Thursday, 21 June 2018

Die Cutting Techniques by DT Priyadarshini

Hello Everyone,

I am here with a different tutorial post for Rainbow Craftykari Blog. My post will be about Die Cutting techniques with some tips and this is a long post as I have covered a lot here. 

Die cutting is a popular process among crafters these days. It involves a metal die that cuts through paper, acetate, felt, jute (burlap), etc... using a die cut machine. There are several dies and die cutting machines available with a huge price range. 




Materials required:

1. Big shot die cutting machine - Sizzix

2. Dies: 

    a. Birch press design - Sevilla layer dies, Fiori plate layer dies, Fiori heart layer dies

    b. Joy Craft floral flourish

    c. Little birdie - leaves

    d. Lawn Fawn - Goodie bag

    e. Altenew Cameilla dies

    f. Sizzix thinlit 7 piece - Peacock

    g. Heartfelt Butterfly border

3. Stamps:

    Altenew, Craftyscrappers, Reverse confetti, Heratfelt creations

4. Card stock - white, green, red, silver, black

5. Jute/Burlap - white, light yellow, dark yellow, green

6. Felt - pink, dark pink, green, yellow

7. Gem stones

8. Altenew inks

9. Papericious pattern paper

10. Bob n Betty decoupage paper

11. Glue

     a. Tacky glue

     b. Hot glue gun (jute, felt)

     c. Double sided tape

12. Spellbinders Tool N One

Let's get started

1. Dies used for background

Here, I have made 3 cards with a different technique to make the background. I love how dies give a unique and beautiful look to cards when used in the background. I am using my favourite die sets here from Birch Press designs. Birch press has the best-layered die sets. 


1. For this card, I used a die from Birch press design to create a background. This is very basic and easy background. 



How to make this


I took a silver card stock and placed my die (Fiori plate layer C) on the card stock and run it through my big shot. 


I adhered the die cut piece to black cardstock and added the sentiment from Altenew to it. 


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2. For the second card, I am using layered dies from Birch Press design (Sevilla layer set). Its a beautiful die set which can be used separately or together. 


How to make this
I told 3 card stocks of one colour with different shades (can also use a different colour for this). One colour for each layer. Place the die on the cardstock and run it through the big shot.




It's time to stack up these dies together. I always start stacking from the top layer to the last layer.  I added a sentiment from Craftyscrappers and finished the card by adding some gemstones.






2. Layered/stackable dies

I have used layered/stackable dies from Birch press. I have used Fiori heart layer dies for this card. 


How to make this
Stacking up die technique are the same as the previous card.  I used red, pink and white cardstock for this card. I ran each die cut through my big shot and used tacky glue to adhere them together. 


I adhered the heart to a white top-fold card stock and added one stone to the centre. I left the card as it is and didn't add a sentiment. 


  3. Die cut in-lay

Die cut inlay is the most fun technique when the right die is used. A lot of dies can be used for this technique which also includes alphabet dies. Here I used one layer of Birch press Sevilla dies. The best part about this technique is that you will end up with two cards out of this technique. It is just like fitting a jigsaw puzzle. The same technique can be used with intricate dies as well but they are a little time-consuming. 


How to make this
I took layer A of the die set and die cut them from green and red cardstock. Save all the die cut pieces. I used this die so it's easy to show how the technique works.


I am exchanging the die cut pieces that are green with red and red with green. Adhered the base piece to white cardstock. 


I used tacky glue to adhere the pieces into the die cut. It's exactly like a jigsaw puzzle. 




I repeated the same with the other card as same. I left some white spaces shown and added stone there instead of die cut. It's not necessary to use all the die cut pieces for inlay technique. 




4.  Jute/burlap and felt die cut

Die cut doesn't just involve paper cutting but jute/burlap and felt as well. I generally run them at least 4-5 times through my big shot to get a perfect die cut result. Good quality die cut and jute may just require it to be run just twice. But I run it 5 times. 
For felt, I run them just twice over the big shot. It depends on the quality of the felt sheets as well. 
I used floral flourish die from Joy Crafts and Little birdie leaves die set. 
I used white, light yellow, dark yellow jute for the flower and green for leaves. 


How to make this
Decide on the colour and the dies. I placed the die cuts on the jute and run them through my big shot. 


Adhere the petals together to form a flower. I used a hot glue gun to adhere them together. Using tacky glue adhere them to a white top-fold card. 



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The same technique applies to making flowers with a felt material. I used tacky glue to adhere them together. I have used this flower in my next section.  





5.  Goodie bag using die

Making your own gift/goodie bag is total fun. Most of them trim the paper and score and cut and make bags. But how fun would it be if there are dies to make these bags. 
I have made a goodie bag using Lawn Fawn goodie bag die using pattern paper from papericious. This die is amazing as it also has scored lines which makes it easy to turn it into a bag. 


How to make this
Take 2 pieces of pattern paper and place the die and them through the die cut machine. We need 2 pieces of the same die cut to make the bag. 












Apply glue on the marked places. Since we have 2 die cut pieces, apply glue only on one of the bag base. 




Now its time to turn them into a bag and add the felt embellishment. 















6.  Shadow alphabet sentiment die

Adding a sentiment to a card adds something to a card or project. Adding a die cut sentiment is more fun and just the sentiment makes the card beautiful. I have die cut HELLO sentiment from white and black cardstock. 


How to make this
I used decoupage paper from Bob N Betty for background and die cut HELLO from black and white cardstock. A different way to use decoupage paper. 




To create the shadow effect, adhere the black letters on the white slightly offsetting them. I added some gemstones to finish the card.


7.  Building up a die cut

Building up a die to create something awesome is total fun. I am using Peacock dies from Sizzix. I made a peacock in white. The entire process is building up a die just like using layered stamps. The die set consists of a total of 7 pieces and its a perfect set for making a peacock. I love white peacocks and I thought I would make one here instead of blue-green.

How to make this:

First I die cut all pieces from white cardstock and eyes from black cardstock. 



I started stacking up all the small feathers to the body of the peacock starting from the bottom of the die cut.




I added all the pieces together to form a white peacock. 




I used a stamp from reverse confetti-peacock pretties to stamp my background. I used blue, violet, green for the background since my peacock is white. 



8.  Stamp and die cut

This is technique is commonly used by many crafters. Many stamps come along with matching die sets. Some stamps which are large don not need die cuts since they can be fuzzy cut by hand but intricate stamps do require matching dies if added separately like a border. 





I have shown two examples here. The first one using Altenew build a flower stamp and die set. 

How to make this:

I stamped the build a flower using Misti stamping tool (easy to line up for layered stamping)



I die cut both flower and leaves. I used a stencil to make a background and adhered by stamped pieces on it. Used sentiment from the same stamp set.




I just wanted to show how dies are necessary for intricate stamps. The second one is using some stamps.

How to make this:

I stamped this onto a white card and used matching dies to die cut. 



Once die cut...  you could see how the die has cut all the intricate places from the stamped piece. 




My post for today ends here and hope it was useful.


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Happy Crafting!
Priyadarshini