impressabilities - a bit of a let down

I've had my Spellbinders Impressabilities since they were first released. I had high hopes--the cards made by the design team had looked wonderful. They sounded so versatile, too. I was a bit surprised to see how thin they were when taken out of the package.


I knew that they had to be fairly lightweight. After all, I'd read that they could be cut apart so that smaller designs or only parts of designs could be used to emboss, deboss, stencil, or letter press. I hadn't expected them to be quite so delicate though. But okay, I'd give them a chance.

Now I love to dry emboss, so naturally, that was what I had to try first.


Well, I was unimpressed after making my first pass. I decided to mist the card stock and try again. I saw an improvement. This was Georgia Pacific card stock, by the way.


Here are those same sheets of card stock from a slightly different angle so that the embossing is a little easier to see. Not super deep embossing but it's distinct.

Now, I'll admit that I haven't tried stenciling or letter pressing. Not sure how well this particular Impressabilities template would do anyway--it was somewhat curled and a bit misshapen after the embossing passes, and it would take some work to get it to lie nice and flat. But as far as embossing, I think what I'll be doing from now on is recalling that these are very thin, and the impression can only be expected to be as deep as the thickness of the template. It's not going to be a deep, crisply embossed image like those produced by embossing folders. On the other hand, the impressed designs do look more crisp and detailed than those produced using texture plates--I don't think that they would hold up as well for multiple passes though.

Overall, these are just okay. They'd probably be best used for stenciling or letter pressing. They don't seem to be sturdy enough to hold up well for embossing or debossing, and for the price I think I'd rather stick to embossing folders or even texture plates which allow me to use them over and over and over again without worrying about ruining them. Even regular brass stencils would hold up better and give a slightly deeper impression since they're thicker. So, kind of a bummer that for me they didn't live up to expectations, but I have to say that I'll still love Spellbinders for their Nestabilities.

Ten Seconds Studio Molds - Cuttlebug

In my previous post, I showed that Ten Seconds Studio molds could be used with the Big Shot to emboss not only metal, but also chipboard and card stock. Now it's time to see if they're compatible with the Cuttlebug, and if so, with what combo of Cuttlebug accessories.


To keep things simple, I chose the Big Daddy (green) mold and a couple of the Skinny Minis (blue pair). There are also some A2 size pieces of 36 Ga craft aluminum, fairly heavy chipboard, and Georgia Pacific card stock pictured above.


Due to the thickness of the double-sided Big Daddy mold, I thought I would start by simply going with the sandwich that I'd use for Cuttlebug embossing folders, but eliminate one of the B plates: A plate, mold, chipboard, silicone rubber, B plate. Well, that was too thick. Gee, and it had seemed so reasonable at the time.


I had to take out the A plate. It was making things too thick. I replaced it with the C plate and both B plates, then followed that with the mold, chipboard, silicone rubber, then my crease pad that had been previously cut to size to fit through the Cuttlebug machine. I didn't have spare B plates handy or I would have tried one. At any rate, this wound up being too thin, and a B plate would probably have been too thin, too.


At this point, it would have been reasonable to try shimming with the Cuttlebug backing pieces that I keep handy, and I did insert one between my B plates, but I also replaced the crease pad with my black Sizzix Impressions pad which is a bit heftier than the crease pad. If you don't have one of these, try a spare B plate or a crease pad and start gradually adding shims.


Here's the embossing using the above sandwich. It's not a sharp, crisp image and really can't be expected to be due to the thickness of the chipboard.


Here's how the debossed side looks. Here you can see that the stack did put enough pressure on the mold to make a good impression. Using a lighter weight chipboard should look even better, but I wanted to put this to a good test with heavier stuff.


I used that same stack here, but substituted the craft aluminum for the chipboard. I just love the look of that embossed metal!


For card stock I figured that I'd need some shims. Here's my stack from the bottom up: C plate, B plate, two Cuttlebug backing shims, B plate, mold, card stock, silicone rubber, Sizzix Impressions pad.


Stormy here today. I wasn't shooting pics in good light. That card stock really should look white. I think you can still appreciate the embossing though. Mist the card stock before embossing and it'll look even better.


This blurry photo just shows the relative thickness of some of the plates and pads. The crease pad and B plate are very close to the same thickness, the Impressions pad is slightly thicker than each of those, and the C plate is clearly much thicker than the Impressions pad. That's just to help give you an idea of what you might want to try when you're experimenting. Please, please, please remember though--don't try to force any stack or sandwich through your machine. It's normal to feel the rollers apply pressure as you roll a sandwich through, but it should feed easily once started. And do keep in mind that machines will vary and a sandwich may need to be tweaked a bit to work in any particular machine.


