Acetate Embellishments from Laminating Pouches with Video

Hello and welcome! I’ve been on a bit of a laminating streak lately and I’ve got a few cards to share with you today that all use embellishments made from laminating pouches.  This is a slightly different post today because I mainly wanted to share with you how to create these embellishments rather than to make a card. I do have several card examples to show you though, so I hope you’ll hang in there with me. I’ve got a video of how I made these so if you would like to see it, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

I have an inexpensive laminator and laminating pouches, all from Amazon. I typically start by cutting my pouch in half lengthwise as I feel I waste less this way. I open the pouch and apply alcohol inks to one side of the pouch. I find the ink doesn’t move as easily as it does on Yupo paper or a glossy cardstock, so I probably use more blending solution than normal. I use a hand held air blower to help move the ink around and I try to leave about a half an inch to inch around the edges free of ink. Once the ink is dry, you can close it up, put it in a parchment carrier and run it through the laminator. However, I should note that you can also use a stamp and a pigment ink to stamp an image on the other half of the inside pouch.  The ink must dry though or it will smudge when it goes through the laminator. The other options I have found for stamping, are after laminating, to use a Stazon type ink, or to emboss a stamped image with Versamark ink and embossing powder ( don’t forget to use an anti-static powder bag before stamping). Also, if you stamp after laminating, check both sides of the pouch because often, one side is a little nicer than the other.  

Once you have laminated the pouch, you can die cut images from it or fussy cut around stamped images. I find I save even the small scraps to cut small butterflies or hearts from. On the example above, I stamped the butterfly with white Stazon ink, and after cutting it out, I creased along the edges of the body on my scoreboard. I found that when I folded along the creases and scored it, the butterfly seemed to separate slightly along the fold. I fixed this by putting it back in a parchment carrier and ran it through the laminator again. I have even made some see-through windows with these as well as shaker cards.  There are just so many possibilities!  I have some more card examples below to give you a few more ideas.  I really hope you’ll give this technique a try and share your work!