Until recently US orders over $60.00 shipped free, but they made some changes on February 15, and now most orders under $60.00 are 7.99 to ship and over that amount are 4.99 to ship, with additional $ applied to oversize orders (12×12 albums, cutters, etc.)

I like getting things there because since it’s one-at-a-time I can add it to my la carte without full commitment, decide later whether to keep it there or not. There are also “swap” items available, you can swap something in your la carte for something in someone elses. There is a message board to aide with swaps (so you can list things you want, or see what someone else wants and what is available for swapping, often someone is willing to give up something to you for nothing, which is nice. I haven’t ever had to swap, but have gotten a handfuls of things given to me (not “given” just given to my la carte, then I have to purchase it later. Every ‘swap’ item has a time of days left in la carte, your la carte, or their la carte, when it’s swapped, the time stays with it. For instance, I wanted a certain pack of paper, had missed it when it was offered, so I looked in the swap threads and finally found someone with it listed as swappable for something, I PM’d them saying I’d love that pack of paper but didn’t have anything to swap, and they gladly sent the item to me. In a PM all I have to do is click ‘accept’ to have the item transferred to my la carte. Giving stuff to someone else is the same, create a PM to them and add the item easy click and select, then send. The person will either accept or reject the item. If they accept, it’s magically out of your la carte. You also can delete things from your la carte, but it’s nice to make them available to other people if you can.

I have stuff sitting around that I got from cropchocolate the last two times. I need to get it into my stash, but things are such a mess down there (in the basement area where my scrapbooking stuff is.) During the Winter that space is cold, and things get dumped there, children move stuff around, throw toys hither and everywhere, so my scrapspace is needing fixed up, their stuff picked up and moved out of there, etc. I’m not there during the Winter usually. Spring is early this year. It’s too warm in the house, very nice and cool down there. But the mess is too much for INTP me to want to deal with, and I have piles of stuff waiting to be introduced into my stash, and now more on the way soon.

I want to get things scrapbooked, actually complete PAGES, get PHOTOS printed and scrapped. I’ve done lots of things, just hardly any pages. I’m still hung up on what books to use, what format, ecelctic, chronological, theme, or what. I just don’t know. I do know I want to make baby books for my 4 children. I have had things for that, but 3 of them are matching albums from CM and I hate their pages now. I never did anything with the baby books. I want full 12×12, not the CM pages. Anyhow, I have 3 of them, but 4 children. Might as well just buy other albums or make them myself, individual for each.

• Dark Brown Ink
• Light Brown Ink
• Brown Chalk Ink

• Roll of Foam Tape (Scotch)
• New Glue Dots
• Mini Glue Dots
• Either Zip Dry Paper Glue or 3-in-1 Glue
• A more portable 12×12″ paper trimmer
• A new white writing pen
• Inkssentials Blending Tool
• Glossy Accents
• Crop-a-Dial

I have found most of the things I need to bring in August to CKC. Ink is troublesome so far. I did buy some ink, but don’t know if it’s right or good enough for the event. I mean, most things are just “pigment” inks at Michael’s, and the one’s that are the Dye I’m looking for aren’t in Brown of any kind.

The thing about it is for sure, it has to be quick drying to use in a class that’s an hour long. Right? Right. Pigment won’t be right then.

I did buy a big (EK Success) Inkadinkado Black Ink dye ink pad … I just tested it, OK crisp really black lovely fast fast fast drying.

I also bought a giant (Ranger) Archival Ink Sepia ink pad … it’s brown, of some kind, so I need to find a darker one, anyhow, it dries very fast on regular types of paper. OK but it’s not dark nor is it light, it’s really in-between, and I guess it could stand in as light brown if it must, but not dark … no way.

• Dark Brown Ink
• Light Brown Ink
• A more portable 12×12″ paper trimmer
• A new white writing pen




• Inkssentials Blending Tool
• Roll of Foam Tape (Scotch)
• New Glue Dots
• Mini Glue Dots
• Either Zip Dry Paper Glue or 3-in-1 Glue
• Glossy Accents




• Crop-a-Dial

I got some of the above on Amazon.com. I looked for “brown” and “black” ink but I couldn’t find the right things. I have also looked in a Michaels (one I don’t usually go to, still need to go to the 2 I usually go to) and couldn’t find any. I mean regular ink, dye ink. Not expensive, just regular, easy to clean up and fast dry. You’d thing it would be easy enough. No. It’s too complicated to figure out which ink this or that in a store. Most end up being waterproof (not really regular dye then) or Pigment ink. Anyhow, I’ll just forget all that and get anything solvent and make sure to have plenty of wetwipes and stamp cleaner with me. But it’ll come down to this: still needing different shades of brown, light and dark, will be troublesome. I don’t have “BLACK” in the list above. Don’t know why, as I need that too. All my stamp stuff is either old or pigment.

The portable trimmer I have decided on is a Cricut product, $9.99 at Michaels. It’ll go nice with my Cricut/Gypsy stuff. I can get the glue dots at Michaels too. The roll of foam tape there also, or Target, I think.

I also want to get refills for my Xyron 3/8″ tape runner.

My Crop-A-Dial arrived yesterday via UPS. I love it. I wanted to use it right away to set some eyelets, and my eyelets are all missing. I don’t know where they are. I have gone nuts a few times looking for them, feverishly even. Anyhow it punched holes really well. Love that.

This list is things I need thus far:

• Dark Brown Ink
• Light Brown Ink
• A more portable 12×12″ paper trimmer
• A new white writing pen
• Inkssentials Blending Tool
• Roll of Foam Tape (Scotch)
• New Glue Dots
• Mini Glue Dots
• Either Zip Dry Paper Glue or 3-in-1 Glue
• Glossy Accents
• Crop-a-Dial

Plus I really should have a better solution than I do have for carrying things around, and also get plastic boxes for each project to keep them separate after class.

I hope we can figure out a good solution, also have a good one for my daughter, who’ll be taking the same classes with me.