Slicing & Die Cutting With Design Space

Hello again.  Thank you, Sheila, for having me here once again.  This month marks two years of being able to share some projects with you and I am revisiting the first post I did here, which was removing card fronts with your Gypsy.  Well, we now have the Explore and Design Space, and it couldn’t be easier to not only remove (slice)  card fronts, but to create die cuts without owning the die or a die cutting machine.  Something like this:

Here’s the how-to using, let’s say, a 4 x 5.25 piece of paper or card stock and a heart image.  Insert an image of a rectangle that size on the virtual mat.  Now insert the heart image   Size the heart image, bring it on top of your paper layer rectangle to where you want it to cut out, hold down the shift key to highlight both the heart and your paper layer and click slice over on the dialogue box.  You will see everything turn one color.  Now just slide the heart  away,  delete it or hide it, hit GO, and you will see that your heart image will be cut out from your paper layer.   Cool, right?  

My favorite way to use the slice feature is to cut a separate layer of the front of a card in designer or specialty paper to adhere to the plain card stock card.  This requires some extra steps, but it’s easy.  I’ll use a side fold card here; just adjust for a top folding card.  First, bring in the card you want to cut and size it in edit (unless it’s a square card, unlock the lock before you put in your height and width).  Next, bring in a rectangle image (or square) and size that in the edit box to the height and half the width of your finished card (you just need the front).  Click on your card, hide the score line and click detach in the layers dialogue box (this is important).  Now, slide the rectangle over the card front (bring it to the front through “arrange”) and it should cover the right half of the card.  Hold down your shift key and click both the rectangle and your card, then click slice in the dialogue box.   Now slide the new card front over (and you can delete what’s left on your mat).  Done!   I resized my new layer a bit so I would have a little margin of the card base around it.   Just FYI, I cut all the card bases first, then I cut the new layer.  

 And two others I sliced, one being a top folded card.

 Here’s the finished cards.  The first one, shiny foil card stock on white, 5 x 7.

 I was very impressed on how well the Explore cut the heavy glitter card stock on this top fold A2 card.

I cut  the last one in white so I could color in the house and trees and cover them with lots of Glossy Accents – don’t you just love that stuff?!!  The sentiment is also embossed, but it doesn't show.  5 x 7

 I feel very blessed to be able to join all of you once a month.  I can't thank Sheila enough for her generosity and inspiration.  I want to wish you the merriest of Christmases and the happiest and healthiest New Year!  God bless.