Starting new hobbies can be expensive. Our monthly hints and tips looks at how you can maximise your craft stash with Powertex.

As a, still sometimes, avid papercrafter, I look at my stash and wonder how it be utilised with powertex.

Today I am going to look at wafer thin dies. Properly known as “Chemical Etched Dies” as chemicals are used to wear away at the metal that is not needed, these dies have revolutionised papercrafting. They are cheap to manufacture and as the technology Improves they become even more intricate.

So how can they be used with Powertex? I have included two types of dies in the picture above

• The Stars have no outside cutting edge and only cut shapes into card. This makes them ideal for adding layers to mixed media projects or canvases. You can tear the edge of a sheet of cardstock and then die cut the shapes before sticking it to your surface.
• The leaf dies cut out shapes and are great for adding shaped items to your projects. You can stick a few layers together to add extra depth.

The leaves on this clock are Bazzill cardstock cut out with the leaf dies, painted first on both sides with blue Powertex and then shaped whilst yet. Once dried they were painted with pearl pigments and varnish.

I did try to tear on less of the spare leaves in the name of research and I couldn’t do it easily, so even one layer of cardstock is robust once covered in Powertex.

Thanks for Reading

Emma W