How To Get More Out of Your Cutting Dies: Looking for Usable Shapes in Die-cuts

Hello crafty friends!
Today I'm sharing something I was messing around with recently. I decided to take one of my fancy die-cuts to see what I could do with it and below are a few of the things I discovered. 
I found a really cute flower among this design. You can also use this particular shaped piece to make wings for a dragonfly, leaves, a cross, etc.

Cut the corner designs away and you have a beautiful butterfly or corner designs for any shape card. Turn one corner upright and you have a crown. Turn it upside down and you have the entire body, hands and feet of a Christmas Caroler (just add a head). Remember you can always cut little pieces off to get a more specific shape. Place a doily or another piece over it and have it as a pretty background filler. Those little loops in the middle of the die-cut could be the trail of a bee.

I found that even your odd shapes can have many purposes. In fact when you look at the photo below on the left, imagine the corner brackets I made as scary pumpkin eyes. 

For one of my recent cards I used a piece of my die-cut just to make the corner of my card a little more interesting. 

So grab a die-cut and start seeing what you can make out of it. 

I used the Cricut Cuttlebug Flourish Emblem die
If you like this you might like these...

How to Get More Out of the Cutting Dies You Already Own: Making an Assymetrical Die-cut, Symetrical

How to Make Die Cuts a Different Shape to Match Your Image

Happy crafting and thanks for stopping by :)

How to Get More Out of the Cutting Dies You Already Own: Making an Assymetrical Die-cut, Symetrical

Hello everyone!   Just a quick tip as I race the clock to get Christmas gifts made. I hope this post finds you well and enjoying the season.    Today I'm sharing how I used my die-cuts for a card a few weeks ago and one I'm still working on currently, which may help you look at your dies a little differently.   In past post I've mentioned how much I love my Spellbinders Card Creator dies and showed how to make a fancy symmetrical rectangular shape into a square to fit an image.

How to Make Die-cuts a Different Shape to Match Your Image

This time I will make an asymmetrical shape symmetrical using the large die from the Spellbinders, Card Creator Reflective Moment pack as the example. This specific die is the basis for many beautiful cards all over the web, but one thing you don't see, at least I haven't, is the die turned sideways or upside down. It just looks odd.   So if you're feeling stuck with it always going one direction there is a way to change it.    You can get at least 3 totally different die-cut shapes from this one die.   Here's how:   Make two die-cuts of the same shape.

 

Cut them in half

To finish, match the bottoms together and the tops together to make symmetrical shapes and then run tape down the back of the seams.

The upper shape is using the bottoms and the one below is using the tops.

Now you not only have your gorgeous original shape, but two beautiful new shapes to work with :)

Here is an example when the bottoms were used to make a card a few weeks ago.

There are many ways to use your dies, you just have to play with them to see what you can come up with. This latest discovery left me pleasantly surprised and excited about the options I have from a die that I initially thought would only go so far.  

Happy Crafting!