DIY Bride™ » Crafter’s Toolbox

More on the L Letterpress

DIY Bride — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:47:17 +0000

The L Letterpress is now shipping; I have not yet received mine. A girlfriend of mine found hers in store at one of the big box craft stores – and used a coupon. Rock on!

Here’s a video demonstration of the L Letterpress in action:

Stay tuned for my tutorial on making your own plates! I’ve made plates for custom embossing and polymer clay projects. I’m just waiting for my supplies to come in so I can shoot step-by-step instrux.

L Letterpress Update

DIY Bride — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:45:55 +0000

Tony, the webmaster from Lifestyle Crafts, updated us today on a few questions our readers had about the machine

Lisa asked what printing plates the machine comes with:

@Lisa – I’m looking at the Letterpress packaging right now, and seeing that the printing plates include 3 shapes: two of which are kind of flower-like, and the other is kind of a thin, border-type flourish.

It also contains 5 phrases: “Happy Birthday” in a cursive font, “Thank You” in a sans-serif font, “I Love You” in a slightly serif font, “for you” in a bolder cursive, and “Hello” in the same font as “Thank You”.

Tonya wanted to know if the machine would be available at her favorite big box stores:

@Tonya – I have heard all three of these names tossed around the office quite a bit in Letterpress-relevant discussions. I would imagine that eventually all 3 will be carrying the tool, as it is planned to be available in large chain stores, although I don’t know what the plans are for it when it first is released.

And, finally, Tony volunteered the scoop on the delivery status:

The tool was delayed somewhat by the overseas manufacturer, but is scheduled to arrive here VERY soon, so be looking for this as a potential Christmas gift. I know I am strongly considering it for my wife.

Product Review Update: Epson Artisan 800

DIY Bride — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:03:58 +0000

Back in February, I reviewed the Epson Artisan 800 printer. At the time I gave it a positive review and, admittedly, it was a really good printer – for a few months.

While I once loved this printer, it is now so problematic that I can no longer give it a recommendation. Here’s why:

After less than a year of use, it is now completely unusable due to an error message that keeps popping up on the display screen. (It says to turn off the unit and restart it. I do; the error pops up again. Lather, rinse, repeat.)
Constant paper jams. The paper tray feeder is exceedingly sensitive and paper jams are commonplace.
Printing on cardstock is hit or miss. I’ve found that when I’m printing multiple pages of cardstock that sometimes it’ll accept a few pages of CS and then reject the next page for no discernible reason. It’s the same cardstock – no tears, wrinkles, or other things that may cause problems.
Smudges, smudges, smudges. I spend a lot of time (and wasted ink) cleaning the print heads to get clear text prints on regular printer paper. I find that full-color photo prints get lines, streaks, and smudges in most print runs no matter what photo paper I use (fwiw, I use Epson’s own photo paper as suggested by the mfgr. and have tried other brands to no avail.)
See the comments on the original review for others’ experiences with this printer.

For what the retail price is on this unit I expect better quality, especially from Epson whose products I’ve been very pleased with in the past. This one simply disappoints after less than a year in use.

Product Review: JIGster

DIY Bride — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:59:34 +0000

As I often mention in these pages I am a hopeless gadget queen. If it’s new, bright and shiny I gotta get my hands on it because I’m always on the hunt for cool tools that make the lives of us creative (and not-so-creative) types much easier.

The swell folks at Envelopments sent me their new tool called JIGster. A jig, for those of you not familiar with the term, is a guide to help with exact placement of objects. In the case of the JIGster it helps invitation designers (that’s you!) perfectly align layers of paper/cardstock for each and every invitation you create.

I adore this tool. Seriously, this is on my top 10 list of all-time favorite craft tools. I create several hundred (thousands? yeah, probably) of layered invites, programs, menus, and other papery goodness every year so I can say with some authority how much trying to get uniform alignment really sucks. The JIGster made a recent project a total no-brainer and cut down production time significantly. My crafting minutes are very limited these days so that in and of itself made the tool totally rock in my book.

The JIGster allows you to create standard border widths (the amount of area showing between the edges of the layers) of 1/8”, 1/4”, 3/8” , 1/2”, 3/4”, and 1”. The unit itself is pretty compact, about 12″ x 12″, making it easy to store in your craft space. It’s made of heavy plastic, is easy to use, and will last forever.

The price for this baby is $69.95. In my estimation it’s well-worth the price for the quality, ease of use, and functionality. Buy here.

