Ten Seconds Studio Molds - Cuttlebug

In my previous post, I showed that Ten Seconds Studio molds could be used with the Big Shot to emboss not only metal, but also chipboard and card stock. Now it's time to see if they're compatible with the Cuttlebug, and if so, with what combo of Cuttlebug accessories.


To keep things simple, I chose the Big Daddy (green) mold and a couple of the Skinny Minis (blue pair). There are also some A2 size pieces of 36 Ga craft aluminum, fairly heavy chipboard, and Georgia Pacific card stock pictured above.


Due to the thickness of the double-sided Big Daddy mold, I thought I would start by simply going with the sandwich that I'd use for Cuttlebug embossing folders, but eliminate one of the B plates: A plate, mold, chipboard, silicone rubber, B plate. Well, that was too thick. Gee, and it had seemed so reasonable at the time.


I had to take out the A plate. It was making things too thick. I replaced it with the C plate and both B plates, then followed that with the mold, chipboard, silicone rubber, then my crease pad that had been previously cut to size to fit through the Cuttlebug machine. I didn't have spare B plates handy or I would have tried one. At any rate, this wound up being too thin, and a B plate would probably have been too thin, too.


At this point, it would have been reasonable to try shimming with the Cuttlebug backing pieces that I keep handy, and I did insert one between my B plates, but I also replaced the crease pad with my black Sizzix Impressions pad which is a bit heftier than the crease pad. If you don't have one of these, try a spare B plate or a crease pad and start gradually adding shims.


Here's the embossing using the above sandwich. It's not a sharp, crisp image and really can't be expected to be due to the thickness of the chipboard.


Here's how the debossed side looks. Here you can see that the stack did put enough pressure on the mold to make a good impression. Using a lighter weight chipboard should look even better, but I wanted to put this to a good test with heavier stuff.


I used that same stack here, but substituted the craft aluminum for the chipboard. I just love the look of that embossed metal!


For card stock I figured that I'd need some shims. Here's my stack from the bottom up: C plate, B plate, two Cuttlebug backing shims, B plate, mold, card stock, silicone rubber, Sizzix Impressions pad.


Stormy here today. I wasn't shooting pics in good light. That card stock really should look white. I think you can still appreciate the embossing though. Mist the card stock before embossing and it'll look even better.


This blurry photo just shows the relative thickness of some of the plates and pads. The crease pad and B plate are very close to the same thickness, the Impressions pad is slightly thicker than each of those, and the C plate is clearly much thicker than the Impressions pad. That's just to help give you an idea of what you might want to try when you're experimenting. Please, please, please remember though--don't try to force any stack or sandwich through your machine. It's normal to feel the rollers apply pressure as you roll a sandwich through, but it should feed easily once started. And do keep in mind that machines will vary and a sandwich may need to be tweaked a bit to work in any particular machine.


As for the Skinny Minis, these are single sided molds and therefore thinner. I pulled out the A plate again, stacked the mold, card stock, silicone rubber, and then C plate on top.


Here is the result of rolling that stack through. Again, as with the Big Shot, it works better if the die is put through the machine lengthwise. I didn't use metal this time around, but I expect that the same stack would work nicely for that.

For the sake of completeness, I should add that the Kabuka molds are double-sided like the Big Daddy molds, so that same sandwich should work. To emboss the full length you'll have to run it through twice, once from each end since they're longer than Cuttlebug plates. They're only 4 5/8" wide though, so they fit through the opening of the machine with plenty of room to spare.

So Cuttlebuggers, these Ten Seconds Studio molds can work for you, too. Metal embossing looks awesome, but you can emboss card stock as well. Love that versatility!

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. :-)

etched glass plate using stamping supplies

I left off yesterday with a teaser about a project that I'd worked on. Here's a peek at how I made the connections.


The above photo is currently gracing my desktop. I love the delicate look of azalea petals and I particularly like the way the setting sun lit some of them from behind.


This is the part of the photo that caught my eye. That's the translucent sparkle that I was talking about--almost a ground glass look, but softer.

