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. :-)
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! :-)
Wow, I can hardly believe how quickly time is flying! Yes, I'm still here and I've not given up blogging. Life has just gotten very busy!That said, let me cut to the chase. I've had some of these QuicKutz embossing folders for a while now. I wanted to say a couple of things about them.
In the photo above you can see the A2 size folders and a couple of the smaller 2x2 size folders. These are very much like the ProvoCraft Cuttlebug embossing folders, except for the bluish tint to the plastic.
Unfortunately, they are also like the Cuttlebug embossing folders in that they aren't quite a true A2 size--by this I mean that the embossed design will not cover the entire front of an A2 size card. 
I hope that you can make out that the vines reach from the top of the card to the bottom, and they're a nice crisp emboss, too, but they don't quite make it from the left edge to the right edge. If you're a crafter who's driven nuts by stuff like this, then be aware that these folders are going to leave you a bit of unembossed border on your card front.
I also had another issue with my new QK folders and this one is a more serious one in that it seems to be due to a manufacturing defect. In the photo above, you can see that the folders don't close with nice even edges. I had an 'Uh oh' moment when I noticed this.
This turned to a "GRRRR!" moment when I held them up to the light and saw that the two sides of the folders didn't match up. Hey, that's what makes these folders work, eh? But okay, maybe they'd still emboss.
My apologies for the poor quality of this photo, but frankly, the performance of the folders didn't help. The usual sandwich combo produced only a faint emboss. I went with a slightly thicker stack and ran these through again--this time I used Tab 1 on my multipurpose platform rather than no tabs. The embossing was more distinct, but far from the crisp design that it should have been. It was also very uneven in places.
Here's why. I could make the faces of the design fit together, but this is what I had to do to the folder to get them to match. There's no way that would get that way or stay that way going through a machine. Heheheh, well, unless someone, oh, I don't know, maybe decided to cut it apart or something. ;-)
Here's how the other folder looked when I fit those faces together, poor contorted thing. Again, the only embossed design I was going to get using this folder was a poor one.So, the bottom line at this point for me is that QuicKutz apparently didn't hear the pleas of crafters who want embossed designs to cover the entire front of an A2 card, or even something larger. Hurray for Sizzix for getting that right with their textured impressions embossing folders! I should mention though, that the QK 2" x 12" borders do look like they'll emboss the full 12", so that's good news for scrappers. But I now have some defective product on my hands. I'll be writing to them to see if they're interested in making this right. I'll update if/when I hear something.One last point, since I'm touching on customer service--my Scor-It (and I've mentioned before that they have SUPERB customer service) was buried under lots of stuff, so I used my Making Memories cutter as my background of sorts for photos today. I'd written to Making Memories a while back because my supposedly self-sharpening blade was fraying card stock when it cut. Unacceptable. I like this cutter. I've been using it for about a year. All I wanted/needed was a new blade. Well, they're supposed to be self-sharpening, so they don't have replacement blades available. ARGH! Their customer service suggested I get in touch with their dept that sends out replacements. I didn't really want a whole new cutter, but okay. My new one arrived yesterday. Wow. I like companies that stand by their product and are willing to make things right when things go wrong. Very cool. :-)
A couple of weeks ago I made a scalloped edge background layer by cutting cardstock only partway with a Nestabilities die. I was trying to think of other ways to use this "partial nesties" technique. Here's a card that I made using a similar partial cut, but in a slightly different way.
This time I used a scalloped rectangle die and only put one corner of it through the machine between the cutting plates. I scored and then folded the cardstock back to make a window of sorts. I liked the effect of using this with double-sided cardstock. The stamped images are by Danelle Johnson/Art Warehouse and the sentiment by Hero Arts. I used a Quickutz Curlz Goosebumpz folder to emboss the strip of cardstock across the front.
I've been loving my Big Shot and the fact that it can use any non-commercial die, texture plate, or embossing folder out there! The latest additions to my craft space are some of the new dies for the Quickutz Revolution. All this means is that the dies are bigger, about 4 inches by 4 inches. They easily fit through the Big Shot. This first card was made using the limited release dragonfly die, which comes with a butterfly shape. I also used the Quickutz nesting flowers dies. This is a standard A2 size card. The larger scalloped die cut was made using the biggest die. The reddish cardstock is Basic Grey, the background is from the DCWV Luxury stack which I embossed with the Cuttlebug D'vine embossing folder, and the sentiment by Serendipity.
Quickutz also came out with some big embossing dies with sentiments. Again, these are sized for the Revolution, so they're 4 X 4. I had to tinker a little to use these in my Big Shot. I used textured cardstock inside the die, which was about the thickness of two of the wafer thin dies stacked. I couldn't put the sandwich through using Tab 1 of my multipurpose platform, and Tab 2 didn't give enough of an impression. I pulled out the impressions plate from the Big Impressions kit. This plate is slightly thicker than the clear cutting plate, so I used it as my top plate and ran the combo through. It worked! Here's how it turned out.
These were essentially all scraps that I had sitting on my table. I think it worked though!
For this last card I decided to add a bit of a twist. Okay. To be honest, I was going to follow the same design as with the other cards but use the evergreen trees edge punch in the background instead. Well, the frosty village ended up looking backward to me because of the way I'd punched it. Looked good when I folded it the other way. Hm. So, I decided that I'd try to go with that. I think it worked out. I added the stamped sentiment by Studio G to the bottom corner and attached it to the front of a card that I'd embossed using a Sizzix textured impressions folder. It was a nice change from the typical A2 card and a fun departure from the other two cards that I'd designed earlier. I love it when "mistakes" like that work out. :-)
