Christmas cards with heat embossing & bleaching

I thought I'd quickly share what we'll be doing in the next Tuesday class.  We'll be heat embossing and discussing different effects that can be achieved using heat embossing. 

Then we'll be painting our embossed images with bleach.  We'll then use inks to colour some of the images.

This is the first card that we'll be making together:

Cozy Christmas - heat embossed then bleached

We'll create the top layer (that hopefully brings snowflakes to mind) with the Emboss Resist technique - clear embossing on Whisper White and sponging with Smoky Slate.

We'll die cut the ornament shape from the centre of the card (keeping the ornament die cut for another project!).

The image from Cosy Christmas is heat embossed with black onto Marina Mist cardstock. 

Using a small soft brush, household bleach is applied to the trees, roof, windows and chimney smoke.  Here I used 4 applications of bleach, drying with a heat tool between applications to check on the level of bleaching achieved.  I heated from the back of the paper to preserve the embossing.

I also applied bleach to the foreground to look like snow.  I painted it onto the card in a streaky sort of way to create interest and look more "scenic" and I also applied less bleach closer to the cottage to create some depth.

The corners of the card and the spotty layer were punched using the Curvy Corner Trio Punch.

I centred the ornament cut out over my scene, trimmed off any stray edges and then layered it onto the Basic Grey card.  

I finished it off with a few Rhinestone Jewels and a little bit of white ribbon from my stash.

I have entered this into the November link up at Just Keep On Creating - anything goes and it's a fun way to share creativity.  Click on the image to have a look.

Cozy Christmas again but without the emboss resist layer

 

I also made a slightly simpler version without the emboss resist technique - just in case time is tight!  You can see that I used more bleach in this one.

Santa's Gifts, bleached then coloured

Close up of the tree

If time allows we'll also make something like this card which will allow us to colour in our image after we've bleached it. 

The tree image is from the Santa's Gifts set and I coloured it using Stampin' Write Markers in Pear Pizzazz, Garden Green, Daffodil Delight, Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Hello Honey and Cherry Cobbler. 

To create the stars, I punch a little bit of left over Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Card with the Confetti Stars Border Punch and glued on some of the resulting little stars with the Fine-Tip Glue Pen.

The emboss resist background is a bit bright but I wanted to offset the rather muted tones in the ornament (I used the same piece of Marina Mist cardstock  for both cards to save time!).  The colours in the background are Daffodil Delight and Watermelon Wonder.  The bow is Calypso Coral Seam Binding Ribbon and the ornament is "hanging" from a little piece of silver Cording Trim.

I also made this, slightly more advanced, card using heat embossing and bleach.  The images are from Happy Scenes, Wonderland and White Christmas.  The snow is stamped with bleach using  one of the little stamps from Sheltering Tree.  To create the trees in the background, I used the same stamp twice but the second time, I masked out one of the trees.

Scene creating using heat embossing & bleach: Wonderland, Happy Scenes, White Christmas

I'll be back soon to show you some cards I've made by "painting" with embossing powder.

Thanks for visiting.

Stephanie

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Butterfly Basics

I'm very excited (and also a bit nervous) to say "hello everyone" because this is my very first blog! Hopefully, though, just the first of many because I have lots of ideas that I'm looking forward to sharing.  I am very grateful to all the talented people who have inspired, taught and encouraged me.  I hope that I can do them justice and would love to "pay it forward".

A butterfly seemed appropriate for my first blog - I went into a chrysalis as a technophobe and emerged as a blogger!

This card was inspired by a Think Ink challenge set by the incomparable Sue Madex with this inspiration piece.  At her site Madex Creations, you'll see Sue's beautiful and very creative card.   It was the first challenge I had attempted but it definitely won't be the last.  It really stretched my creative muscles and made me more aware of my own creative processes.

So how did I do it?  
I folded my A5 Basic Grey cardstock in half to make my card.  Then opened it up again and used the fold line to gauge where I wanted to place my butterfly.  
Then I cut out my butterfly with the largest of the Butterflies Thinlets Dies.  After that I cut another butterfly (with the same thinlet) from black cardstock.  I adhered Whisper White cardstock to the inside of the front of the card (under the Basic Grey) and then stuck my black butterfly onto the white - fitting it snugly into the butterfly-shaped space in the grey.  
Having coloured the butterfly with my markers (I left some bits white for "pop"), I carefully cut around the bottom of the butterfly to remove the excess white card and drew on the feelers with the fine end of a black marker.  
To add the two borders (from the Butterfly Basics stamp set), I first masked the butterfly to protect it and stamped in line with the edge of the card.  I added one of the sentiments from the same stamp set at an angle to balance the butterfly.  
I cut a piece of Smoky Slate cardstock a little smaller than the card and adhered it to the inside of the card and in the middle, stamped the other sentiment from the Butterfly Basics stamp set.
It didn't necessarily need the bling - but I couldn't help myself!

See you again soon!
Stephanie

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