Quick Tip Tuesday

Good morning crafty friends! This is Angie from Angie’s Paper Passion with another Quick Tip. I’m still sharing tips about craft storage and organization this month. Today’s tip is about storing those thin metal dies that we all love! I really love using these types of dies when I need something really quick. But storing them was a problem since they are so thin and some sets have a few pieces. Well, I think that I have solved my problem (for now anyway! It seems that I’m always RE-organizing my stash!) I ordered these DVD holders online at a very good price. They were bought to help me contain my growing stamp collection but I never got around to doing that completely – that’s a whole different post! So when I needed to find a way to store my thin dies, I pulled these out and used them for dies instead.

(my advice is to order more than you think that you need because they really come in handy for storing so many more scrapbook supplies than you can think of at this moment and they are so inexpensive!)

I ordered them from here:

Tapes On Line

I just added some adhesive backed magnet material to the inside to the case and then placed my dies inside. I used a label maker to add the manufacturer and name of each set on each case. One day I plan to cut out each die to place in a file so I can see them all at a quick glance!

 

Here’s a sample of what it looks like:

  

I can even get two sets in one case by nesting them. Or even more if want to use both sides.

But I wanted to be able to see inside the cases (if I can’t see my supplies I never use them! Maybe that explains all the duplicates in my stash)

Now let’s see how you can dress up those dies – either regular dies or your Cricut dies!

These flowers were cut with my Flower Shoppe Cricut cart. I used a mat (like a mouse pad) and stylus tools (I have the ones from McGill  that have different sizes of stylus) and after I inked up all of the edges I started molding each flower layer. It’s very easy and fascinating to watch the petals almost ‘come alive’ while doing this! Layer the flower on the mat and use a stylus by rolling it in a circular motion over the petals. This gives your flowers and leaves so much dimension! I then adhere my flower layers together with either Scotch Quick Dry adhesive or Glossy Accents.

I started  with  these simple cut outs...

and by using different sizes of stylus they start to look like real flowers!

All I have to do is adhere them together and they come out like this:

Keeping your dies organized will help you make some incredible images for your next card or layout.

If you'd like to see my finished project with these flowers, click HERE to go to my blog. For some more OUTSTANDING work, you must visit my Cricut Sister, Nadia! She can take most of the Cricut images and do some wonderful things with them. Browse her blog to be Amazed! Visit her blog HERE! You won't want to leave! Oh, and tell her that Angela (TiffysMom) sent you! 

I'll be back next week & show you some ways to control ah I mean store and organize all of those Cricut cartridges! 

Until next time, Happy Crafting.