Playing with the Big Shot

Yesterday while tidying up my desk to do some work I got sidetracked by the Big Shot, I had only had a little play with it since April, and thought it was time to do some more experimenting, especially as I had been talking about it to Sandy of Dangling By A Thread and we decided we would have a virtual play together :)

This set of three below are from left clockwise:
Cut with Tim Holtz 'Baroque' die



Aluminium foil bonded to grunge paper coloured with alcohol ink, organza applied with Fuse FX and embossed with a Paisley embossing folder, this is gorgeous in real life I just can't capture the colours in the photo.



Aluminium foil bonded to grunge paper with double sided adhesive sheet, coloured with alcohol inks



Metal mesh bonded to pearlescent card with double sided adhesive sheet, think I will give this a rub with Staze-On ink pad as it looks a bit insipid.



The next three are a mixture of materials.
Top left: Pelmet Vilene, coloured with Adirondack Colourwash Spray, embossed with script and white acrylic dry brushed over the surface.
Top right:Gold card,embossed, I was going to rub the sandpaper over the surface, but can't get near my cupboard :)



This is the packaging that the Tim Holtz embossing folders come in,
I saw this tip on Tim Holtz video here
once embossed I coloured it with alcohol inks.



Below are the Spellbinders medallion dies, these dies are thin metal and are meant for cards, I found anything fibrous didn't cut very well, it did cut thin metal, pelmet vilene and grunge paper okay, I added extra shims and put it through a few times turning it each time.
I found that the Lutradur, fibrous paper and watercolour paper didn't cut well
To be fair these are quite intricate dies and I think the Nestabilities they make of frame shapes would do better on the more difficult fabrics.
Left shows the thin adhesive pelmet vilene inked and foiled, you will find how to do this on our free tutorial at Fibre In-Form Foil with Fusible Vilene,
the small medallion below on the right is from a coke can. Right is standard pelmet vilene,



For this one I didn't put the centre in and embossed the finished piece.



I thought I would try out some ordinary metal stencils and one of my home made stencils, this is aluminium foil adhered to cotton wadding, I was surprised how well the home made stencil did.
hard to get a picture of these darn metal effect.









Aluminium foil bonded to grunge paper and a mask was embossed, or I should say de-bossed as the mask is thin it won't push the design through the grunge paper, so you place it on the foil side.
The next one is aluminium foil on grunge paper and TH embossing folder,



I like the way the embossed part goes shiny and the surrounding areas are matt



Very subtle with the mask, maybe if this was backed with cotton wadding it would show up more.



Thought I would show this one, when I first tried the machine in April I cut a scroll in a coke can and some Lutradur



and then found this piece of fabric, it is crumpled aluminium foil painted with alcohol inks, glued to scrim, how to create this fabric can also be found here at Fibre In-Form in A Fascination with Foil free tutorial. the Tim Holtz Scroll die cuts through very easily.



This aluminium foil covered in transfer foil, was put over a Ten Second Studio mould, I had to play around with different plates shims and embossing mats to get it through, don't force the handle.
I think the aluminium foil was too thin to get good image but will try some metal shim, these wonderful moulds are from LB Crafts and they have a sale on at the moment on the moulds.
phew I was only going to put a few photo's to show what I have been up to :)