Big Shot for Beginners

1. Big Shot for Beginners Introduction: Hi there. I'm Cheryl. Welcome to Big Shot for beginners. If you're here, chances are you're either thinking about getting a big shot die cutting machine or you just got one. They're a little bit intimidated by it and don't want to use it until you know what to do. Or you've had on for awhile it you've tried it a few times, but you're still a little bit intimidated. This course is for you. I'm going to try and take some of the intimidation at of using this machine. I have had a big shot machine pretty much since they came out and have been using it regularly over the years and by regularly, I mean, several times a week. Um, I've been teaching card classes for the last 15 years or so. So I'm very familiar with the big machine and how to use it. And I want to share some tips, tricks, techniques, and just some troubleshooting information for you to get you a little bit more familiar with your machine. I will be going through how to use steel rule dice. I will be going through how to use a variety of different wafer-thin divs, which are just the fine dies. And I'll also be going through embossing folders, 3D embossing folders at different techniques that you can use with them. Again, troubleshooting tips and that sort of thing. I will be walking you through each and every step of the way. And I've divided this course into three sections. The first one is going to be steel rule dies. The second section will be the wafer-thin dies, and the third section will be focused on embossing. In each of the sections, I'm going to show you the sandwich, the layering to put the different dyes or embossing folders through your die cutting machine. And then I'm going to show you some samples that I created using that particular day or embossing folder. I won't be showing tutorials on how to make each and every one of the samples that I've created. But I do plan on creating torque tutorials for them and putting them on my YouTube channel. So depending on when you're taking this course, they may already be there or I'll be in the process of uploading them. I've also created a downloadable PDF with all the sandwich layering of each of the dyes, the embossing folders, that sort of thing, so that you don't have to try to focus on remembering each and every one of them. So there will be a link below the supplies video or in the description with a website that you can go to to enter your email address so that I can send that PDF to you. The reason I'm doing it this way is so that I can also e-mail updates. If I update the course and add different sections. If they come up with different products that you can use a mere machine to familiarize yourself with those as well. In that PDF also put pictures of the samples that I've created and the products that I've used just for those that are curious about them and links to those products if I can find them. Because products get discontinued regularly, some maybe available and some may not be available. But typically if something's not available anymore, you can usually find a very similar, newer product that is available that you can substitute. I truly hope this course answers all of your big shot questions. If there's something that you are curious about that you found that I haven't covered. Please get in touch with me and asked me those questions. And if I get enough of those same questions, I'll update the course with that information so that everyone has that. With all of that being said. Let's get started. 2. Your machine and the Plates that come with it: So when you first get your big shot machine, typically it comes with a multi-purpose platform to cutting flat plates as well as the machine. Now when I first got mine many, many, many years ago, when I first got my first one. They came out with these this size of multipurpose platform. Now it's more common to get the long multipurpose platform. I use mine So seldomly I actually can't find where I've put mine. So the plane one, the one that's the same size as the regular plates is the one that I tend to use more often. Um, but you can definitely use the one that it comes with. If you get the extra large one, it's just going to, you're going to need more room for your machine when you're running things through. Now when you get your plates, well, one of them has a image into it. They are nice and crystal clear like this. They're just so pretty. And then you start cutting in them. And they get indents of the dyes that you're using. And then after a while, they get so worn that they start to buckle and then eventually they'll start to crack and break. Now, even when my my day is like this, I will still use it until it starts to break. What I typically do when I'm die cutting is I'll use this side and then I'll use this site like I'll just keep flipping sides so that it gets even wear on both sides. And then I always keep one pristine and crystal-clear so that it's completely flat. And I always use that on the bottom. When it gets to the point where you're dies due or your plates do this and eventually break, you can buy new cutting plates. So they come with two in a package. And because I always keep one completely flat, not cut into when I end up having to buy a package, I usually only need one once the next one gets to this point, I already have a replacement one to use. 3. How to use Steel rule dies: So the first section is on steel roll dice, and they typically come in four sizes. This one is extra large bigs. This one is large bigs, This one is just Biggs and I'm gonna guess they probably call this one small vgs. Not very not very often that you see these anymore. These I bought many, many years ago and just happen to have. So for today, I'm going to show you cutting on these three sizes. Now, the nice thing about these steel ruled eyes is they have a thick base. They have some foam and in-between those phone, There's actually blades. So if you press hard enough, you probably could cut your finger on pressing fairly hard and I'm not cutting my finger, but they've actually got blades in them. And because of that, you can cut card stock, you can cut chip board, you can cut fabric. You can cut foil. You cannot cut all sorts of different substrates that you can't do with a wafer-thin dies. You can only do it with the biggest dies. So they do have their