" pink houses" tag for the music prompt at#onelittletag"

Hello my friends!
We are actually done with the music prompt at the one little take craft challenge, and on to a new week. But I had already started a few more tags for the music prompt, which I had tons of ideas for! So I am still going to finish off those tags, just because it's fun! This tag is based on John Mellencamp's song Pink Houses. First I created my background using distress ink.

I did some random stamping with some white ink and an inkadinkado stamp. The white ink did not show up very well, but you can see it. I also did a bit of random stamping with a local King rubber-stamp and a prima stamp using some distress inks.

I used a My Favorite Things die to cut out the little houses and accessories from some pink cardstock. A lot of little pieces!. I cut some out of white cardstock as well. I use distress ink to color the trees, and I watered down some distress ink and dragged the houses through it to just add a little bit of texture. I also use the Prima stamp to stamp the houses once they were dry just to add a little more interest.

I used a We R memory Keeper's die to die cut out the Sun from some yellow cardstock. I did some edging with some distress ink and a little bit of doodling with my white gel pen. I splattered some water on the background, because I love that water reactive quality of the distress inks. I use a glue stick to adhere everything down.

I used my label maker to create my words and I used an edge punch from my stash, I believe it is a Fiskars punch, to create the grass in the foreground.

I use distress ink to color and edge the grass, spritz with water and when dry I added my words which I also colored with some distressing. Once I glued that down to the tag, I punched out some flowers from some scraps and adhered those to the tag as well. Once everything was assembled, I glued the tag to a black net to finish it off. I once again enjoyed the whimsical quality of this tag. It took a while to put together with all the little pieces, but it was fun to do.

I hope you enjoyed my pink houses tag, thank you so much for stopping by to have a look! I will be back soon with more tags. I may have a couple more inspired buy some song titles, just because I like doing them, and I will be also creating some tags for the new prompt of the week which is wings!

Have an awesome day and I hope to see you back here soon!

Kim xo

Cutting thin dies on a Cuttlebug without a C-plate

Hello my friends, thanks so much for joining me!  today's post is written for my sister, Kerry.  She lives about 3000 miles away on the other side of the country.  She has started doing some paper crafting this year and so I decided she needed a Cuttlebug, whether she wanted one or not, lol (I am the bossy older sister, can you tell? lol)  Luckily, she did want one!  However, it does not come with the C-plate which adapts to the thin dies.  This is fairly new to Kerry and she had never used, or even seen the Cuttlebug before it showed up at her door.

 So, I have done some experimenting and am going to try and show her (and anyone else who may find it useful) a way to shim it up for the thin wafer dies.  Right of the top, I want to say that Provocraft, the manufacturer of the machine, and any of it's distributors would probably recommend that you get a C-plate, and not try shimming it.  If you can, that is certainly the best option.  That is what I use.  Please be careful not to shim it so much that you cannot run it through safely.  So as much as I hate to add a disclaimer, you will be trying this at your own risk.  I can say that I had no trouble with this before I got a C-plate and I have been using the shim all night to do my die cutting tonight, instead of the C-plate.  Pay attention to your machine, if it is too thick, don't try and force it.

I used some heavy chipboard from the back of one of my paper pads.  This is the stiff heavy card found on the back of some pads, not the flimsy card.  If that is all you have, though, you can also make that work, you will just need to layer more pieces together.  I placed a B-plate down on the chipboard and traced around it.  Then I cut out 2 pieces. (After using it for a while, I would suggest that you cut them slightly smaller)

The "sandwich" that I used was first, as always, the A-plate, then the 2 shims that I created (cut card), then a B-plate.  Then I put down a sheet of fun foam.  You don't have to do this, but it is something I always do, especially when I am using an intricate die.  I find it seems to cut better, come out of the die easier and does a bit of embossing at the same time with the dies that offer that.  But this is just a preference of mine and totally optional.  On top of the fun foam, or the B-plate if you are not using the foam, I place the paper I am going to cu.  I place my die, cutting edge down, on top of that and then, finally, the second B-plate.  Then I run it through the Cuttlebug.  Each Cuttlebug may be calibrated slightly differently, so you will have to play with your shims.  You want the fit to be tight because you are using the pressure to cut your paper or card.  BUT, DO NOT TRY AND FORCE IT IF IT DOES NOT WANT TO GO HROUGH! You could damage your machine.

I have found it helpful, whether using shims or  a c-plate, to offset the centre of the sandwich just back a bit, so that feeds more easily into the machine.

If you are using several layers of lighter card to shim, then I would suggest that you tape of glue them together so that they are not sliding around.

I hope that you have found this helpful!  Kerry, I hope this helps, give it a try and give me a call!  I will look forward to seeing some photos of your new creations!

Thanks again, for stopping by!  Wishing you all a wonderful and artful day!