two more Thanks edge punch cards

I mentioned in a comment on a previous post that I really like these new Martha Stewart edge punches. Fun designs and I like the idea of having a sentiment punch. It also doesn't hurt that these new punches also have the fold-up "wings" so that they're easier to store.

But on to the cards....


For this card I used the Martha Stewart Thanks edge punch on a 2 3/4" square piece of ruche paper. This is a thicker paper with wonderful texture. The die cut accent is from the Tulip Pendant set by Spellbinders. The decorative scoring on the card front was made using my Scor-It and Scor-It ruler to make the embossed and debossed lines in a diamond pattern.


I used the same punch on double-sided decorative cardstock this time, scored and folded so that I would have two edges for my sentiment. I offset the layers a bit with dimensionals which also left room for some Prima flowers. The embossing on the card front was made using one of the newer releases by QuicKutz, the polka dots A2 embossing folder. This is the folder with the larger dots, by the way, since for whatever reason QuicKutz decided to give the two polka dot pattern folders the same name.

I'm really enjoying the versatility of this edge punch. I know that people have had trouble punching through thicker card stocks with some of the Martha edge punches in the past. I've used this one without any trouble on Georgia Pacific 110# card stock. I haven't used anything thicker. I'll just add a caveat that punching text weight paper can be difficult because the letters can easily become caught in the punch if the paper does not happen to be cut cleanly or if the paper is bent or creased. And here I'd thought it was such a good idea to use scrap paper for a test run. Wrong! Anyway, those are just two more ways of using these new edge punches that I thought I'd share.

just dropping you... a post and a card

This is a card that I made with one of the new 12" QuicKutz border embossing folders. It's called circles. I think it's a fun design. I added the scored lines along each edge with my Scor-It. The stamped sentiment and image are by Inkadinkado and stamped with Memento London Fog dye ink. I colored the fish with a couple of Copic markers and added the texture with the colorless blender.

Oh, QuicKutz, why?

QuicKutz has released new embossing folders--another new set of about a dozen A2 size as well as some 12" borders with fun designs. Here's a card that I made with the A2 folder called flowers....


First off, as I said, the embossed background was made using the new QuicKutz flowers A2 embossing folder. The other die cuts were also made with QuicKutz dies, nested labels, I think they're called. The stamped image and sentiment are by Hampton Arts.

Now for my gripe--crafters already dislike the fact that these folders (and by "these" I'm referring to the QuicKutz and the Cuttlebug embossing folders) don't emboss the full front of an A2 size card. So far Sizzix is the only company that is getting this right with their textured impressions folders. But now QuicKutz has made things even worse--these embossed designs didn't even come close to covering an A2 sized space. The pale yellow layer in my card is A2 size. The darker yellow is the embossed area created by the flowers folder--came out to 4 X 5 inches before I sliced it up and punched holes in it. That's why I had to be a little more creative about how I used the embossed design. I had some room to make up on my card front!

I haven't looked closely at my other folders yet. I will. Right now I'm a bit disappointed in that some of these folder manufacturers seem to be headed in the wrong direction. First ProvoCraft placed their designs closer to the fold in their latest release, making it tougher to center the design nicely on a card front. Now QuicKutz is making the embossed area within the folder even smaller and not in symmetric fashion. ARGH! I guess we'll just have to keep wishing for the best and having to be creative with how we use these, eh? I still love using embossing folders, despite their flaws. *insert dramatic sigh* :-)

Guest Designer Spot: let's talk about embossing folders

Please note: this article was originally published on the Cuttlebug Challenge blog. I think enough time has passed that I'm publishing it here as well so that it can go out to my email subscribers and be linked along with my other tutorials.

Hi, this is Jay from IndigoInklings, and I'm back for one of my monthly Guest Designer visits. I thought it would be fun to talk briefly about using other manufacturers' embossing folders with the Cuttlebug, and talk in more detail about the new QuicKutz border embossing folders and how to use them with the Cuttlebug.

I think everyone is familiar with the Cuttlebug embossing folders by ProvoCraft. Sizzix was the next to come out with embossing folders, and QuicKutz has been the most recent to begin producing these.


For now you'll have to trust me that there is one of each brand of A2 folder in the photo above. The ProvoCraft is on top, the QuicKutz next, and the Sizzix on the bottom. What I want to show is that the Sizzix folks listened to crafters and made their folders just a bit wider so that their designs truly cover the entire front of an A2 size card.


Okay, see? There they are. The QuicKutz has the distinctive blue tint.


Just wanted to give you a side view of the folders. They're similar in thickness, but I'll just remind you that if you're not getting as crisp and clear an emboss as you'd like, gradually add thin shims until you're happy with what you're seeing--then make a note of it for next time.


