only other die cutting machine that I own is the Cricut.  The other reason is that it would be extremely difficult to compare the eCraft to any of the other machines because the eCraft is not built like any of the other machines.  Since the eCraft is designed to be mat-less, it really changes everything.  This is also the very reason why so many eCraft owners have had to go through a large learning curve.  I do plan on doing a full review of the eCraft once the stable versions of the SCAL and MTC plug-ins are available.  Since the software is such an integral part of the eCraft, I want to make sure that I have played with all of the options before making a recommendation.  Right now, both MTC and SCAL are still in beta and there are things that need to be resolved in both programs (although minor compared to the eCraftshop Pro software), so therefore I really cannot definitively say which program is better for the eCraft.  You will see in the tutorials coming up this week that I am using Make the Cut.  The reason for this is that I am more familiar with the program, but I am keeping an open mind about SCAL for the eCraft.  So with that being said, I hope that you enjoy the tutorials that I have planned for this week.