Emboss Resist Tree

Here’s the second card I made to share with you today. Actually I made this one first, but I’m sharing it second! I made it as a response to three cards. The primary source of inspiration was the photo provided by Addicted To Stamps And More. I combined it with Simon Says Stamp Wednesday‘s Totally Resistable challenge, and Moving Along With The Times‘s trees challenge.

Whilst the inspiration picture is Halloweeny I didn’t want to make a Halloween card. (Mainly because I wouldn’t have anyone to send it too!) I was however instantly drawn to the silhouetted tree and the glowing sun and knew I had to make something based on that.

I started by working out my positionings before stamping and heat embossing my tree. The heat embossing actually worked for once! I think that’s the first time I’ve successfully heat embossed..!

Next I created a mask with a piece of scratch paper and used some washi tape to hold it in place over my card base. I sponged on Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink to make my sun. (Both the mask and the embossing provide an element of resist.) Once I was happy with the coverage I removed my mask and used some dry kitchen paper to buff any excess ink off of my heat embossed area.

At that point I had to take a slight break because I hadn’t planned any further than that for the card design! After some thinking I decided to use a thank you sentiment – my birthday is coming up so I might need some thank you cards to send out! The one I used is from Technique Tuesday and I stamped it in MFT Black Licorice hybrid ink. I then coloured in the little heart using the same ink I had used for my sun.

I’m really quite pleased with how this turned out. It’s almost exactly what I had envisioned. I’m very happy that the heat embossing worked – the three or four times I’ve attempted before have either ended up blobby from too much ink, or patchy from too little powder. There are some dots of black here and there, but I understand black embossing powder is difficult to work with and even the “experts” have that problem. I had used a dry paint brush to brush away the worst of it. I definitely want to invest in some Versafine and clear embossing powder.

Love,

Lady Joyful