Living on the edge Or at least die cutting on the edge

Hi all,

I can't believe it's been a whole week since I posted.  I have been crazy busy trying to finish up my first workshop.  I wasn't happy with the fact that my layouts were so "bland" so I focused on pulling together the cutting instructions, welcome letter, and other workshop elements while waiting for a couple of "bling" items to be delivered.  That said, I have to admit I got sidetracked the last 3 days working on a die cutting on the edge / partial die cutting challenge.

Hmm, why did it take 3 days to complete this challenge??  The trick is to put the top plate on the portion of the die you want to cut.  In this case I was trying to cut the nutcracker on the outside edge of the card so the right hand side.  After I took the pic I discovered I couldn't get the plate/sandwich to go thru the machine this way.  Instead I had to put the side I was cutting first so all the plates are going thru, so the top plate is only covering half the nutcracker that entered the machine first.

Turns out cutting the nutcracker and the hat at the same time wasn't such a good idea.  First the hat was floating above the nutcracker so I just ended up cutting it off.  Second I bent the hat die.  SO, definitely a bad idea.

Looks ok from the front but not really attached well and doesn't look so nice from the inside.

Take, 2. I decided I would cut the nutcracker, then cut the hat separately.  Results were better but not stellar.  The left most picture shows how I put the plates thru the machine.  If you look real close at the middle picture you will see the there is a overlap of the cuts such that the bottom of the hat cut below the top of the nutcracker so there is a silver of paper that had to be glued down.   

The die cutting worked better but I wasn't happy with the stability due to the over lapping cuts.

I wouldn't be giving these cards out to anyone.  They were good experiments in that I gave both die cutting on the edge and coloring with my new Spectrum Noir markers a try.

Spoiler Alert - I have 6 more partial die cut / die cut on the edge cards that I completed in the past 3 days.  Each one better than the last.  Practice pays off, Keep reading each day to see them all.

Have a wonderfully crafty day and check back tomorrow for another installment of die cutting on the edge.

T