place. It's not as common for dice to come out in this format anymore. Most of the dice come out in wafer-thin dies now. But the ones that you can find that are this size are great because they can cut more and a wider variety of materials. So the first big sky that we're going to cut is this particular one here that makes it really cute curio box. So with the biggest dies, you don't need to use this multi-purpose platform because they're so thick, you only need to use your to cutting parts. So I am going to put one cutting plate below. And then I'm gonna put my paper. I happen to already have cut to size on top. And you can see exactly where the blades are. So it's very easy to know that you're completely covering where the blades lie and then you're putting your other cutting plate over top. So I'm going to put it into the machine. And I'm going to simply turn the handle to run it all the way through. And you can see this particular plate I've used many, many times. And it's gotten while cut into, but it actually hasn't started warping yet. I just keep making sure that I use the different sides when I go through. So it is cut fully through these pieces of card stock. And what this particular one creates once it's all put together is this cute little box, this particular box I sprayed with some sprays to get it colored. And then from there, you can use some different dyes to create a different little vignette box there. So that is cutting with carts. So the next one that I'm going to cut is this particular little tag die. Now, this die is a movers and shakers die, which they don't really make these nearly as much anymore, but I wanted to cover so that if you came across them and wanted to use them, you would know how. So these particular open spaces, our intended, you can either cut the die as it is, or you can place one of these movers and shakers pieces in there and it's going to end up cutting the whatever die you choose out within that tag. So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to cut one in shipboard without the movers and shakers in there. These come with these little squares, do not throw them away. The biggest mistake some people make us is throwing them away. What they do is once you've put your dye through the machine with your substrate, it helps to push that out so that you're not having to poke it out with up here, sir. So I'm going to put that on my clear plate. I'm going to put some chip board over top of it. And then I'm going to put my other clear player over top and I'm going to run that through the machine as well. Now you'll see me running it all the way through the machine this way. Most of the time. You can put it through the other way. The machine goes both ways. It's not one way to do it. I just, that's just the most comfortable way for me. So this piece here can get tossed out because I don't need it. And because I have those little pieces of foam in there, this just pops right out and they have magnets on them so they don't move wherever you put them, they stay. So now I have my little chip board piece. And you can actually use cereal box, anything that's thick, this will cut. Now let's cut that same die with some card stock, but we'll put one of the movers and shakers pieces in there. So I'm gonna put my card stock rate over the die. Flip my plate around so that cuts on the other side and I'm going to roll it through and see it cut the whole tag with the word dream out of it. If by chance you have a piece of card stock left in a bit there, you can use the little piercing tool. And I just put it in on an angle. And it helps too. Hope that we'll get out there. The second piece here is the chip board, so it's a little bit thicker and I have to work a little bit harder, but it does come right out of there. Now these movers and shakers pieces or a different thickness from the big dies. So you can't just use the two cutting plates and run this through. It won't be thick enough. When movers and shakers first came out, there was a base tray that you would use. Its magnetic so you can store your dies in here. And that's typically what I do with mine. You can now buy just movers and shakers base plate that you can use so that you have the right thickness three-year MR. to use your machine with just the movers and shakers dies, you're going to have your clear plate. You're going to have either the base tray or the movers and shakers plate. You're going to put your paper over your dies. If you wanted them the same color, you could just put the dice closer and have just one sheet of paper. I just wanted them a little bit different colored from each other. And you just run that through. And it cuts those size for you. And then with all of those pieces that I just cut, I ended up making this little tag here with some ink and some sprays. Some of the biggest eyes you'll find are like this. And when you go look at the die, there's all sorts of different pieces that you're going to end up putting together to create this look. Now they made this dye, this particular shape die this way so that you could use chip board, you could use grunge board, all sorts of different things to give those suitcases some texture and depth. We're going to just use it with card stock. So when you have a die here that has all sorts of different little pieces that you don't necessarily want all in the same color. What you can do if you decide you want to make a ton of them, you can put different colors each sheets of paper, and then cut out a whole bunch at one time and then assemble them. But if you only want to pull it through once, what you can do is cut your pieces of card stock just to fit over where the blades are and then just lay them on top. This particular one will go either way through the machine. It doesn't really matter. You're going to put your plate on top and then you're going to roll it through. And it's going to cut those individual pieces for you. This one here you might see the edge of the card stock, but the other side of it is completely solid. So I'm not actually using that on what I'm creating there. All the extra outside bits can get tossed away and then you can put your suitcases together. When that is done, I actually ended up putting mine on the Orteig that was cut. These a little bit of paint, little bit of ink and just created a solid tag. So lastly, I