Play time

Hello everyone!  How are you all?

Inspired by a challenge at a stamping club I am in where the challenge card was to do with dies I had an idea to have some fun with mine.

I had several times seen videos & articles about using dies as stamps etc.  So yesterday was the day to try these out.

It took me a while to decide which die to work with - I wanted something interesting. In the end the one I chose was perhaps a little too intricate.  It cut  card reasonably well, took several passes but was very pretty. So I made a card to see how it would look.

It is lacking a greeting, which I will put on it when I know what I am using it for.

As you can see it is quite a fragile design & all those little pieces were quite tricky to remove.

Now to experiment!

I decided to die-cut fun foam to make a stamp. It worked well actually, but took ages to remove the bits.  I lightly used some stencil glue on the back in order to put it on an acrylic block to use it. 

Before testing it I thought I would try using it for embossing.  A little time had to be taken out before doing this to revisit a video to remind me of the sandwich required.  Here's a photo --

Top left is the die I used along with its outer cutting edge.  Underneath that is the foam stamp all ready to go on the acrylic block.  Top right is a card that has the embossed image on & under that the stamped image. 

A close up of the embossing. I lightly brushed dye-based ink over it to show it up better.

Another card -- 

I stamped the image twice in pigment ink & heat embossed it with clear embossing powder. I then created another square of card that I brushed the edges with the same ink & heat embossed that too. The 2 pieces I then layered on to a square card.  This time I did add a greeting - a Happy Birthday - stamped in black archival ink (Versafine) & heat embossed that as well.

I really like the stamped version & prefer it over the embossed one. You do need quite a lot of ink in order to get a good image, but if it is slightly under in some areas it just adds unique character.

I will try both techniques again but definitely with a less intricate die.  I had quite a lot of ideas of using the die on different card styles. But for this die it was a no no. Too much time would be sent knocking out the pieces than being productive.  Well, for me anyway.  😉

Bye for now! Take care & happy crafting.