Don’t Be Jealous

I’m not sure if you know how much cutting I do when I’m working on various projects. A lot. For example, the invitations for the last party I worked on needed address labels (“regular” and return). You know me - go big or go home. I created each separately and, of course, didn’t make them square. That meant that I needed to cut them all out with scissors. So that’s 100 cut labels just for the initial save-the-dates. Then another for the invites and on and on. My fingers will blister after a while. OK. That might be pushing it. But they hurt. And every time I’m working on them, I want to scream. I tell myself never again. But, of course, there’s ALWAYS an again. No more. I sucked it up and bought this:

A freaking Silhouette CAMEO®! I know some (or most) of you are wondering what the heck it is. Here’s the description from their website:

The Silhouette CAMEO® is an electronic cutting tool for personal use. Like a home printer, it plugs into your PC or Mac® with a simple USB cable. However, instead of printing it uses a small blade to cut paper, cardstock, vinyl, fabric and more up to 12″ wide and 10 feet long. The machine also has the ability to register and cut printed materials.

So…it’s basically the best thing ever. That’s the subtext. With it you can make about a million things. Here’s a small sampling:

Aren’t they all so amazing?! And I could have posted about a thousand more. Seriously. I mean, the thing cuts paper, obviously, but also vinyl and fabric. Can you say wall stencils and appliques?? It’ll be able to cut envelopes in whatever color/graphic I want! It’s pretty much the bee’s knees.

NOW, it’s not cheap. Normally it’s almost $300. Yikes. You can find it on Amazon for about $270. But I looked around and saw that a lot of people recommended a place called Oh My Crafts. Why? Because they have really great coupon codes. Like really good. I reached out to them and asked if they would offer my readers a discount. So, if you use the code “HIP12″ you will receive…0% off. HA! SIKE! BUT if you use the code “NOW25″ (like I did), you’ll get 25% off. TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT!!! That means it’s just over $200. This is the enthusiasm I oozed when I broke the news to Ryan. It didn’t hurt that I already had $150 balance in my PayPal account (thanks Ron Burgundy pillows!), so it ended up being the cost of dinner and a movie in Los Angeles. For serious.

So get ready. When this thing arrives at my door, I will officially be unstoppable. Watch. I won’t be able to figure out how to use it…