know I said you can cut foil and acetate and fabric and all sorts of things with the bigs dies. But I just wanted to show you how it was done. This just happens to be a piece of denim from an old pair of jeans. You're going to put the dot or the fabric right on top of the die. You've got your clear plate below there. You're going to put it on that. And actually that piece adenomas a little bit too wide. You want to make sure that it's just a little bit narrower than you're cutting plates. So I'm just going to cut that a little bit narrower. And then I'm going to put my plate over top and I'm going to roll it through. And there you go. Now there was a couple of places there that it didn't totally cut through. If you find that happens with your machine, what you can do is take a piece of card stock, put it below the die, and that will thicken your sandwich up a little bit and give it a little bit more pressure. If you find that's not enough, do P2 pieces of card stock? The reason I like to use card stock is because it has a little bit of give to it. So you're not going to harm your machine. It's just going to put a little bit more pressure and just make your sandwich a little bit thicker. But this one here, I mean, it, there's a couple places where it didn't really cut, but it does tend to come out so that there is my little denim flower. And you can use cotton fabric again, you can use acetate, you can use all sorts of different fabrics for it. Some people like to use felt and then create felt flowers with them, whatever you want, and it doesn't necessarily have to be flowers. I just happened to q same flowers because that's the dye that I'm using. So there you go. Flower cut with a big sigh. 4. How to use Wafer Dies part 1: Let's get into die cutting with wafer-thin dice. So there's many, many, many companies that makes them. This particular one is physics. I'm using spelled binders, memory box, tailored expressions, impression of session. There's so many companies that make them Now paper roses. So what I'm showing you is not the limit to what there is out there. There are thousands, if not hundreds, and hundreds of thousands of different dye shapes out there. So wafer-thin dyes are super thin. They're not even as thick as chip board. And the raised edge here you can see is the blade. So I can rub my finger on it. It's not sharp at all. It's the pressure of it rolling through the machine. There's a roller in here and it's the pressure against the plate that ends up cutting it. But because these are so thin and this blade is so tiny, that is why you can't cut chip board or thicker materials with this, some people have success with some thinner fabrics. I never have, but it's also not something that I have spent a lot of time doing simply because I have no interest in it. So I typically do chip board. There's no sorry. I typically cut card stock with it. And then I will also often embossed with this, which we'll get into towards the end. Let's first cut SIM card stock. So I'm going to place my dies on the cutting plate. I have my multipurpose platform below it, and then I have my cutting plate. Now you can cut more than one day at a time. No problem. Just make sure they're not overlapping each other because otherwise you're going to damage your dice. They can be close to each other as long as they're not overlapping. And then you're going to put your paper over top. And again, you can see exactly where the dye is. I always cut with my die blade site up, put the paper over top, and then put my plate over top. The reason I do it this way is when they first started coming out. That's the way the manufacturer said to do with them. And what I found is if some people like to do it this way because they want to see the dye. What I found by doing this is because the pressure is all coming from the top, it goes rate against the back of your die and sometimes they end up starting to curve. But by doing it this way, you never have an issue with dyes curving. So I do it this way, blade site up paper over top. And if you're concerned with things shifting and moving, I'll show you how to alleviate that in one of the upcoming demos. So other plate on top of that, the one that I'm cutting into and I'm going to roll it through the machine. I always hold the top of the machine, just keep stable. You don't necessarily have to. I've just noticed like I'm in a habit of doing that. So take the die out there and you can see them papers kinda stuck in there. Well, the companies are aware that this happens. So they make little tiny holes in their dies and you can take a little fiercer and poke at the piece of paper. And typically it'll come out really easily. If you have a stubborn One that doesn't want to come out, I will show you how to get those out again in upcoming demos because I have a few that are stubborn anyways, and I'll show you how to get those out. So I'm always careful with them. I don't want to rip him as they're coming out. Sometimes like especially in points like this where it's really fine. Sometimes it'll kinda feel like it's getting stuck. So but if you are pulling at it gently, it'll come out easily. The other thing is the way these dyes are made, when you die cut that part that the die is some against, you tend to have a nice rounded edge. And I face my paper that I want to see towards the die so that I get that nice rounded finished edge. You can use it this way. But for me, it's just not as pretty or as finished looking. But there are times when you need to use a die this way if you happen to want it facing this particular wine kinda curves or whatever, if you wanted it to curve that way. The little bit hard. Sometimes with some of them, this one might be easy to do to make it curve the other ways, but still have the finished edge. So there's some times when you might end up using that side that the dye hasn't been facing. But in general, I tend to try to place my paper how I want to see it on my card or on my finished project. So when I cut this first one in the steel rule segment, you may have noticed my sample has a window, but the dye actually didn't. And the reason for this is that this particular die, you have four different windows that you can choose from to put in there. So I'm gonna do this one here only because it's different from the sample. And the way that I do that is I'm