Die Embossing and Rock 'n Roll Tecnhiques

I watched a video by Jennifer McGuire where she highlighted the “Die Embossing” technique with layering dies.  I was fascinated and ran to my art studio to give it a try with my Fun Stampers Journey dies. This is the end result of my studio play time!

I don’t have the circle or oval dies (yet!), but I do have the rectangle and long rectangle piercing die sets.  I decided to use the long rectangle dies, so I laid them out & placed a few pieces of scotch tape on the non-cutting side to hold them together.

It took a few tries to get the right sandwich combination for my Grand Caliber die cutting machine. This is what works in my machine (bottom to top): Base Plate, Tan Embossing Mat, Cardstock, Taped-together Dies (cutting side down), Adapter Plate & a shim that was cut from a manila folder.   It didn’t feel tight when it was rolled through my machine, but the embossing came out beautifully.

Now that I had an embossed piece of cardstock, I had to decide what I was going to do with it. I thumbed through my Fun Stampers Journey stamp sets looking for the perfect set to work with my embossed piece.  Ah ha!  I have matching dies for the Autumn Days (SS-0006) set.

 I used Fun Stamper’s Journey Pineapple Smoothie ink on the oak leaf stamp, then “rock ‘n rolled” the following colors on top of the Pineapple Smoothie ink: Green Olive, Rich Coral, and Dark Roast to get the variegated colors.  I used the matching dies to cut the leaves out – so much faster than fussy cutting!

The bottom leaf is glued down flat at the stem end & the top of the leaf is popped up; I placed the tape close to the edge of the image. The second leaf has more tape toward the top so that it pops up more than the bottom leaf.  The leaf on top has tape all over it and a double layer of tape at the top for extra dimension.

The sentiment came from the Summer Garden (SS-0078) set and was stamped in Dark Roast ink. The panel was glued onto a piece of Green Olive cardstock and that panel was glued onto a Whipped Cream card base.  I tied a length of twine into a double bow & used a glue dot to adhere it to the card front.