Brads are one of my favourite card making accessories as they come in many different shapes and sizes and a huge variety of colours.

Brads are small pins with two prongs that can be pushed through paper or card stock to either attach a topper or embellishments, or simply to add decoration to your card design.

When I first began card making and scrap booking I thought I knew quite a lot about crafting.  However, over time I have picked up and learned so many new tips and tricks and I am sure there is plenty more out there to discover and many more ways to incorporate brads into my card ideas.

There are so many things you can do with brads, when I first started card making I purchased some plain silver brads and gold brads just to see what I could create. I mainly used them to make a template to make a word stand out.

I would cut a piece of card into a rectangle then use peel off stickers for the words. I would find some gold or silver mirror card and mount the words on the mirror card using 3D foam pads.

I could then use a pokey tool to make holes in the template all the way through my card. I put the brads through the holes (one at each end) turned the card over and bent back the prongs 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 prongs of the brads, so I would either make an insert to hide the prongs of the brads, or I would cover the back of the card with another piece of card to hide them.

I did this for almost a year until I realized if I only put the brad through the first piece of card where my letters or wording were 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 did not have to go through the actual card itself so there was no need to cover the inside of the card as the prongs 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. Many card makers have there own bad habits or simply do things wrongly just because that’s the way they have always done them.

Changing the color of brads

Brads come in so many different colours, styles and designs that we are really spoilt for choice, however it is always the way when your make a card you find you never have the particular coloured brad you want.

So with this in mind I had a go at embossing one of my brads and it worked.  All you need to do is follow the same steps as you would for embossing a stamped image. Just cover the brad in ink, and then sprinkle your embossing powder over the ink and heat as normal.

Try not to overheat the brad as this can cause it to become fragile and the prongs may snap.

Using this method means you can make your brad suit any card design you want.

You can buy brads from just about any craft store or online retailer and they are an essential part of card making. Just make sure you don’t get hooked on collected thousands of brads.

Believe me it’s easily done!