Hello everyone and happy Winter to you! There’s been lots of changes here at Journei Beyond in the last seven or eight months, thus my absence lol. I just finished my degree in the field of healthcare and plan on extending my education in the next coming months. Also I’d like to announce that even though there have been some subjects on diet and travel for this blog, I will be focusing more on crafting moving forward. Topics about travel and food will still definitely come up, but my passion is crafting, so I would love to explore and share these ideas with you.

I do a lot of paper craft projects, embroidery, sewing, and love using die cutting machines. If anyone is not familiar with what a die cutting machine is, it is a crafting machine that can cut all sorts of material like: cardstock, balsa wood, thin aluminum, felt, foam (up to 3mm) foil and many more materials. Cricut, Silhouette, or Brother Scan n Cut are just a few of the major brand names out there. Die cutting machines can cut many different designs that you can use from the pre-loaded designs or designs you upload to your computer. The Brother Scan n Cut has its own screen and scanner, giving you lots of freedom to be creative with your designs and ideas. The Cricut and the Silhouette are wonderful machines as well, however, they do require a separate tablet or computer to be used.

Each machine has their own website for designs. Cricut and Silhouette do require a monthly subscription fee to access their designs and Brother does not require a fee. On the Brother Scan n Cut,a lot of the designs are preloaded into the machine itself, but also has a number of designs on their canvas workspace website you can access. You may also purchase additional designs on separate cards that can be activated at a price. These designs can be quite expensive, but what I do like about them, is that once you buy them they are at your disposal to use over and over again. Unlike the Cricut or Silhouette websites, you must maintain a monthly membership subscription to have access to their designs. Although I did hear that Cricut just recently made it possible to access their designs offline as well.

So, all of you out there that are interested in learning about die cutting machines, or just crafting as a hobby, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me, and I will try to answer any questions I can. I look forward to sharing all my ideas with you and we’ll be posting pictures and how-to instructions in the next coming posts. I also have a YouTube channel that I will be uploading videos to and will have a training course on a separate website here in the near future. Thanks to all those who have been with me since the beginning, I really appreciate your loyalty and support. Talk to you later dolls!

Photo by: Lisa Pattiani