How to Re-Stick Your Machine Cutting Mats

Technique Tutorials / February 25, 2023

The question of how to keep your mats sticky comes up over and over again. This is of particular interest to those of us who use cardboard or cardstock to make our 3D houses. One of the reasons I prefer to use white Kraft Board or Cover Cardstock is it sheds less than kraft chipboard, but all paper products leave a little bit of residue on the mat every time we use it.

Over time I have developed 3 steps I use to keep my mats sticky or to re-stick my mats. I’ve tried many other suggestions I have read about online, but these three steps work for me consistently. I no longer have to throw away my mats, except when they are so old and I have used them so many times that they begin to crack.

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Make Your Own Hiorne Tower

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses, Technique Tutorials / February 25, 2023

This is the first of the patterns I am making at Lucy Foxworth’s request for her Make A Castle Challenge. Time permitting, I will release three patterns: Hiorne Tower, a tower or castle with a round tower, and a fancy church. Lucy will be sharing her trick for making round towers during her video this week and I didn’t want to get ahead of her, so I decided this first pattern would have hexagonal or octagonal towers. After an internet search, I decided on both.

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How To Make A Partially Revealed Brick Tudor

Cottages, Technique Tutorials / December 14, 2022

When I shared my post with the Gingerbread Tudor, I showed two different ways to paint the Tudor house. During my quest for inspiration for the design of my first Tudor house, I saw a few pictures of very old real buildings with partially revealed brick exteriors and decided that I wanted to replicate the look. I hope to design more Tudor houses in the future and want to explore different ways of painting and decorating them. While I am going to use the Gingerbread Tudor pattern for my model, the same techniques can be used with any pattern.

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