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!