Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Elegant Letterpress with Dies

Hello, Divas! It's Lynnea!Today I'm going to show you how you can stretch a set of dies and layer them up to create an elegant letterpress look! Let's jump in!









I started by taking the three rectangle dies from the Inside Scalloped Rectangle die set and taping them together so that they were evenly spaced. I added some extra tape to the outside to create some "handles" to help me later. Once I was happy with the spacing I inked up the dies SUPER LIGHTLY with Versamark ink. You only want ink on the raised cut lines of the die. Be sure to barely touch the ink pad to the dies. Versamark is super spongy, so if you press too hard you will get ink in the depression parts of the dies. Once the dies are inked up, flip over the dies using the washi tape "handles" and put the dies onto a piece of cardstock. Be sure not to move the dies. Once the dies hit the paper they need to stay in the same spot or ink will get in places we don't want it.






And now for the cool part! We are NOT going to use the dies to cut the paper! We are going to use them to press ink into the paper - so we will use a special setup in our die cutting machine. I have a Big Shot from Sizzix, so I set up my machine as follows: My base plate was open to tab 2 (for embossing), then a cutting plate, a tan embossing mat, my paper with the dies on top, and a top cutting plate. I ran my paper through and added some gold embossing powder and magic is made!






Although I didn't use these other background today, I figured that while I had my dies taped together I would ink up a few more backgrounds! You'll notice some cracking - I think that's because I chose to use watercolor cardstock which is quite thick. I think if I did this again I would use regular cardstock! Anyway...I kept my dies taped together and inked them up with Picked Raspberry Distress Oxide ink and I love how that pink ink is pressed into the paper!






And I did it once more with Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide ink!






These backgrounds are so elegant that I didn't want to take away from the background, so I colored up a few images from the brand new Just Married stamp set and added coordinating sentiments and I have two wonderful wedding cards in no time at all!






I hope you will try this technique with the dies that you have! Try it with circles, squares, flowers, etc! I can't wait to see what you make!!

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