As for the Skinny Minis, these are single sided molds and therefore thinner. I pulled out the A plate again, stacked the mold, card stock, silicone rubber, and then C plate on top.


Here is the result of rolling that stack through. Again, as with the Big Shot, it works better if the die is put through the machine lengthwise. I didn't use metal this time around, but I expect that the same stack would work nicely for that.

For the sake of completeness, I should add that the Kabuka molds are double-sided like the Big Daddy molds, so that same sandwich should work. To emboss the full length you'll have to run it through twice, once from each end since they're longer than Cuttlebug plates. They're only 4 5/8" wide though, so they fit through the opening of the machine with plenty of room to spare.

So Cuttlebuggers, these Ten Seconds Studio molds can work for you, too. Metal embossing looks awesome, but you can emboss card stock as well. Love that versatility!

Ten Second Studio molds & Big Shot

Gotta love versatility! This post has to do with Ten Second Studio molds. These are dense plastic molds sort of similar to plastic texture plates but with a lot more heft and more deeply etched designs. They're like texture plates on steroids! These were designed with metal-working in mind, and the Ten Seconds Studio site has a wonderful gallery and great videos for using these molds with metals in very creative and gorgeous ways.

But of course, versatility is the name of the game around here, and I was asked the other day by Alicia if I knew if these could be adapted for use with card stocks and/or paper. Now that I have these in hand, I can answer the question. The simple answer is, yes. If that's all you wanted to know, you can stop reading here, and thanks for stopping by. :-) If you want to see my test runs with these molds using my Big Shot, then read on.

These are some of the molds that I'd ordered by happenstance not too long before I'd received Alicia's note. That's a Making Memories paper trimmer, so the lines denote 1/2" intervals, just to give you an idea of the size of each type of mold. They have several sizes--up above you see the Big Daddy and Kabuka, which are both double-sided, the border mold (hollow on the back, so I need to play with this one before I say more), and the Skinny Minis (there are actually two molds side by side in the packaging). The Big Mama molds aren't pictured here, but they're slightly smaller than the Big Daddy molds and single-sided--at least that's what I gathered from watching the Ten Seconds Studio videos.

The materials that I chose to play with are 36 Ga soft craft aluminum, card stock by Georgia Pacific, and some chipboard--heavier than cereal box weight, more like the back of a sturdy legal pad.

This is the Big Daddy mold. As you can see, it's very thick. I sandwiched it between two of the small embossing folders by QuicKutz in the photo, just for the sake of comparison. You might also be able to make out that it's a two sided mold--that is, it has designs on both sides.

If you watched the July '08 video on the Ten Second Studios site, you saw that they used two Wizard charm plates to emboss using the Big Shot. For those of us who don't have those plates and who aren't even sure what we have that could compare, I've experimented and come up with stacks using more traditional Big Shot accessories.


Because the mold is so thick, I eliminated one of the clear cutting plates right off and I also used the multipurpose platform on No Tabs. Here you see from the bottom up, or left to right in the photo, the multipurpose platform with No Tabs, Big Daddy mold, chipboard, black silicone rubber, and one clear cutting plate. It was a tight squeeze with a fair amount of resistance, but it did roll through. (I should add here that I've now viewed a more recent video on their site and hooray (and go figure), they used a similar combo to what I used here, but they used the black impressions pad instead of the clear cutting plate.)

This is a good time to reiterate that it's never a good idea to force anything through your machine because you'll risk damage to it or to your accessories. Also, all machines are not created equal--my stack may be too thick for your particular machine, or it may roll through more easily. Just depends, okay? So do take care if you're experimenting.


Here is the chipboard after it was run through. This is a heavier piece of chipboard, so the embossed design is not going to be sharp and crisp due to the thickness of the material.


This is the view of that same piece of chipboard from behind. This probably gives you a better idea of just how deeply etched these molds are; it's a very nicely debossed design.


And I had to try these with metal. This is the real reason that I'd wanted some of these. I used the same stack as before, figuring that it was a tight fit and that the pressure would probably still be more than adequate for embossing a much thinner sheet of metal.


Here's how that turned out. It's so pretty!


Now it was time to try it with card stock. I misted it with some Paper Glide first (water would also be fine), then I used the stack described above. The design looked great, but the card stock had cracked in a few places. Not a surprise since I heard it cracking as I rolled it through.


So, I decided that I needed a thinner stack. I was already using No Tabs, so I set the multipurpose platform aside and replaced it with four clear cutting pads, then the mold, the card stock, the black silicone rubber, and my blue crease pad (I didn't have any more cutting plates handy.) rounded out the rest of the stack.


