Just a few tips and such...

Well here it is Sunday morning and I am once again blogging - hehehe... but this time I didn't have to sneak on. Nope - hubby has gone turkey hunting and well - I am off to lunch and a movie with my friend! (Ok the truth of the matter is I had no desire to get up at 4 AM and go tromping through the wet swamp to sit in a tree!!! Sorry!)

I was a good little wife though and got up at 4:30 AM and fixed hubby's lunch and patted him on the butt and sent him out the door by 5 AM - which is what time I crawled back into bed!! Bahahahaha....

I have to tell you - I have had my 13" KNK since Nov and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this machine... but I will be honest with you - going from a wishblade to a KNK was quite hard. For those of you that ready my blog and you don't have a cutting machine... The wishblade has a cap blade system. It is these little color coded caps that you change out depending on what kind of paper you are cutting. (See below)

Well the KNK does not have that type of system. Instead you the owner have the ability to adjust you blade to make the perfect cut for the paper you are cutting. And that is one of the (many) things that truly makes the KNK so much more powerful than a Wishblade, Craft Robo or Silhouette.

I personally have struggled with trying to figure out the perfect setting for my blade, my speed and my pressure (see I am human just like everyone else!!! LOL). It has taken me a while to to do that - but along the way I have learned a few tricks that I wish someone had taught me to easy my troubles and save me a whole lot of paper.... so today I am going to share a few with you!

1) If your cut is very intricate - SLOW your speed DOWN... The slower you slow it down - the easier it is for the blade to turn and not catch at the edges and pull your paper.

2) Simplify and reduce your nodes as much as you can!! Especially on Script Fonts.... every place that you have a node that is traffic sign for your blade... it makes it turn, veer, stop or what have you.... the more nodes you have especially in the sharp corners of fonts - there is more chance that your paper will rip, tear or skip cutting there.

3) Make sure that you paper is attached FIRMLY to your mat. You may think you mat is sticky enough - but just a slight movement of your paper will make your cuts off. I have gotten to where I bray my paper to my mat! You can do this by using a brayer, or a bone folder - or I actually use a wallpaper roller I found in the walmart clearance bin for $1.

4) If possible - try to stick with the same line of paper as much as you can. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Colormates card stock - Now I am a bazzill snob when it comes to my own scrapbooks but I have found that I can coordinate my colors between the Colormate and the bazzills. Colormates just seems to give me really consistent cuts time after time after time. That means - no adjusting my blade - which means faster cutting and assembling on my end!

5) And this one is the one that I am MOST impressed with... if you live in a humid place - get a dehumidifier for your scrap area! And get a GOOD one!!! I know I live in South GA and people say the humidity here is horrible (I guess I never noticed as I have lived in GA all my life but our house is only 16 feet above sea level and I can see the river that leads to ocean from my backyard!). And I was told that humidity will effect your paper - your paper actually absorbs the moisture and make it more dense and harder to cut....

Ok - I heard that so I did a little research and I purchased a small table top dehumidify. I figured that was all I needed since we run the AC pretty much year round here in GA. And I have to say that small dehumidify seemed to help my cutter cut my paper.

Well - that dehumidifier died a sudden death this week and I noticed I was starting to have trouble cutting - using the same paper I always use at the same settings... so I told hubby I need to get a new dehumidifier. So off to Lowes we went yesterday!

Once we go there the smallest machine they had was a 25 pint machine. You have to understand I went from a two cup (or 1 pint) table top model (that cost me about $40) to now he is suggest I should get this 50 cup (or 25 pint) machine. And oh by the way this machine is the size of a small cooler and cost over $100!!!!

Well - with the BIG announcement looming closer and closer - I know that cutting well is going to be an issue - so we purchased the 25 pint machine. We brought it home and hooked it up in the scrapping room.

Let me tell you - this thing is loud in comparison to the table top model - and it makes the room quite warm - but in the 24 hours that it has been running it has pulled out over 40 cups of water in the air!!!! When it started it said that there was 85% humidity in the room and now it has it down to 40% and it is still pulling water from the air!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!! 40 cups of water were floating around in the air of my scrapping room!!!

Oh - and as for my cutting - it made a 110% difference - for the BETTER!!!! So I would totally say that it is totally worth the moola!

So - there you have it - a few tips for better cutting with your machines! I hope they help you get the cuts you so desire! LOL

Before I go - I will show you a few of my newest files that just hit the store yesterday!!! Now you can see why having my machine cutting well is soooo important!!!

Cya~