Here is a typical set of Sizzix embossing folders. They sell their product in sets--the folders are usually of varying sizes but the designs are coordinated so that they can be used in combination on a card front or layout.


This is a sampling of QuicKutz embossing folders. They have the A2 size, the 2x2 inch size, and they have the large 2x12 inch border folders. The borders and A2 folders are sold individually; the 2x2's are sold in sets, like the small ProvoCraft folders.

All of these folders can be used with the Cuttlebug machine. I use the same sandwich for the Sizzix and QuicKutz folders that I do for the ProvoCraft Cuttlebug folders.

That's my quick overview of the embossing folders currently out on the market. Now I'd like to talk in more detil about the QuicKutz border folders.


First off, yes, they can be used in the Cuttlebug. (They can be used in the Big Shot, too, but I'll mainly stick to descriptions for the C'bug here.) The sandwich is the same one that you'd normally use for ProvoCraft embossing folders: A plate, B plate, embossing folder with card stock inside, B plate. It's the length of these folders that make using them a little tricky, but that's only because you have to put the sandwich through twice to emboss the full length.


Here's how I made my first pass. I staggered the stack just a bit. This makes it a little easier to feed it through.


Here's how it looks so far.


Now I've moved the plates to the other end of the folder and I'm going to go ahead and just feed that unsandwiched end through first. It's always a good idea to lead with the folded edge if possible. I staggered the plates just a bit again, too.


Here's the full length of the embossed card stock.


And since I think I actually showed the debossed side up there, here's the other side. :-)

Quick aside for Big Shot users: you can do the same with your machine, just use the multipurpose platform on either No Tabs (what I use) or Tab 1, and sandwich the folder between the clear cutting plates as you normally would.

Now a simpler way to accomplish the same thing would be to use the Sizzix extended platform and the cutting plates that are made for use with the Sizzix decorative border dies.


Here you see the extended platform that I was talking about.


It is conveniently very close to the same thickness as the A plate. Big Shot users, you could use this instead of the multipurpose platform.


So the stack/sandwich is: extended platform, extended cutting plate, border embossing folder with card stock inside, extended cutting plate. Roll it through.


Voila! One pass. Easy peasy. I wouldn't recommend buying these items just for this, but if you happen to have them or come across them on clearance or something somewhere, it does simplify things.

But you know, why stop at just embossing these borders the regular way? We crafters like to innovate, right? Let's take things a step farther.


Here I have 4 one inch wide strips of chipboard that I wish were 12" long rather than the 11" that they were in reality. Through the magic of the internet though, it can seem like they were 12" long and it can look like I did the following in one pass. LOL!


In the photo above, I removed the extended cutting plate that had been on the bottom, put the previously embossed card stock that I showed you into a different border folder (one with a line of large dots that happen to be one inch wide), and placed it directly onto the platform. I placed my stack of chipboard strips on top of the circle designs, topped that with an extended cutting plate, and ran it through the machine.


Here's how that piece of embossed card stock looked after that. By the way, I used the chipboard to keep from flattening out the original embossing--a form of selective embossing, eh? This is one of the ways that I've described on my blog for avoiding those unsightly folder lines. In the same way that I don't like to have stray marks made by folder edges, sometimes I don't want to flatten out existing embossing either. This is how I choose where I'd like the pressure to be applied to a folder so that I can avoid flattening embossed images if I don't have to.


You can also embellish the plain scalloped border this way.

So, these border embossing folders would be a fun way to embellish scrapbook layouts. They're a true 12" length, though the widths of the designs vary.

I thought that you might like to see that these can be used for card-making, too, so here are some cards that I worked up.


For this card I used the QuicKutz scalloped border and the QK dots border embossing folders. The stamped images are by Chatterbox and stamped using Memento dye inks. The embellishments are by Hero Arts.


The QuicKutz border for this card is the scallops and dots. The flowers are by Bazzill and Prima. The sentiment is by Amuse Artistamps.


I did a little something different on this card. I embossed it with the A2 damask embossing folder by Sizzix. You can see how it embossed the entire card front. I embossed over that with the QuicKutz scalloped border which left a faint impression of the original embossing. I didn't do it justice in the photo, but looking at it in real life, it almost looks like there's a scalloped border vellum overlay on the card. The sentiment is by My Sentiments Exactly and was stamped using Memento ink. The punched embellishments were made using the EK Success Black-Eyed Susan Punch & Stamp set and Memento inks.


For this last card I wanted to show that you can use other border folders in combination with the QuicKutz borders. This is the QK scallops and dots combined with one of the Cuttlebug Just My Type border folders. I added the scored lines using my Scor-It to set off that border design a bit more. The sentiment is by Hero Arts and stamped using Memento ink. The stick pin embellishment is by Maya Road.

