Common Cardmaking Mistakes and How to Fix Them: A Beginner's Guide

Hello there, and welcome to the final installment of the Beginner's Guide to Cardmaking. My name is Lisa Tilson, and I am here today to focus on common mistakes when cardmaking.  More specifically, how you can fix them and, in some cases, prevent them. It is important to remember that most mistakes can be rectified one way or another. Even more importantly, you are not alone. Whatever level of cardmaker you are, mistakes happen, and they happen more often than you might imagine.

Mistakes can often occur when you are rushing to finish your project. They may even simply occur because you are trying something new. That is to be expected. You can reduce the frequency of mistakes simply by taking a little more time. This is easier said than done of course! Life happens, and it isn’t always possible to spend hours on a card. And no matter how careful or thoughtful you may be when creating, mistakes can and will still occur. Try to remember that if the error isn’t fixable, and it results in you having to colour, foil, press or ink blend something a second time, it almost certainly will teach you something along the way.

This post has been separated into sections which look at the main techniques that have been covered in this series, plus a few others. We hope you find it helpful.

You may have seen the picture above in a previous post. You would not have known back then, or even know now, that it had an error in it! The error occurred right at the end of the cardmaking process, and to avoid throwing it away and starting again, a very simple and quick fix was put in place.

Common Cardmaking Mistakes

Kicking off this post are some general common cardmaking mistakes and what you can do to put them right.

1. Adhering Your Finished Panel onto a Note Card - Upside Down! Simply trim off the back flap of the note card and re-adhere the front section onto a new card base. This does mean, of course, that there will be extra thickness on the front panel, and it may have implications for postage costs, but it can be a good fix if you have spent a long time making the card.
2. Misaligned Top Panel - the same goes if you have mounted your finished panel onto your note card and it is crooked. If you are quick, you may be able to lift it and glue it down a second time. If not, you can take off the back flap, trim the front panel down so that you cannot see the front flap of the note card behind it, and remount it onto a new note card.
   • To help avoid this, you could pop your note card into the corner of the MISTI and add your finished top panel onto it whilst it is in there.
3. Incorrectly Aligned Sentiments – this can apply to stamped, foiled, pressed or heat embossed sentiments that have been added directly onto a project (i.e. not created on a separate piece of cardstock and then adhered onto the project). To correct a crooked sentiment, you can re-create the sentiment on a separate piece of cardstock and adhere it over the incorrect sentiment using foam tape.

In the example below, the original sentiment “for you” was stamped onto the panel using black ink. It was very slightly off, so a suitably sized foiled sentiment was added on top with the addition of some foam tape.

4. Incorrectly Placed Mounted Sentiments – if you have adhered your mounted sentiment and it is not straight, you can often lift it (carefully and slowly!) and place it back down using a T-square ruler to make sure it is placed correctly. To help prevent placing your sentiment incorrectly, apply some liquid glue to the foam tape before adhering the sentiment onto your panel. This will give you a little bit of time to wiggle it around to make sure it is straight. Again, make sure to use a t-square ruler to help you!
   • If you need to pull the sentiment off and you rip your cardstock in the process, or you can see adhesive where it isn’t wanted, use a larger sentiment to cover the area.
5. Smudges – these happen often! You might accidentally transfer ink onto your project at any given time. It is easily done and it can be heartbreaking when it happens! These smudges can often be hidden (depending on their size and location). See photo example below.
   • For small smudges, consider adding some paint splatter (or faux splatter where you just use a fine liner pen to mimic paint splatter) so that it becomes part of the overall design. Another option would be to use a sand eraser to gradually erase the ink from the cardstock.
   • For larger smudges, you may be able to pop your sentiment over it. Or maybe add an additional die cut flower or leaf over the top of it.
   • You may even be able to die cut or fussy cut the focal image and remount it onto another panel which is smudge free.

The photo sequence below shows how to remove a small ink smudge.

The card above shows a small black ink smudge to the right of the soup cup.

A sand eraser is used to try and remove the ink. Remove the ink gradually. It can take many steps to get rid of it, but you will be able to get to a point where you have saved the panel.

The smudge is diminishing! Make sure to work slowly so you don’t tear the cardstock. The aim is to do it with a soft hand. A heavy hand that is moving the eraser back and forth will most likely tear the cardstock.

The smudge has all but gone.

The final card is finished with the addition of some sparkly gems. All that was left to cover was a tiny area where the paper had pilled and that was then hidden by the gem.

Die Cutting Mistakes

The most common errors when die cutting can include:

1. Not taping your die to your cardstock before running it through your machine. Dies can easily shift when they pass through the machine due to the pressure applied.
2. If your die doesn’t cut correctly on the first pass – add a shim(s) and change the orientation of the die on your cutting plate. Run it through your machine several times, changing orientation each time. See photo example below.
3. Marks from your plates appearing on your die cut – make sure your top cutting plate is as unblemished as possible. This prevents cut marks and tiny flecks of cardstock transferring onto your die cut.