Check out a video of the JIGster in action.

{Disclaimer: Per FTC guidelines, it is my duty to mention that Envelopments sent me this product for review without charge. No money was exchanged for this review and the content of the review reflects my personal and honest opinion about the merits of the product.}

Product Review: Epson Artisan 800

DIY Bride — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:55:34 +0000

Review Update: November 07, 2009:

While I once loved this printer, it is now so problematic that I can no longer give it a recommendation. Here’s why:

After less than a year of use, it is now completely unusable due to an error message that keeps popping up on the display screen. (It says to turn off the unit and restart it. I do; the error pops up again. Lather, rinse, repeat.)
Constant paper jams. The paper tray feeder is exceedingly sensitive and paper jams are commonplace.
Printing on cardstock is hit or miss. I’ve found that when I’m printing multiple pages of cardstock that sometimes it’ll accept a few pages of CS and then reject the next page for no discernible reason. It’s the same cardstock – no tears, wrinkles, or other things that may cause problems.
Smudges, smudges, smudges. I spend a lot of time (and wasted ink) cleaning the print heads to get clear text prints on regular printer paper. I find that full-color photo prints get lines, streaks, and smudges in most print runs no matter what photo paper I use (fwiw, I use Epson’s own photo paper as suggested by the mfgr. and have tried other brands to no avail.)
See the comments on the original review for others’ experiences with this printer.

One of the perks of having this blog is that I get to have hands-on time with some really great tools and products. The Epson Artisan 800 printer is the latest product I’ve received and tested out.

If you’re interested in doing any kind of printed paper craft for your wedding, a good printer is an absolute must. The quality of your printed materials will define the success of your project. As a hardcore paper crafter, I know this all too well I’ve gone through 4 printers in 3 years!

Finding a reliable inkjet printer that can handle a variety of cardstock, papers, vellum and other materials has been a personal quest of mine. When Epson offered to send me the Artisan 800, I happily accepted the offer. At the time they sent the printer I was writing book #2 and thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to test out the printer. With all of the paper projects, manuscript drafts, shipping labels, scanned artwork, and other stuff that was involved with the book the timing was perfect to see how the printer would handle a wide variety of tasks.

Product Features:

5 in 1 with Wi-Fi: Print / Copy / Scan / Fax / Ultra HD Photo
Up to 38 ppm, photos in as fast as 10 sec¹
Built-in fax and Automatic Document Feeder
Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking
7.8-inch touch panel, 3.5-inch LCD
Professional quality CD/DVD printing
Two-sided printing saves paper
Create coloring books and personal note paper
Two-year limited warranty with registration¹
Ultra Hi-Definition photos last 4x longer than photo lab prints
Two paper trays always ready to print photos and documents

Price: $299.99 Retail

The Verdict

I love this printer but it’s not without faults.

The good:

Clean, crisp text prints on most cardstocks, vellum, Avery labels, regular printer paper.
Excellent photo prints. Seriously, one of the best photo printers I’ve ever used.
Prints on CDs! For those of you giving CDs or DVDs as wedding favors or gifts, this is a really neat feature.
Scanner is easy to use and give clear scans on most line drawings tested.
Works great with Macs (I love no hassle printer set ups).
Individual ink tanks cost about $16.00 each to replace.
Really neat image enhancement feature for scans/prints.
Touch screen. I’m a sucker for a good interface.
WiFi! I have this printer connected on my home network and it works beautifully. I can print from anywhere in the house.
You can turn photos or drawings into coloring books, create personalized notepaper, and print lined paper.
Double-sided printing capacity.

The bad:

I didn’t like the software that’s used for printing on CDs. It wasn’t (for me) very intuitive or feature-rich. I used many bad words when trying to design a CD cover for the first time.
Smaller font sizes (6pt and under) didn’t always print clearly.
Not all cardstocks fed through the paper tray or auto feeder. I had some problems with CS from Stampin’ Up! (80 lb weight). Sometimes it’d feed with no problems, sometimes not. It wasn’t a consistent problem.
Doesn’t always like “odd” sized papers but seemed to handle most pretty well.

Overall, this is an excellent printer that’s capable of handling most standard paper size projects without problem. If you’re looking for a great all-in-one (printer, scanner, fax) this is definitely worth buying. The replacement cartridges aren’t super cheap but they’re pretty competitively priced compared to other printers’ inks in its category.