National Scrapbooking Day Challenge: Ready, Set, Emboss!

Perhaps a better title for this post would be "adventures in embossing" because that was what this challenge turned out to be for me. It was quite an adventure. LOL!

This challenge was to use an embossing technique on a project. My crafty friend, Erika, over at the Cricut Circle Message board gave us plenty of great ideas to use. Her blog is linked to her name, it is well worth the visit. I really loved her technique of using an embossing folder and adding some paints to it, then not running it through a machine, but just pressing down to emboss the design on a piece of paper. So I had to try this out.

For my 1st attempt, I used my Explore to cut a tag with Water Color Paper. I used an Anna Griffin Border Embossing folder, Red Color Shine Spritz by Heidi Swapp, Sunshine Yellow Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber, and Gold Metallic Pain Dabber. It looked really nice, until I dropped Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink on to the center of the tag. I had the Copic Blender ready to blend, except, it was totally dry. :-(
So, I tossed that one.

 I cut another tag, and tried to get the same effect but it didn't emboss quite as clear. That was ok, it still looked fine. I stamped a pair of glasses from American Crafts #Good Times Stamp set using embossing ink. Then things got really hairy. I was originally going to use glitter red embossing powder, but after holding the heat gun there for an eternity, the red sparkle rubbed right off. I re-stamped the glasses and tried black, but that also didn't take. I re-stamped it again and tried fine detail black embossing powder from Recollections, but it wasn't taking after heating it for what seemed like 10 minutes. I switched from the Ranger Heat gun and tried the Martha Stewart heat gun, and it finally melted the powder. The only problem? This is what it looked like. YUCK!!!

I stamped the glasses again, embossed it using the MS heat gun and the fine detail black powder and it looked great! I didn't realize how awful the first pair looked until the second pair was stamped. I cut the bottom of the tag off. Problem solved. Ha-ha!

 I added a border from Pink Paisleee that I painted orange and added orange stickles. I embellished it with the word read that I altered from an October Afternoon journaling card using spritz paints, stickles and paint dabbers. I had the red Hash tag in my stash, and added some enamel dots and triangles. I like it!

This was fun and messy! Thank you Erika for a great challenge, now I have a cool bookmark for my summer reading!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen