a card that is worthy
Our stamp club meeting last evening had a metal theme; I'll share the second project in a post in the very near future. This project features the faux metal technique for the focal point image. This card also features many new products that made a debut in the new Stampin' Up! catalog that come on-line on June 1st. The DSP used is one of the beautiful new patterns that came out in the catalog. It's called Comfort Café, and I think it is absolutely beautiful! The patterns in this DSP pack are really quite lovely and useful. Several of them are floral images, but not all of them. The one on the reverse of the top piece pictured here features many colors in a diagonal pattern, which works great for more masculine cards. I think this DSP will be one of my go-to patterns this year!
The gals had an interesting time working with the technique for this card. We definitely learned that you need to stamp into the melted embossing powder REALLY FAST or else the image isn't that great. We ended up having one person applying the heat, so that the stamper could be ready to apply the image as soon as it was ready. This turned the trick so people could get good images for their project and technique cards. Also, I ran out of the pewter embossing powder (EP) part-way through the process. One gal ended up having two base layers of pewter EP, but had to finish with a top layer of silver. This actually ended up being pretty cool; the image had a bit of a tarnished effect on the crown. Gotta love these little experiments that we get to do!
The following materials were used to make this card:
- Stamps: Artistic Etchings
- Cardstock: Pool Party, Midnight Muse, Summer Starfruit, Cajun Craze, Whisper White (base for the technique)
- Ink: VersaMark, Soft Suede
- Accessories: Comfort Café DSP, Midnight Muse 3/8" Stitched Satin ribbon, Apothecary Accents Framelits, Finishing Touches Edgelits, Extra Large Oval punch, Dimensionals, Pewter embossing powder
This is how you do the faux metal technique:
- Cut a piece of cardstock to be the base that you're working on (I used a piece of Whisper White).
- Ink the stamp you're going to use with VersaMark and set aside.
- Apply VersaMark to the full piece of cardstock.
- Sprinkle on metallic embossing powder and heat emboss.
- Apply VersaMark over the embossed surface.
- Sprinkle on more metallic embossing powder and heat emboss.
- Repeat step 4 & 5 to have 3 or 4 layers of embossing.
- After the last layer, immediately stamp your image into the liquid embossing powder. The key is that you have to be REALLY FAST! Once it starts to set up, you won't get much of an impression.
- You can re-heat the embossing powder to get it to re-flow again if you aren't happy with the image, but you can't do it too much or it starts to look burnt.
