Friends, do you dread meeting new people at holiday events because you don’t remember their names even though you just met them?

Do you dread meeting new people at holiday events because when they said their name while everybody was talking and you couldn’t hear them BUT they heard YOUR name and they address you by it?

Do you dread meeting new people at holiday events because they end up sitting right next to you and you still haven’t remembered their name?

Do you dread meeting new people at holiday events because, well, maybe you don’t like meeting new people…but, I digress.

FINALLY, you can enjoy Thanksgiving Day dinner next to your new best friend and call them by their name because you can make all your guests feel welcomed with these amazing Turkey Place Cards!!! Beautiful, eye-popping and a conversation piece because you can write your guests’ name on the front and BACK so everyone will know each other’s name. What a concept! You can make them in traditional colors or for you “walk on the wild- turkey side” make them in any colors you wish. This also makes an adorable favor to take home. For the scrapbooks at your feast, they can mount this on a page without distorting the image. Just gently slide all the cutouts to one side and it will lay flat. Again, what a concept! Need a centerpiece? Look no further…actually, you kinda have to look further in the cutting file because – are you ready? Are you sitting? Can you stand the excitement? As an added bonus, you get a second helping of turkey with the included Turkey Center Piece! Your wish came true and you didn’t have to wrestle Uncle Larry for the wishbone! Unbelievable!! It truly is a Thanksgiving to be thankful. So gobble this up and have your guests thanking you for being so thoughtful. Have a wonderful holiday!

This file is sold in .KNK, .MTC, and .PDF formats. Click here to purchase!

The pre-ordered Zings began shipping yesterday and the on-line user manual is now available for interactive viewing and downloading! Note that the manual is a first draft and I plan to make updates regularly as new video links are added, along with rewrites of certain sections, additions of a trouble shooting section and glossary, and basic corrections to grammar and typos! : )

Here’s the link: Zing with Make The Cut User Manual

Even if you haven’t ordered the Zing, this manual also covers all of the functions in Make The Cut and will be updated as new versions of MTC are released. You’ll see that this program has an incredible amount of designing and editing functionality now available! It’s an incredible program for only $58.36! MTC will cut to a long list of cutters including all models of Klic-N-Kut, Pazzles, Gazelle, Craft Robo, Silhouette, and more. You can purchase Make The Cut here at my store.

While all of the pre-ordered Zings sold out, there will be more Zings arriving at the end of the month! So, be sure to check out this incredible new cutter and let me know if you need a recommended dealer to contact!

Congratulations, Salley! You have won the $25 gift certificate to KNK USA and Chris’s fabulous set of cutting files!

Thanks to everyone who posted comments yesterday! I know how much your kind words meant to Chris and her team of designers.

Salley, Chris and I’ll be contacting you by email with your prizes!

But first… I have a hot key list for MTC now ready to share. This will go into the user manual, but since it’s mostly complete, I wanted to go ahead and make it available to all of my readers. Here’s the link:

MTC Shortcut Keys

And now for three more reasons to check out MTC:

Reason #10 Rhinestone Feature

MTC’s Rhinestone window provides an automatic way to outline your vector shapes or do a horizontal fill using the circle size you choose, along with the spacing. Additionally you can preview the results before accepting and also see the circle count in this same window:

Video of Rhinestone Feature in MTC

Regarding the tweaking of the designs, MTC has short cut keys set up for top (T), bottom (B), right (R) and left (L) alignment, as well as equal vertical ([) and equal horizontal (]) spacing. I also really like the new Esc hotkey to unselect all images.

Reason #11 Path Thinning

Path thinning is the same thing as Center Line Tracing in KNK Studio and other vector programs. It converts a thick line shape into a single line, such as shown above in the image of the glasses. This can greatly simplify some rhinestone designs, especially lettering, as shown in the video below. It can also be handy when pens or markers are going to be used for drawing images and/or lettering.

Thin Paths Feature in MTC

Reason #12 The Font Name Is Automatically Listed in the Layers List

How many times do we forget the name of the font we used in a design? Well, MTC has a solution for that! When you type new text, the name of the font will be assigned as the name of the layer! This was a brilliant feature to include in a program that is used by those who love to collect the thousands of free fonts available on the Internet!

Click on the image to see the fonts names that were assigned for each text I typed:

Speaking of collecting fonts, here are some of my favorite sites to grab free fonts:

http://www.dafont.com/

http://dingbatdepot.com/

http://www.urbanfonts.com/

http://simplythebest.net/fonts/

http://www.acidfonts.com/

If you’re ready to take the plunge to Make-The-Cut, here’s the link to MTC in my own store:

http://www.iloveknk.com/products-page-2/make-the-cut/

You will receive an activation pin for registering MTC and your registration number will work for all of your computers. Other videos for MTC are now available at this link:

MTC Support

And the first detailed on-line User Manual will be available within about 3 – 4 weeks!

If you plan to attend, please make a $100 deposit to hold a spot:

A maximum of 25 people can attend!

Come join us in Tampa for a weekend of rockin’ Klic-N-Kut classes, demo’s, and loads of fun! Julie, Barbie, and I can’t wait to meet you!

