Tuesday

cookie cutter dies

Tips on Tuesday
A new feature of White Daisy Press blog is Tips on Tuesday. Every Tuesday...a paper crafting tip.
 
Today's tip is all about Cookie Cutter Dies. You've heard of those, right?
 
Cookie Cutter dies are dies that are the shape of the image they cut (like a traditional cookie cutter). Their obvious shape makes precision cutting significantly easier and of course, they cost less to produce, package and ship. Cookie cutter dies range in size from about the size of a dime (such as the ones in the photo) to up to 12" long.
 
 
 
Standard dies (non-cookie cuter style) are on a "bed", typically square. Usual sizes of the "bed" are 2" square, or 4" square. There are many alphabets available on beds of 4"x8". They can be up to 12" long. These are sometimes called "wafer-thin dies" too.
 
The white foam is called ejection foam and usually comes with the dies. Applying the foam to the die encourages the paper you are cutting not to stick in the super-fine details of the image...but to eject easily. Ejection foam is self-adhesive on one side for easy application. There's a video on youtube about this if you need to see it being applied.
 
 
Some of the newer companies producing wafer-thin dies and cookie cutter dies don't encourage users to apply ejection foam...something I completely do *not* understand. Ejection foam takes the work out of die cutting.
 
One of the largest manufacturers of dies--and I'm pretty sure the originators of the "cookie cutter" reference is Lifestyle Crafts, formerly known (for many years) as Quickutz.
 
Stampin' Up! has a line of dies made similarly called Framelits.
 
Sizzix, the maker of the Big Shot, also does Thinlets. 
 
There are other companies that offer these styles of dies as well, such as
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
--Sarah
 
 

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