Tutorial: How to dry emboss brass stencils and fiskars embossing plates with your Cuttle Bug

If you have a Cuttle Bug you most likely have tried to emboss with your brass stencils. I did, and didn't have much luck, even when I followed some of the recipes that have been published. Then, the other day on a SCS forum I read that someone used a red rubber plumbers gasket with good results. So off I went to my local hardware store, found the gasket, came home and was amazed at the how well the red rubber gasket worked! And get this, the "kit" was only $2.49! That makes this all the more fun : )

Here is a tutorial on what I did and the results. I wanted to be able to use my brass stencils as rubber stamping supplies are so expensive, and being able to use my stencils with good results is a cost saver! Please be aware that you need to make sure that this recipe will go through your machine, they are all a bit different, and if you have to force the plates through too much the recipe may not be right for your machine.

First you will need to get the gasket kit, which looks like this:



The package contains three pads, one is black and I am not sure what it is made of, the other is cork, and the third one is red rubber (almost the same type that stamps are made of, or at least it feels like it). Here is what is in the package:



I picked these brass stencils and fiskar embossing plate to demonstrate this recipe:



The recipe is as follows:

Plate A
Plate B
Cork Pad from the gasket kit
Red Rubber Pad from the gasket kit
Card Stock
Stencil
Plate B

Make sure you line everything up nice and square. Also, I did notice that the thicker brass stencils left a bit better impression, though the thin ones worked great with this method.

Here is what the recipe looks like before you put your cardstock, stencil and last plate B on:


The whole enchilada:



Here it is going through the machine (when I use this method I make sure to roll almost to the end, then reverse so I get two passes over the stencil)



And here is the result:



And a few more:







They all came out nice and deep, very close to doing the embossing by hand.

Now for the fiskars recipe:

Plate A
Fiskars embossing plate
Card stock
Red Rubber Pad
Plate C

Here is what it should look like all together:



Make sure to square everything up, I have it spread out to show you in the picture.

And this is what the embossing looks like:





This photo is a bit blurry, but I wanted you to see how nice the swiss dots are on the white card stock:




And here is a picture of all the embossing I did tonight with this recipe/method:



And a close up of one that I chalked:



I hope you have found this tutorial useful! Questions? Email me or leave a comment! I will work on getting this tutorial on video this weekend, and yes, I still have cards to finish.....at least I got one done today.

Have a fabulous Friday!