Fabulous Finds Friday — Fiskars Fuse

Wow… how often can you write a headline with all Fs?

Hot off the press today is this letterpress. My Fabulous Find is a new letterpress machine from Fiskars. Called the Fuse Creativity System®, this bad boy cuts, colors and letterpresses in one fell swoop. Weighing 25 pounds, it’s no lightweight; it’s sturdy. The 12 inch platform offers plenty of space — including a built-in storage compartment, which I adore — and the whole contraption folds nicely to a compact, upright position.

Take a look:

And closed:

You know how impatient I am (I want to play NOW!!) so I loved that I could use it right out of the box, since the kit comes with everything you need to get going. You can die cut, letterpress, emboss or do a combination. It handles other dies, such as those designed for Cuttlebug, Vagabond and BigShot, but you will need a Fuse Adapter Kit (sold separately.)

I had a chance to try the Fuse (*see disclaimer) while writing an article for Crafts ‘n things about texture (watch for the article in the October issue!). The kit I tried comes with two adorable tag dies and plates. These were so easy to make because they cut at the same time they letterpressed. One pass and I had one of these:

I used the dies two ways: on the right, the black butterflies were letterpressed (pressed into the cardstock). I inked the plate using the black ink that came with the machine. Yum …  (I have since played around with various pigment and dye inks, which seem to work just fine.) The paper, by the way, is a slightly textured, thick paper from Paper Source. Sadly, the blush pink color I used is discontinued, leaving only Luxe white and cream. Love this paper for letterpress. But I digress….

The blue tag (made using a textured paper from Core’dinations) I did the opposite way, using no ink, so I got a raised impression on the front. I lightly sanded it to bring out the core color of the cardstock. This is a fun way to get double duty out of some designs (be careful with words or letters!)

Can you stand two more? Same process — inked up and letterpressed the right way for the pinkish tag; reversed and not inked for the blue tag:

(papers are the same: Core’dinations and Paper Source.)

Sigh. Now I want more dies. I want to play some more with this machine. See the demos here.

Thanks for stopping by!