creative double Cuttling

You know, double Cuttling is fun, but I don't do it often. Sometimes the designs can look a little too busy for my taste and overwhelm the stamping. But what if there was a way to combine two designs without it looking too busy? Say, for example, like in this card....


My apologies in advance. I'll be posting this card again for a challenge, but it's also my example for this tutorial. The die cuts are by Spellbinders. The sentiment is by Inkadinkado. But it's kind of nice to be able to leave the embossing to speak for itself rather than having to accent it like I did with my original double Cuttle post.

Here are some step-by-step instructions for creative double Cuttling. Get it? It's a combo of double Cuttling and creative Cuttling. Gee, I'm so-o-o-o creative! Hahahaha!


You can see the supplies above: my Big Shot, a clear plate, a wood frame with an oval cut out (I like this frame because it's bigger than the embossing folders.), an oval wood die cut that is conveniently similar in size to the oval cut out of the frame, an A2 size card, two Cuttlebug A2 embossing folders, and a transparency.


Now I'm letting you benefit from my trial and error. Usually I can eyeball stuff and get it close. I wasn't having much luck this morning though. So, as usual, I went for something more foolproof, yet easy. LOL! I took the piece of transparency and traced around the outside of the oval die cut with a Sharpie. Oops. I forgot to mention the Sharpie earlier, didn't I. Sorry. Do the same with the inside of the oval of the frame. You'll want these tracings to be close to the edge of the transparency, but don't cut off the rest just yet. See how I ended up using them and then decide how much you want to trim off, okay?


So, I placed the card front so that it's inside the folder and tucked the back behind it, as usual. Now, using the transparency, I decided where I wanted the opening of the frame. and positioned it on top of the card.


Here I've closed the folder on top of the transparency. This is why I said to trace near the edge. You want to be able to close the folder. And hooray, now you can see where the frame's opening should go without having to guess.


Line up the frame over the tracing as I've shown above.


Now the transparency doesn't need to be embossed, so holding the frame in place, I slipped that right out. It's easy. Really! Way easier than pulling a tablecloth out from under plates and glasses, but similar. ;-) This is also why I said not to trim the transparency yet. It's nice to have some extra to use as a handle of sorts.


Okay, I've put the clear plate on top and I'm ready to run it through my Big Shot.


And here is how that turned out. It's cool just the way it is, but why stop there? Besides, that would just be a repeat of creative Cuttling, eh? I wanted more!


It's time to put some Swiss Dots inside the Textile Texture design.


Sorry about the blurry photo. You can make out enough though. :-) Same deal as before--I put the Cuttled card front inside the Swiss Dots folder and tucked the back part behind. Before closing, I used the transparency to line up where the oval die should go.


I've closed up the folder, positioned the wood die cut, and slipped that transparency outta there. I put my clear plate on top of the folder and die cut and ran it through my Big Shot.


Here is the end result. I have Swiss Dots inside a Textile Texture frame. It's all set to be turned into the card that I showed at the beginning of this post. Just kind of a neat and subtle way to draw the attention to something at the center of the card, plus it's all done on the card front so the card isn't bulky with multiple layers just making a background. Now you have room to add other things to your card before having to pay extra postage to mail it. :-)

And again, I think this could be adapted to the Cuttlebug and not be limited to the Big Shot, though I have to say that the multipurpose platform is really super for getting things embossed just right. You could also use things other than a wood frame and die cut. I thought they were a fun example of what you can do if you look around and consider the potential of every day things that could be used to selectively apply pressure to different areas of an embossing folder to produce neat effects.