Hello and enjoy...

Here are a couple of cards that I made before I was sidetracked by those new Cuttlebug folders.


To make this one I used Penny Black stamps and Memento inks. I made the decorative scores with my Scor-It.


I used the Scor-It and Scor-It ruler for the decorative scores on this card. I made the sentiment with the EK Success Paper Shapers medium square Punch & Stamp set. The wee bugs were punched using an EK Success punch and I embellished a bit with some Diamond Dust Stickles.

Scor-It ruler

I'm not sure how I missed this, but Scor-It has come out with a sliding ruler that fits onto the large original Scor-It boards. I love my Scor-It, and I liked the idea of having a way to measure at the opposite edge of my paper or card stock. I had to give it a try.

That's my board with the new sliding ruler attached. It's all metal and has inches on one edge and metric measurements on the other. It also has a raised area that accommodates the rail that helps create those nifty score lines and notches at that zero centering mark.

The ruler is essentially clipped on the board. Since it's metal, you can bend the sides in or out a bit to adjust how tightly it fits on the board. Mine was originally very snug. I bent the sides out just a bit and now the ruler slides up and down the board easily.

Here I was just trying to show that having the second ruler is nice when you want to make sure that everything is lined up nice and square. You can also slip that bottom edge of your paper or card stock underneath the ruler to help hold it in place. I did this a few times. The ruler didn't make a score mark where the raised rail is, so that worked nicely.

That notched area is also very handy because you can take your scoring tool all the way to the bottom edge of the card stock for a complete score.

Having the ruler at the bottom also helps as far as making very accurate and quick measurements. You can see exactly how far you've moved the paper or card stock at each end when making multiple scores, particularly diagonal scores. Makes it easier to make fun scored designs.

This is a card that I made using that piece of scored card stock. The images are by Penny Black and stamped using Memento dye inks.

I scored this card using my Scor-It, too. The images are by H & M stamps and also stamped using Memento dye inks.

All in all, I'd have to give a thumbs-up on the addition of the Scor-It ruler. I'd already used an extra ruler at times when making score lines. It's very nice to have one that can stay attached to the board, accommodates the scoring rail, and glides up and down the board very easily. I noticed that Scor-It has also added an online store to their site. That was just a little late for me since I'd bought mine elsewhere after not finding it anywhere locally. Now if they only sold some of those replacement rubber feet for the board. Mine lost one somewhere along the line and I suspect that I may have tossed it after finding it and not knowing what it was. Oops. :-)

Using new QuicKutz 12" border folders for card-making

Yesterday I posted a peek at a card that I made using a tutorial that I wrote up for a guest spot on the Cuttlebug Challenge blog. Here's a look at the full card now that the tutorial has been posted over there....

I made this card using Spellbinders butterfly die set and patterned card stock by K & Company. The sentiment is by Penny Black and stamped using Memento ink. The embossed designs were made by first embossing with the QuicKutz 12" scalloped border folder, then embossing over that using one of the folders from the Cuttlebug Frills border set. More details about using these border folders can be found in my Guest Designer post on the Cuttlebug Challenge blog.

I've always liked combining the folder designs--just check out double Cuttling, creative double Cuttling, double 'bossing, or double 'bossing revisited in my tutorials list over in the sidebar if you don't believe me. ;-) It's a quick and easy way to give a clean and simple card design some added pop. These new border folders by QuicKutz are a fun addition to the embossing arsenal. I didn't think I'd need them, but I'm glad that I bought some anyway. :-)

art of flower pounding, using the Big Shot

Pounding flowers isn't a new concept. It's been around for a while. Using die cutting machines to pound flowers and get them to release their pigment onto paper isn't new either. I remember the old red Sizzix being great for this sort of thing, back when the original Sizzix was new, but I'd never tried it. Probably the wrong time of year or something. ;-)

So, this morning I was catching up on my Google Reader subscriptions and came across a blog post in which Spellbinders' Wizard was used to pound flowers. I had to try it. We have lots of flowers around here, and though I may not have a Wizard, I have my trusty Big Shot.


Our poker plants are blooming. So are the clematis and peonies. None of those was really right for this project. Then I remembered that my shrub rose, pictured up above, is full of blooms! These would be great! Nice color, not too big, fairly flat, also lots of them! Sorry that the sun wasn't out when I snapped my photo this morning. It looks so pretty in the bright sunlight, but we were due for rain.


Here's a close up of some of the blooms.


I plucked three candidates for my first attempt at "pounding" flowers with my Big Shot.


I trimmed the stems and placed them--hm, I guess you'd call it face down on my card stock. You can see what I mean.

I then arranged my stack as follows, from the bottom up: multipurpose platform on Tab 2, clear cutting plate, 1/2 sheet of card stock, arranged flowers, scrap text weight paper folded in half, clear cutting plate. You may or may not need to shim, depending on the size/thickness of your flowers.


