Review: Wagner Heat Gun HT3500
Check this out! I have teamed up with the CSI Project to tell you about this gun. I recently received a Wagner HT3500 digital heat gun to review and see how I liked it in my little scrapbooking world. The HT3500 is the first digital heat gun introduced into the DIY market. Here’s what I did with it:
I started out with this pretty dandelion stamp from Stampendous and used a Ranger embossing pad to stamp it onto my cardstock.
Then I dumped some Ranger clear embossing powder onto it while it was wet.
After pouring the excess back into the jar, it looks like a frosted dandelion.
And then after heating it up with the heat gun and melting the embossing power, it looks shiny and pretty!
All in all, it’s pretty neat. It works great. Touch-pads activate 12 different temperature settings from 250° to 1350° F, so you can set the temp for whatever temperature your particular project needs. I left mine where it was when I took it out of the box, but if I were going to strip some paint I would turn it up obviously.
A cool feature that it has is there’s no off button. When you’re done, you put it in cool down mode and set it down wherever (upright) and it will cool itself down and then shut off.
I don’t know if this is a standard thing with heat guns or not, but for my particular project in the scrapbooking studio I didn’t like this feature because I have paper everywhere and didn’t like sitting that thing down on my counter space for fear of knocking it over (because I’m accident prone). I do like this gun better than the one that I’m using which is specifically for scrapbooking (embossing) because it heated up faster and didn’t take as long to melt the embossing powder. However, I do think it would also be nice if I were melting some paint or doing another project with it. Stripping paint is actually what I’m going to try next!
Wagner’s website says it’s ideal for removing multiple types of paint, remove flooring, rusted bolts, thawing frozen pipes and much more. I never thought about using it for rusted bolts! Here’s a link to it on Amazon: Wagner heat gun. Now I’m off to do some stripping (paint!).
Filed under Reviews, Scrapbooking | Comment (0)Review: Fish Foam!
I was the guest blogger on the CSI Project blog yesterday! I make stuff with photos and pretty paper, but I also love to DIY things all over my house to save money so you’ll find projects like that here too.
I know, doesn’t the name Fish Foam just make you wonder WHAT IS IT? ha ha! It’s window cleaner! I was excited to get the opportunity to try this out, because we got new windows in my house a while back and were told to NOT use window cleaner with ammonia in it (I don’t know why). Which means now I can’t use my go-to cleaner of Windex on them, so it was great to have something to try with no ammonia.
Anyway, I tried this stuff out on something way more disgusting than my regular windows first. I recently uncovered from the dungeon that is my basement a door that must have at some time years ago been the door to my studio/office. When I moved into this house, there was a louvered door on my studio/office that I have never liked. When I found this one, I was thrilled! It has 10 panes of glass and is wood, but I’m going to primer and paint it white. However, it had been in the dungeon of my basement the entire time I’ve lived in this house (12 years!) and I didn’t even know it was there! And it was absolutely disgusting! I previously cleaned all the glass panes. We stripped the stain off of it and sanded it, and in the process of the stripping my husband got the paint and thinner all over the windows, so they were dirty again. Check them out:
Gross! Now, here’s what I like the most about the Fish Foam cleaner. It’s FOAM. It doesn’t run down my window panes. It just sits there and works. See?
How cool is that?
And here are my after photos. I tried to take them standing in the same spot so you could really see the difference.
(left side pane)
(right side pane) See that light fixture there at the top? That’s on the opposite wall! The darn window is so clean you can see the light fixture in the reflection, which of course you can’t see in the before photos. ha ha!
I also tried it out on the windows in my office/studio. I have counters installed at the level of these windows, and there are kitty cat nose prints all over the bottom part of the glass. ha ha!
Here’s before:
(soooo embarrassing!)
Here’s during, again showing the foam (I really love this part):
And here’s after:
It’s so clean you can see the reflection of the Fish Foam can in the window!
Okay, this is probably the worst one to show for me. I’m in this group on facebook called 52 challenges or something like that, and every week you’re assigned an area to organize. Recently it was your bedroom dresser, and after I uncovered all the “stuff” off the dresser, I really got a good look at how absolutely filthy this thing was. I thought I would try the Fish Foam on it and see if it could clean things that were NOT glass. These are my results.
Edge of dresser before:
and same edge of dresser after:
Looks pretty good, huh?
Overall I am extremely happy with this stuff, and I look forward to every window in my house being sparkling clean! You can find out more info about them on their website here.
You can buy Fish Foam on their website here.
*I was not financially compensated for this review. I was sent a free sample of Fish Foam to try it out and give my honest opinion. When that runs out, I will totally be buying more!
Filed under Reviews | Comment (0)Review: Synonyms game (just in time for Christmas!)
