Amazing Grace with Texture

As a card maker, one of my favorite ways to add texture is through the use of Heat Embossing. The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this week is to "Add Some Texture" to our project so I started with a few of my favorite Stamp Sets, Background Basics: Sheet Music from Papertrey Ink and Beautiful day from Altenew. If you missed the Altenew July 2016 Release, be sure to check it out here.  I was waiting to order "Remember This" when it went live this morning.  There are other sets from this release that I'll want, but this set was a must for me since it can be used with the Beautiful Day Stamp Set I've used here.  It will be a week or two before the new Altenew sets are available at the Simon Says Stamp store.

I was recently in a class that focused on many different ways to use heat embossing in your cards. One of the things they showed us was that you could mix embossing powders.  It was for a specific application in that case, but I figured if I didn't like what I had done, I wasn't really out anything since it only takes a fraction of a teaspoon of powder for each project you use it on.  So I mixed a little Simon Says Stamp Rose Gold Embossing Powder with Simon Says Stamp Gold Embossing Powder (not the Antique Gold).  What did I get?  A fantastic "18 Karat Gold" looking color. That is how I labeled it on the jar I put it into.  I like it so much that I made a 2 oz. jar full of it, 1 oz of Simon Says Stamp Rose Gold and 1 oz. of Simon Says Stamp Gold Embossing Powder.  Both of these products are Ultra Fine Detail powders. I love love love the Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder, but I can see uses for this "new" color as well. A bonus is the fact that the color is a perfect match to the Arabic Gold in the Finetec Mica Watercolors Set.

After I was done playing around with the embossing powders, I stamped my background panel using Versamark with Papertrey Ink's Background Basics: Sheet Music Stamp Set onto Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  Next I stamped the bloom and some leaves in Versamark from the Beautiful Day Stamp Set by Altenew onto Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper then sprinkled my "new 18 Kt. Gold Embossing Powder" on both and heat set them.  I also heat embossed the word "Amazing" from the Inspired: Grace Mini Stamp Set on to this same panel. To color the blooms, I lightly misted the paper with water and let it soak in for just a minute before stamping one of the detail layers onto the bloom. Since the paper was slightly damp, this let the color move away from the edge of the stamping and blend into the water and paper. Once that had dried, I lightly misted it again and stamped the other detail layer in the same way.  The second detail layer has less surface area so it keeps more of the detail and blends the way I want it to. Since I am using such a bright color for my mat, I really wanted to use this new to me Papertrey Ink called "Pine Feather". I stamped and heat embossed the leaves using the same products as on the blooms. Then I misted the paper and lightly inking up the detail layer of the leaf stamp, stamped it lightly. This ink is a very dark forest or pine green with definite blue undertones just like the Hibiscus Burst Ink I used on the blooms.  Both of them are cool tones which I love.

After that I assembled my card onto a Fresh Snow Linen Cardstock Card Base using my ATG and Ranger Multi Medium Matte. With the texture on the background, the card base and in the leaves and flowers, I felt that sequins would be too much this time.  But I'm still thinking about adding a few before I mail it out. *Ü*  The pink mat on this card is a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle cut from Papertrey Ink Hibiscus Burst Cardstock.  Hibiscus Burst is quickly becoming a favorite color in both ink and cardstock.

This is all I have for today.  Last weekend was so focused on trying all the new techniques during the Papertrey Ink Stamp-A-Faire 2016 and there are a few that I want to experiment with further. Thank you so much for stopping by today. Please come back soon to see what I've created for some of the other challenges going on now.