going to lay it exactly where I want it to go. Now I could put it down here and then just hope for the best, hope that it didn't shift will die cutting. But in order to ensure that it doesn't shift, I'm going to use this tape. Now this particular tape is made by crafters companion, I know physics makes them. You can use washi tape. I sometimes use painter's tape. The thing with painter's tape though, is you need to make sure that you stick it onto your clothes or something just to get some of the sticky off. And then when I'm putting the tape on, I'm putting it towards the inside for this particular die simply because this is the part I'm not wanting. I want to keep this and sometimes the pressure of running that die through the machine makes the tape really adhere to the paper really, really well. And when you're taking it off, ends up breaking, ripping the paper. So if you're paying attention to what part of your project you're wanting to keep and have as a finished look, just put your tape on the part that is going to end up being tossed and then you don't have to worry about it ripping your finished project. So I've got that taped there. It's not going anywhere. I'm going to put it down and I know that it's not going to shift. I still have my multipurpose platform, I still have my clear plate underneath, then the dye with a paper and then my cutting plate on top. And there you go. Now we have a window in front of her books. So some of the dyes that you can get are very, very detailed and have all sorts of different little holes that get cut out of them when you dicot with it. So let's die cut this piece. And I tried to place my die on the paper so that I'm wasting as little as possible I could put it here, but I'm going to waste a lot of paper. If I twist it and put it as close to the edge, then I still have a bit of paper there that I can use to for a different dye cutter, a different project. So I'm going to put it down, this particular one. I'm confident that it's not going to shift, so I don't really need to tape it down, but if you wanted to, you certainly could. And I'm going to run it through to cut. Again, same as with the steel rule section. If your dye doesn't cut all the way through and I can tell that this one has, then what you can do is you can either run it through again or if you get to know that a certain dye doesn't always cut it all the way through. Put a sheet of paper or two sheets of card stock or whatever underneath your plate, get to know your machine in which dies you need to put what with, and that's going to help thicken your sandwich and help it to dicot through. Now I'm gonna put it through the other way one more time just to get a little bit more pressure here because I can tell that there was more pressure here because I went this way and there was less pressure here. So I'm just going to put my plate back over taught and run it through the other way and see how it just pops off now. So I'm going to toss this in the garbage and I'm going to keep that part for a future project. Now, this particular one, the dicot itself comes out of the dice super easy. So we don't have to worry about that there, but see all those little bits and pieces. There's a couple of ways you can get rid of them. I can take a piercing tool and I can poke each and every single one of them out individually. Or spell binders makes a tool. It's called the tool in one. And I can just run it over. Typically I use my garbage can that all the pieces go right into the garbage. And this little brush here, all those little parts of the brush, Azure, azure going over it, goes through those little holes. And now I've got all those pieces of paper out with within seconds. So it takes little to no time, but I get all those little pieces of paper out very quickly. And then just to show you what I made with those little bit, little dicot pieces, I went and I inked the pieces of paper and created a few DZs with that particular dye patch that I just cut, I could put a verse here. Typically when I'm making cards, I await to tell I'm going to use them before I add verses because it's frustrating too. Say, have happy birthday on a card, and then realize that you need it for thank you card. And I just usually wait until I'm going to use it before I put a sentiment on it. Now the last day I used that paper came out of it. Super, super easy. This one, however, does not. This is one of my favorite dyes that I use quite regularly, but the paper does not like to come out of it. So I'm going to put it through my sheet machine, multi-part purpose platform, clear plate die with the paper on top. And then my plate over top of it. And I'm going to run it through this particular one. I know I need to run it through twice. So that part came out. But because of all of these little bits and pieces here, this does not like to come out. So this same tool and one here has this little spatula that you can use to run below your dye here. And quite easily, I have my die cut out. Now for these bits that stay in here, I'm going to need to use my paper piercing tool. That little brush doesn't really work on the paper bits from your card stock die cut. There's just not enough pressure for it to go again. So I do use my peer sir to poke all of those little bits out. But for all of those bits there, I'm going to use my brush. And some of those papers like to fly sideways. And I usually go get them afterwards. But so this particular die, not every single bit came out because it's just a little bit more stubborn than that last one. And I've used this die quite a bit. And you'll find as you use dyes quite often, they don't really kinda like to release the paper quite as much. So I use my piercing tool for those little bits and pieces that remain. But at least those little bits and pieces that remain are far fewer than when I first cut this die out. So it still takes me much less time to remove all those bits and pieces over there for the rest of those. 