It seems like forever ago I was sent this game to review for the blog, and I feel terrible it has taken me sooo long to finally get around to it. It shouldn’t be that hard to sit down and play a game with your kid!! Since I received it, it has won a whole bunch of awards, which is pretty cool (most recently the 2011 Parents Choice Award). Anyway, if you’re looking for a fun game to get your kids, keep reading.
So what I liked about it was it’s a family game. I always try to get all 3 of us together to do stuff. I also like that it was created by parents! It’s for ages 10 and up……although I’m in my 40s and I’ve gotta tell ya, I felt like a complete idiot multiple times during the playing of this game. Yeah, that’s not in the description on the box! However, it does say THIS on the box: The Word Game That Gets Your Mind Racing! (and they are not kidding…unless your mind is old like mine, in which case it might just draw a blank!)
The board is made up of letters, and the first person to get all the letters in the word SYNONYMS wins. When you land on a letter you can earn that letter by coming up with a certain number of synonyms from one of the cards. There are easy, medium, and hard cards. Summer and I just played with the easy deck, and we were challenged! I don’t even want to see the words in the hard pile of cards! ha ha
You can find out more about this game at Synonyms’ website here. It’s being sold on Amazon.com here.
All in all, I would recommend it. I wouldn’t say it’s an EASY game, but that’s one of the reasons I like it, to challenge my kid’s brain!
disclaimer: I didn’t get paid to write a good review about this game. They sent me the game to try it out, and this is my own opinion.
Filed under Reviews | Comment (0)Z-Access display frame.
Check this out! I was contacted by the people who make this frame to see if I would be interested in reviewing it here on the blog. Since I am into preserving memories and displaying items outside of my scrapbooks in addition to inside my scrapbooks, I jumped at the chance. Seriously….this is the coolest thing ever!
It’s called a Z-Access Display Frame (website here) and you can use it to display momentos or souvenirs in a 3-D fashion because of this really cool stretchy clear “stuff.” They call it “flexible frame insert”, I call it awesome! ha ha
They sent me the 4×6 rotating frame with a frame (with a base). It comes in 6 colors (I got ivory) and is $20.99, which I think is pretty reasonable. They have a cheaper one that doesn’t rotate for $15.99. Here are some of their ideas for using the frame.
I love this idea, the thought of taking a few sentimental items that might be too bulky to place inside a scrapbook and putting them on display this way. I have a beautiful old pair of my mother-in-law’s cat’s eye spectacles that I’m thinking about putting in this. It’s really neat because it spins around and you can put it vertical or horizontal. You can even use it as a plain old photo frame! Another cool thing about it is that this film will shrink back to its original shape, so if you get tired of displaying something and want to change it you can because it won’t stay all stretched out from the first thing you put in it. Neat, huh?
This is what I did with mine and I love it!~ This is a mold of my daughter’s foot from when she was very little. I’m so mad at myself that I didn’t write the date on it somewhere! Ack!
Here it is horizontal without the base part.
I also tried putting my daughter’s bronzed baby shoe in there.
You can see above how far it’s sticking out. That film is really stretchy.
Check that out! ha ha
And look …..this is what it looked like after I took both items back out of it. It really did shrink back into place!
Truthfully, they sent me one to check out for free, but it’s so cool and so affordable that I would totally buy this anyway. I’m even thinking that I’ll be buying a few to give as gifts for Christmas gifts this year.
They have other styles besides the one I got. Go on over and check them out here and maybe you can start your Christmas shopping early!
Filed under Life, Reviews, Scrapbooking | Comment (0)Lunchbox Love Notes.
I have always been the kind of mom that leaves my daughter little notes in her lunchbox. I usually draw a picture of something or write “I heart you” or “Mommy loves you” (when she was younger). I enjoy that kind of stuff, connecting with her in the middle of the day when she’s at school (or sometimes even just around the house).
(photo from Say Please website)
A few weeks ago I was contacted to try out these darling “lunchbox love” cards for kids and give my opinion on what I thought of them. Well, I finally got around to checking them out and oh my goodness they are soooo CUTE! So fun! I can’t wait until my daughter takes her lunch to school again so I can slip one inside her lunchbox. They can also be put into a child’s backpack!
They are double-sided with 1 side saying something positive and wonderful such as “I love you” or “be kind” or or ” I care about what you say” or “I can’t wait to be with you later” or “do something sweet for someone today.”
Then the other side has a fun little trivia fact on it. It says “Did you know?” and then it has a question or fact. Some examples I got were “Did you know? Butterflies taste with their feet.” or “Did you know? You use more calories eating celery than there are in celery.” My personal FAVORITE is “Did you know? A turtle can breathe through its butt.” I seriously cannot WAIT to add that to Summer’s lunchbox! I may not even wait for that opportunity. I plan to just stick one up here and there where she will find it, such as the bathroom mirror.