That reminded me of a project that I wanted to share--ground glass-->etched glass. That wasn't too far a jump, eh? So anyway, some time ago I'd seen some crafty projects made using etching cream and stamping supplies. I'd tucked that info away and got around to trying it a couple of weeks ago. I think that the most straightforward tutorial that I've seen is in the resources section of Splitcoast Stampers: Emboss Resist Etching. I more or less followed those same steps to make the following....


This is an 8" clear glass plate. I wanted to start with something that had a nice flat area for me to work on. I didn't take photos along the way, but I'll walk through what I did. It was actually fairly simple.

First I cleaned the back of the plate well, removing any labels, adhesive, oils, fingerprints etc. I then chose my stamps--the Highland cow and thistle are by Scottish Borders Stamping. I decided to make the etched background in the shape of one of the Nestabilities mega curved rectangle dies by Spellbinders, and I picked the size that would fit nicely with my stamps. I pulled out my Big Shot, cut that shape from clear contact paper, and used the negative part of my die cut to act as the frame for the images. I removed the paper backing and stuck that down well on the backside of the plate, taking care that all of the inside edges were well adhered so that no cream would seep underneath when I got to that step.

The Versamark and some regular old embossing powder came out next. I stamped and heat embossed the images on the back of the plate inside my framed area. It did take much longer than usual to melt the powder, so it's good to have some patience set aside for this part. :-)

Once that was done, I pulled out the etching cream and applied it over the whole area inside my frame and on top of the embossing, taking care to try to spread the stuff evenly and get into all of the curves and corners of my frame. Set it aside for five minutes and let it do its stuff.

Over to the sink now to rinse off the cream. When it first comes off, it looks like nothing happened. Thankfully, I'd read that this would be the case! No panic here, or at least not much. ;-) You don't really appreciate the etching effect until you pull off the contact paper, then TADA! You can see that the etching cream worked its magic. Whew!

Now some of my embossing actually began to come off as I'd rinsed the plate; the rest scraped off easily with some extra rubbing and a bit of scraping with a fingernail. One last soap and water bath and it was ready to be sent off!

Here it is one more time, now that you know what you're looking at.


So yeah, Judie, this was part of your birthday present and I know you occasionally come by here, so I didn't want to post about this earlier and spoil the surprise. Glad you like it. :-)

I think this is a really fun project and can easily think of many more possibilities. By the way, the etching cream (Armour) is kinda pricey. I bought mine at Michael's and used a coupon, so that helped. I didn't find that I needed any extra tools for applying the cream other than a cheapo 1" foam brush. I've seen that there are etching creams that you can reuse (Etchall)--that might be worth looking into. Being able to salvage and reuse the cream for other projects sounds great to me, and I think they cost about the same as this stuff, but I've only seen it online so far, so I can't use a coupon to buy it. Decisions, decisions.... It's a tradeoff , as usual. :-)

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. :-)

embossing with plastic templates

Since I've addressed some of the old business, here's some new business. Alicia wrote requesting a Big Shot tutorial that has to do with embossing using plastic templates. Apparently someone came up with the idea of embossing mini-envelope templates using a Cuttlebug. I guess this makes it easier to cut them out, or at least eliminates that tracing step.

Okay, I don't have a mini-envelope template and most of my envelope templates are for bigger envelopes and are too big to be embossed via a die cutter machine. What I do have that fits is a post-it note cover template. Amazing what a person can find when looking through her stash. Who knew? ;-) But I'd guess that this is roughly the same thickness as an envelope template, even one of the mini variety.

Here's what I did....

These are the supplies I used: my Big Shot, multipurpose platform, black impressions pad, one clear cutting plate, silicone rubber, post-it cover plastic template, scrap paper.


This is the stack, or sandwich, that I used from bottom to top: multipurpose platform open to no tabs, clear cutting plate, template, paper, silicone, impressions pad. Now usually this type of combo, with the silicone and the impressions pad, is used with Tab 1. Since this was a trial run and I do try to start thinner first, and since I was using lightweight paper like I would probably use for an envelope, I started with no tabs.

