Adventures in Heat Embossing....

Hello, friends!

Today, I have a couple of cards to share with you. I wasn't originally planning on sharing one of them, as I decided that it wasn't "perfect," and so therefore could not besmirch my blog with its untidiness. And then I told myself to get over it, that I was not the Dowager Countess of Grantham, and nobody would care if my card was a tiny bit untidy. Plus, the kind people on instagram made me feel like I was being overdramatic about my stray embossing powder specks. (haha!)

(I must apologize in advance for these incredibly poor photos; today was particularly gloomy and dreary, and even my Ottlite daylight lamp did not help very much.)

When I received the Avery Elle Christmas Florals set from Butterfly Reflections Ink, one of the first ideas that popped into my head was to make one of those cards that is so deliciously simple in concept that it is almost always more complicated in execution than it is in theory. I wanted to heat emboss the florals on black card stock with a striking gold sentiment. Well, I had just discovered the day before the wonder that is double heat embossing, and so decided that my Christmas Florals had to be as bright and bold as possible, so I needed to double heat emboss every.single.image. Yeah, I'm here to tell you: if you put that much embossing powder on black card stock, even if you use an anti-static tool, you will get stray pieces of embossing powder that in your excitement over the wonders of double heat embossing you will not notice until the entire card is finished. Or maybe that's just me.

Also, a tip from me to you: stamp your wreath FIRST, then do your sentiment. There may or may not be a misplaced sentiment beneath the scalloped oval die cut. If you receive this card in the mail, pay no attention to the glimmer of gold behind the die cut. You've been warned.

After attempting to photograph my extremely imperfect card and realizing that enhancing the lighting in the photo would bring forward every single piece of stray embossing powder that had landed on the panel, I decided to do a simpler version, using simple stamping instead of heat embossing. The construction is simple using a MISTI: simply stamp you image, rotate your panel 180*, then stamp again. Everything comes out nearly perfectly symmetrical. I used various Hero Arts inks for my simple stamped card, including Emerald Green and the darkest and lightest strips of the Red Ombre ink pad, both from Hero Arts. (Those ombre ink pads really give you a lot of bang for your buck, because you can use the individual colors on smaller stamps!)

After looking at the gorgeous shine on the black card, I decided to add some Clear Pico Embellisher to the flowers and berries on my simple stamped card. I think it adds just the right amount of shine to an otherwise plain card. Both panels were popped up with fun foam on their respectively colored card bases. 

I hope you enjoyed this little foray into my obsessive perfectionist brain! My house may be a mess, but if I make a mistake on a card.... no no no no no! Anyway, see you again soon. Have a fabulous week, friends!