This is what I got after running it through the Big Shot. There was quite a bit of pigment transferred, but you can also see where the juiciness of the flowers kinda squirted out and made a rather unsightly mess on what had been going to be my card front. This called for a change in plan. LOL!


Here is the card that I made after switching gears. The embossed background was made using the QuicKutz vines embossing folder. The rose leaves are Primas. The sentiment is by Penny Black and stamped using Memento dye ink.


Here's a close up view of the result of the flowers being pressed by my Big Shot. I like the way it turned out, even if it wasn't quite what I'd envisioned when I started. :-)

Addendum: I'll make a separate post at some point, but for Cuttlebug users, this will work in your machines, too. The stack that I used, from the bottom up, was: A plate, Cuttlebug backing shim, C plate, card stock, flowers, another sheet of card stock, B plate. As usual, you may or may not need to shim, depending on your particular machine and on the 'thickness' of the flowers you choose. Just remember not to force anything! :-)

Penny Black week 36 challenge card

Lately I've been finding my card-making inspiration on challenge blogs. This is a card that I made using the Penny Black Saturday Challenge for this week, the week 36 sketch by Nat.


This card was made using designer card stock by Me and My Big Ideas. The Penny Black images were colored using Memento markers. I love making cards from sketches because they help get me out of my comfort zone.

feeling green - DCM

This week's challenge on Daring Cardmakers is feeling green. Here's the scoop from Jozza:

The dare is feeling green. I want to see lots of green on your cards in any shade you like. You could even do a double dare and make a green themed get well card. It's up to you.

Here's my card....


I like to think that this card is doubly green because I used a patterned card stock from DCWV's Green Stack (Hooray for recycled papers!) as well as the shades of green from the dare. The stamped images are by Penny Black and stamped and colored with Memento inks. I cut out some of the stamped petals and popped them out a bit to add some dimension. The border was embossed using a Cuttlebug embossing border folder.

Got Chipboard?

Wow, I didn't realize the level of interest that there would be for this idea of making your own embossed borders! So, okay. I've read through the comments (Thanks, all!), done a little more thinking about this, and I've made another card using a chipboard border for embossing.

Here it is....


The stamped image and sentiment are from the Penny Black Garden Friends clear stamp set. And I thought that the hedgies were cute! But even though I might be a little premature with the sentiment, it does feel like spring here today in the midwest. Ahhhh!

I used Memento inks for the stamping and to color the Brides flowers which were originally white. I used Memento markers to color the chicks and flowers. The bling are hot fix crystals. And of course, the embossed border was made using another partly home-made chipboard shape.

Here's where it came from.


I liked Heidi's idea of using Grungeboard cutouts, but I didn't relish the thought of trying to cut them with my craft knife. That did make me think of that pack of chipboard shapes that I'd picked up some time back when I saw them on clearance at Joann's. Pictured above is one of the sheets from that pack.


This is the one I decided to work with, even though curves can be a little trickier to cut. Notice that you actually could use the frame that you're left with when you've removed the shape. Either keep those straight edges, or use that fancy two colored pencils and a rubberband tool ;-) to trace the outline--just run the one pencil on the inside this time instead to trace.


I followed the steps that I described yesterday, so up above you see the tracings on my chipboard shape.


Here I've cut out the traced area. I thought about using the inside and the outside together, sandwiching the cardstock or paper in between as I've done previously. That's why I sandwiched them here. I didn't do that yet though. I did smooth all of the edges by sanding them down a bit. That way the fit won't be too tight if I do decide to do that later. That also makes the edges nice and smooth for embossing.


This is how I arranged my stack. I flipped it so that you can see the layers, but I turned it back over when I put it through the Big Shot. So from the bottom up going through the machine I had: the multipurpose platform open to Tab 1, clear cutting plate, chipboard border, card front that I'd misted with water (Thanks for the reminder, Jennifer!), silicone embossing mat, clear cutting plate, shim.


After running it through, this is the design that was embossed on my card front. I thought it looked pretty good even without using the other pieces of chipboard, so I didn't take this further today. You could certainly make your own embossing folder (like the plastic ones by ProvoCraft, Sizzix, and QuicKutz) by reassembling the pieces and sandwiching them inside a transparency folder, gluing the border to one side and the outer and inner pieces to the other. Much like what I did here and here. And similarly, yes, Sandi, I think you certainly could use precut chipboard shapes like hearts or stars to emboss a card front. The only thing I might do is anchor the pieces on another piece of chipboard or cardstock. The silicone pad is really compressed and sort of oozes between the rollers of the machine as it's rolled through so it would shift the shapes unless they're held down.

Hope everyone's enjoying as lovely as day as we're having here! Time for me to get out and enjoy it. :-)

smiling flowers

This may be hard to believe, but I got my hands on a Fiskars Threading Waters border punch last Friday and I didn't use it until today!


This is a Penny Black stamp that I colored using a modified magic colored pencil technique. The sentiment is by Hero Arts. I used a Fiskars corner edger on the stamped layer.