The design was not quite as crisp, but the card stock didn't crack either. I didn't do it this time around, but I could have tried running it through again with a card stock shim or a Cuttlebug backing shim to see if I could get a more crisp design without cracks. You could also try the black impressions pad instead of the crease pad and see if that adds enough thickness to the stack without causing tearing or cracking.


I did want to try something fun because of the double-sided-ness of the molds. I used three clear cutting plates, then a sheet of black silicone rubber, a piece of card stock, the mold, another piece of card stock, another sheet of silicone rubber, then the black impressions pad (You could substitute a clear cutting plate with some shims if you don't have the impressions pad.) Can you tell where I'm going with this?


And here is how that experiment turned out. I successfully embossed two pieces of card stock with both designs of a double-sided mold in one pass. Too fun!


This is the side of the Big Daddy mold that you hadn't seen until now. Cool, eh?

Okay. Now the Skinny Minis are not only smaller, but they're also one-sided, so they're thinner than the Big Daddy molds.


I pulled out the multipurpose platform again. This time I opened it to Tab 1 and stacked the mold, card stock, black silicone sheet, and then clear cutting plate on top.


I found that it was best to run the mold through the machine lengthwise to get the most even impression.


This is the result using the 36 Ga aluminum again. I'd changed my stack to: multipurpose platform on Tab 1, mold, aluminum, silicone rubber, black impression pad.


This is the same stack that I just described, but this time I ran it through with chipboard instead of metal.


Since it was tough to appreciate the embossing in the previous photo, I accented it a bit with some ink for this one. I thought that the fairly detailed mold did a nice job of embossing a fairly heavy chipboard.

My main use for these molds will still probably be embossing sheets of craft metal for fun embellishments, but it's good to know that they can also be used with chipboard and with card stock to use for embossed or debossed designs layered on cards or on scrapbook pages.

For Cuttlebug users, I'll test and post sandwich combos for these molds and the Cuttlebug machine at a later date, maybe next week. Got lots of stuff going on this week. All good stuff though. :-)

etched glass plate using stamping supplies

I left off yesterday with a teaser about a project that I'd worked on. Here's a peek at how I made the connections.


The above photo is currently gracing my desktop. I love the delicate look of azalea petals and I particularly like the way the setting sun lit some of them from behind.


This is the part of the photo that caught my eye. That's the translucent sparkle that I was talking about--almost a ground glass look, but softer.

That reminded me of a project that I wanted to share--ground glass-->etched glass. That wasn't too far a jump, eh? So anyway, some time ago I'd seen some crafty projects made using etching cream and stamping supplies. I'd tucked that info away and got around to trying it a couple of weeks ago. I think that the most straightforward tutorial that I've seen is in the resources section of Splitcoast Stampers: Emboss Resist Etching. I more or less followed those same steps to make the following....


This is an 8" clear glass plate. I wanted to start with something that had a nice flat area for me to work on. I didn't take photos along the way, but I'll walk through what I did. It was actually fairly simple.

First I cleaned the back of the plate well, removing any labels, adhesive, oils, fingerprints etc. I then chose my stamps--the Highland cow and thistle are by Scottish Borders Stamping. I decided to make the etched background in the shape of one of the Nestabilities mega curved rectangle dies by Spellbinders, and I picked the size that would fit nicely with my stamps. I pulled out my Big Shot, cut that shape from clear contact paper, and used the negative part of my die cut to act as the frame for the images. I removed the paper backing and stuck that down well on the backside of the plate, taking care that all of the inside edges were well adhered so that no cream would seep underneath when I got to that step.

The Versamark and some regular old embossing powder came out next. I stamped and heat embossed the images on the back of the plate inside my framed area. It did take much longer than usual to melt the powder, so it's good to have some patience set aside for this part. :-)

Once that was done, I pulled out the etching cream and applied it over the whole area inside my frame and on top of the embossing, taking care to try to spread the stuff evenly and get into all of the curves and corners of my frame. Set it aside for five minutes and let it do its stuff.

Over to the sink now to rinse off the cream. When it first comes off, it looks like nothing happened. Thankfully, I'd read that this would be the case! No panic here, or at least not much. ;-) You don't really appreciate the etching effect until you pull off the contact paper, then TADA! You can see that the etching cream worked its magic. Whew!

Now some of my embossing actually began to come off as I'd rinsed the plate; the rest scraped off easily with some extra rubbing and a bit of scraping with a fingernail. One last soap and water bath and it was ready to be sent off!

Here it is one more time, now that you know what you're looking at.


