Hello friends! Today I’m going to talk about the papers that I’m currently using for digital cutting. I was planning/probably still will do a video on using Stampin Up die cuts with their cardstock to create embossing plates. I was playing around with that concept with my mom when I was visiting her and played around with the different card stocks. And they have a new (it’s at least new to me) thick, basic white that I had not used before and that ended up working better. I brought a bunch of these cutouts home with me, but they went through the suitcase, they had been rolled through her Sizzix Big Shot, and they are really hard to line up. So I’ll probably use a different die because the one I showed in the video is way too fiddly and I was starting to lose patience. So hopefully I will get around to shooting a video on that so my Mom can remember how to do it 😉
Today I will just talk about the different papers that I’ve been using /experimenting with for my digital cutting. I did try the thick Stampin Up paper on the my Silhouette Curio. I love Stampin Up paper and most of my cardstock is still Stampin Up cardstock, but I have never loved cutting it on the digital cutter. It’s very fibrous and I just always had trouble with it. So I will mention that I have two cutters. One is the Silhouette Curio, and one is an older machine- a Black Cat Cougar. Actually the Curio is old too, I guess! Neither company makes these machines anymore 🙁 . The Black Cat Cougar is a heavy duty machine. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that the newer machines do, but it just cuts like a dream. And once I get my settings set up, I literally can just run it sheet after sheet after sheet after sheet through that thing and just cut a bunch of images sheets at a time. The Silhouette is a little more finicky, and sometimes it cuts the top half, but not the bottom half. It might take two passes on part of the sheet and 3 to 4 on another. I end up losing patience, so for the most part, all I do on the Silhouette is print and cut because my other machine is not capable of doing that.
For that purpose I print using Epson Premium Presentation Matte and the settings I use for that paper on my Curio using the Premium Blade are as follows:
Blade Setting is around 2, Speed is 3, Force is 19 (Yupu could probably go with a little less force if you have a newer mat) and I usually use 2 or 3 passes.
I showed a Sitka tree that my daughter painted for me ( I am not capable of watercoloring like she can!) And so I scanned it in and fiddled with it for a long time to get a almost perfect print and cut. And so that’s what I use the Epson Presentation Premium Matte paper for. I’m just cutting outlines, and even though the Sitka tree is a little more intricate, but certainly not super detailed, the Silhouette should be able to cut something like that and it does.
Today I tried cutting the thick Stampin Up cardstock on a Silhouette with varying degrees of success. I had some pieces that cut great (mostly on the top) and others that either didn’t cut well and will be a bear to weed out the small pieces, or they ripped when I tried to pull them off the cutting mat.
Here are the settings I was using for the Stampin Up Cardstock on my Silhouette Curio, again with the premium blade:
Blade Setting is around 5-6, Speed is 7, Force is 18 and I usually use 3 passes.
Cardstock just seems to lend itself to the fraying, ripping situations. If I’m just doing one offs or really wanted to make sure that my Distress inks would work for a particular project, then I could/would deal with it. However, when I cut my designs, generally I’ll cut at least four of each design. And the reason I do that is so that I can use one as a mask, and I cut three additional ones to stack, glue together and use as an embossing plate like this one. For Stencils I don’t need to cut as many, although I will usually layer two of them together for a stencil because with intricate designs and cleaning media off of the stencil, two layers is a bit sturdier. I sometimes cut an extra one or two stencil designs to use with easier to clean media like the Distress Inks, although even there the double thickness helps keep the stencil flat when using it.
And then if I want more of the mask designs, I cut additional ones to paint and ink and do all that kind of stuff. So having to deal with the paper ripping and fraying and shredding with that many cut outs, I just would be a very unhappy crafter 😉 . So, for the most part I don’t cut cardstock on the digital cutter all that often unless I have plenty of time on my hands.
I did try cutting Ranger Distress Heavy Cardstock (white, Kraft and Multi media), but it was not possible to do my typical, very intricate cuts well. So I use those cardstocks for shadow/offset/background layers or simpler shapes. I didn’t have those pieces hanging around to show in the video, as I used them up for the Holidays ;). At some point I will try to update with settings I use for this cardstock.
For this video/Blog post I did test the laser printable cardstock that I talked about this in this other post.
