Extending the Tonic Studios Christmas Cracker Die

When Tonic Studios launched their Christmas Cracker Dies, I had several questions on whether it was possible to make the crackers slightly bigger, so I've photographed a step-by-step tutorial on how I've extended the die to make a longer cracker.  First here's the finished project, which also uses the Christmas Star Box Die.


So how did I extend the die?  Well, it involves letting the part of the die that you don't want to cut hang off the end of the cutting mat.  So first of all, I line up the die at the base of a sheet of A4 cardstock, positioned with low tack tape and then placed onto the cutting mat so that the top third of the die hangs off the edge of the mat.  As you can see, I've used a Grand Calibur but you can also do this with a Big Shot machine, you would just need to trim the card width before starting.  As a picture paints a thousand words, take a look at the photos I've taken of this stage below.

Once you've run through the die cutter, you then need to position the die again for a second cut.  Move the cut cardstock up and off the edge of the cutting mat and align the die over the centre section.  Tape in place to make sure that the die doesn't move.  

Again, the pictures to the left should make it clearer as to how I did this.

If you want a really long cracker, at this second step, you'd actually move the die right to the bottom card, making sure that you keep the edges lined up.  You would then need to use your craft knife to cut out the middle section.







So here you can see, by doing this, I've created twice the width of the middle section compared to a standard cut.

I then assembled the cracker in the normal way.

Here's one last look at how I decorated the finished cracker.  Pop over to my blogpost Vintage Lace Christmas Cracker Place Setting, to see how I did this decoration.

You can also download a PDF of this Extending the Tonic Studios Christmas Cracker Die Tutorial.

Pin It Now!