Die Cut Alphabets

Hi Everyone
another very sunny day ...... freezing as well, with a clear sky. I've now been posting a photo of the weather for two days, so it's now 'a habit' ! so here is a view from my workspace (for today - I 'hot desk' around the house') !




I'm going to try and make a big effort on my Jan. painting today. I've concentrated on the stamp development and its going great. I really enjoy making stamps. I think I will get things stuck down on the wood and add a bit of paint. This is my most exciting part of producing paintings. I like the way I have an idea (it may change) in my head and am amazed when it appears on the surface of whatever I'm painting. I'm always surprised at what it looks like. Completely different from the image in my head. It gets me every time.

I'm also trying to organise my studio, it's such a mess. I find it difficult to work in there and I can never find anything. The main problem is lack of space but somehow I need to find 'the way'. No point in wishing for a bigger space. It's not going to happen. It will be great in the end ! Not sure how or when I will get there. Bit like my paintings !!!!!!

It's now time for episode 4 of the Die Cut Chronicles. Today, it's a quick look at alphabets. This is probably the die cuts I use most. I have a range of alphabet dies, my focus in this episode is using the sidekick with a long thin cut die. These dies have a whole alphabet on one die and some of them have both upper and lower case letters and some have numbers/extra shapes. My favourite font (in my collection) is a Tim Holtz, Alterations 'Typeset'.



I have an amazing 9 alphabets in this form (Ive never counted them before).



The cutting technique is just the same as any other diecut although because the individual cuts are quite small and potentially intricate the thickness of paper/card is quite important. I use the shim approach (mentioned yesterday) much of the time on thicker/textured paper.
I'm using some scrap paper (from the bin) to illustrate how individual letters or groups of letters can be used on a single cut








Considering this was a torn up scrap of paper, the cuts came out well, some letters are half cut as I didn't cover the whole letter but generally the quality of the whole letter cuts is OK.


Sometimes the letters get stuck in the die (as the 'r' shows), individual shapes can be easily removed with tweezers. I tend to use tweezers to handle and place letters in my projects. Most of the time, I will be selective about what letters I cut. If the whole die is used, you end up with mountains of spare letters, which is a waste of the paper. I do have little mountains of letters and keep them as stock but mostly I need to cut specific letters for specific jobs in a particular material. Tomorrow, continuing the alphabet theme I will give a sample look at each of my alphabets.

That's it for today.
Bye for now.