Learning New Card Tricks

#1

For years and years, we’ve made our own holiday cards to send out to family and friends. We’ve rotated design duties between us, but I usually end up handling the execution because I’ve got the coolest toys. Last year was my first with the 'Forge, and I did a cut lattice piece to attach to the front, and a matching rubber stamp for inside message. We don’t like to repeat ourselves, so I went looking for another GF-involved option. I landed on something I hadn’t seen done, but maybe it’s here in somebody’s post and I just missed it.

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This is glossy card stock onto which I haphazardly (on purpose) brayed rubber stamp ink. I needed the gloss card finish because I did not want the paper to absorb any ink. I then lightly kissed the surface with the laser (Speed 1500/Power 8). It takes off just enough of the gloss coating (and the ink on top of it) to leave a nice white behind - no scorching at all.

I need to tune it a bit, but I like the effect.

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#2

Cool technique! I like how it came out. :slight_smile:

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#3

Nice!!

Another option is to etch the card stock directly and adjust the power to get a depth that it removes the metallic and exposes the “core”–will vary by the cardstock you have. I’ve had some gold/copper shades that were on tan paper, so not much contrast, but other colors that had a black core, so a lot more interesting (and easier to read) look.

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#4

I tried that, too, but all we had around was white core, which the laser didn’t want to leave white. No amount of adjusting gave me anything but a toasted golden-brown engrave.

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#5

I like it a lot!

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#6

Neat idea, and I love how well it worked!

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#7

I found that different top colors make a difference in whether you can get the white core exposed without toasting. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be an easily derived thing like “dark colors allow white” as I’ve had both navy blue and robins egg blue expose the white core and gray and black both leave light toast coloring.

Also, the LPI makes a difference - lower LPI tends to leave white rather than toasting it brown.

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#8

Very nice!