Hello Dahle!

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Look what I purchased on my lunch hour last Friday! I bought it online so I don't have it yet but I'm very excited about my new paper trimmer. I can't find it now but during my research over the past week, I learned the difference between a paper cutter and a paper trimmer. It almost seemed counter-intuitive to what I would have thought the words meant. But I can't find it now so you'll have to trust me.

I learned if you sort the trimmer/cutters high price to low price that you'll start in the $25,000 range. I learned there are electronic/digital programmable cutters. If that was at all affordable, that would be cool because I do make a lot of the same cuts over and over.

I've been Googling my brains out over this for about a week now and I figured out what features I wanted. I bought this one at MachineRunner.com when I saw they had their Live Chat open. I chatted up Amanda and she helped me narrow down my choices. I asked her which brand is considered the Cadillac of trimmers? She said Dahle is a very reliable brand. (Steve was impressed with this because I'm not usually a top-of-the-line kind of girl.)

I've been using a Fiskars trimmer that is so old I can't find a photo online to show you. (And I'm too lazy to take a photo of mine.) It's actually a unit that Gretchen bought maybe 10 years ago that I borrowed and never gave back. I felt guilty about that for about 5 years but then I got over it. Guess I sure got Gretchen's money's worth out of this trimmer, huh?

I religiously change the surface the blade touches. A couple of months ago I noticed I couldn't cut as many layers as I used to be able to. I bought a new blade which seemed to help, but not for long. I finally figured out that I think the housing that holds the blade is damaged. I'm pretty sure one isn't supposed to cut multiple layers with this unit. My new trimmer will cut 20 pages at a time but I think that's text weight paper so I'm saying it will cut 10 pieces of cardstock at a time. With my current trimmer, the most I could ever cut consistently was 3. And this new blade is self-sharpening. There's a clamp to hold the paper in place.

I'm sure it will arrive sometime this week. Which means I better start now to clear off enough surface on my work table. I'm going to keep my other trimmer to use for scoring. I used to be able to score 3 layers at a time too. But still, it will be nice not to have to change the blades back & forth between cutting and scoring.

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And now on to this week's craft show! Sometimes customers will look at my list of upcoming craft shows and ask if they were to attend one other one, which would I recommend, which one is my favorite. And this is the one I tell them about. It's been my favorite show to attend as a customer for many years, and now it's my favorite show to be in. Last year was my first time - and I sold out of some stuff. So I'm very feverishly working like crazy to make sure I have enough inventory. I'm sure I'll still worry about it - I think every crafter does. When I set up my vacation days for this show season, I scheduled a day off for the day before the show because I knew I'd be getting nerved out about having enough stuff. Busy, busy.

2008 HOLIDAY BAZAAR ARTS & CRAFTS SALE
Sponsored by the RMSC Women's Council

Friday, November 21: 5:00pm–9:00pm
Saturday, November 22: 9:30am–5:00pm
Sunday, November 23: 11:00am–4:00pm

Admission:
$4 one day; $7 two days; children 12 and under FREE.
Friday Night Special for RMSC Members: admission $2 this night only!

More than 180 exhibitors of original art and hand-made crafts fill the museum galleries and Eisenhart Auditorium with thousands of beautiful, unusual items for holiday gifts and decor.

Enjoy food and beverages at the Cunningham House Café, located in the former studio of Rochester artist Kathleen Cunningham, who donated her home to the RMSC. Now part of the science center campus, the building houses administrative offices and is not usually open to the public.

This year's event also features a free raffle, door prizes, and a used book sale.

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