Here's how it turned out. I know. It's a little tough to see.

Here's how it looks from behind so that you can see that it embossed nicely. The fold lines weren't cut through either, so I was satisfied that using no tabs was a good thing to do and I'd use that same combo again.

FYI, if you decide to try this with mini-envelope templates, you'll need to cut the excess plastic away from the envelope shape then put it through to emboss it. LOL! That's why I picked a really easy shape to experiment with--no cutting, simple shape. :-) Hm, now I may just need to make some post-it note covers with this thing....

embossing only, with Nestabilities

The other day I received an email from Alicia who asked if I could post a tutorial about doing embossing only with the Big Shot. This question had to do with this card, in which I'd used a rectangular Nestabilities die to emboss a shape, but not cut it out.

Embossing only is pretty simple. Here's what I do....


Pictured above are my Big Shot, a piece of Die Cuts with a View cardstock, a pinking circle Nestabilities die by Spellbinders, the Sizzix Impressions pad, the black silicone rubber sheet from Sizzix (virtually the same as the tan pad by Spellbinders), and the multipurpose platform open to Tab 1.

My stack from the bottom up is as follows: multipurpose platform open to Tab 1, clear cutting plate, die with cutting side up, cardstock face down, silicone rubber, Impressions pad.


This is the front side of the embossing. Because of the silicone sheet, the die does not cut through the cardstock. It just leaves the embossed impression of the die and its details.


This is that same piece of cardstock from the back. Originally I wanted to show that the die really didn't cut through, but I like the look of this side, too. This shows the raised embossing rather than the debossing that I used in the card and in the first example in this post.

So, since I have the Big Impressions kit by Sizzix, those are the materials that I use--the kit came with the Impressions pad, silicone rubber, and some texture plates. I don't think that you absolutely have to have this kit to make this technique work. In fact, I know that you don't. You can use a thin sheet of fun foam in place of the silicone rubber. All you need is a softer surface that isn't a good cutting surface for the die. In place of the Impressions pad, which is a little bit thicker than the clear cutting pad, you can use the clear cutting pad and two or three Cuttlebug backing shims--you know, the backing from the Cuttlebug embossing folders and dies that I seem to have so many of. :-) I tried this combo and it works. The embossing with the silicone rubber was more crisp and defined though, and that's what I'd recommend using if you've got it. It's just softer and more pliable than fun foam and really brings out the finer details, just like when using it to emboss brass stencils etc.

Hope that answers your question, Alicia. :-)

losing that unwanted Nestabilities embossing

A couple of people have written to ask about the Spellbinders Nestabilities dies and whether there is a good way to keep the dies from embossing when cutting. I think that this problem is simply due to a stack being a bit too thick. The solution is to using a thinner "sandwich" or "stack".

In the following photo, the two ovals on the left were cut using the Cuttlebug. The two on the right were cut with the Big Shot. The top two ovals were cut using the typically recommended sandwiches for each machine. That is, for the Cuttlebug it would be the A plate, C plate, die with cutting side up, cardstock, B plate. For the Big Shot it would be the multipurpose platform on Tab 2, clear cutting plate, die cutting side up, cardstock, clear cutting plate. You can see that there is some embossing apparent on each oval.

The ovals on the bottom were cut using thinner sandwiches. You want the stack just thick enough to cut the shape cleanly. You can see the combinations that I used up above to get nicely cut shapes without any embossing. I tend to use the backing of Cuttlebug folder packaging because I *ahem* seem to have several of those handy. ;-) They're also a nice size, suitable thickness, and I'd rather put this sort of thing to use rather than tossing it. Hey, and some folks might have these laying around and might be able to get away with using what I found to be effective rather than having to experiment for themselves.

So, just to be clear about what I used:

• Cuttlebug: A plate, 4 Cuttlebug backing shims, B plate, die cutting side up, cardstock, B plate.
• Big Shot: multipurpose platform open to Tab 1, 3 Cuttlebug backing shims, clear plate, die with cutting side up, cardstock, clear plate.

Voila! No more unwanted embossing. :-)