When your paper is lifting and tearing the most likely culprit is that you are using too long of a blade length or too high of a pressure. For as simple as those little pieces are, they play a huge role in the quality of your cuts. I recommend starting out with a blade length of about 2-2 ½. I know from experience that these blade length settings work well for a wide range of papers when combined with the proper pressure settings. Remember that pressure and blade length are two different things! When using the blade length of 2-2 ½ I use a pressure setting that will range from 14-18 depending on the paper that I’m cutting. Whenever the paper starts to lift up and tear I will back down on my pressure. I will usually only change the pressure in increments of one or two. If the paper still continues to tear, but the cut is all the way through, I’ll reduce it again. However, if I’ve reduced the pressure to a point that it’s not cutting through but my paper is still tearing, I’ll increase the pressure back up again one or two increments and then reduce the blade length. That means I would reduce the amount of blade showing so that there’s not so much blade sticking out of the holder.