It cuts like a knife...........

I have had many people ask how I cut out images (i.e. flowers, animals) that I add to my cards. I thought it would be a good topic to discuss, so in this post I'll show which craft knives I use and ones that no one should use. Also, I'll show some examples of my past work.

If you want to add an extra pizazz to your work then using a craft knife to cut out any stamped images which would be placed on your card with dimensional's (foam mounting adhesives). Here's a few examples to show how adding cut out stamped images makes a project look beautiful.

In this card I added the branch with flowers over top of the same image and it made the card so much more interesting. The stamped image is from Artfully Asian. This particular stamp is quite hard to cut out because of it's fine features.


For this project, an important dates book, I cut out many different stamped images to dress up the front of the book, which otherwise would be very dull.


On this card I was originally going to just stamp the image on the Whisper White card stock, but thought it was going to be too plain. However, I did stamp the curled leaf stamp in Old Olive, that's where I stopped and added some dimension to give the card some life.




Now, for the tools I use. You can buy the cheap dollar store craft knife, but the collet (the part that holds the blade) is usually made out of plastic, this is very inferior. This type of knife won't last long from the pressure that's put on the knife while cutting card stock. I don't have a picture of that type of knife because I don't use them, but I have tried unfortunately. The X-Acto brand knife is a very good choice of knife to use. The collet on the X-Acto knife is made of the same material as the shaft, which is aluminum. I find that the X-Acto knife is to small for my hands to hold and ultimately cutting can be less accurate. Changing the blade on this type can be difficult to change because the aluminum shaft sticks to the aluminum spindle piece (it's the part that locks the blade in).


This next knife I picked up at Canadian Tire. It is a craft knife, but I find it's too big for small jobs. However, I think it's good to have for cutting heavy card or chip board. The blades are easy to change, just sliding the yellow lock back is all it takes. The handle is also a storage for more blades, so they are always at hand.


The last knife that I'll talk about is the best in my mind. This craft knife is made by Fiskars. The handle is made of molded rubber which allows easy grasping and handling. It fits very nicely in any size hand and is very comfortable. Also, the handle is bigger than the aluminum craft knife, but not nearly as big as the one from Canadian Tire. The collet is made of aluminum as is the rest of it's parts. Replacing blades is easy, especially with the tension release at the end of the knife. After you put in a new blade you can tension it as much as you want and the design of this knife allows you to position the blade as you wish. The fiskars knife does cost a bit more, but it's well worth it. This craft knife is far superior than any knife I've tried.


I hope this was of any help, and helps cutting down (LOL, no pun intended) the time you spend on deciding on which craft knife to use.

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