Papertrey Ink's Stamp-A-Faire 2017 Take Ten Challenge

Hello all!  As some of you know I have been taking a class this summer and it has kept me so busy that I've barely had time to make any cards much less participate in other challenges. I wasn't home this weekend to participate in Papertrey Ink's Stamp-A-Faire event although I have finally gotten to watch all the videos since we got home last night about 5:00 p.m.  Now I need to go through each one of them again and see if I have the materials needed to try each of the projects.  I did get a project finished on Friday Night for the very first challenge called "Take 10 Warm Up Challenge".

This project is quite large as it has been framed in a 16 x 16 frame with a mat.  I had been experimenting for several days with using clear embossing powder on ink jet printing and when I saw the Inspiration Image on the left, that was just the push I needed to finish this project up.  I had already ordered the frame and gotten the black mat cut the night before.

For the most important part of this project, I treated the vellum with my version of a powder tool (Baby Powder with a fluffy brush) onto a Piece of 44# Vellum from Papertrey Ink.  I had several trial versions of this in the 4 days before Stamp-A-Faire started; I think I used (wasted) about 10 sheets of vellum until I found a way to print and emboss the saying in a way that was acceptable to me. Vellum is definitely on my next shopping list from Papertrey.  The way I got it to work the best was to print in presentation mode with "best" quality. That meant the ink was still very wet when the vellum came out of the printer so you have to be careful not to touch it.  I poured clear embossing powder on top of the ink and carefully heat set that, moving my heat tool around a lot so I wouldn't scorch the paper or embossing powder. You also have to be very careful not to warp your paper if you decide to try this. The mat is black with a black core (most mats come with a white core). To maintain the translucence of the vellum, I completely covered the back of the half sheet with Stick It Adhesive.  I went over this thoroughly with my Teflon bone folder to smooth out any air bubbles. I removed the release paper from the back and carefully set it in place over the globes of the Black, White and Gold background paper. The little photos corners cut from gold mirror board using Papertrey Ink's Mix & Mat Herringbone was the perfect touch!  After that, I only had to assemble everything in the frame and my project was finished.

As I mentioned, this is a birthday gift for my daughter whose birthday was Friday the 25th.  Even though I knew we would see her at the wedding we attended this past weekend, I couldn't take it as they didn't have enough room in their vehicle to take this and her other gifts home.  We'll be making a trip to their house next month and will take all of her goodies with us then.

I will be finished with all my class work and take my final on Friday of this week, so I am still super busy.  And then comes the practical application but I'm looking forward to having time to participate in more of the challenges.  In the meantime, I hope you all are having a peaceful time getting your kids back to school!