Cutting Foam In Your Cameo

I recently came across some blog posts and you tube videos that convinced me it was super easy to use the Silhouette Deep Cut Blade, which is made for the curio, in my Cameo. I figured I would test it out for all the Paper Issues ladies to see if that were actually true. Now truth be told I was really excited to give this a whirl. One of the things I miss about using my Pazzles machine is the ability to cut more material then the cameo allows. So I set out hopeful as can be a table full of materials and the deep cut blade.

My table unfortunately quickly turned into a war zone and I admit I said some not so nice things to my Cameo and the blade. And I learned, much to my frustration trying to cut anything other than basic shapes, or the material at all, was not an easy task.

Lets start with the blade itself. This one is a bit pricey I got mine for $17.00 so it is a bit costly for the blade. But it is like having a dual blade, you can cut at normal settings and then have a deeper cut for other materials. For the blade settings of 1-10 you will see the blue portion of the blade showing.

As you turn the blade (no need for the plastic round piece you can turn this one on its own) the blue will begin to disappear  at the higher settings and you'll only see red (by the actual blade itself) as the numbers go to 11-20.

The blade fits perfectly into the cameo so there is no concern there.

Now a major thing to remember when you are loading various materials into your cameo is that the material has to sit between the two white spacer bars. Even if you try to move them you will have the problem of the mat sliding all over the place or the material itself getting stuck. So always make sure your material is sized down to fit in between those two tabs. I would also suggest a newer mat so it holds the material better.

Now I fought with cork, felt, curated paper by fancy pants and plastic and I struggled with every single product. I will be going back to play with plastic in the hopes I can make stencils but today I had little luck. When I do get the setting just right I will be making an update because I know I can get that to work in my favor. The one material I had more luck with was foam. And this is a good thing for those of us who spend a small fortune on thickers or word phrases.

SETTINGS blade 10 speed 2-3 pressure 30-33 

Those are the settings I found best with the foam. You may have to work with and adjust your settings depending on what your cutting. I did find that intricate cuts are not going to work out. Sure a simple shape is awesome but trying to do a scripted word phrase and its choppy and often times destroyed as its being cut as you can see with on of the tags available in the shop. 

 

As you see the cut didn't go so well on the smaller lettering. The tag itself came out great and I went back and cut off the word love and it was a nice cut for the foam. So not so intricate files are easy to cut out with the deep cut blade and foam. 

 

I experimented a bit with lettering and found larger and more simple type is best for cutting with foam. This is great for thicker peeps as sometimes it difficult to find colors that match your product or you want the font bigger so if this is something you do often it works great. 

 

Now I did try a script and as long as it isnt too whimsical it works out fine. The cutting can be a little choppy but it may be something I need to tweek a bit in my cut settings. but if this doesn't bother you so much or you have a minute to clean up the cut it will be a wonderful way to add the foam word phrases in any color you choose in any word you choose for your pages. 

 

 It really doesn't take much to clean up the phrase and I was really having fun cutting foam and I can't wait to use the diversity of my cameo + foam + the deep cut blade to my pages.

 

I still have hope that I can keep playing around with various materials and get the deep cut blade to work for me better. This is part of the fun right, experimenting and trying new things. In the mean time if you like having a bit more diversity with foam and have a cameo picking up a deep cut blade to have in your stash is something to consider.