losing that unwanted Nestabilities embossing

A couple of people have written to ask about the Spellbinders Nestabilities dies and whether there is a good way to keep the dies from embossing when cutting. I think that this problem is simply due to a stack being a bit too thick. The solution is to using a thinner "sandwich" or "stack".

In the following photo, the two ovals on the left were cut using the Cuttlebug. The two on the right were cut with the Big Shot. The top two ovals were cut using the typically recommended sandwiches for each machine. That is, for the Cuttlebug it would be the A plate, C plate, die with cutting side up, cardstock, B plate. For the Big Shot it would be the multipurpose platform on Tab 2, clear cutting plate, die cutting side up, cardstock, clear cutting plate. You can see that there is some embossing apparent on each oval.

The ovals on the bottom were cut using thinner sandwiches. You want the stack just thick enough to cut the shape cleanly. You can see the combinations that I used up above to get nicely cut shapes without any embossing. I tend to use the backing of Cuttlebug folder packaging because I *ahem* seem to have several of those handy. ;-) They're also a nice size, suitable thickness, and I'd rather put this sort of thing to use rather than tossing it. Hey, and some folks might have these laying around and might be able to get away with using what I found to be effective rather than having to experiment for themselves.

So, just to be clear about what I used:

• Cuttlebug: A plate, 4 Cuttlebug backing shims, B plate, die cutting side up, cardstock, B plate.
• Big Shot: multipurpose platform open to Tab 1, 3 Cuttlebug backing shims, clear plate, die with cutting side up, cardstock, clear plate.

Voila! No more unwanted embossing. :-)