Card I made using Heartfelt Creations Lush Lilacs stamps and papers....

This isn't as fancy as the ones we made in the class. I cut apart one of the Lush Lilacs papers which is obviously intended for cards or for journaling on a layout. I had previously stamped, cut, and added extra lilac blossoms to the parasol. I chose a ticket element from the paper, cut some matching cardstock, added a little bling (which doesn't show up well, unfortunately), and my card was done.

The parasol was cut out with the Scan N Cut. It required a border to get a decent cut. I had another that had no border. I don't remember if that one was colored first, or if I used the matching die. Yes, I did eventually buy the matching dies, as well as the Lilac flower shaping set.

Sometimes it's easier using the Scan N Cut. Sometimes it's easier using a matching die. To a great extent, simpler stamps cut well using the Scan N Cut, especially if you do not need inside sections cut out. There is a way to do inside and out cutting, but I tried it and was not quite satisfied with the results.

The machine will cut highly detailed, artistic stamps far better if they are first fully colored with Copics or other markers.

Heartfelt Creations are not simple stamps. Because they are highly detailed, they do not always cut right on the line with the Scan N Cut. I had more success if I added a thin border. Sometimes a thin border looks better, and sometimes borderless looks better. It depends on the project. I had both a borderless and a bordered parasol, and for this card, the one with the slight border looked better to me. I bought the matching dies so that I could eliminate having a border. There is another reason to buy the matching dies.....

We had thunderstorms today. A recent lightning strike fried several ethernet ports on many of our devices. Sometimes you just don't want to use an expensive electronic cutter. You can use dies even if you have a power loss.

As a result, even though I have the Scan N Cut, I am still buying Heartfelt Creations dies.

I have not given up on the Scan N Cut. It's a good machine. And I have a lot of stamps that don't have matching dies. For Heartfelt Creations stamps, though, I really like having the coordinating dies in some cases, too.