NOTE: There may be other posts about the laser printable cardstock that may or may not be up yet. I’m so far behind on editing. I shoot in bits and pieces. Part of the reason sometimes my videos are so disjointed is I experiment, and once I start something, I start wondering about this or that and I start down rabbit holes of experimentation and trials. Some work, some don’t, haha. I throw all my filmed sessions up on the computer, and then I edit them usually months, if not years later- oy! I just checked an I am well over a year behind for editing my filmed footage!! Yikes, I need minions, LOL. And so I am not too sure where I’m at with talking about this paper 😉 .
I bought the Laser Printable Cardstock on Amazon- it’s the Goefun 80 lb Card Stock Printer Paper. It’s not that expensive, it’s not super thick, and it comes in the Kraft paper. The whole reason I bought this originally, was that I wanted a project printed on Kraft paper. In the meanwhile, I decided to try it one day on the digital cutter and now I have bought it in different colors! The Black Cat Cougar it cut, well I won’t say as well as, you know my normal favorite go to paper but good enough that I cut pages of it. This cardstock takes Distress ink and paint well, maybe not as well as the Ranger Distress cardstock, but it is a little easier to cut than the Ranger. The Goefun cardstock is, in my mind, a little bit easier than the Stampin Up to cut. It’s less fibrous and a little crisper, is how I would phrase it. And so it just cuts easier. Now, again, this was on the Black Cat Cougar. I cut it on the the Silhouette Curio (with a fresh mat) and it cut okay. I used the same settings as the Stampin Up cardstock. I feel like on the Curio it definitely cut better than the Stampin Up paper. So again, as I mentioned, Stampin Up paper tends to be more fibrous, which is great for taking on inks and that sort of stuff, but it doesn’t cut as well on the cutter. With the Goefun, I had a lot less trouble. There is one spot right where I was a little too aggressive and ripped it pulling it off the mat. I will mention that the Silhouette mat was getting toward the end of its life. So it wasn’t a fresh mat. If you’re cutting super intricate designs on paper, you’re always better off using a newer mat.
So now I’m on to the plastic papers, which in general cut better, but they’re a little more difficult to color. So I have a million videos on my experiments with that process- like here and here. I’m in the process of shooting updates to this so that I can keep track of the pros and cons of different mediums. That will be a long one haha. And who knows when that will get up on my YouTube channel and blog :).
In the meanwhile I have experimented cutting Dura-lar, which is clear. The only one I was able to cut was an old pad of 9×12 clear called Dura-lar Wet Media in a .004 thickness. Although mine is an old pad, I believe they still make it. At least they sell one with a different cover o the pad, but same name and same thickness. I think the thickness of .004. is the key. It cut fine- a bit tougher than my favorite Yupo paper which I will discuss below. I cut one sheet and then ended up using most of those pieces and I had no examples for the video- sorry about that! I didn’t have lots of sheets left of that Dura-lar, so I ordered a new pad. However it was different- Dura-lar Matte in a thickness of .005. This Dura-lar, also supposedly accepts ink and colored pencil, etc, but I tried and could not for the life of me cut it on my Black Cat Cougar. I didn’t try it on the Silhouette. I can’t imagine it will work. I can try it at some point and if it works I will post an update.
I also saw they had Dura-lar in black, and I thought “Oh, black, that would be cool!” Well, that one is a thickness of .010, and no I couldn’t get it to cut at all either. Oh, by the way, I could get all of the Dura-lars to cut with just regular dies, even the thin etched ones. So not sure why I couldn’t do it on the cougar, but that’s where I ended up with that.
Now we get to what I call the knock off Yupo papers. They are still polypropylene but they come in different thicknesses. The first one that I played around with here with was SAA Yupo paper 110 GSM and it cuts great. Note that in that post I linked to, I have settings that I used for both The SAA and regular Yupo paper. The SAA paper is very, very thin though, as is the next one I tried, which is the Terraslate five mil. Terraslate is laser printable though! The Terraslate 5 mil is a little bit thicker than the SAA, but still thinner than the Yupo. They make a thicker one that is 8 mil, but that wouldn’t cut for me. The SAA and Terraslate papers, if you’re not careful and you just try to hurry up and rip it off the cutting mat, you can tear it, depending on your design. Sometimes when I am designing and I’m connecting designs, I sometimes miss that the junctions are teeny teeny tiny, and if I’m too aggressive pulling them, these will definitely rip.
I have much better luck with Legion brand Yupo Polypropylene paper. I use the 74 pound. This is my Goldilocks paper- not too thick to cut- not too thin to rip. They make or made a thicker one but that would cut on the cutter and would even cut using etched dies! I cut sheets of this paper, and although it cuts like a dream, I do have to spend the time coating it in order to use it, if I don’t want to use it white or don’t feel like using alcohol inks. This is because it is plastic and the Distress Inks do not work on it well without some sort of coating.