The picture above shows an attempt to die cut an intricate die. Although the die is being cut from 80lb white cardstock it still has areas where it has not cut all the way through.

The die has now been placed back onto the cutting plate, but this time at an angle.

A paper shim has also been added.

The die has now cut all the way through.

The pieces can now be easily popped out using a precision tool.

Hot Foil Stamping Mistakes

Some common errors when foiling include:

1. Underfoiling – this is difficult to correct so you will probably need to discard an underfoiled image unless it is possible to just use a small part of it. If you do need to discard your first attempt, when repeating the foiling process, you can help prevent underfoiling by:
   • Adding extra shims into your foiling sandwich.
   • Using a slightly thicker or smoother piece of cardstock.
   • Checking your machine is properly heated up before starting.
   • Running your heated platform slowly through your die cutting machine. You can run it back and forth a few times if you need to.
2. Overfoiling – remove any overfoiling gently with a sand eraser, a clean white eraser or even a craft knife. Use a sand eraser with care if you are erasing over a foiled line as it may scratch the surface. A sand eraser is particularly useful for flecks of foil which sit outside of your foiled image but the example below shows that you can still use it on your main image.
   • To help prevent overfoiling, make sure to trim your foil to size. Too much excess can often result in overfoiling.
   • Make sure you are using a smooth cardstock.
3. Wonky foiled sentiment – repeat the foiling of the sentiment on a new piece of cardstock and pop this over the misaligned one in the same way that you would with a stamped/heat embossed sentiment.

To avoid a misaligned foiled sentiment (if foiling directly onto your art panel), use a t-square ruler to line up the plate on your panel. Secure the top edge of the plate using low-tack tape. Lift the plate and slide the foil underneath (pretty side up!). Bring the plate back down and tape the bottom edge in place. Double check with a T-square ruler that the sentiment is still sitting correctly before foiling.

In the picture above, the foiled panel has a large area of overfoiling. If you were to zoom in, you would see that many of the little squares have extra foil in their bottom right-hand corners!

Use a sand eraser, with a soft hand, to carefully remove all the excess foil. Try not to scratch the foil. If you think you will scratch the foil, try removing it with a normal white eraser. You can also sometimes remove excess foil just by running your fingers over the applicable areas!

The foiling panel is now complete, with all the tiny extra pieces of foil removed.

BetterPress Letterpress Mistakes

Common mistakes when using the BetterPress Letterpress System are:

1. Faint pressed lines - if your image or sentiment hasn’t pressed correctly and some areas are not as dark as you would like them, fix this by using a fine tip pen and going over them. To help prevent faint lines, use a gentle pounce and pivot motion to apply your ink before pressing and check to see if the ink looks evenly spread across the plate. This is easier to see with solid plates, but even with outline image plates, you can often see areas which do not have the same amount of ink on them.
2. Incorrect placement of plate on your panel - you press your image and then flip it over and discover it isn’t quite placed where you want it to be. It might be a little too high or too low, or a bit too far to the left or right. You can fix this by cutting the panel down with a shaped die – this way you get to control where the image appears on your panel. See example below.

The plate has been pressed onto some BetterPress Porcelain Cardstock. The resulting image is not quite in the desired position.

A rectangle die has now been placed over the panel with the image in the right location.

The panel now has the image in the desired location, and it can be mounted onto a separate A2 panel or onto a note card. It’s a very simple fix and saves the panel from heading towards the bin. You could also die cut the image out with a coordinating die and mount that onto another panel of cardstock instead.

To avoid the issue altogether – do a test press onto an A2 panel of scrap paper. Don’t waste your BetterPress cardstock! All you are doing is making sure your image is going to be where you want it to be, so the fact that it is scrap paper doesn’t matter. You can then feel confident that when you press onto your BetterPress cardstock, you will get it right first time.

Layered Stencilling Mistakes

Common mistakes when using layering stencils:

1. Seeping ink – this can happen with intricate stencils, especially if using a heavy hand. You lift your stencil to discover that the ink has seeped under it, and your image has blurred lines. If you notice this, continue with the stencilling and see how the final panel looks. Potential fixes might be:
   • Covering the area with a sentiment.
   • Changing the design so that the stencilled panel becomes a background. Pop a shaped layer on top and complete your design on that layer instead.

In the above card example, the ink blending errors are covered by a vellum panel. One mistake is hidden behind the “Hello”. The other is slightly further down, but because the vellum panel “blurs” what is behind, no one would ever know. Not only does the vellum cover the errors, but by adding some additional elements onto that vellum layer, you create a distraction.

2. Visible brush marks – these can be hard to fix, but you could consider:
   • Using paste for that stencil layer.
   • Using a darker ink colour on that layer.
3. Forgetting to use masking tape! Have you ever reached the end of your stencilling and realized that you forgot to use a mask to prevent ink appearing outside of your focal image?
   • If you have a coordinating die, this mistake is easily fixed by cutting the image out and remounting it onto a new panel.
   • Alternatively, you could fussy cut the image if you don’t have a die.