I hope that gives you some useful information regarding all of these embossing folders that have become available recently. I also hope that I've given you a bit of inspiration as far as some fun ways in which some of these new border folders can be used both individually and in combination to dress up cards quickly and easily. If I managed to inspire you, I love hearing about it and seeing what you've made. Feel free to leave a link here or on my blog so that I can take a peek and be inspired by your creativity, too. :-)

Thanks, and I'll see you next time!

Chart for Assorted Dies & Sizzix Multipurpose Platform

Quite a while back I wrote up an entry about the Big Shot and multipurpose platform (MPP) called Big Shot Basics. I'd said that I love the MPP because it makes using all of the dies, folders, texture plates etc. so easy. It's tabbed and the instructions are printed right on each tab, with helpful illustrations, no less! After reading the comments made concerning that blog entry, the only other nifty addition would have been if Sizzix had specified just which other dies etc could be used with each tab. I'd written that up in the body of that post, but I decided that it'd be easier if that information was put in chart form.

Here's where you can now find a chart: Dies & Sizzix Multipurpose Platform

This is a pdf file, so you'll need Adobe Reader (can be downloaded for free) or some other application that will let you open and read pdf files. If you want to print it out, it's best to print it in landscape.

I've tried to include most of the more commonly used manufacturers' dies etc. If I've missed one (or more--Yikes!) feel free to let me know. I think there is only one place where my chart differs from what's recommended on the MPP and that's when using the Cuttlebug embossing folders. I tend to use No Tabs because I get a crisply embossed image with less likelihood of tearing the card stock or getting extra creases. I think that Tab 1 is what's actually recommended. I added that in the notes.

I didn't include any of my tips, tricks, or tweaks on this chart. If I've done some experimenting or tweaking, the post can be found in my sidebar in the Tutorials and Info for the Big Shot and Cuttlebug menu. I'll be adding this post to that menu shortly. :-)

embossed shape outlines on the cheap

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.

Core'dinations & DIY embossing folders

I'm still intrigued by the notion of making embossing folders. I'd had it in mind to make one using butterflies, but hadn't gotten around to trying it until today. I pulled out my scrap chipboard, some heavy weight transparency and my Spellbinders butterfly dies. I seem to have quite a few of those dies. I constructed my folder in the same way that I've described before for DIY embossing, but instead of repeating one image several times--that had actually been my original plan--I decided to make it really easy on myself and use all of my butterfly dies at once. So, I made the cuts for this folder all in one pass. Gotta love quick and easy!

The next problem--what to make with this new folder. I'd tested it on text weight paper. I always do that first. Then I'd put folded paper through it. Finally I ran it through with cardstock inside. I figure that by then I've gradually made room for my cardstock to be embossed between those two sides of my chipboard 'sandwich'. Sometimes it's a tight fit starting out.

Now Pearl, if you're reading, this is your fault, you enabler! LOL! Pearl had mentioned the new Core'dinations cardstock a while back, saying that it would probably look really cool with some of the embossing I'd been playing with. I'd been resisting, but I finally did order some to try. No time like the present to try it!


I made this card very simple because I wanted the focus to be on the embossing. All of the die cut shapes that I used were by Spellbinders. I also used Black Magic Core'dinations cardstock and distressed the embossing with a sanding block. I like it! It's a neat effect! The sentiment is by Studio G.

I used more Core'dinations cardstock on this next card, but in a slightly different way.


I distressed the cardstock first by crumpling it then sanding it. I flattened it out a bit and then put it through my Big Shot inside the Perfectly Paisley Cuttlebug embossing folder. I then accented the embossing with the Adirondack Snow Cap pigment ink. The cardstock with the sentiment is the reverse side of the Black Magic, so it matches the distressed color exactly, which is fun. Since that part of the card didn't show up well, here's a close up.


There's a flower vine image stamped in the background with Versamark ink. The sentiment itself is stamped with Memento dye ink. Both stamps are by Hero Arts. The embellishments are Robin's Nest Dew Drops, and yes, this particular set is opaque, and there are white ones which look very much like the half pearls that people often look for only a bit more translucent. Just thought I'd mention that. Turnabout enabling is fair play, eh? :-)

more DIY embossing

Ahhh, Paris in the spring is a romantic notion. Springtime in the midwest of the US is not nearly as romantic. We've had a weekend filled with thunderstorms--thunder, lightning, hail, and lots and lots of rain. It was a little tough to get motivated to craft, but I did try out an idea up there. The stamped images are by Mary Mata and stamped using Memento Paris Dusk ink. The embossed fleur de lis is a Quickutz die cut, accented with that same ink. The embellishment was made using the Fiskars All-A-Fleur border punch and Robin's Nest Dew Drops.

