Brads

When I first began card making and scrap booking I thought I knew quite a lot however over time I have picked up and learnt so many new tips and tricks and I am sure there is plenty more out there to discover.

One of my favourite accessories for card making is brads, they come in all shapes and sizes and a huge variety of colors.

There are so many things you can do with brads, when I first started card making I purchased some silver and gold brads just to see what I could come up with. I mainly used them to make a template for a word stand out, usually happy birthday. Id cut a piece of card into a rectangle then use peel offs for the words, id find some gold or silver mirror card and mount the words on the mirror card using 3d foam pads.

I would then use a pokey tool to make a hole in the word template all the way through my card, id then put the brads through the holes (one at each end) turn the card over and bend the backs of the brads to hold them in place.

Although this made the card look fantastic it meant that when the card was opened you could see the backs of the brads, so I would either make an insert to hide the backs of the brads or I would cover the back of the card front with another piece of card to hide them.

I did this for almost a year until I realised if I put the brad through the first piece of card where my letters or wording was before I mounted it onto the mirror card the brads would already be in place, I could then use double sided tape to attach the mounted wording to the card. This meant I didn’t go through the actual card itself so there was no need to cover the inside of the card as the back of the brads could not be seen.

It may seem obvious but it was a long time before I twigged that this is a better way to attach brads to cards.

Brads come in so many different colours however its always the way when your making a card that you never have the colour you want. I had a go at embossing one of my brads and it worked. Follow the same steps as you would for embossing a stamped image, cover the brad in ink the sprinkle your embossing powder over the ink and heat as normal.

Try not to over heat the brad as this can cause it to become fragile and the backs may snap. Using this method means that you make your brad any color you like.