5. How to use Wafer Dies part 2: Now sometimes you'll have dyes like V is that you can see where the blade is, but then there's some openings there that don't have blades around them. So here's one of them, for example. There's some openings in this die that doesn't have a blade around it. Now what that means is this dye is only going to cut around where the blade is. But these open pieces there, embossing possibilities. So what you can do is you can cut out your shape from your dye and then you can emboss it to give it a little bit more texture. And that's what it looks like right there once it is dicot and then I added some ink to it just to give it some color. So let's do that. So I've got my dies on my surface here. I'm going to put my card stock on top of it. And I am going to cut it same as all the rest of the wafer-thin dies. This part is exactly the same. The only difference now is I'm going to leave well, now that that one shift and I'm gonna take this off, but I'm going to leave the paper inside those dyes. And this is what I'm gonna do. I'm going to open this tab from a multi-purpose platform. I'm going to put that right back down. And this here is an embossing mat. This particular one is one that I've had for years and years and years. This one is made by spell binders. This one, I actually don't know what company makes this one. But what we are going to do now that we've opened up that tab, we've got a little bit of extra space in here. We're going to take this piece of rubber plus a couple of sheets of card stock. I don't know why the card stock makes it emboss better. It just does. So typically what I'll do is I'll have a couple of pieces of card stock that I used for embossing with this rubber and I just keep him with it. You can keep using those pieces of card stock over and over and over again. So this is not something that you need to have a new sheet every single time. I have two sheets here and I just keep using them over and over again. It just thickens the sandwich and you get a better emboss. And then I'm going to put my other plate over top and I'm going to run it through. So what this is doing, that rubber is pressing the paper into each and every one of those crevasses. You each and every one of those opening on those dyes. So from here I could, because there's openings here, I could take some ink and I could ink there just to get those pieces. Just those openings inked. And some guys you'll want to do that. This particular one, I didn't want to do that because it just didn't go with the look that I was wanting. So once they're emboss, you can take those pieces out. And I typically use little brushes like this. These ones are made by Taylor's tailored expressions. You can also get makeup brushes like this as well. Rub them in the ink and then around on your die cut to create whatever color you're wanting. You could also do this same technique with colored dice, dicot or colored card stock so that you don't have to color them afterwards. I just, for this particular card, I just liked the subtleness of having different shades of a color on there that you don't get when you do colored card stock, your choice completely up to you how you want to do that. Now, the other thing you can find with wafer-thin dyes are different background dyes that are intended to go together. Now these are three separate background dyes that you can cut and layer on top of each other to create that sort of look, which is beautiful in and of itself. You could also use each and every one of these on their own. I didn't cut all three of them. I only cut two of them. You could use them completely on their own. So you have from that for different looks for one die. The other thing that you can do is just emboss that die and created an embossed background that way. So just to give you an idea with your background dies, you can easily simply embossed them and use them in place of an embossing folder. Now this doesn't replace embossing folders. It has a completely different look to it, but just a different way that you can use those background dice and give them a little bit more use than just simply cutting them out and only using them that way. 6. How to use Wafer Dies part 3: So another thing that you can do with your dyes, and this will work for some, it won't work for others, is only cut them partially. Now, there's a little bit of a trick to do this. This is that, that first oval with a scallop that I use there. So here's the trick to it. You're gonna take your piece of card stock. I've already cut got this cut and folded for my card so that I know exactly where to place this piece here. I'm going to take my tape and I want to make sure that it is centered exactly where I want it to be. And I'm going to let piece doesn't necessarily need to be quite that big. I'm going to hold that in its place now because I like to cut this way. I can't really see where that point is that I want to end my cut. So I'm going to use a little pencil here. I'm going to put a little tiny mark clear doing it with pencil so that I can easily take that mark or a race that mark if it's dot, if it's still there when I'm done cutting. So I'm going to put my plate through here. Now these plates 1 second before I do, these plates have a little edge there. So it's not a straight edge. So I'm going to place the widest part of that edge rate where I have my pencil marks there. So there is a line where that edge on the plate is. I'm going to place that they're going to hold this in place and I'm going to run this through. Now. I'm going to hold this here. And when I feel it released, I'm going to go back on it because I want to just make sure I got a really good die cut there because this is something that you kinda have to do onetime. See how it's all cut now. Now if I were to just leave it at this, I would have this lovely cut edge here. But you don't really see the other side of that oval. If that's the look that you want, you can stop right here. If you want to be able to see the pattern of that oval, this is what you're going to do. You're going to open up this top tab here through your machine. But you're clear plate down. Put your card with your DEI still attached to it down again, blade FEA side up. I'm going to put my embossing pad, my couple sheets, a card stock here, and my plate. And I'm going to run that through. And that is going to press the rest of that image from that die cut into the other side of the card. I'll take my sandwich apart here. And now I can take my tape off. Now for this particular one, I could have put my tape around here because I know that I'm going to toss this, but I've just done this card before, so I knew that the tape was not going to rip it when I did this part, as