Letterpress Plates

In the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini Catalog Stampin’ Up! introduced a new crafting option with the Big Shot machine. They are called Letterpress Plates and let you create an inked debossed impression. I demonstrated these at my meeting Saturday night and had three cards for everyone to make. Here are a few of my notes:

There are four Letterpress Plates

#120980 Trick or Treat

#120983 Lots of Love

#120981 Joyful Season

#120982 Northern Trim

What you need to use your Letterpress Plates:

Letterpress plate
Craft ink – pad or spot
Brayer – optional
Paper – watercolor paper is best – porous, card stock and textured card stock also work
One cutting pad – newer is better, no lines
Multipurpose platform on Tab 1
Baby wipes

Build sandwich on a flat surface like this – Multipurpose Platform on Tab 1, a shim if needed, LetterPress Plate, Card stock (it works better to use dotto and secure to the bottom of the cutting pad), cutting pad. I tried some other combination’s but this one worked the best. I also think that the bigger plates are thicker – or seem to be than the smaller ones.

Use dotto to adhere paper to cutting pad so it doesn’t slide or move. There are several ways to ink your Letterpress Plate.

Use a full size Craft Ink pad and apply directly to the plate.
Use a brayer and apply ink from either the ink pad or an ink palette create with a refill.
Use a Craft Ink spot
Ink areas with mulitple colors using the ink spots
Ink only portions of the plate using ink spots – the uninked portion still debosses
Use VersaMark ink on all or portions of the plate

I found that for my Big Shot it worked well for me to use a cardboard shim underneath – I used the thin card board that comes in the package of Designer Series paper.

Here are the cards that I created:

This first one used the Northern Trim Letterpress Plate.

I used Watercolor paper and a full sized Craft Ink pad. I filled an uninked pad with Wild Wasabi Craft ink and we used it directly on the pad to get it inked up.

To finish the card the watercolor paper was layered on a piece of Bashful Blue card stock and adhered to the front of a Wild Wasabi card base. The base was stamped with the Northern Hearts hostess stamp set which matches this Letterpress plate.

The card was finished with pearls in the center of the flowers, a Bashful Blue punched snowflake and “merry” in the center on Whisper White card stock.

You can’t see it in this picture but I finished the card by spraying the whole thing with a mixture of Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint mixed with Rubbing Alcohol – it adds a fine shimmer to the whole card – you just can’t see it in the picture.

For this next card I used the Joyful Season Letterpress Plate.

I used Confetti White card stock and Craft Ink spots in Real Red and Old Olive to ink the plate.

The card is very simple – just layered the piece on a Real Red card base. You could dress it up more with ribbon/buttons/etc. But we had a lot to do at the meeting so I kept this one very basic.

The third card used the Lots of Love Letterpress Plate. This one turned out to be my favorite.

The card stock is Blushing Bride and I inked the plate first with a VersaMark pad and then used a Craft Ink spot in Chocolate Chip to ink only the large LOVE. I saw this technique on a video that another demonstrator had created – I think I saw it on Stampin’ Connection. The plate is much larger than the card it is about 8″ x 6″ – so you can position your paper to where you want it on the plate.

To finish the card I tied a piece of the Blushing Bride ribbon around the card stock and then layered it on a Chocolate Chip card base. I punched some hearts using the Heart to Heart punch out of the Blushing Bride Designer Series paper (it is in the In Color stack). I sponged these a little bit on the edges and popped them up on Stampin’ Dimensionals.

From what I heard this was everyone’s favorite of the three. I do like how the VersaMark makes the debossed words pop.

I hope you learned something about using the Letterpress Plates.

I have heard several people are close – needing only one more piece in multiple rows – maybe today will be the day we have a winner.

It’s BINGO TIME! We are playing Round 6 of Monika’s Blog Bingo. I have now filled group 7 and won’t be taking any more names right now – I”ll be taking a Bingo break after group 7 plays – I may play again in the future so I hope you will continue to visit my blog. See this POST for more details on how to play and the previous winners.