Tuesday's {Tip} Cutting Intricate Dies

Normally I would not post the same thing on my Memory Box blog and here on my personal blog but I thought it was so appropriate for today's Tuesday's {Tip} post that I wanted to share with my readers here too! So, onto today's tip!

Dave of Memory Box Co. creates the most beautiful, intricate dies on the market! I am sure most of you will agree with that statement. Because of the small detail, sometimes it is hard to use thinner paper or thinner cardstock because the papers sometimes rip as they are being removed from the die. I wanted to show you a tip that I discovered the other day that really works well.

How many of you have scrap cardstock lying around? I bet 100% of you can answer yes to that one. LOL! Anyway, I love using my Memory Box dies to cut felt, cork, chipboard, old dictionary paper, etc. I find that the thin, old dictionary paper (or similar thin paper) really has a hard time coming out of the die. I usually use my piercing tool through the small holes on the back of the die to remove the cut piece but with the thinner paper, sometimes that still does not help. So, I decided to back my thinner papers with scrap cardstock before running the die through my machine. Here is what I did:

1. Adhere your thin paper to the top of a piece of old cardstock using your preferred adhesive.

2. Run your scrap paper with the thinner paper adhered to the top along with your die through the machine. Here you can see I cut out the Memory Box Fresh Foliage die {98502} on thin dictionary paper that was adhered to a scrap piece of Memory Box paper.

3. Remove the die cut piece from die. It should come out very easily now because there were two pieces of paper adhered together first. Here is how my die cut turned out:

Doing this makes the intricate die cut much sturdier and easier to apply adhesive. I will share this creation on Thursday on the Memory Box DT blog so be sure to stop over there on Thursday! Also, this technique will work on any intricate die that you have. So, give it a try, and I hope it works well for you!

Note:  Valerie asked "Do you put the cardstock closest to the die or the thinner paper? Or does it matter."

My Response: "You know, I didn't think about that but I put the die on the cardstock side so I could push it out with my piercing tool if needed. I do think that works better but didn't think to mention it. Thanks for bringing it up."

Thanks for stopping by, and I am glad so many of you are finding this helpful!