Craft Town Hobby Land USA - Where it pays to shop with a friend!

You love crafting. We love helping. Your passion for creating is the same as our devotions to tools -- and we know about tools (you learn a few things over 350 years). Whether scrapbooking, card making or paper crafting, we're here to help and inspire you.

We made die cutting flexible and convenient, and you don't have to spend a fortune. Our system uses templates for the "die" and the ultra shapexpress as the "cutter" to give you thousands of possibilities. It's the simple and portable way to cut basic shapes, letters, frames, borders, tags and more.

9 Piece Shape Cutting Starter Kit - 1 templates, Ultra ShapeXpress, 2 replacement blades and a 4 inch x 11 inch cutting mat

We took the guesswork out of blade depth. The orange spacer on the ultra shapexpress is the exact, same thickness of a shape template. Once you twist it off, the blade is automatically set at the perfect depth to use with a template (you can fine tune a little higher or lower with the orange control dial).

The two key steps to cutting perfect shapes are making sure the template is face up and aligning the blade in the direction you are going to cut.

Can you read the logo on the template? If not, flip it over and arrange it on top of your paper, don't forget the cutting mat.

If the blade is facing the wrong way when you first start to cut, it will drag and tear the paper. To align the blade, hold the ultra shapexpress like a mouse and set the blade on your cutting mat. Pull it towards you (just like you were cutting(, this will swivel the blade in the proper direction.

Now you're ready to cut shapes. Place the ultra shapexpress on top of the template with the blade flush to the inside edge of the design and the blade facing the way you aligned it. Hold the template in place with your other hand and slowly and carefully trace (just like you were using a mouse) around the design. Make sure you're not twisting your wrist, the blade will swivel and do the work for you.