Slice Design Card Options - a tutorial in the basics

Today we're going back to basics. I’m going to show you the different options you have on your Slice design cards, and give you some tips on how to make the most of those options! I've used lots of different Slice cards in this post. The papers that are shown all come from the Making Memories Panorama collection.

Fonts

Many of the Slice cards come with a font. You’ll notice that not all the fonts are the same size when you cut them out. This means that a letter cut at 2” from one design card might not be the same size as one from another card. When you select a letter, you’ll see it appear in the square on the screen. Sometimes you’ll see the letter doesn’t go all the way to the top of the square, meaning it’s a somewhat smaller font. You can see the difference between the Home Sweet Home font on the left and the Music & Dance font on the right, with both of these cut at 2”:

The same applies to the shapes on the design cards also. Knowing how much of that square the shape will take up when you cut helps you to anticipate how large your final cut will be. On the following cut from the Words & Expressions card, I could see ahead of time that the word only took up the lower half of the square, so I could work out how to line up the cut on my paper.

MS+ cards

Many of the Slice cards have the MS+ option, which gives you the option of mirroring and shadowing features, plus a speed upgrade to your Slice machine. The speed boost is a permanent upgrade and will then work with any of the design cards you have. On the MS+ cards, when you select a shape you'll notice which mode you're in by what the screen says on the left side - Normal, Mirror or Shadow. On the cards that have the Layering feature (see below) this is where you'll notice the Layer option also. Press the double arrow to scroll through the different options. The order is Normal - Shadow - Mirror - Layer (if available) and then back to Normal. You'll notice that some shapes don't have the mirror option because they are symmetrical and so it isn't necessary. On the Words & Expressions card above, you’ll also notice that because this is not an MS+ card, the left side of the screen is blank.

Mirroring

MS+ cards open up all sorts of extra possibilities for your Slice! Here I've used the mirroring feature to make a mirror image of a flourish on the Basics 3 MS+ card. (You'll notice how the word Normal changes to Mirror on the left of the screen.) I've used this idea before and cut out multiple pairs of shapes to make my own border.

Shadowing

Below I've used the shadowing feature for this dragonfly from the Basics 2 MS+ design card. The word Shadow appears on the left of the screen to show you which option you've selected.

Layering

On some of the newer cards and on the Slice Fabrique cards, you'll find a layering option. The layer is a separate shape that you cut and layer on top of the original shape to add dimension to your cuts. Pretty cool, huh! Below is what you see on one of the menus for the Dilly Dally card, to show you what the shapes and layers look like:

 This is what the shape and layer look like when you cut them out: 

Even if you don't have a card with this layering option, Making Memories has designed many of the shapes on the cards to work together so you can make your own layers. Below is a layered shape I made by using two different shapes from the Wedding design card and then layered with pop dots.

Shape size

This is a small thing to notice but it might be useful. In the bottom left corner you'll see a tiny square and it changes size according to what size shape you're cutting. Below is a stork from the Baby design card at 1" and 4" to show you the difference. Plus, I think they look kind of cute together when they're cut out and the little one can hide in the big one! J

Becoming a fan of the Slice Facebook page will give you more opportunities to find out the latest tips, projects and giveaways!

~ Caroline ~

Blades giveaway: we have a winner!

Just in case you didn't see it on the Slice Facebook page, our winner of the Slice Replacement Blades is Kelly! Here is her comment:

Well done, Kelly! You can claim your prize by sending an email to Maricarmen at mnecochea@makingmemories.com.

***GIVEAWAY!!!*** Slice replacement blades

There are certain times when I feel like I am using my Slice all the time… I just love it when those creative times happen! But I definitely don’t ever want to be slowed down by a dull blade, and after a while it can happen that the blade needs to be replaced. How often will depend on how much cutting you are doing and the types of material you are cutting through. The Slice can cut through a wide variety of materials including paper and cardstock, vellum, thin vinyl, acetate and metal, photos, and fabric (with fusible web).

Today I have the opportunity to give away a pack of replacement blades, so make sure you leave a comment on this post to be entered to win! This is a super useful giveaway and will ensure that you won’t have to stop when you’re on a creative roll. J

If your paper is getting wrinkled during cutting, or the Slice doesn’t seem to be cutting all the way through the paper and giving you “clean” cuts, then these are possible indications that you might need to switch out the blade in your Slice for a new one. You can read more about this here.

