...Introducing Cut Files and Playful Pinwheels

I'm sneaking in here a little ahead of the release with my pinwheels card - I was going to keep this for the release post, but there's no room, it's too long already!!! This card features Anya's new set Playful Pinwheels, it's a dream set, such fun to use! The Cut file set for this will be available, with the stamps when the release opens tonight at 7:00pm.

Sure hope the gals forgive me for springing my sample early.....

Anywhoo... I did want to give you the lowdown on the new cut files we will be making available. Right up front I'm going to tell you that cut files are only any good to you if you have a personal cutter, for example a Silhouette, a Silhouette Cameo, a craft Robo, that sort of thing. There has been somewhat of an explosion of cut files available in the last while, I noticed it really taking off after the Silhouette Cameo was released, but being a die template girl at heart, I wasn't really taking any notice of it....till I finally got my Robo out of the box.

On the die front Waltzingmouse Stamps will be having our own dies...I'm hoping to bring you the first set soon, but I also want to make cut files available for folks who use them, so going forward we'll be releasing both.

Our cut files will be SVG and DXF format files to begin with, we will consider other formats if we get enough enquiries. Our cut files will be available at very inexpensive prices and we'd love you to help us get the word out if you find ours to be useful.

For folks who have no idea what a cut file is, here is a little more information on how to stamp on them:

I use a Craft Robo and I can simply open up the file and send it to the cutter using the software provided by the Robo, your personal cutter will have it's own method of using cut files and I'd refer you to the instruction manual  of your machine for help on how to do that, but once you have made the cut - your shape should come out at the correct size to stamp on - here I'm using the large pinwheel shape from our Playful Pinwheels cut file set. In the pic you can see the card still sitting on top of the Robo carrier sheet - I simply picked the cut-out shape off and set it on my fun foam.

 I always stamp on a thin layer of foam, it gives excellent results with any stamp. When using a cut file shape, (or indeed a die cut shape) it is a good idea to lay the shape out on a contrasting colour of surface, here my card is white and the fun foam is deep pink.

This makes it super easy to line up my stamp...

...and get a nicely placed image on my cut out shape. - That's it, easy peasy!

Now that you have seen how easy it is to line up stamps with cut file images I hope you will be inspired to give it a go!

Back to the card!

Once I had my pinwheel outline stamped, I chose some fillers - there are a great variety of different patterns to fill up the blades of your pinwheel, and since the 4th July is coming, I thought the stars and stripes seemed appropriate!

You can see how I stamped off my filler shapes so that I got the second impression ink colour on my pinwheel, I just wanted a softer look.

Clear stamps make it oh so easy to use sets like this, where you can line up shapes with ease!!

I finished with one of the casual styled sentiments from the new Playful Pinwheels set!


Hope it tickles, back tonight at 7:00PM....