Fun stuff!

I've been trying to fight off a particularly nasty cold for the last few days, so when I got up from a nap earlier I came down here and wanted to do something fun. I made a card. This card....


The stamped images are by Inkadinkado. The punching on the blue layer of card stock was made using the Fiskars read between the vines border and corner punch. I applied some diamond Stickles to some of the punched out pieces to add a little more embellishment. The window was made using the 4 pane window movers and shapers die from Sizzix.

As far as the window die, I used this without the big card die that I mentioned yesterday in my post about Movers and Shapers. What I ended up doing was using a stack as follows from the bottom up: two clear cutting plates, the die cutting side up, the card front on top of the die, another clear cutting plate, a lightweight chipboard shim. The extra cutting plate and the shim make up for the fact that the small dies are about 1/8" thinner than the regular Sizzix dies.

So, in answer to the question, can the smaller dies be used by themselves, yes, they can. This also means that they should be usable in the Cuttlebug or other manual die cutters. I'll add here that what I did was build my stack upside down, then flip it to place it on the platform of my Big Shot. That was the easiest way of making sure that I was putting the die where I wanted it to be. I admit it. I did try just guessing where on top of the die my card should go, and my window ended up way off. I blame that on my cold! ;-) So on my second try I took the top plate, put my open card on it, positioned the die cutting side down, and placed the other clear plate on that to make the sandwich. Then I deftly flipped that sandwich and put it on the clear plate that was already on my platform, added the shim, and rolled it through.

I'd also like to add here that I love the new border and corner punch! It works great and it's easy to make the turn at the corner to give a layer a nice finished look. The key is remembering that the cardstock or paper needs to be cut to a full inch increment, no fractions of an inch. That's how the design ends up looking continuous. So my blue layer in my card up above is 4" X 5", and the punched design makes a nice continuous border with the corners. Love it!

It was nice to craft for a while and forget about my cold. Now it's time for some chicken soup. :-)