well as the fact that I'm going to cut an oval and cover the center anyway. So if by chance I got a little bit aggressive taking the tape off and it happened to tear a tiny piece. There's a way that I could cover it. So now I'm going to take that die cut off. I can poke all those little bits out. And I have my card front there and I can still see the other side of that oval. Now this part here, there's only a tiny edge here that's attached. So I'm just going to snippet snippet to that one a little tiny bit more. And then I can remove that. Now for my sample, I had a different a different piece that I put in there just so that this was not against yellow, so that it popped a little bit more. I put a different color below it. And now I'm going to cut the oval for the center. That oval is within that same die set. So I'm going to, Hey, kids, put it on my other piece of paper here. Now because I've got this open for doing embossing, I need to close this back up, that my plate down, put the dye with a paper on it. I don't feel the need to tape it. I don't think it's going to move, so I'm going to die cut it. And now I can put this in the center and then just complete the rest of my card. Now, this is the particular dataset that I use to do those words. So let's die cut those. There's all sorts of different word dies that you can get. Now in the great thing about word dies is you can cut out whatever color card stock to coordinate with your card or whatever project that you're doing. So the outside of the word is super easy to get out. You're gonna take your piercing tool and you're going to poke. Hope to get a hold of the edge of the words. Now sometimes words can get a little bit tricky because they're fairly thin. So you just want to be extra careful at all of those join port parts. That's where it tends to get a little bit stuck. So I tend to just do it a little bit by little bit. And there's very seldom that I have an issue with it. And there we go. Now there is a dot for that I, for the width that you can take out and you can glue on top. Often I don't even bother because most people can read what it says. Your choice if you want to have that dot there, take it out and then glue it on to complete your card there. Now a couple of more things to mention before I finish this particular section is what? Another thing that you can do is you can die cut a dicot. And if it's got a big open piece, you can also emboss in the center of that dicot like I did here. Now I'm just showing you this right now. I will demonstrate it when I get to the embossing section, but I just wanted you to know that that was a possibility as well. So keep that in mind when you have your dies or when you're buying dies is when you have a big open area here that doesn't get cut out. You also have the option to emboss it and create a pattern within that as well. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention is sometimes these wafer-thin dies come very long, their border dies. For that, you're going to need to use those extra long plates that I used at the very beginning of this year rule dissection. And with that big extra long, Biggs die. So you need the extra long plates for that and you also need the extra long base plate for that. You're not going to be able to it's going to be you can do it with a smaller plate. You would just have to do it in sections and the chances of it shifting when you moved it to the next step section just makes it a little bit more difficult and it also adds steps to it. So some people love the long dies and using them and there is a possibility of using them with the small plates. But just keep in mind, you're going to have some extra steps with that. Last but certainly not least in this section, is if you have some very intricate dyes that you just have a difficulty cutting with your regular plates. You can get a chrome precision-based plate for your big shot to help you with that. Now, I don't remember how long ago I bought this, but this is how often I actually found the need to use it is it's still in its original packaging. So there's not a big need for it. But if you do have an issue with some really intricate dies, just know that this is the solution that you may want to look into. And then the other thing is if you're working with say, Alphabet dies or something where you want them placed precisely when you're cutting and you don't want to go and cut them, sorry, and tape them in place each and every time. There's something here called sticky grid you can put it on is kinda like a post-it note on both sides. You can put it on your cutting plate, the bottom cutting plate, you can put your dies exactly how you want them to be in the paper over top and they're not going to shift or move anywhere. So again, not something that I typically use very often, but just know that that is a product out there that you may want to look into you if you have that particular issue or if you're looking for that particular solution. 7. Using your machine for Embossing part 1: And now we're on to embossing with your big shot machine. Now when it comes to embossing, we're talking about putting a raised pattern into your paper. And typically it is done with embossing folders. Now embossing folders have a raised edge and then they have a D boast or erase side and a DeVos side, so they fit into each other. And when you put your card stock into there and then run it through your machine, it presses that pattern into the paper. So this is how we do it. So open up that first tab. We put our plates down and then we put our embossing folder down. I typically put the folded edge towards the center so that that goes through first. I've never had an issue if I've done the other way, but I've heard people have an issue because the pressure is coming here and then it just puts pressure on to that spine and sometimes it cracks the embossing folder. Again, I've never had an issue, but I do typically put that folded edge towards the center so that goes through first and any pressure can be displaced. So then we're gonna put our top layer over top of it and we're going to run it through. And that simple motion puts that powder from that embossing folder onto that paper. So what you can do with it from there, you can leave it as is, or you can take a brush and some ink pad and ink your raised edge. Or you