Good thing that I don't blog for a living, isn't it? I really should be at least a little more consistent, but I just never know what life is going to bring me at any given time. My work schedule is "beck and call", my DH started a new job that has thrown both of us several curves, and my life in general lacks any kind of rhythm or consistency, so that gets reflected here, as well...
Be that as it may, I've noticed that a couple more of you folk out there have subscribed to my little corner of Blogland (thank you), so I'll at least try to post something worthwhile when I DO get around to it! My latest venture was inspired by a couple of threads over on Splitcoast, having to do with organizing diecut samples and such. One poster said that she cut every single die so she could see what did/didn't fit in or on it, and someone else mentioned that you could laminate pieces/parts and I percolated those tidbits with a few other things that came to mind, and this is what I've done:
What you are looking at is two different things for the same process. The black cards are punched with various punches and laminated. The others are similar to the templates provided with the old Creative Memories shape cutting system. What I did was take a laminating pouch, open it up, slide one of the punched cards into place at the top, then trace a set of nesting dies in the spaces around it, using Micron pens. I alternated red and blue to make it easier to differentiate between the dies. I then wrote the name of the die set in black ink, closed up the pouch and ran it through the laminator. Here's what one of the sheets looked like after that process:
After the laminating, I cut the templates apart and rounded the corners. Here's why I did what I did: I was not about to cut every single die - waste of time, money and cardstock, for starters. Then I would have had to figure out where to put all of those diecut pieces - no thank you, please! I traced around the dies on the INSIDE of the pouch so that the ink would be trapped between two sheets of plastic and not wear off over time. I had to put the punched cardstock at the top of the pouch so I could feed that end into the printer. Without it, the pouch just wraps around the rollers and you have to disassemble the laminator to get it out (ask me how I know). One more thing to note: on some dies (Nestabilities, for example) the traced area is not the cut line but the embossing line. That's fine with me because I don't like my image or sentiment to overlap the embossing, anyway, so it's more accurate for my purpose...
Now I have templates to use to see how different images or sentiments will fit and/or look with different punches or dies. I'm going to store them in with whatever category of stamps they fit best in (frames, tickets and banners, flowers, whatever), so I don't forget about them. I haven't done all of them yet, but you can see I've got a good start! I think I'll put samples of all of my embossing folders in with the stamps, as well - I forget about those all the time, too! I do have samples of all of these in a binder that I pull out periodically if/when I think I want something particular, but having them in with the stamp sets will probably remind me to use them MUCH more!
So - that's my story today! Maybe it's a useful tidbit of information for you, or at least inspires a thought. Happy Valentine's Day (or, as it's alternately referred to, "Happy Singles Awareness Day") and have a great week! See you when I see you!