The replacement blade kit comes with five replacement blades and the blade replacement tool. It’s not difficult to change the blade, and you can learn more about how to do that here.

Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post if you’d like to win these replacement blades! J

You can always become a fan of the Slice Facebook page if you’d like to know the latest tips, projects and giveaways.

~ Caroline ~

Tip for Spraying Adhesive on Slice Mat

I absolutely love my Slice hands-free kit. It really does make Slicing that much more enjoyable and with a better end result! When spraying the mat with the repositionable spray adhesive, I’ve found the following tip can help, so I wanted to share it with you today.

I love having a sticky Slice mat but I do not like sticky fingers! So I cover the edges of the mat with masking tape before I spray, and just about ¼ in all the way around on the mat itself (to the thick black line). I know I won’t be cutting right up to that edge, so I know that it’s not going to make a difference to the performance of my Slice. However, where it really saves time is when it comes to cleaning the mat – no sticky on the edges to remove!

This is what the mat looks like with the masking tape:

 It can also be helpful to run a fingernail gently in the groove between the edge of the mat and the glass board, just to make sure no spray gets in there.

Then spray your board!

(OK I’ll confess: the person who actually sprays my Slice mat is my husband, whose hands you see in these pictures… J )

Once it’s sprayed, you can remove the tape, then the edges will still be smooth and not sticky, and it means less cleaning next time you need to respray.

For handy tips on using your Slice hands-free cutting mat and how to clean it, check out this blog post from Laura Vegas.

If you’d like more handy tips, giveaways and project ideas, make sure you become a fan of the Slice Facebook page!

~ Caroline ~

Embellishing a mini-album

I don’t usually need an excuse to make a project, but sometimes it’s nice to have one anyway! I love looking through the lists of crazy and unusual holidays that you find on some websites, and I discovered that today is Renewal Day. I made a mini-album, and seeing as renewal was the theme, I made a toilet-roll mini album (with flattened empty toilet rolls – a renewed purpose for them!) and then used my Slice to decorate and embellish it. I made this album with some reminders for myself about renewal, but mini albums like this make great gifts! You can add as many rolls as you wish; I used three for my project.

To cover each of the toilet rolls, you need a piece of paper that’s the following size:

1 roll length + 1”  x 2 roll widths + 1”

Here are the steps on how I covered each roll with patterned paper. All the papers for this project are from the Making Memories Dilly Dally collection.

Next comes the fun part with the Slice! I made heavy use of multiple design cards for this project. I love how you can use the design cards for multiple purposes. And even though my project had nothing to do with Thanksgiving, the font on the Turkey Daze card was exactly what I was looking for.

On the first roll, I cut the title from Basic Shapes 2. For the background, I layered the die-cut shaped paper that’s in the Dilly Dally 8x8 paper pack and matched up the stripes to add to the layering effect:

On the second roll, I used flourishes from the Basic Shapes 3 card.

On the third roll I made a layered banner from the Dilly Dally card (with dimensional glue dots to make it pop), then cut out the word Joy from the Basic Elements card.

The tags were all cut from the Basic Elements card. Then on each one I used an element from the pattern word block page in the Dilly Dally 8x8 paper pack. On the first one I used the font on the Turkey Daze card to cut out the letters for Hope. Hope is always a good thing to have renewed, right? The great thing about this font is that if you put the letters very close to each other, it looks like the letters are joined – very cool!

On the Hello Sunshine tag, I cut out a shape to look a bit like the sun. Actually, it’s one of the layer elements from a flower on the Dilly Dally card – just repurposed for the renewal album. Sunshine always makes me feel renewed! J

On the final tag, I played on the idea of the bee from the word block paper and wrote “Just Bee” (letters from Turkey Daze font again) to remind myself that sometimes I need to stop and just be, to feel like I’m being renewed.

I inked the edges of all the tags, then “renewed” some ribbon from a gift I’d received to add to the tags. I punched a hole in the corner of each roll and joined them together with a metal ring which I embellished with some more repurposed ribbon.

The Slice really is great for mini-albums – the different sizes of the shapes and fonts lend themselves perfectly to projects like this!

Of course, you could take Renewal Day to mean anything you want. Maybe your driver’s license needs renewal, or maybe your house needs some “renewing” paint… perhaps you have a friend who you haven’t heard from in a while and you need to renew contact. Just for fun, why not post a comment with your ideas and suggestions?

If you’re a fan of the Slice and you’re on Facebook, make sure you Like the Slice Facebook page!

~ Caroline ~