Playing with chipboard imprints

I walked into my local Michael's store the other day and discovered this gorgeous Melody Ross display full of mysterious looking metal things and a pretty rubber mallet, and all kinds of glorious chipboard. Since chipboard and distressing are two of my favorite things in paper crafting, I had to try some of this stuff!

I think I need to watch a video on how to use it properly, but basically the metal "dies" - if you will - are used to make an imprint in chipboard, metal and probably many more materials. The pretty rubber mallet is used to smash those suckers into said material. So I gave it a try.

Using the PlayDate Cafe color challenge this week, I chose to make a "friend" card with a butterfly. Here is the PDCC challenge #73 this week...

(Love this photo. And those dresses!)

And here is the card I made...

Here's a look at the chipboard...

I experimented a lot here and found that the gray chipboard makes almost every color I tried to ink over it turn muddy looking. So I started over and used some white paint over the top and let it dry. Now I have a nice clean canvas, so to speak.

After swirling some Dusty Concord ink (Ranger) over the top, I then hammered away with my husband's 20 year-old nasty-looking rubber mallet. This particular die is a small flower. I was a little disappointed in the loss of detail here. The die has more texture in the center of the flowers, but it just didn't transfer. I had to be careful not to ink over this too much after the impressions were made, because I found this made the image even less defined. I felt like it still needed something though.

I like how the hammering help to expose the white underneath a little. Gives some dimension. I started to pierce small holes for brads to go in the flower centers, but I didn't end up liking that, although I did like the way the holes looked, but they were just a little too small. So I grabbed the beloved Crop-a-dile and punched some larger holes in the centers. Interesting.

Using a 1-inch circle punch, I made some circles and then dug through my stash of embellishments to accent here and there.

Here's another look at the card. I'm still on the fence with these Melody Ross dies, but I won't give up yet. The line of chipboard is really nice and I'd like to experiment with metal the next time I use the dies.

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a good one.