So yeah, Judie, this was part of your birthday present and I know you occasionally come by here, so I didn't want to post about this earlier and spoil the surprise. Glad you like it. :-)

I think this is a really fun project and can easily think of many more possibilities. By the way, the etching cream (Armour) is kinda pricey. I bought mine at Michael's and used a coupon, so that helped. I didn't find that I needed any extra tools for applying the cream other than a cheapo 1" foam brush. I've seen that there are etching creams that you can reuse (Etchall)--that might be worth looking into. Being able to salvage and reuse the cream for other projects sounds great to me, and I think they cost about the same as this stuff, but I've only seen it online so far, so I can't use a coupon to buy it. Decisions, decisions.... It's a tradeoff , as usual. :-)

tour of my spring flowers

Cut the yard in record time, so here's a quickie tour of the flowers that have been blooming in my backyard this spring.


This is the snowball viburnum. It was full of blooms this year! Now most of the petals have rained down and they do look like snow on the ground.


This is our allium. They look so unusual poking way up out of the garden bed.


This is a mountain bluet. Love those delicate petals!


The white peonies are always first to bloom of all of the colors of peonies that we have. The tightly closed bud that you can see in the photo will be pink when it deigns to open up.


Speaking of pink, here are some of the only tulips to survive the annual depredation of the bulbs by the vicious bunnies. We need to plant more bulbs--just didn't get a chance to this past fall.


This is a Japanese iris. More are blooming now, but I liked this shot.


A few coral bells are starting to make their way out. They're a fun splash of color against that green foliage.


And last but not least, these are our white azaleas. The bushes are filled with blooms. I have a photo similar to this one as my desktop. The petals have almost a translucent yet sparkly quality to them. So fun! And that's also a teaser for what I've got planned for my next blog entry--a crafty project that I did which has a translucent and kinda sorta sparkly look to it. Stay tuned! :-)

nice try with those embossing folders, QuicKutz

Wow, I can hardly believe how quickly time is flying! Yes, I'm still here and I've not given up blogging. Life has just gotten very busy!

That said, let me cut to the chase. I've had some of these QuicKutz embossing folders for a while now. I wanted to say a couple of things about them.


In the photo above you can see the A2 size folders and a couple of the smaller 2x2 size folders. These are very much like the ProvoCraft Cuttlebug embossing folders, except for the bluish tint to the plastic.


Unfortunately, they are also like the Cuttlebug embossing folders in that they aren't quite a true A2 size--by this I mean that the embossed design will not cover the entire front of an A2 size card.


I hope that you can make out that the vines reach from the top of the card to the bottom, and they're a nice crisp emboss, too, but they don't quite make it from the left edge to the right edge. If you're a crafter who's driven nuts by stuff like this, then be aware that these folders are going to leave you a bit of unembossed border on your card front.


I also had another issue with my new QK folders and this one is a more serious one in that it seems to be due to a manufacturing defect. In the photo above, you can see that the folders don't close with nice even edges. I had an 'Uh oh' moment when I noticed this.


This turned to a "GRRRR!" moment when I held them up to the light and saw that the two sides of the folders didn't match up. Hey, that's what makes these folders work, eh? But okay, maybe they'd still emboss.


My apologies for the poor quality of this photo, but frankly, the performance of the folders didn't help. The usual sandwich combo produced only a faint emboss. I went with a slightly thicker stack and ran these through again--this time I used Tab 1 on my multipurpose platform rather than no tabs. The embossing was more distinct, but far from the crisp design that it should have been. It was also very uneven in places.


Here's why. I could make the faces of the design fit together, but this is what I had to do to the folder to get them to match. There's no way that would get that way or stay that way going through a machine. Heheheh, well, unless someone, oh, I don't know, maybe decided to cut it apart or something. ;-)

Here's how the other folder looked when I fit those faces together, poor contorted thing. Again, the only embossed design I was going to get using this folder was a poor one.

So, the bottom line at this point for me is that QuicKutz apparently didn't hear the pleas of crafters who want embossed designs to cover the entire front of an A2 card, or even something larger. Hurray for Sizzix for getting that right with their textured impressions embossing folders! I should mention though, that the QK 2" x 12" borders do look like they'll emboss the full 12", so that's good news for scrappers. But I now have some defective product on my hands. I'll be writing to them to see if they're interested in making this right. I'll update if/when I hear something.

One last point, since I'm touching on customer service--my Scor-It (and I've mentioned before that they have SUPERB customer service) was buried under lots of stuff, so I used my Making Memories cutter as my background of sorts for photos today. I'd written to Making Memories a while back because my supposedly self-sharpening blade was fraying card stock when it cut. Unacceptable. I like this cutter. I've been using it for about a year. All I wanted/needed was a new blade. Well, they're supposed to be self-sharpening, so they don't have replacement blades available. ARGH! Their customer service suggested I get in touch with their dept that sends out replacements. I didn't really want a whole new cutter, but okay. My new one arrived yesterday. Wow. I like companies that stand by their product and are willing to make things right when things go wrong. Very cool. :-)