End of the Week Technique #4 - Making Your Own Texture Plates

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Hey y'all! I hope everyone is doing good today and is excited to be seeing the week coming to an end. I am going to dare to say it (although I am only whispering it for fear that God may overhear, he's busy with other stuff so hopefully he's not paying me too much mind) the sun is trying to peak out today! It's cold though. I almost had to put on my gloves as I read my book in the slug line (that's a topic for another post).

But weak sun is better than no sun right? Yesterday I posted on my FB, that with all the rain we have been getting I should either be meeting my cold, hard bodied, immortal, sparkly, true love or my hot-blooded, hard bodied, long-lived, shape-shifting, true love. LOL. Boy, did that set off a Team Edward- Team Jacob volley of comments. :-) Anyways, I hope you are warm and dry wherever you are!

Are you loving the End of the Week Techniques? I am loving the challenge of it! But the name is a little long to keep writing in the blog. I say we find a way to shorten it. EOTWT? EWT? Someone help me out here. Please?!?!?!?!?! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

So anyways, I was trolling one of my favorite sites a while back, Stamp and Scrap with Frenchie, click HERE to go there, (I just love her stuff!) and found a video on how to make your own texture plates. Well I thought "How stinking cool is that?" and knew I would need to try it. If you want to check out the video, watch it HERE.

Here's my card. For those of you that know me, it seems like lately all I've been doing is running around in circles like one of my studio assistants chasing their tails, and sometimes it's all I can do to smile. So the circle template seemed like the perfect choice for this card.

I used a base of Poppy Parade and my new Circles Template. Love it! (Instructions to follow in just a minute.) I punched a flower with my Flower Punch in Poppy Parade and one from the circle pattern paper from the Just Eat Cake DSP So Pretty! Then I stamped the sentiment smile in Poppy Parade and stamped it out using my 3/4" circle punch. The stamp set is unfortunately retired but it was one of the first I ever purchased and it fit my needs. We have plenty that would also fit here perfectly, you can look in my online catalog to find one you like. I used my bone folder to curl the edges for a little dimension and adhered all 3 layers with SNAIL.

For the inside I used another stamp from the same stamp and of course had to make it pop, to make my self smile. :-)

I stamped the image with Poppy Parade and then, you know what I did, but for those of you that might be new here.... I used my Two-Way Glue Pen and my Dazzling Diamonds Glitter to outline the image. Why? Why Not? The inside should be just as pretty as the outside! It's hard to see, but I traced the words HAPPY in glitter too. It makes me happy every time I see it. For some reason, it looks like the glitter is knocked off in the right upper corner of the flower but it's not it's just the way the light is hitting the picture. I tried to get a better picture of it here.

I think it's so nice since I can't afford all the diamonds I want in life, Stampin' Up at least lets me have all the Bling I can stand!

Now for the Technique- Did you watch the video? She makes it all so easy!

So, I made two templates- the circle and a star one too. Oi! Can I tell you how covered in Tombow my fingers were? It really is best to lay everything out first. Even then, you may come back and find out you're not real happy with the layout. Ask me how I know?

For those of you that know me- You know how much I love the word Random. And by Love, I mean Loath. Like really, Detest. As in, Can't stand! Seriously, it distresses me. The OCD in me can't stand it. Is it random enough, does it look too symmetrical, not enough, does it look too close, too far, too staged, AUGH!!!!!!!
Well, as you will see, the circle one turned out ok but even with planning the star one still turned out with an almost even row right down the left hand side. SMH! The nice thing about the plates being the size they are is our cards are rarely that size. This leaves us room to turn our cardstock multiple ways to get different impressions each time.

Here's how my Impressions Plates turned out-

Using my Big Shot and #2 Circles and #2 Stars Dies and the Cardboard backpieces from my DSP packs I cut out the following pieces.

I used the 3 smallest circles for this, and cut out 4 of each circle twice so I had a total of 8 of each size circle. I then glued them together two at at time with Tombow adhesive and  then arranged them on my board in an arrangement I liked and then glued them down one at a time. It works better this way so you keep the pattern you like. You let it cure for 24 hours and then you gather all your equipment and make your card.
It gave me this embossed image-

And this debossed image-

I did the same thing with the stars- the 3 smallest stars, punched out 4 of each star twice so I had a total of 8 of each size. I then glued them together two at at time with Tombow adhesive and  then arranged them on my board in an arrangement I liked and then glued them down one at a time. It works better this way so you keep the pattern you like. You let it cure for 24 hours and then you gather all your equipment and make your card. More on that in a moment....

Here's the stars emboss-

And the stars deboss-

Pretty cool huh? I like that both sides are so pretty you have to choose which side you want to pick!

Well, let me just tell you, I was so excited to do this project I did not fully listen to the video and make sure I had everything I needed to do the project. I didn't have the Silicone pad for the Big Shot. So there I was, calling Michael's all over the region (I know, be my best customer, buy from myself, but I wanted to do my project NOW!!!!), over the Columbus Day weekend, and no one had it! AUGH!!!! Well, necessity is the mother of all invention, so I made do. It's not the best, but it made do and trust me I am buying the pad from Stampin' Up because this one is not holding up, but dangit if I didn't take my Mouse Pad right off my computer desk and cut it to fit my Big Shot platform and use it to run through with my card. It was a reeeeealllly snug fit and like I said one I won't be doing any more (Don't try this at home kids!) I just had to make my pretty little card! And it is pretty, don't you think!

So that's it for this week's edition of End of the Week Technique. I hope you like the card and the technique. I hope you learned something new. If you did, leave me a comment. Better yet send me a picture, I would love to see your work.

If you liked today's card, I would love it if you left me a comment. It's great when I get to hear from you! Also, if you liked today's card, please feel free to +1 or Pin it. I've added the buttons to my side-bar for your convenience. Friends and Followers are also welcome. :)

Don't forget to stop by Frenchie's site too! She's fabulous!

As always you can shop 24/7 in my online store HERE to get everything you need to make this card and many more.

Till next time,

Be Safe,
Shannon Pin It