There's a Die for That!

Nowadays, we often say "There's an App for that . . "  when we find a way to do things more quickly or efficiently using our phones.  Well in the world of traditional scrapbooking, it would seem that the equivalent to an app is a die.  We love dies because they have eliminated a lot of the need for "fussy cutting" the old fashioned way and they are lighter and easier to store and carry around than the punches we used just a couple years ago.

Here is a prime example of what I'm talking about.    When I first started teaching mosaics, one of the first layouts I designed was this popcorn/movie themed mosaic that I taught as an introductory class.

I was in love with Riley the Moose and thought I just had to do something with these adorable stamps and my newfound love of Copic Markers.  I tracked down this Hot Off the Press Popcorn Paper and lovingly and enthusiastically designed this layout.  Well, that's all well and good for making your own special, one-of-a-kind, layout.  It's a-whole-nother issue when you want to teach this layout as a class!

For this layout, I cut out two strips that were slightly wider than 2 1/8" x 11 1/8" and then painstakingly used a punch along the sides of both of the film strip pieces.  The width of the punched image is about 2 inches - meaning for each film strip piece, I had to punch six times for the left side and then six times for the right side.  There were two such strips per layout, times 10 layouts per class, times two times I taught the class (once in Columbus, once in Cincinnati).  Yes, I punched those pieces out more than 500 times to get my sample and 20 layouts for classes.  That was a lot of cutting and a WHOLE LOT of punching!  (not to mention that the punch I used was actually the EK success punch designed for a notebook effect, so I then I had to go back and adhere the scrap/waste portion of the punched piece to close the holes to give them the film-strip effect!

  

I'm having flashbacks just typing this post!!!  

And now would you get a load of this??  

Yup, that's right, Tami Potter and those wonderful folks over there at Mosaic Moments have designed a die that cuts a Film Strip Die sized to fit the grid - 2.125 x 5.5 inches - so it covers 2 squares x 5 squares.   Whew!  I'm so glad there's a die for that - I wish I had had this years ago!

This die is available right now for pre-sale.  Please use the Snap-N-Crop Link to the right here on my blog to make your purchases!