Sew Easy? Maybe, with some practice

It seems that the one thing on many scrappers wish lists is the Sew Easy by We R Memory Keepers.  I was lucky enough to get my hands on one earlier this week.  I had asked at my LSS a couple weeks ago, and they put me on their wish list.  Good thing I did, because they were sold out in ONE day. 

Anyway, I was finally able to play around with this yesterday.  Here are my findings:
1) A regular self-healing mat will not work.  I have tried several different surfaces, including a mouse pad, fun foam, and a coluzzal mat.  The coluzzal mat works the best, and the fun foam worked slightly better than the mouse pad. Even then, it did not pierce the paper at every hole.  I had to go back with my paper piercer and poke through the paper the rest of the way in some places.
2) The needle that is included with the piercer is too fat.  It made the holes much too big, in my opinion.
3) It will take some practice to make a straight stitch.  Mine always seem to go slightly uphill.  
4)  The price is RIGHT!  The piercer itself was $8.99 and the different heads were $3.99 a piece. 

             
So, it has it’s plus and minuses.  If you like to hand sew on your layouts, this is great for getting the holes evenly spaced and can do some cool stitches/patterns.  If you are an expert with your sewing machine, this probably won’t be much help to you.