30 Days of Blogging (D.I.Y. and Paper Tips) Day Eight: Die-Cutting

I was in a FEDEX Office location recently and found a couple actually cutting circular fan wedding programs by hand. There had to be a stack of 200 that they had to get through. Amazing. Let me suggest that if you do not have the professional equipment to achieve unique shapes, please don't even attempt it. Its too time consuming and the final product will be left wanting. No matter how careful you are, it is impossible do that kind of work accurately working by hand with scissors.
I did a past blog on die-cutting, but it was prior to my Accucut GrandeMark acquisition while at NSS. The basic principles are still the same, yet the Accucut machine is a much more affordable way for you to achieve stationery that has a non-square shape. I used to have dies custom made and would then have to pay a fee for a printer to print AND die-cut projects. Cost prohibitive for small run projects.

Picture of an Accucut machine with some dies. The die is simply a shape and it contains carefully curved/placed blades surrounded by foam. When the dies pass through the machine, the pressure from the large roller "squeezes" the die and the foam is depressed while the blades are raised, puncturing the stock and achieving the shape.

View of some "dies" from the back side.

The only other kind of special cutting that I do in-house is to round corner. There are a couple of tools you can use:

This is my go to... Hand held round corner cutter. I picked this up at Staples for like nothing. I have two because one always seems to be lost. Nice and sturdy and makes a nice corner.

This CR-20 Lassco round corner tool is GREAT for large stacks of paper. My printer currently has this tool, I'm thinking of investing in one of my own I like it so much. This would save me so much time. You can also adjust the diameter of your corner.

Some examples of uniquely shaped stationery that we've executed...