My mass die cutting and stamping

February 10, 2021

Hey all!

So as promised here is my blog post explaining how I go about mass die cutting and stamping coordinating collections.

Firstly I take several sheets of my silky smooth ultra white card (A4) and cut it down into either A5 or A6 pieces depending on the number of dies in the collection to cut out; for today’s purpose I have cut them in half so have A5 pieces of card.

For today's demonstration I am using Time for Tea designs Beavering Away collection along with Time for Tea designs Be Kind Be You collection.

The next step was to take the dies out of their packaging, as it was the first time using these collections there were a few dies inside each other so I had to remove the inner die by cutting the connectors using my jewellery pliers.

Onto my Gemini cutting plate I then placed a piece of the A5 sized card I’d trimmed down and then I placed the dies I was going to use face down - with the cutting edge against the paper. Ensuring adequate space between any loose dies so that if they moved they wouldn’t overlap and damage the dies.

I then placed the remainder of the plates needed for my sandwich of plates to go through my Gemini. Before proceeding to feed the plates into the Gemini machine for it to take hold of the plates and automatically feed them through to the other side.

The Gemini is my choice of machine as it is automatic and large enough to cut through multiple sets at one time, these two components are important to me as I suffer from arthritis. There are plenty of other die cutting machines out there that can be used - such as the grand caliber, big shot, big shot plus, cut n boss, spellbinders sapphire and diamond press. Machines vary in size so check the one you have or are going to purchase is big enough for what you wish to die cut.

Time to take the die cut elements out before cutting more out from the card stock previously cut down. On removing the elements I kept them in their collections and each element in their own pile so creating a bigger pile the more cut out.

As my Gemini machine is on my floor and there is more space to use it there. Once the die cutting is complete it’s time to return to my desk to move on to the next step - the stamping.

Firstly I put all the die cut images on to my desk and then decided I will start with the beavering away collection stamps. With one of the sheets from which I had cut the images from I trimmed it down so was just for the beavers ensuring I had a corner for which I could put up to the edge of my stamping platform.

The next step is to place the relevant stamp inside the gap where the die cut for that image came from ensuring the stamp is roughly in the centre as best as possibly to ensure a even edging around image once stamped.

Once all the stamps are lined up I closed my stamping platform so that the stamps stick to the cover plate. Before then placing one of each of the die-cut images into the stamping platform in corresponding space; then close the platform to ensure stamps are lined up correctly.

Next I re-opened my stamping platform before applying lawn fawn fundamentals jet black ink onto the stamps ensuring all stamps are adequately covered.

Then close the stamping platform and press down over all images, Open the platform and check to see if you images have stamped correctly. If images have stamped correctly remove the stamped die cuts and replace with plain die cut pieces and repeat process to stamp these until all cut out pieces are stamped from the collection.

Should part of an image or images not stamp correctly/ clearly then reapply ink to areas affected and close the platform and press down firmly on those areas before reopening platform to check. If images are still incomplete reapply more ink as required and repeat process.

Then as I had done for the beavering away collection I repeated the process for the be kind be you collection.

For the this collection I didn’t stamp on all the die cut images as I wanted to leave some white and also leave some so I had the option of maybe stamping in a different colour relevant to colours on the project one is working on.

On completing the stamping I tidied away my stamps and dies and with each collection I placed the card which I had cut the die cuts from with these so they could be used in the future. Also they would be ideal if stamp then colour an image can use the sheet to line up die to ensure the correct area is cut.