So, I'd used some simple words and some very basic shapes to make some embossing folders before. You can see my first attempt with the word "fun" HERE. My more recent embossing folder made using a scalloped heart die is HERE. This time I wanted to see if I could do something more complicated and intricate, something with a smaller design that I could repeat. My eye landed on the Quickutz fleur de lis die and I decided that was the one that would be the guinea pig.

You can see in the photo below that what I did was die cut a sheet of chipboard with that die a dozen times. I'd marked it so that I'd know exactly where to place that die each time. I did well until that tenth one where I used the wrong line. OOPS! Oh well. I'd gone too far to turn back or to start over. I finished up the cutting.

Keeping the die cuts in place, I made my embossing folder by placing glue on the back of each fleur de lis. I then pressed that onto the inside of my transparency folder, a piece of transparency cut to size, scored, and folded. After letting that dry for a bit, I pulled off the 'negative' side of my cuts, used my Xyron to add adhesive, refit it onto the die cuts (Xyron adhesive side up) and closed the folder on top of it to adhere it to the opposite side of the inside of the folder. The hinge of the embossing folder is at the top.


My test piece of cardstock was Georgia Pacific. This is the same piece that I used in the card up above. I placed a smaller piece inside the folder for the photo so that you get a better idea of how the two sides fit together.


This is a close-up view of the embossing. This was made using only one layer of fairly lightweight chipboard. That's really all it takes. Unlike when doing the selective embossing or creative Cuttling that I described before, this can be done using thinner layers because there are both positive and negative faces to the image which together produce a crisp embossed image, so not a lot of pressure or depth or stiffness to the material is really necessary. I've seen this done with transparency used as the template, too. I like the look of embossing with the chipboard better. Unless the transparency is very heavy weight, it's just not thick enough to make a good impression without using more than one layer, though that's certainly an option--and also more work. :-) Just keep in mind that the impression will only be as deep as the thickness of the material being cut out, regardless of what you use.

Whichever look you go for, the main thing is aligning the die cuts and the cutout side properly so that the cardstock will be pressed around the die cut and into the cutout. Basically this works the same way that Cuttlebug embossing folders work. These are just made using chipboard rather than plastic.

It was fun to see that smaller die cuts can be turned into bigger backgrounds. Opens up even more possibilities and more uses for dies.

DIY creative Cuttling and an aside on folder making

Ever since I wrote about the different things that could be used to emboss selectively with the Cuttlebug embossing folders--I'm talking about creative Cuttling--I haven't been able to stop looking for new items to use. Now I did say that the shapes had to be fairly simple. This technique doesn't pick up a lot of detail. Here's a card that I made earlier.


I used the Cuttlebug Script embossing folder and Cuttled it using chipboard with a heart shape cut out of it. Okay, technically it was three layers of chipboard that I glued together after cutting out the heart shape from each. This was a scalloped Nestabilities heart die by Spellbinders. I wasn't looking for the scallops to show up. I wanted the heart shape. The bird image is by Pink Paislee and stamped with Memento dye inks. The sentiment is by Inkadinkado, also stamped with Memento ink.

This is a photo of one of my test runs with the heart cutout, using the Textile texture folder and the creative Cuttling that I've described before.


Then it occurred to me that I could use not only this cutout, but the die cuts as well. Almost a year ago, I posted here about making my own embossing folder out of chipboard, using letters that I'd cut out using Sizzix alphabars. It was simple, but it worked.

This time I made my folder using the heavy weight transparency that I'd used when modifying those small Cuttlebug folders. I used my cutout side as the 'negative' face of my die and the die cut as the 'positive'. I adhered the chipboard pieces to their respective sides of the folder using my ATG. Just a word of warning, ATG tape is very sticky, but with chipboard and transparency it's even less forgiving than usual! You can guess how I might know. ;-)

Here's how it works as an embossing folder.


I had to play around with the shimming, and again, you'll want to take care and start thin and gradually add shims until you get an impression that you're happy with. This gave me a very crisp design right off.


That's just another photo with the folder open so that you can see the two sides and how they come together to sandwich the card front. The hinge is at the top of the folder.

Another good thing about this set up is that I can still use the cutout side of the folder for creative Cuttling like I did at the beginning of this post. I just open the folder all the way and lay that 'negative' face on top of my Cuttlebug embossing folder and run it through the die machine. The positive side either runs through ahead or behind my 'sandwich', off the platform entirely. And now that I think about it, you could the 'positive' face similarly to emboss, in this case, a heart shape of your Cuttlebug folder design.

Now it may not be a big deal to be able to emboss a Nestabilities shape since you can emboss those just fine on their own, but imagine if you'd used a Sizzix thick cut die or some other die that isn't made to be embossed like those alphabet dies that I'd used last year. That's where this could come in handy, particularly if you don't own an electronic die cutter and have to do things the semi-old-fashioned way. :-)