Colouring Mistakes

Common mistakes when colouring include:

1. Colouring/marker bleeding outside the lines – you can fix this easily by applying a white gel pen over the stray ink. You could also use a Copic Colourless Blender to remove the stray marker. (See photo example below.) Depending on what you are colouring and where the error is, you may also be able to cut out the parts that are free of mistakes and mount them onto another panel. Try not to be discouraged if you go wrong. Take your time and think about what you might still be able to achieve with what you have created.
2. Bleeding panel - always colour onto a separate cardstock panel and mount that onto your note card. If your markers bleed through your colouring panel, it won’t be noticed once mounted.

The two bears above have both been coloured with Copic Markers. Both bears have areas where the yellow has strayed outside of the black line.

A white gel pen is being used to correct the error on the top left bear. You can add several layers of the white gel pen if needed, letting each layer dry in between.

For the bottom right bear, a Copic Colourless Blender marker is being used to remove the yellow ink at the back of his body. You need to use the Colourless Blender in stages. Apply the blender and then let the ink dry before repeating.

The first layer has dried, and the marker is being applied again. The yellow is gradually disappearing!

The three areas of yellow on the bottom right bear have now been almost completely removed. Another application with the Colourless Blender would take care of the rest, or you could even at this point use a white gel pen.

Stamping Errors

Common mistakes when stamping:

1. Wonky sentiments - to fix this, as mentioned a couple of times previously, you could restamp the sentiment onto a separate bit of card and mount it with foam tape over the incorrect sentiment. Always use a t-square ruler or an acetate guide to line up the sentiment stamp before you stamp and/or heat emboss, especially if stamping directly onto a finished panel.
2. Feint lines - if your image or sentiment hasn’t stamped correctly and some areas are not as crisp as you’d like, you can fix this by using a fine tip pen to go over those faint areas. See the example below.

There are quite a few faint lines in the stamped image above. Particularly in the centres of the flowers, the top right small flower, and in the stems and leaves below the main arrangement.

A black fine liner has been used to fix the flower centres and is also being used on the thin stems. Feint lines can still occur even if you use a stamp positioner and you repeat stamping. You may not have applied even pressure when stamping the image and that can cause variation. It’s a simple correction to make, just take your time when going over the affected areas, and it will be as good as new!

Ink Blending Errors

The most common mistake when ink blending is:

1. Splotchy uneven ink blending – this is often caused by applying the ink with a heavy hand. There are a few ways you can potentially fix this!
   • Depending on where the splotch occurs, you may be able to cover it with a stamped image, die cut or a sentiment.
   • You could also consider cutting the panel down and reducing the size of your design.
   • You might also be able to hide the uneven blending by adding a window panel over the top - with the window revealing the best section of the design! See photo example below.
   • Another useful fix is splattering the cardstock with water droplets and picking them up with a paper towel. This is a great way to hide uneven areas.

The panel shown above has a brush mark on the top edge, just to the right of centre. In addition, the edges of the panel are also a little bit uneven where the brush has caught the panel and applied too much ink. To try to fix this, a little more of the darker ink was applied to the top edge, but the mark was still visible. Not much, but it could be seen.

Adding an arch window frame will completely cover the area (and the uneven edges). The design can then potentially be completed within the frame.

If a window frame doesn’t work for your planned design, just keep the panel for another project. It takes time and effort to ink blend a panel, and almost all of them can be reused for another project if they don’t work for the initial design. But window panels can save a project! They are a great way to hide blending errors.

Heat Embossing Errors

The most common mistake when heat embossing is:

1. Seeing flecks of embossing powder where they shouldn’t be. Remove these carefully with a precision tool/craft knife. If you have white flecks on black cardstock, you can remove them as above or use a black Copic marker to colour over them.

The photo above shows a clear stamp set which has been heat embossed with white powder onto black cardstock. The cardstock wasn’t prepped well enough with anti-static powder, and the result is a set of sentiments which have stray flecks of embossing powder around them.

There are two ways to correct these sentiments. On the top, a black Copic marker will be used. On the bottom, the flecks will be removed using a precision tool.

The “merry” has been corrected with a black Copic marker and you can no longer see any stray embossing powder.

The lower sentiment takes a little longer to correct as the tool needs to remove powder that is sitting in between some of the letters (these flecks would be harder to colour over with a marker).

Both sentiments are now ready to use. You can remove any stray flecks of powder on any coloured cardstock using a precision tool or craft knife.

That finishes today’s post. We hope that you find these tips helpful when trying to correct mistakes on your cards. As mentioned at the top of the post, you can almost always rectify a mistake one way or another. Take time to think through your options, and if you really can’t find a way to make it better, remember that you can start again and you will have learned something along the way. Mistakes are what help us improve after all!

We hope these tips help you feel more confident when things don't quite go as planned. Every cardmaker makes mistakes, and with a little creativity, many of them can be turned into opportunities to learn something new.

Be sure to check back as we'll be continuing our Beginner's Guide to Cardmaking series with more tutorials, techniques, and helpful tips. Until next time, enjoy the creative journey and, most importantly, have fun crafting!