Thank you neighbour

Andrew said he wanted to thank our neighbour for mowing our nature strip all the time. The neighbour just does it because he's a nice guy. So Andrew bought a box of chocolates and I made this card to go with it.

What's funny is that I'd just bought some Fiskars texture plates at KMart (for $20.99) the week before and one of the textures in the set is grass. I'd seen the texture plates used in the Cuttlebug and knew they'd work. You can't beat 12 different textures for $21. Into the basket they went. I bought the set particularly because of the swirly one and the grass didn't really factor in to my immediate "I've gotta try that" creative process at all.

Then Andrew mentioned thanking the neighbour for mowing our grass and it all came together. I even had some ant stickers that I've had for years (years) to put on it as well.

You'll notice the embossing is more subtle than what you get from a Cuttlebug folder, but that's okay. Using Cuttlebug folders is like making a jaffle, while the texture plates are like making grilled cheese on toast.

In case you'd like to give it a try here's the combination I used (from the base up):

• A plate
• 2 silicone mats (tan ones) or similar (the link shows a kit, but I bought my mat separately)
• cardstock face up
• texture plate face down
• 1 piece of cardstock to shim (to make it emboss a bit better)
• B plate

Please remember that this is what works for my machine. Even though they all come out of the same factory, they are calibrated differently. Have a play to see what works for you. Don't force anything through that doesn't want to go through there!
Other supplies are the Making Memories ledger pad paper (also inside to write on), spiral punch from Stampin Up, Basic lowercase stamps with pen again and some ribbon from my stash.
Andrew will probably give it to the neighbour today.