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

Hi all,

Since I don't own that many dies, I decided to try die cutting on the edge with the mistletoe die that came with the nutcracker set (item # Z3535 Cedar & Pine—Cardmaking Stamp + Thin).

In the past I have tried die cutting first then stamping but my eyes are just not sharp enough for this method.  I find I am most successful if I stamp and then die cut.  Knowing this, I stamped the mistletoe along the edge of a white card base.  Then I partial die cut the mistletoe 1 at a time.

This left an edge of white paper that had to be carefully but off using an exacto knife.  I use a Cricut® TrueControl Knife™because I like the comfort grip.  I have never been good with an exact knife so I have been working with my TrueControl Knife™ since September to try to perfect my skills.  I have found that having a comfortable grip on the knife, a really good metal edge ruler (I use Tim Holtz) and a cleaning cutting mat are all key.  In addition to getting a new knife, I bought myself a new cutting mat Z2179 VersaMat™ as the mat I owned is a 20 years old, very stained, and glue covered.  I feel like I went hog wild treating myself to a new knife, a new cutting mat, and buying dies with the stamp.  LOL  The I thought if they last me 20 years like the last set, I don't need to feel guilty about my splurge.

I was really happy with the way the partial die cut turned out.  You can see from the picture that there is one place I die cut too far in.  One the 3rd mistletoe, I cut around the berries. Overall, pretty good really.

I hadn't thought about anything other than die cutting on the edge before starting so now I was looking at a pretty much blank card.  I wanted to make the hard work pop so I added the Candy apple cardstock behind the edge and of stamped the Merry Christmas saying from the Cedar & Pine—Cardmaking Stamp + Thin.  I was really liking the Candy apple red and green color combo. At the same time I was thinking it still looked at little bland so I added some Christmas Red Stickles™ Glitter Gel,  Ah, much better.  I really like the Christmas Red stickles.  I have owned them for a while but this is the first time I have used them.

I don't usually do challenges because I am easily distracted.  I dove in deep to this one.  Between the Nutcracker cards featured on the last blog and the Mistletoe card featured here, spend 5 hours messing around. Yes, that included watching 2 YouTube videos showing hot to die cut on the edge.  Darn those videos, they make it look so easy.  I am hoping reading this help help someone else cut some time out of the experiment phase and so straight to the success phase. :-)

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

T