Craft Edge

For those of you who have the Cuttlebug embossing machine I found a neat way to make your own embossing folders. As you know, I make my own cutting mats using the flexible cutting mats from the 99cent only store, 2 to a package. I used Inkscape to make a row of lit candles, imported it to SCAL and used the leftover 5 inches of my flexible cutting mat to cut the image. I used the" cut 4 times" feature on the Cricut and used a 60 degree blade. It didn't cut quite all the way thru but snapped out pretty easy and cleanly. It is fairly brittle and I cracked one spot but when I embossed it, the crack didn't show up. Anyway after snapping your images out, put them back in, run some double stick tape on the images, put another piece of flexible mat over your cut images, run over it with a brayer a few times to make sure the images stick to the mat. When you go to emboss, match up your positive and negative image to match perfectly,insert your paper inbetween, tape it in place and emboss. I got a nice deep embossed image. I tried using chipboard( Old Roy semi moist dog food box) but it wouldn't cut all the way thru either and using a craft knife really made a mess of it. Clear as mud? This should work great with flourishes and larger images.

Hi
wow thats an interesting way! I have some quilter's template plastic which is like a cuttlebug embossing folder youve given me food for thought (and not moist dog food)

Cheers
Christine

What is the 60 degree blade supposed to do different from the standard blade? Why would you use the 60 degree blade?

I am new and still learning about inkscape so I can go into scal.....I want to know how you drew the candles...I have been able to weld letters together for some nice cut out cards but really like the candles....

the 60 degree blade is for thicker cardstock and can be used in the normal housing.
I use it to cut my stamp material and thicker glitter card buy them online for US$12.99 for 5 cheaper if you bid for them I guess on ebay.

Tingha Treasures wrote:the 60 degree blade is for thicker cardstock and can be used in the normal housing.
I use it to cut my stamp material and thicker glitter card buy them online for US$12.99 for 5 cheaper if you bid for them I guess on ebay.

How does it compare to the deeper blade people have talked about?

I would say it is a deep cut blade but I use it in the normal holder.
(I bought a deep cut blade holder and blade and never had any success with it. IMHO a total waste of money)

I havent read on many boards anyone having much success. The machine is not designed to cut heavy and thick materials.

Like to hear anyone elses comments

I will post the candle svg in the objects area. I actually found a rubber stamp on line with the picture of it on the top side of the stamp. copied it, Inkscaped it and put all the candles together in Inkscape and saved as an svg.

The cutting mats can be hard to cut on the cricut because, well, they are made to be cut resistant. Others have suggested chipboard or transparency sheets to make your own dies. I've had good success using magnet sheets. They cut very easily with a regular blade yet give a nice crisp emboss. You can still use the flexible mats to make the folder part, or just use heavy acrylic from those annoying clamshell packages.

Clever. tfs