Christmas Came Early!!

I can't even BEGIN to tell you how excited I was when the gorgeous machine arrived on my doorstep late yesterday afternoon!!!!  I squealed like a little girl and even the lady mail deliverer was laughing at me!!!  :)  This is the gorgeous Grand Calibur by Spellbinders!!!!  I have been DYING to try this out - it's hard to tell from pictures, but unlike my old Cuttlebug, this one has a mouth size of 8 1/2 inches - so you can put an entire piece of A4 Cardstock through it without trimming!!!!!  *HAPPY SIGH*  AND - can you see the plates are all coloured coded and NAMED!!!  Oh Happy Day - no more picking up the wrong one!!!  YIPPEEE!!!  :)

Now I really should be doing things in preparation for Christmas, but instead I'm going to show you some pics of how this machine works!!  :)

The Grand Calibur has to have the ridges of the die facing up, so to make sure my Large Circle Nestabilities die doesn't move, I've taped it with some Scotch Removable Magic Tape where I want it to stay.  I have a roll of this permanently on my desk!  The Poppies are from JustRite Stamper's Plant a Little Love stamp set.

This is the sandwich for cutting with your Spellbinders dies, from the bottom -
*Gray A Plate
* Then your die (that I've taped to my poppies image)
*Paper/Cardstock
*White C Plate

Make sure your sandwich is flat and then place it into the mouth of the Grand Calibur and wind the handle!  Yep, this one is a winder, not a crank action like the Wizard, and it is SOOOOOOO smooth!!!

To emboss the edges of your shape, leave the paper/cardstock in your die (it cuts so well that your paper will just pop out easily - beautiful crisp cutting!!!) and follow this sandwich -
* Gray A Plate
* Die with paper still inside
* Tan Embossing Mat (comes with the Grand Calibur)
* Pink B Plate

Make sure your sandwich is flat and put it through the Grand Calibur!!  Remember I said it was a winder and how smooth it was??  Here is my 3yr old winding the embossing sandwich through - she loves helping!  ;-)

Look at the beautiful embossing result the Grand Calibur gives....

To give a comparison between machines, I cut and embossed two of the Heirloom Ornaments dies (same size,  both using Very Vanilla Cardstock) and here is the result....

The Grand Calibur's embossing is SO much sharper!!!

If you've stayed with me this long - thanks for indulging me today with my new toy machine, actually the box says it's not a toy, but it sure is lots of fun!!!  :)

Hugs
Kathy  :)

FTC - Grand Calibur graciously provided by Spellbinders for me to play with!!  :)