Event: “Klic-N-Kut Spring Forward Retreat!”
Date: Friday, March 18 3:00 pm – Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:00 pm
Location: Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore

The cost of the retreat, excluding hotel, is $395. For this price, you receive 5 excellent meals, free goodies, 6 – 7 classes, 3 – 4 demos, class notes and files, dozens of free videos to take home, cutting materials and prizes! The room will open at 3:00 pm with the Meet and Greet starting at 4:00 pm. Dinner will be served at 6 pm, followed by a class, demo and workshop. Saturday the 19th will be action packed with classes, demos, challenges, games, and 3 full meals. On Sunday the 20th, after breakfast, we’ll have one more class and workshop or demo. Participation in all classes and demos is optional, so you can head out, at any time, to enjoy some local Tampa attractions. We also encourage you to bring your laptop and/or cutter, but it’s not a requirement to join us, as we will have extras available and will seat everyone for sharing, as needed.

Your hotel room and travel expenses are separate. We have a wonderful deal with the Hilton of $109.00 per night single or double occupancy. If you live locally, you are not required to stay at the hotel. If you want a roommate, please note it in the form below and return to Barbie and she will help match up attendees. Rooms must be reserved no later than March 1 to lock in this rate. You must mention the “KNK11” when you call the Hilton directly at 813-877-6688 (our reservation contact is Nan Graves). If your spouse would like to join us at mealtime, let us know as soon as possible, and we’ll find out the cost for that.

This weekend retreat is available for up to 25 attendees and we’ll have a waiting list in case of cancellations.
So reserve your spot by:

(1) Emailing me at smccauley45@cox.net to let me know you want to attend. If you do not receive a response within 24 hours, then please post a message at the bottom of this post and I’ll email you directly. Sometimes emails get lost! I’ll then send you a short form to complete.
(2) Sending a $100 check or money order to our event organizer, Barbie Creech. I will send you Barbie’s address privately after you let me know you plan to attend. : ) If you prefer, we also accept Paypal payments.

The deadline for making the deposit is January 20th and the $295 balance will be due by February 20. If you need to pay the balance in installments, then two $100 payments may be made by the end of January and the end of February, and then a final $95 payment made at the retreat..

Details on classes and demos will be provided after I have gathered information about all of you and what you want to learn! : )

Can’t wait to see you in Tampa!
Sandy

We had 63 entries before I submitted the names to Chris this morning. While only 50 comments will show up for any given post, I had all 63 in the control panel of my blog and I numbered them 1 – 63 based on when the posts came in and had Chris draw a number between 1 and 63.

Congratulations, Colleen! Chris will email you the Gift Certificate number for ordering from www.knkusa.com.

Thanks everyone for participating! Be sure to check out other celebrations today at Visual Designs By Chris.

Wow… I can’t believe it’s been 2 years now since Chris started her own Internet store selling adorable cutting files and building a team of talented designers! From the first day, I knew she would be successful because Chris is smart, creative, motivated, and VERY warm and personable! I had the great pleasure of meeting her last February at the KNK Retreat in Scottsdale and everyone there loved her!

So, to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of www.visualdesignsbychris.com, I am offering a $25 gift certificate to www.knkusa.com! The winner will be selected randomly from those who post a comment to THIS post today. I will draw the name of the winner sometime after midnight tonight and announce the winner tomorrow!

Thus, post your message to Chris and her team here! And don’t forget to then head over to VDBC to see the adorable cutting files available by Chris and her designers. Also, click on the Forum there to join in on more celebrations this weekend!

Happy Anniversary, VDBC!

And one more thing… Click on the TITLE of this post above to view all comments posted so far! : )

I am SO very proud to announce that Kitty Finn is now selling cutting files at Visual Designs by Chris.

In February, I taught a KNK retreat in Scottsdale and Kitty was one of my attendees. After the retreat, Kitty told me she felt so overwhelmed the first night that she had to make a decision… drive back to LA or head to the bar and drink a couple of martinis! Fortunately, she chose the martinis! The next day, she faced more classes and more design challenges, but at some point, she got hooked and suddenly what seemed so overwhelming the first day turned into fun and excitement the second day. By the end of the weekend, she was ready to go home and start designing her own files. And now, several months later, I am SO thrilled to announce that Kitty is now a member of Chris Durnan’s team of designers and has her first files ready to sell. Here is a link to see her files:

Kitty’s Cuttings

Also, Kitty is looking for some volunteers to test cut other formats of her files. Specifically she would like to have someone who owns a Silhouette cut her GSD versions and someone who owns a Cricut (along with SCAL or MTC) to cut her SVG versions. You can reach her at Scvfinn@aol.com. if you are interested in helping.

Kitty, I wish you great success at Visual Designs by Chris! And I look forward to seeing you again at the San Diego retreat in October.

Again, I’m sorry for the inconvenience! But I hope to make it up to you in new videos, handy tips, and other useful information.

Also, there’s an apparent glitch with the Feed Burner subscription and I know a lot of my subscribers are getting daily messages about a change at my site, but there’s no update. I will have Chad look into this when he returns from vacation. I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of these services and hopefully he’ll be able to troubleshoot and fix the problem. In the meantime, I appreciate your patience with this issue. I have disabled this plugin until it can be reviewed.

Have a VERY Happy New Year! And be sure to watch for new cutting tips and tutorials in 2010!