Getting more mileage from Sizzlets

If you have any of the Sizzix Sizzlet dies (the really thin ones), maybe you noticed that they supposedly only cut paper up to a cardstock thickness. Well, I just had to know if that was true, so I tried mine out on a few materials other than paper. Here's what I found out:
First of all, I knew my Sizzlet alphabets (this one is Nouveau) would cut through cereal box cardboard since I had previously tried it. But I was really curious if they would cut through felt, since that would be a big help with homeschool supplies (think flannelgraph!). So I got out my felt scraps and tried it.

I had to put a piece of cereal box cardboard behind the die as a shim, but my alphabet cut out of my white felt just fine. That's what you see in the picture. Then I tried it on a dark brown felt I had, but it wouldn't work. I'm assuming that the white felt is just slightly thinner than the dark brown.

I tried another Sizzlet die (the stuffed animals bear), but it wouldn't cut through the white felt even with a shim. So I guess what I'm telling you is to experiment - you never know until you try! :) Now I need to try cutting felt with my Cuttlebug dies. [As always, never force anything through your machine or you may end up breaking the die, the plates - or the machine!]


Secondly, I really, really wanted to make some metal sliders for my cards. That's the main reason I bought the small slider dies. So I grabbed a soda can and tried them out. As you can see, it works just fine with the Cuttlebug dies, which are about the same thickness as the Sizzlets. (I'm still not sure if CB dies are supposed to cut through all these things, but I'm trying them at any rate.)
Then I used my Tiny Tags Sizzlets to cut some metal tags. Again, it worked beautifully.
I'm not sure if it matters or not, but I ran my plates through the machine twice just to be sure I got a clean cut.
I can't wait to use my new embellishments! :)