could take an ink pad and put it directly onto your paper and ink or paper that way. There's a few different ways to do that. So you can, again leave it as is, or emboss or sorry, or color your embossing after you're done. Just depends on what type of card your ending we're going to want to make. It just depends on what type of card and kind of look you're looking for. So in the last section I mentioned that you can take one of your dicots that you've cut and you can emboss or put an embossed image in there. So we're gonna do that now. So I have got my dicot with the paper's still in it, and I've got my embossing folder. I'm going to use this with the embossing folder open. I've chosen which side I want to be embossed and I decided for this particular one, I want my butterflies to be raised out. So any of the rays butterflies and putting my dicot in front of or on top of that. So I've got my multipurpose platform with the top tab open. I've got my bottom plate there. My embossing folder opened up with my dicot on top of it. I'm going to put my rubber pad on there. And those couple sheets of card stock. And I'm going to run it through. Now. I can feel that feels a little bit too tight. So don't force it. If you feel that it's too tight, do not force it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to open up this bottom tab. And that feels much better. It's still a little bit tighter. Then. Embossing, regular embossing folder what not. It's still feels a little bit tighter, but that's fine. You don't want to force it through. If it's too tight, you can kind of feel if it's just too tight. But that first one, it wasn't tight enough. I could just kinda er sorry, it was that first one was too tight, so I opened it up just to give it some extra room. So here is my dicot. Look like that embossed image rate in there. Those butterflies or embossed up. And there you go. And Emboss dicot. Another product they came out with a many years ago actually are embossing diffusers. Now what these do is they leave an area that is not embossed. So when you go to emboss, a full embossing folder, regularly, you're gonna get that entire thing embossed. What you're gonna do with these diffusers, see how it's an open piece of plastic. You're going to put it in, you're going to replace one of your cutting plates with this and that relieves any pressure from this area. So that embossing is not going to go in that area. So let's show you how to do this. So I've got my piece of paper. I've got my embossing folder here, multipurpose platform with the top tab open. I'm going to put my plate, There's my plate down, my embossing folder. And then I'm going to put my diffuser down here and then run it through. Now see how it might be a little bit difficult to see. So see how the embossing is just around the edges there, but there's no embossing in the center. So what I can do now is I could stamp an image or I could put a verse or whatnot in there in that area that's not in Boston. Or I could leave it as is just as a, as a focal point. Now, this works best when you have an all over pattern embossing folder like this here. And again, these embossing diffusers may be hard to find now I'm not sure if they are discontinued or not, but you could easily make yourself one if there's something that you wanted to do that sort of look with. If you have oval dies, you can cut several layers of card stock. You're going to want it to be quite thick and use that to emboss it, replace your one cutting plate and use that as your embossing diffuser. Or if you have some steel rule dyes that you can do some shipboard. So there is a way to do it without buying these embossing diffusers. But if you come across them, they're just a really neat look. And something a little bit to another technique that you can do is you can ink your embossing folders before embossing them. That is what I did with this particular folder here. So what you're going to do is you want to ink the D boss side. Because if you ink the side where all those little bits are raised, then all those little bits are what's going to be for this, in this instance, blue. And it's going to be pressed in. So you just take your ink pad and rub it all over your embossing folder. You've got it completely covered. Now the one thing to note about this is we make sure when you are done this that you take a wet cloth and you clean your embossing folder because there's nothing more annoying than wanting to do something with whitepaper and finding that you haven't cleaned your embossing folder and getting a different color over project that you're working on. So again, multipurpose platform at the top tab open actually I opened up that one there. So top tab open. Embossing folder with a plate below paper in That's inks or the embossing folder is inked. And now I'm putting my plate on top and three. And just like that, I have a background that is embossed as well as int. So then I can go here, this is a little snowy background, so I could put a little cabin or I could put a snowman dicot or whatever you want, but just a different way to get a different look. Two steps in one. So this is the butterfly one that I went in into the background and then did that too. I clearly didn't do a really good job inking it because there's some white spots, but it just gives it a bit of a different look to it. And just something fun. 8. Using your machine for Embossing part 2: And just something fun to play with. Now recently, they've just come out with 3D and Boston Boulder embracing folders. So there's a brick one of our regular embossing folder and a 3D embossing folder. The 3D folders are really quite thick. They give you so much more dimension in your paper when you're embossing it. This is the two of them embossed there. And so this is the regular one. And this is the 3D one. You can see there's just so much more dimension. If you look at the back of them, you can tell that this one, there's just so much more dimension when when it was embossed. So it does need to be embossed a little bit differently from a regular embossing folder because that folder is so much thicker. So let me show you how to do that. So the first thing I need to do is I'm going to use a little misting bottle and I'm going to mist. My paper. Doesn't need to be wet, just lightly missed it. What that's gonna do, it's going to