Last week on the Gingerwood stamping forum we were talking about do-it-yourself embossing folders. Folks with Cricuts were improvising and embossing shapes similar to the Spellbinders Nestabilities shapes. The only drawback was that they said that they couldn't emboss the border of a die cut the way that you can with a Nesties die cut. I got to thinking about this, and I thought, well, why not? They can cut out frames--a 1/4" wide frame could give the same effect as a die cut with an embossed border. Now, someone may have done this already with their Cricut. I don't have one, so I don't follow those blogs or forums, but I thought that those of us who don't have an electronic die cutter for whatever reason shouldn't be left out. LOL!I've made DIY embossing folders before. This time I wanted to see if I could emboss the outline of a shape--something similar to an embossed Nestabilities die cut look. I was gonna do it on the cheap, too. No Cricut. Hm, but how....I knew that I'd make it out of chipboard. I needed a way to make an open frame in some kind of shape. I don't have one of those nifty tracing tools that will trace a design in a smaller or larger size. Wouldn't that have been cool! But hey, I thought of something that might work! So simple, too.
This is an octagon that I printed out on computer paper. Spellbinders will be offering an octagonal set of Nestabilities dies soon, but they aren't available yet for most of us.
I cut out my octagon.
This is my cut out shape laid on top of chipboard which I'd received courtesy of the USPS with a stamp order. Love to recycle!
I cut out shape from the chipboard.
Here is my makeshift tracer! Yep, two colored pencils held together by a rubber band. Woo! High tech stuff! You don't see this just anywhere! ;-)
Time to trace the inside border of my frame. One pencil rests on the chipboard, and the other one rides along the outside edge of the shape. I have that piece of scrap paper underneath so that I don't trace an octagon on my table.
Pull the pencils along one edge, like so. Then do the same for the other edges.
Here is my shape with all of the edges traced.
Now it's time to cut along the marks with my ruler and craft knife.
When I was finished it looked like this. Gee, aren't you glad that I'm not into making videos? No need to watch some of the more tedious parts of the procedure. LOL! But more seriously, that's why I use photos. It's like those cooking shows where they put a cake in the oven, then turn around and pull out the one that's all baked and ready for the next step. Some videos drive me nuts when they take almost 10 minutes to describe what they're doing and there's no good way to skip ahead. ARGH! But I digress.... :-)
This is my cut out shape (frame) which is on top of my multipurpose platform open to Tab 1, black silicone embossing pad, and card front. I placed my clear cutting plate and the backing from a Cuttlebug folder package as a shim on top of all of that, then ran the stack through. If you have an impressions pad, you probably could use that instead of the clear plate and shim.
This is the embossed border on the card front. It's not as crisp as what you'd get with Nesties, but it's not bad for a different, softer look. It's definitely not bad when you consider my materials, i.e. recycled chipboard, two pencils, a rubberband, a craft knife, a cutting mat, and a ruler. I think it took me longer to write up this blog post than to make it, too. :-)
And here is that border used as an accent on a card. The stamp is from My Favorite Things and stamped and colored using Memento dye inks and markers. I embellished the flowers with a bit of Flower Soft to add dimension.
Okay, this is one of those card-making techniques that I'm late getting in on. It's a fun alternative to the regular A2 cards that I often make, and they fit inside the A2 size envelopes, so no extra fuss as far as that goes.This is my first attempt at making one....
My apologies for the poor quality of the lighting. It was a gray day here, and even darker than usual because the ice and sleet were blocking my skylights. I used the stair step base and added decorative wintry cardstock. The leaping deer was made using a Sizzix die. The snowflakes were made using Martha Stewart punches. The embossed dove is a Cuttlebug combo die. The label die cut and scalloped rectangle were made using Spellbinders dies. The Merry Christmas sentiment is by Cloud 9 Design. The remaining stamped images and sentiments are all by My Favorite Things and were stamped using Memento dye inks. The embellishments are Prima flowers, Flower Soft for the bath rug underneath the tub, clear Sakura Glaze pen for the bubbles and glass, Copic clear glitter pen for the mirror, and assorted sizes and colors of hot fix rhinestones.The card looks rather busy in the photograph. It isn't so busy in real life where you get a better feel for the 3D effect and depth of the images.This is a fun change from the usual and I'm looking forward to trying my hand at more of these.
I just love using Flower Soft. It's so fun! Here are a couple more cards where I've embellished with it.
This first card was embossed with the new Floral Screen Cuttlebug A2 embossing folder. And hooray! I got it right the first time and embossed rather than debossed the card front.
For this card I partially Cuttled using the Tiny Bubbles Cuttlebug folder and then added the score lines with my Scor-It. Those are Robin's Nest dew drops embellishing that card.All of the stamp images are by My Favorite Things, stamped using Memento ink, and colored with Prismacolor colored pencils then blended with the Goo Gone Mess-free pen. I used scalloped Nestabilities dies by Spellbinders to cut out the layers for the images, and by the way I did use the Sizzix crease pad again and it really does make using these dies more efficient if you plan to emboss after cutting.