(photo from Say Please website)
These came in a cute little (very heavyweight) holder with a flap closure, and I love the inside flap design. It says “Positive words can change a person’s day, a life and eventually the world.” I just think that’s awesome. The cards themselves are also made well, sort of a cardstock weight and slick, like almost laminated but not, sort of hard to explain actually. But they seem very nice, like they won’t fall apart if they’re handled a few times, ya know? The company is Say Please and if you want to check out what other kinds of things they have go to their website. You can buy these in Michael’s arts and crafts stores now too (they sell bite size version for $1)
I received 4 sampler packs of Lunchbox Love (16 cards in all) and I actually got them to send me an extra set for one of my blog readers! I love that they agreed!
(photo from Say Please website)
To win these, just leave a comment saying how many children you have and what you would do with these. I will do the random draw for one of your names on Monday morning, November 23.
I checked out their website and found out that they also sell other cards, not just for children. They have Lunchbox Love for Teens & Tweens, Birthday Boys, Birthday Girls, Girlfriends, People You Work With, and Those You Appreciate. I love the idea of all these different themes. I want to buy the ”girlfriends” and the “those you appreciate.”
For those of you that want to go check out the website and order, I got a coupon code in my samplers that I’ll share with you for saving 10% on your order. Use coupon code LBL4ME. The card also says if you buy 4 volumes you get free shipping!
Now, I think I’ll go hang one on Summer’s bedroom door!
Filed under Life, Reviews | Comments (10)Mighty Mendit and Mighty Gemit!
Have you heard of this stuff?
Well, of course my kid is the one that can recite every infomercial/commercial for every “as seen on TV” item you could ever want, so she’s been telling me about this and telling me I should get some. Yeah, that and the “sleep number bed”…..
But instead of having to buy it, I got some for free to review! I love that! We received a huge bottle of Mighty Mendit that will probably last the rest of my life and a small bottle of Mighty Gemit and they even threw in a small bag of gems. Summer and I cracked it open and tried it out on a few things. We both used it in some card making, and I did some clothing alterations also. Wanna see?
Here’s a card that Summer made. She’s my little artist, and she’s very abstract about it usually, and this card was no exception. She used the Mighty Gemit to make swirls on the inside of a card and it was also the adhesive for the piece of pink splatter net thingie she wanted to stick in there. She also glued down the jewels in the middle with it. It looks messy but once it dried, it really held up!
*****
I made a card and used the Mighty Gemit to glue down my jewels (which were the ones from Mighty Gemit). You can see here that the Mighty Gemit is white where it oozed out a bit when I first applied it.
Then after the Mighty Gemit dries, it’s clear! I love when glue does that.
*******
There were 2 shirts that my daughter refused to wear because they were too low cut and she felt they showed too much of her skin on her chest. (Yes, I will probably be reminding her of that in a few years!!) I had gotten the idea in my head to take some of my ribbon from my scrapbooking supplies and sew it onto the edge of the seam that goes across the chest but had never gotten around to doing it (welcome to my life). Then the Mighty Mendit came and I thought, hey I’ll just use that to GLUE the ribbon where I want it. I did that and then I washed both shirts AND dried them both and this is what the end result was. I think it did a really good job of holding up through a washing and drying. Pardon the terrible photos. Lighting in the laundry room is almost nonexistent.
*********
I used the Mighty Gemit on several other projects also with the gems they sent me.
The above flower is their gem applied with Mighty Gemit (dried clear).
For this butterfly I used my own tiny gems with Mighty Gemit glue.
Again here are some Mighty Gemit jewels applied with Mighty Gemit glue.
Used Mighty Gemit on this chipboard branch to apply the jewels (from Mighty Gemit). I can’t tell you how much I love having it dry clear! No, it doesn’t take much to make me happy does it?
The round clear jewels are from Mighty Mendit and I used the glue to attach them all. The little bag they sent me had 3 different sizes in it and they’re very nice. Even if I hated the actual glue, I would still buy the jewels!
I also had this purse that I bought at Target and within just a couple months the straps are literally hanging by a thread. It makes me so mad. I’m not carrying around bricks in the purse! So on the 2 straps that are the least damaged (the other 2 are beyond hope of fixing) I applied some Mighty Mendit and clipped the 2 parts together with an office bull clip thingie and it’s actually not a bad result!
I wish I had before pictures, but I took them with my new camera with no memory card inside and I just thought that the camera had its own memory for at least a couple of photos without the card, but unfortunately it doesn’t so the photos I thought I took really disappeared into thin air!
However, here are the after photos. It ain’t pretty, but nobody is really looking at my purse straps that close. Or at least they SHOULDN’T be, right? haha I don’t know what this stuff is made of, but it’s got magical fairy dust inside or something. I literally grabbed each side of this and tried to pull it apart from the Mighty Mendit and it wouldn’t budge. It’s amazing.
Now I’m off to go check out their website and see if I can buy some of their jewels.
Filed under Projects, Reviews | Comment (0)