soften the paper fibers. I'm going to put that in my folder. I'm going to close it. I have removed the bottom cutting plates, so I have my poll multipurpose platform, the top tab open. Remove the cutting plane on the bottom so there's no plate there. I'm only using one of the plates with a 3D folders. This is to get the correct thickness. And I'm going to put my play over top and I'm going to run it through. And there we go. We've got it embossed now because I used the MR and I missed it, my paper, I need to know that now let this set aside and completely dry before I do anything with it. But here's something that you can do with it. So once my paper was completely dried, I put embossing powder on top and then I put a bunch of different embossing glazes to make those bricks really pop out. This particular, that first one I did in white, this one I did in gray just because I wanted the lines to be a little bit more subtle. But just to give you an idea of what you can do with it once it is dry. Another thing that you can do with it, because you get so much dimension when you're embossing, you can use color core paper. So this particular paper is really green color, but it's got a black surface to it. So once it's done embossing and I've set it aside to dry. I can take a sanding block and sand it and reveal some of that color. So this comes in a whole bunch of different colors. It's been around for years, but just something a little bit different that you can do with it just gives you a little idea. So these 3D embossing folders don't just come in all over background, can't patterns, they come in some beautiful images. So this is how we use those exactly the same as before. We are going to missed our paper just slightly. We're going to place it on here. Now this particular folder is a little bit longer, so I should've had a bigger piece of paper, but I'm just going to make it work. So I'm gonna put my paper where I want the embossed image to be. Again, multipurpose platform, tab open, no cutting plate, just one top plate with the 3D folder. And then I've got that beautiful embossing in there. So I see it's not quite as embossed here. What you can do in that instance is you can take the embossing folder. If you know that you have a folder that's a little bit got a little bit more detail to it, ran it through our run it through a couple of times, go back and forth. I would do about three times just to get all of that detail press straight into there. And once again, you're going to set this aside to completely dry before you do anything with what I did to it once it was dry, all I did was take some different colored ink pads and my blending brushes to wrap them in the ink pad and then rub them on the card on the different areas. Now again, because it's embossed, if I press this brush really, really hard, I'm going to get a pink halo around here. So I only do it lightly just to highlight some of the detail for some from some of that embossing folder. I always think less is more. So I tend to do a little bit last, but you still get the idea. Now last but certainly not least, our 3D emboss lids. So what these are are 3D embossing folders that have a bleed in them. I have a dy built rate in them. So it's going to emboss and it's going to die cut your paper all at once. So this is what it looks like right there. So it's got a ton of detail in that embossing folder and then it also dicots. So this is how you do that. So I brought a piece of paper here. I'm going to, oops, I'm going to cut it to size. Just making sure that it covers the embossing folder, or just basically the blades. It doesn't need to cover the entire bossy folder. Again, I'm going to miss my paper lightly. Just soften up those paper fibers. Lay them into the folder. Once again, multipurpose platform, top tab open. I don't have a bottom plate. I just put my 3D folder in there and then I'm going to put my cutting plate here. And again, I've got my folded edge of the embossing folder going in first. However, with this particular one, it's got so much detail to it, but I'm going to go back and forth a couple times just to make sure to press that detail rate in there. So this comes out. I'll typically try to tap it to see if I can get those pieces out. One of them did the other one didn't. But what I can do is I can use my little piercing tool to poke it out a little bit. Look at all of that detail in there. I'm not sure the cameras even showing it really well. Lots of detail in there. Look at this. Done it with this holographic paper. Isn't that beautiful? Let's do that one. So again, I'm going to cut my paper to size. So this, you can buy metallic paper, holographic paper. What it is is a card stock that's got a coding. This particular one, I, like I said, is holographic. You can get the metallic in all sorts of different colors. Gold, silver, green, yellow, red, all sorts of different colors. But it's absolutely beautiful and it's super easy to, to guide to dicot. It dicots just like regular card stock. So especially for Christmas cards, that sort of thing. It's absolutely beautiful and it just ups the level of your card with very little effort because the card stock itself is so impressive. So I'm only going to miss the back side of it because it's got the coding on the front. I don't really need to miss it because it's not going to go through the paper. So put it in the folder. Again, multipurpose platform taught tab, open 3D folder played on top. I'm going to run it through this way. And that way. You do it three times and then take care. So that one doesn't want to come out this time. So let's just take our testing tool and it just comes right out. How beautiful that is. So pretty. So when it comes to these type of things, what I'll often do is ink the edges just to give it a little bit of extra dimension before using it on my project. And there we go. 9. Thank you for taking Big Shot for Beginners: Thank you so much for joining me today for big shot for beginners. I hope it has made you much less intimidated to pull at your machine and use it for all those projects that you've been wanting to do. If there's anything that you left with that you are curious about that you had questions on, please feel free to reach out to me and asked him and I'd be happy to answer them. Otherwise, enjoy die cutting and embossing with your machine.