Craft-a-Board Uses and Techniques by Sharon Harnist

 

Today I'll be showing you a few different uses for Ellen Hutson's Craft-a-Board (CAB).  It's a wonderfully diverse soft white material (similar to chipboard) that is sturdy enough to use as a base for a photo album, making your own delicate paper flowers, or creating a piece of artwork.

For this project, I chose different sizes and shapes of Nestabilities dies to create the graduated pages for a mini album about all the beautiful flowers we saw on our trip to Disney last year.  I began by die cutting Craft-a-Board, coordinating Basic Grey Infuse papers, and my photos.

 

Yes, your low-profile chemically-etched dies (such as Spellbinders) in larger, less-intricate, simpler shapes, will usually cut through most layers of the CAB just fine.  You may have to make more than one pass through your die cutting machine and/or shim a little bit, in order to get a good clean cut.  You also may have to finish cutting a few areas by snipping them with your scissors, but for this album, I only had to do that in just a few spots.

 

For the back cover of the album, I stamped Picotage Print backgrounder with Memento Rich Cocoa ink directly onto the CAB and colored it with these Copic markers:

 

The CAB takes the ink and markers beautifully, without any bleeding!  You also get great results with shading and using the Copic Colorless Blender to remove color.

Next, I started assembling the album using a liquid glue to adhere the papers and photos to the CAB.  Everything I've tried adheres beautifully to the CAB -- no problems with anything peeling away from it.

 

Quite by accident, I discovered CAB will split into layers when you want it to.  Simply bend back a corner and it will usually split into even layers:

 

If you don't get even layers (about 2 layers on each half), simply fan the corner a little with your fingernail and you should be able to see more layers and be able to divide it evenly:

 

It usually peels apart very evenly and has a wonderful texture on the inside, similar to hand-made paper!  The fewer layers of CAB cut very easily with the lower profile dies -- no problems whatsoever, and it embosses beautifully:

For the flower on the front cover of my album, I used Spellbinders Flower Creations die to cut the flower pieces and then just enhanced the natural color with a little Ranger Antique Linen Distress ink and a sponge dauber:

 

The flower center was colored directly with Copic G40.  The green flower petals were airbrushed with Copic's Airbrush System and Copic YG63 Sketch marker (using the broad tip gives a more even coverage) and then speckled (by using the brush tip) with YG95:

 

As you can see, the CAB also takes airbrushing beautifully.  Imagine all the custom colors of flowers you can now create, to match your projects perfectly! 

Here are the inside pages of the album . . . pages 2 and 3:

 

(Above photo) - The largest die of the Large set of Scalloped Rectangle Nestabilities was used to create the front cover and also used to cut the page 2 photo (left).  The largest die of the Small set of Scalloped Circle Nestabilities was used to cut page 3 (right) and a smaller die in the small set was used to cut the photo.

 

In the close-up view of page 3 above, you can see the shapes of the pages a little better.  On the interior Circle and Labels One pages, I trimmed the bound side straight so the album pages would open better.  My Crop-O-Dile easily punched holes through two pages at once so I could tie ribbon through them, to bind the album.

 

The amethyst flower on page 4 (left, next to the word "Poppies") is also CAB cut with the Flower Creations die and airbrushed with Copic V17, V06 and custom lighter Y21.  Page 5 (right) has a rose flower airbrushed with Copic R85, with Island Blossom Dew Drops used for the center and as accents on the "Pansies" title.  Spellbinders Labels One die was used to cut this page and the photo.  Here's a single view of this page, so you can see the nice shape of it:

 

You can also see how I trimmed this page straight on the left side.  Notice the edges of the previous pages on the left side of the photo -- you can see what a nice base the CAB makes for an album!  You can also see the lovely dimension the CAB flowers have, too.

 

Page 6 (left) is just my silly girls posing in a floral photo board with cut-outs for their heads!  Page 7 (right) has a strip of patterned paper on the right edge, just so the album would maintain a consistent look when it's viewed closed.  The largest of the Large set of Scalloped Square Nestabilities was used for this back page. 

And here's how that back cover, stamped and colored, turned out.  The soft white color of the CAB maintains Copic's vibrant, rich colors:

 

This holiday framed artwork that was featured in the December newsletter, also used CAB:

 

I embossed the original thickness of CAB with the Holly Cuttlebug embossing folder and then used Copic markers to color directly and airbrush the yellow background.  The Festive Stocking is a Spellbinders die that also cut and embossed CAB very well:

 

I hope this gives you just a few ideas on uses for this fabulous product . . . we can't wait to see what you create with it!

Comments

[Debbie Olson]

Sharon, why hadn't I seen this earlier? This little book is absolutely to die for--beautifully done!

[-mary]

Sharon, this is a beautiful and creative use of CAB. I adore mini-albums and must try this one. Thank you for the tutorial.

I use CAB for die cuts and love its thickness. The white surface gives much better results with all coloring mediums than naked chipboard or Grungeboard. Now I only reach for chipboard when the project demands more rigidity and Grungeboard when I need a flexible product.

[TruCarMa]

Fabulous tutorial, Sharon! Consider me SOLD!!! ;)

[Kerry H]

Great tutorial!

[Gabriela Divine]

Wow! What a beautfiful and impressive little chipboard book. The stamping and coloring is marvelous and I adore the use of the various page shapes. Oh, how I'd love to make one just lie this! Thank you for the excellent tutorial and photos. Perfect!