Sizzix ScoreBoard XL dies

I couldn't resist trying this new offering from Sizzix. These are similar to their other XL Bigz dies but they cut and score matboard and chipboard, with the recommended thicknesses of the board being between 0.04" and 0.055" for the best results. I thought I'd get the most use from the Memo Holder and I was excited when this die arrived in the mail yesterday.

Here's how things went....

I started with getting out my Big Shot and the extended cutting pads. I also pulled out my rotary cutter, cutting mat, ruler, and some matboard. I cut the matboard down to a size that would fit nicely through my Big Shot--this was roughly 3 3/4" wide and 18" long.

Here's the usual sandwich. It rolled easily through my machine. From the bottom up: clear cutting plate, die cutting side up, matboard, other clear cutting plate. Yes, the die will fit through the opening of the Cuttlebug, but the extended cutting plates made by Sizzix are too wide--this is the same as with the other Bigz and XL Bigz dies as noted before.

Here are all of the pieces, cut and scored.

Here it is folded along the score lines.

In this photo I wanted to show that I used adhesive Velcro dots to keep the flap closed over the 3" x 3" size Post-It note pad that I'd adhered using my ATG. I think ideally I'd use the magnetic snap closures, but I couldn't find mine. I hate it when I clean up and then I can't find stuff! LOL!

Here's the finished product. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo where the memo pad was actually showing. But the holder was made from matboard. The flowers were chipboard by DCWV and the I used self-adhesive pearls for the embellishment. The finished measurements are roughly 3 3/8" x 3 1/4" x 1/2".

This Sizzix ScoreBoard Memo Holder die worked beautifully. It cut through the matboard and chipboard without any problems at all. The scoring was perfect. It assembled very easily and the end result is that I made a very nice sturdy memo holder in a very short amount of time. I think it probably took me longest to locate all of the paraphernalia that I needed. :-) Typical.

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. :-)

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. :-)

Die compatibility with various materials

Well, making up this chart didn't take as long as I'd thought that it might. I've used many of these materials in my original Sizzix, my Sidekick, or my Big Shot.

Here's the link to the materials chart for manual die cutters:

http://www.indigojay.com/crafting/diecutter_materials.pdf

This is another pdf file, so again you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to be able to read it. It's a free download if you don't have it on your computer already.

Let me know if there is anything that could be added to this chart or that needs to be changed to make it more helpful for everyone.

Are we having fun yet? Or You Ain't the (EM)boss of Me - dcm

I know I am! I tried something different today. On the Gingerwood stamping forum, Friday is tip day. A couple of weeks ago, one of Susan's tips had to do with using a Cricut machine to make embossing folders. Well, I don't have a Cricut, but I do have a Big Shot and plenty of dies that can cut chipboard, so I gave this a try. I went for simple. I took some chipboard and cut a strip of it large enough to accommodate a word. I went for "fun". I then cut out another piece of chipboard that was twice as tall as my piece. I scored it and folded it in half. That would become my embossing folder. Now it was time to make the positive and negative designs. I used my Stencil alphabars and my Big Shot and cut out the word "fun" from my original strip of chipboard. I glued the outside of the letters to one half of my folder, then keeping the pieces of the letters in place, I applied a small amount of glue to each piece and closed the folder, pressing both sides firmly together. I waited just a bit and then opened up the folder. This is how it turned out.


But how did it work, you're now wondering, eh? It worked quite well.


I tried some text weight paper to start off. I got a nice impression! I accented it with some ink, punched around it using a mega scalloped oval punch, layered it onto a giga scalloped oval of Luxury Stack DCWV cardstock, embellished with an altered paperclip, layered all of that on still more DCWV cardstock, and mounted everything on a card made from Bohemian Chic American Traditions paper. I think this technique opens up a world of possibilities!

I just realized that this card works for this week's daring cardmaker's challenge, which has to do with embossing! It was a do-it-yourself emboss, but it fits the criteria. :-)