The settings I use for Legion Yupo Paper 74 lb on my Silhouette Curio, again with the premium blade:
Blade Setting is around 4-5, Speed is 8, Force is 18 and I usually use 3 passes.
Just in case you are interested here are my settings for the Black Cat Cougar in Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) version 6 for Legion Yupo paper 74 lb:
I use the click blade on 1, Force is 38, Speed is 185 mm/sec and I use a multi-cut of 3.
In the video I show you like this is how easy it is to pull up from my cutting mat. I’m not being super aggressive, but, I wasn’t treating it totally with kid gloves either.
The brand of cutting mat that I’m using right now is by Xinart Light Grip Cricut Alternative Cutting Mat. I use the light grip and it seems to work for the Yupo paper as well as the Goefun Printable Cardstock, and even the Stampin Up cardstock. When I tested the Ranger Distress cardstock, I used the standard grip one. They sell it in a variety pack. There looks to be other packs that look similar that I might try because they a re a little cheaper. You get a pack of three versus two for just a little bit more, but this one works great. I can probably get, I will say, maybe 15 to maybe even 20 sheets of nine by 12 sheets of lots of intricate cuts. And I fill the entire page as much as I can. After about 20 run throughs like that I may have to come through and add some extra adhesive. However, I am trying to cut using less force to help preserve the mats as best as I can.
When I need to add more adhesive if the mat is still in decent shape (not warped of dug into) I use Spray Bond Basting Adhesive. It doesn’t gum up as much as some of the other spray glues. I’ve also used iCraft Pixie Spray and that one works fine too. With the basting adhesive, you don’t get as many passes out of it, but I’d rather refresh a little more often than gunking everything up like happens with other spray glues. The blade can get trashed and paper can stick unevenly etc. Unfortunately, if you cut a lot like I do, you’ll be going through so many mats that again, that’s the other reason why I switched to Yupo paper. There is a lot less lint left behind, so less cleaning and dulling of the mat’s stickiness.
In the video I show how I lift my designs off the mat using my favorite EK Tools Craft Tweezers. They make knock off ones that look the same, but it’s not quite as fine detailed as the EK Tools one. I just go around and basically use it to loosen the cutout, so that especially if I’m doing the thinner polypropylene papers, I don’t rip it. The Legion Yupo 74 lb just comes off so well that only occasionally do I have trouble with ripping. When I’m done, I’ll pull up the leftovers- big pieces with the tweezers, and I’ll scrape some of the stuff off with my fingernails. I do use a very thin, fine scraper to almost sweep all those little fine leftovers off the mat. If you really dig at it to scrape all the paper off, you will remove your glue and have to replace or update your mat a lot sooner. Ask me how I know!
So Yupo is my paper of choice- because of what I’m doing. If you are not making embossing plates, you’re not using them as masks or stencils, then this paper may be too much of a pain because you have to coat it in order to ink… not so much paint it, but any of the water based inks you definitely have to do some coating on it. So you may want to put more time into cutting regular paper instead.
If you’re using your cut designs for embossing plates, the other nice thing about the Yupo paper is it doesn’t lose its shape as quickly. It is also waterproof. So if you’re one of those people that spritzes your card stock before you emboss, the card stock is going to give you a little bit of trouble. The glue will kind of help. Also, cleaning off the Yupo stencils and masks are a lot easier. Cardstock ones are usable until they get too saturated or mashed out etc.
Here’s some additional tips that I randomly worked into the video, LOL…
Generally, when I design words in using a script font, I do a little bit of an offset to make it a little bit thicker. In the examples, I forgot to do it, but even with the normal brush script font the Yupo cut great- much better than the paper cardstock. However, that’s another thing you can try if you are having difficulty with shredding/tearing of your normal paper/cardstock designs- use an offset to thicken it up a bit.
The other thing I will mention is the 65 pound cardstock I got at Michael’s- Recollections is not a bad paper/cardstock to try cutting with. It’s not super expensive, especially when Michael’s has a sale, and it cuts okay- probably about the same as the Goefun printable paper, maybe a little bit better. The other thing you will run into with regular paper/cardstock is, depending on how humid it is, the paper is going to absorb some of that humidity and make it even harder to cut.
So I think that covers just about all of it. Hopefully I have answered a lot of your questions and you’ve learned something. Enjoy!
