Happy Saturday!!!
Wow. Have I ever been a waste of make-up today ... and loved it!!! I did virtually nothing all day today and for the first time in AGES felt truly relaxed! Yes, I had a lot of days over Christmas where I did nothing but I was only about 80% relaxed ... hanging over me was the Appreciation Night and Open House that I had last night. Now don't get me wrong ... every year I LOVE hosting a special night for my customers, hostesses and downline ... but it is also a LOT of work and, as usual, I procrastinated on most of it until this week. Now that the event is over with I have nothing on my calendar until February 1st ... and I can truly relax ... and start thinking about packing for Hawaii. Oh ... but for the record ... I had a REALLY good time last night. There was a great mix of new and long-term customers and
friends who came, ate, stamped, shopped and checked out all the new items in the Spring catty and SAB brochure. We did a Make & Take (which I'll post Monday(ish)) and just generally had a nice time, which is exactly what I wanted. For those of you who came ... and for those of you who couldn't I just want to say a HUGE, heartfelt THANK YOU for your support over the days, weeks, months and/or years. Each one of you has helped my business grow and it is because of YOU that I get to be a Stay-at-home-Mom and do what I love to do - share my creativity. I truly never planned, or
DREAMED that I would be doing this as a "job" but I do ... and I love it ... and I make money doing it ... and I'm taking my family to Hawaii with that money. You have helped change my job, and you've helped change ME over the years. I have learned so much about
myself over the last 7 years; I have realized what is important to me and what I am capable of; I have learned to "not sweat the small stuff" and not take things so personally; I have learned how to think beyond what's good for me and truly focus on what is good for others. You've supported me in so many more ways than just financially - you really have helped me personally and spiritually. For that I Thank You from the bottom of my heart :)
Right! Now that I'm all choked up let's move on! I was planning to do a long post tonight ... but I didn't think I'd get all mushy before I even got into my INTENDED post *lol* ... oh well .. I guess it just got longer!! You didn't really expect a
short post from ME did you? Na - didn't think so!
So ... after I posted my picture for my "Double Embossed" card a few days ago I had a number of people ask for details. While I lead many of you to Peg Coombes' blog (where I got the inspiration and tutorial from in the first place) I thought I'd post a few more pictures to help mentally understand the technique. Thanks again, Peg for your post. Like a I said a few days ago - once I stopped trying to understand the process and just did what you told us to do it worked out fine. Here is my picture-by-picture tutorial on how to do the technique ... and make the embossing template which you need to do it ... here we go!
Here is what I printed off for my customers for their "Recipe Card" for the Technique:
Double Embossing
First
you need to make an embossing die:
Cut (3) pieces of DSP cardboard to 6” x 4 ¼”.
Punch an oval in each piece of cardboard.
Tape the (3) pieces together. Template done!
Next run your cs through the Big Shot. Make the sandwich as follows: Multipurpose
Platform (all tabs closed); your new template; embossing folder with cs inside; cutting
pad.
Next, tape the (3) punched out oval
pieces together and tape them to the back of your Designer Frame Oval folder.
Finally, run your cs through the Big Shot
again. Make the sandwich as
follows: Multipurpose Platform (all tabs closed); Designer Frame Oval and cs (lined up);
cutting pad.
Here it is again ... this time with step-by-step pictures to help with the visual and mental understanding of it:
1. Cut (3) pieces of DSP cardboard to 6” x 4 ¼”
2. Punch an oval in each piece of scrap cardboard. Now ... what the instructions DON'T say (but I showed in class) is HOW to punch an oval in the cardboard. You can't just use the Large Oval punch - it won't punch through the thick cardboard. You also can't run it through the Ovals Die ... as there are (3) ovals on the die and you only want the one. So .... here is what you need to do:
Take a scrap piece of cardboard (or card stock) and punch out the medium oval from the Ovals Die (now retired!!)
Now take that scrap oval and trace it onto your (3) pieces of 6" x 4 1/4" cardboard you cut earlier:
Now take your exacto knife and cut out the ovals from all (3) pieces of cardboard (FYI - my Dad bought me this exacto knife from Lee Valley Tools - it ROCKS! Super fine cuts, great precision and control ... I highly recommend it!)
(*lol* ... what's with the fists?? Perhaps I'm a little tense this evening??!!)
Now ...
3. Tape the (3) pieces together (with snail). Template done!
So WHY did we do this? Essentially what we are doing is replacing one of our cutting pads with the 3-piece template we just created. If your a mental girl like me you have to understand it to be able to do it on your own and/or teach it to others ... so this is the "why" of it. So the bottom plate is now our template. When we run the folder through the Big Shot the pressure of the "sandwich" squeezed the pattern onto the card stock ... but there IS not pressure where we cut the oval out ... so it embossed only where there was pressure.
Next run your cs through the Big Shot. Make the sandwich as follows: Multipurpose Platform (all tabs closed); your new template; embossing folder with cs inside; cutting pad.
Note ... this picture is WRONG! The tabs should be closed ... oops ... see ... even the teacher makes mistakes from time to time ... well, ok ... most classes *lol*
Here is the card stock so far (kind of hard to see, but its embossed everywhere except the oval in the middle):
Next, tape the (3) punched out oval pieces together and tape them to the back of your Designer Frame Oval folder. (See the oval frames folder in the top right hand corner? The (3) pieces of cardboard were taped together and then taped ONTO the folder)
Again .. WHY are we taping the ovals to the back of the folder ... I struggled with this for a while but again ... the logic is the same as above just on a smaller scale ... and reverse. We have again replaced the bottom cutting pad with our (3) pieces of oval cardboard .. we are still applying pressure in our sandwich but this time on a much smaller scale - only the pressure of the small oval will emboss our card stock. This is what we want! We only WANT the little oval frame to emboss ... if we had something larger our original pattern (the Vintage Wallpaper) would be flattened and more or less "undone". We don't want that - we just want the pretty oval frame to emboss our already embossed card stock. Make sense?
Finally, run your cs through the Big Shot again. Make the sandwich as follows: Multipurpose Platform (all tabs closed); Designer Frame Oval (with the (3) pieces taped on the back) and cs (make sure the oval frame lines up with the "blank" oval space on your card stock!)); cutting pad.
Embossing done and ready to decorate!
Wa-low! I hope that makes sense to you. If not, just do as I say and don't try to understand it ... just like I did with Peg's tutorial. If you do it enough times it will make sense. If not - oh well! You just have to make the template once and then you have it for life! You can experiment with other shapes as well - see what you can come up with!!
OK - that's it for this girl ... I'm off to bed - woo hoo! Have a stampy weekend!!!
Tam