I figured that I'd invested in those XL clear plates, I might as well get another die to use with them. :-) Any excuse, eh? LOL!
The finished size of this card is 4 1/4" by 5 7/8". I mention this because you have to use 12" long paper or cardstock when using this die. The standard 8 1/2" by 11" just isn't quite long enough to cover the entire length of the cutting surface. This die also provides the folding score for you, just like the A2 card die that I described a while back.The stamped images are by My Favorite Things and stamped using Memento dye inks. The dot doodles are mine and were made with a Copic warm grey marker. Yep, I'm getting braver about doodling. The embossing was made using a Sizzix texture plate, Flower Power. And in case you'd been wondering, you can selectively emboss with these, too--similar to creative Cuttling. That's what I did in that card--I used that same triple layered chipboard with the heart cutout that I described yesterday. I did have to change my stack to fit this through my Big Shot. Again, if you try this, you'll have to experiment and see what works best for you and your particular machine. Start thin, and gradually add shims so that you don't break your machine! Just a friendly reminder. :-) Here's the lowdown: I used my multipurpose platform, but with no tab. I also replaced the black Impression pad with the thinner clear cutting plate since I'd added some thickness to the stack by adding in the chipboard cutout. Just FYI, the stack was as follows, from the bottom up: multipurpose platform with no tab selected, texture plate with desired design facing up, card front facing down on top of that, black silicone embossing pad, chipboard cutout, clear cutting plate. I did not mist my cardstock and still got a nice impression. That is an option though if the embossing seems too shallow to you.
For you Cuttlebug users, sorry, I haven't tested this die in the CB yet. I would guess that you could run this huge die through twice using the CB's clear plates, just like I did with the A2 horizontal card die. I'll update when I get a chance to try that and know for sure.
These huge scallops on this card die are a lot of fun, and it's great to have a variety of ways to make scallops on cards!
I have to say that when I read about these and saw the videos featuring these new inks I knew that I'd have to give them a try. Took a while to get my hands on some, but I finally did. Then of course things got busy and I had to put them on the back burner. ARGH!Today I got to use them. Woo hoo!
The bird is a Sizzix die cut that was made out of a coaster similar to the one that forms the background for the bird. Gotta like that Target dollar spot for stuff like this. Anyway, the bird isn't really supposed to have the funky head feathers, but I'd caught part of a flower while putting that die through, so I thought I'd put it to use. I applied the new Adirondack pigment inks to my die cuts. The Denim covered quite nicely. The Sunset Orange left some of the underlying design showing through, but that was fine with me. I then stamped designs on the bird with a My Favorite Things stamp, first with Sunset Orange then Sunshine Yellow. I accented some of the dots and curls with my Inkssentials opaque white pen. The sentiment is also by My Favorite Things and stamped in Denim. I used the Martha Stewart Doily Lace edge punch to embellish the layers.
I love the vivid colors and the opacity of these inks. They go one easily and smoothly. They dry quickly with a blast from the heat gun if you're the impatient sort. I'm going to like using these! The only problem that I encountered was removing that inner plastic cover from a couple of these ink pads. I think they were caught in the gluing process and it was a bit of a mess to get them off the pad. I mangled one of them quite nicely in the process, too. Other than that, hm, and because of that ;-), I'd have to give them an inky thumbs up!
I'm catching up midweek again. For the daring cardmakers challenge, the theme is pretty pastels. I like it! Spring feels like it's on its way, so this is good timing.
The stamped images are by My Favorite Things and colored with colored pencils. I used Fiskars Celestial corner edger scissors on the pink DCWV cardstock layer. I embellished with some bling and added the flower for even more of a spring-time feel.
I decided to make another card using the leftover Basic Grey Sultry cardstock pieces that I'd cut into the other day. I also wanted to use some new clear stamps and another Fiskars border punch that I hadn't tried out yet.
The stamps are by My Favorite Things. I colored the image with colored pencils. The border was made using the Give It a Swirl Fiskars border punch. I embellished with Brides flower confetti and accented the centers with Diamond Stickles.
I was experimenting with my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder today. The background on this card was made by running the cardstock through, inking it, running it through again, inking it in a different color, and then running it through a final time, and inking it in one more color. The reason why the multicolor effect worked was because I moved the cardstock inside the folder slightly so that the existing dots were flattened as the new dots were made. So anyway, there's a texture effect to the background that may not have come across well in the photo.
This is an acrylic card. The images are by See D's. The embellishments are Bling Dots.I made this next card mainly so that I could play a bit more with decorative scoring with my Scor-It.
The stamped images are by My Favorite Things and were colored with markers. Interestingly, there is a bit of a metallic sheen to that layer but the marker ink did not puddle and actually soaked in a bit. The embossed lines were all made using my Scor-It.
