Tippy Thursday - Marianne Creatables

Hi, bit of a change in the weather today, but my spirits were lifted when the postie dropped my order from Make a Lasting Impression on the mat.  Boy was I pleased with the contents, getting new crafting goodies is something I LIKE!

I was so pleased that the ironing went out of my mind, I needed to see what these beauties would do.....

These dies are from Marianne Creatables - and I think they are going to give the die cutting manufacturers some competition!

They have changed the colour of the die, which did seem to be giving some crafters a problem with transferring the dark blue colour to the cut, and instead have gone with this lighter blue.  No colour transfer here!  The designs are interesting, - the leaf and the hearts cut and emboss really well, and they have thought about making the cuts easier to release and have successed with the additon of small holes positioned round the dies.  The leaf which is a delicate cut came straight out of the die first time.  At a cost  of £7.90 including postage - not unreasonable.  

 

Talking of cutting, a few crafters have been having problems with the Bug cutting and embossing.  I think that the main problem for this is not the Bug but the plates.  Repetative cutting, especially if you always place the die in the middle to the plate, will make the plate thinner and so reduce or give a uneven pressure on the sandwich.  You will also find with well cut plates the the cut is not always clean (ie the edges are rough), and the cut marks on the plate will also make marks on the underside of the cut.  If you don't want to buy new plates, you could try moving the die to the side and rotating the cut 90 degrees after the first run and doing it again.  The under marks can be eliminated by placing a piece of copy paper on top of the plate.  I have an old and new set of B's, I use only 3 of the 4 - 2 old very marked one and l of the new ones (I'm saving the other new one for a rainy day).  If I try cutting intricate dies with 2 old sometimes they wont cut, if I use 1 old and 1 new - it works.  Why don't I throw the old ones away - well I'm a crafter and the two old ones work with embossing and still have some life in them!   

After telling you about the Marianne dies, I will also add that some of the new Nesties are on sale at Liz's. Now before you tell me I'm a temptress, you can look out of interest, but you don't have to ??????