How do you use Matting basics dies??
 

I own both Spellbinders A2 matting basics A and B dies. I find I hardly use these dies simply because I always have to cut my card base so they fit nicely. When I bought them I thought that they would be perfectly matched with a normal A5 card size. Isn't this the size of card you get when you cut an A4 size CS in half? It puts me off using these dies when I have to waste CS. The largest die of set A is too big for the card front and the largest of the set B fits the card on the short sides but is too short on the longer sides therefore you have to cut about 1/4 inch so the mat is "even" on all sides. I don't know if I've explained myself. I'd like to know if others have the same problem or if it's just me and I don't know how to use these dies??
I've just printed a card size chart and find that the "Medium regular" (6 1/4 x 4 5/8 is a nice size but I can't get two out of A4 CS. Do they sell card bases in this size? Sorry about this long post, but I'll appreciate any help. THANKS!!!
Anita :-)

Hi Anita - I moved this to our Tool & Product talk forum where I'm sure someone will be able to help you! :)

Thanks Lydia! As soon as I posted, I knew I put it in the wrong forum. I don't have experience and need to learn how to participate in the forums. Thanks for your help!
Anita:-)

I rarely use the 2 largest sizes of the A & B dies but I do use the other sizes to make mats to layer under stamped items. The main reason I bought them was to make frames. I can never quite get my frames perfect when cutting with a trimmer or a craft knife but I can get perfect frames with the mats.

I would think that perhaps scrapbookers may like the larger sizes.

I came across this that might help
Splitcoaststampers - Product Focus

I will try to play later but I am supposed to be in the kitchen doing "big back to school cook" as I type! LOL!

DOH!!!! I think I know the problem - you are working with Australian/British A4? I think these dies are American cardstock size based, so starting with a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 in cardstock.

HTH
Having lived in England it is why I shy away from using the terms A4 or A2 in descriptors because they have different measurements in different countries. I actually have some British A4 in my supply stash!

YES - that drives me batty Kristen - it was supposed to be a standard - it's maddening that is used differently in different countries. Tough in the gallery here too. Anita no problem - we are here to help! :)

The really frustrating thing is that North America is, I believe, the ONLY place that doesn't use the ISO standard paper sizes! The "letter" size that's your standard is close to our A4 but it's slightly different proportions and that's enough that dies etc that are proportioned for the US standard are no real use for Europeans etc etc if we're starting with our own "native" paper size. It can cause problems with printers too but that's a different kettle of fish!

Sorry Anita, the bad news is that there's no way to divide an A4 sheet into two cards that equate to the regular North American size cards :(

I'm glad the problem was solved for you, Anita, but sorry that you had the outlay before discovering there was a problem. It bums me, because I would LOVE those sets but knew from the start that they wouldn't work with European paper sizes, or not without more wastage than I could countenance. I wish they'd make them in the right size for all the rest of us ;-).

UGH. And think of ALL the things that impacts. What a bummer.

They have two ring binders instead of 3 ring too....

Given that A4 is longer than American I would have thought it would be the other way around.

Thanks so much to all who have replied. Aha, now I understand... it is frustrating when you own something and you don't know how to get full advantage of it. Like Stamphappy I will use them mainly for smaller layers or something. Or sell them on E-bay? May consider it, may not. As soon as they sell I'll say, rats! I shouldn't have.
Thanks again!:D
Anita

Yup - background stamps designed for a whole card front are slightly too short for us (one reason the 6"x6" stamps are a blessing if you like to stamp a full card!). Same goes for the whole card front dies, those designed to cut parts of gatefolds etc etc. Scoring boards that make assumptions about the starting size of something to offer a "half way" point for scoring card bases. Many, many project instructions that tell you where to score for certain folds and effects are based on US standard starting sizes. I could go on but I'm sure you get the picture!

I wondered why the chart that I found online to explain A2, A4, etc. seemed so foreign to me - it was! I feel for you all... Slightly off topic: I'm really, really glad that English is my native language, because it has more exceptions than rules - what a mess!

The ISO sizing is actually a really elegant system - each size down is exactly half the size of the one before if you fold short edges together. So starting with an A3 sheet of paper and cutting in half will give you two A4 pieces, cutting those in half will give you four A5 pieces etc. It's just a shame it's not an absolutely universal standard so for papercrafting supplies it's important whether it's geared to US measurements or not.

There are companies like Darkroom Door (Australian) who make background stamps that are geared to the ISO paper sizes but are also fine for US (they're wide enough to cover that little extra that you'd get on a standard card base) - shame it doesn't cut the other way!

I agree that it's a great system - I just couldn't figure out why it would be such weird fractions. They're only weird for those of us in the States, apparently. I also agree that it's a shame that "it doesn't cut the other way!"

you have to remember most of the world is more metric than imperial too so not so many weird fractions in metric. Fractionally 1.3 cm is much easier to work with than 1/2 inch (ish) in my brain.

:-)I'm glad I asked about this, as I would have continue to be ignorant. I've been card making for the last 3 years and this is something I should have learned before now. Anyway. I ordered CS from Papertrey Ink about 2 years ago and I always wondered why ever are these pieces of CS different from the SU! ones? I've just compared them and the US one is 17mm shorter and 6mm wider. Does SU! make different sizes for Australia then? I'd be interested to know.
Thanks for the enlightening : )
Anita

- the odd thing is, the Aerospace Industry- which you can imagine to have a very tight spec for things, is actually in Imperial, not metric. So we work in tenths of a thousandth of an inch- thats what you really call a fraction, lol.:D