Basic cutting metric card stock 101

Hi all we're heading into week 2 of the 4 week lock-down in New Zealand & one of the things I should have done before lock-down was get some crafting supplies to my niece who is stuck at home with 5 children but whilst I've been tidying my craft room up lately I have made up 2 huge boxes of supplies for them which includes a trimmer. Now I know from when I used to run home classes many don't actually know how to cut out the card stock so here's my 101 & hopefully easy to follow guide. I apologise in advance for the photo quality as it's a rather gloomy day in NZ today.

The first thing to note is that many paper trimmers have a locking mechanism on the top beside the cutting grove. The latest model from SU! doesn't but the older model does and many Fiskars trimmers do as well. Move to the left to unlock if you can't lift up the clear plastic guide to insert your paper under.

The other cool thing about the SU! trimmers they have a cutting blade (dark grey) and a scoring blade (light grey).

Also most trimmers have an extendable arm so you can cut out 12 x 12" card stock (the newest trimmer from SU! actually extends out 17"). You don't need to pull this out if you're working with our standard A4 cardstock.

So the first thing you need to decide is the orientation of your card before you cut a piece of A4 card stock in half.

The card on the left I always call a mountain card, the card on the right is the traditional way we buy cards. As you can see they are actually identical cards its just the way they open that is different. I normally make "mountain cards" when I want to wrap ribbon around the card.

So to make the mountain card you insert the card stock into the trimmer and cut down the middle at 10.5 cm and then score at 14.85 cm.

To cut the traditional card turn the card stock and cut in half at 14.85cm (or you can cut both pieces at 14.8cm) & score at 10.5cm.

Now the fun bit starts in essence BOTH cards are the same with a card face of 14.8 (or 14.85) cm x 10.5 cm.

I have this piece of card on all my cutters just sellotaped down showing me the mat sizes. We decrease incrementally 0.5 cm on both sides.

I have cut out multiple mats & just layered them for the purpose of this 101 guide, I haven't glued them down but you should get the idea of the possibilities.

Below we have pink mat 14.3 x 10 cm, white mat is 13.8 x 9.5 cm.

Below I have made the pink mat 1 cm smaller to start ie 13.8 x 9.5 cm and white mat 13.3 x 9 cm.

This has the green mat the same as the first option 14.3 x 10 cm, pink 13.8 x 9.5 cm, white 13.3 x 9 cm.

This is the same as above but no pink mat.

The colours used are So Saffron, Blushing Bride, Granny Apple Green and Whisper White.

I hope this makes sense, any questions just leave me a comment below. So stay safe all & my dear nieces if you do read this stay safe & no cutting yourself with any of the tools I'm gifting to you!!
✿ Karen ✿