Make a blendMode permanent?

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I have a Sprite with it's blendMode set to "LAYER", I'll call this "paper". I add a solid circle to the paper sprite with a blend mode of "ERASE" in order to make it look like the paper had a hole punched in it.

This works fine except when I start to add lots of holes, the performance slows down because I have many sprites layered on each other all effecting the paper beneath it (and probably each other as well if they overlap).

So is there a way to apply the blend mode so I can get rid of the hole after it effects the bitmap of the paper?

Thanks.

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Thanks for deleting the double post, now does anyone know how to accomplish what I am trying to do?

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By using the draw method with the bitmapData of the Sprite, I was able to apply a blendMode that did not rely on multiple sprites or have to be calculated on the fly.