Home Again!

I'm home now from what was an amazing vacation. Thanks for your patience with my blog while I was away. My husband and I got to spend a whole week together in Italy, and it was amazing. Here's one of my favorite pictures from the trip.
We visited Venice, Florence, Pisa, and Rome. Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it, we were the ultimate tourists and even took the obligatory pictures of us holding the leaning tower of Pisa up...
I'm planning on scrapping our trip, but we took over 600 photos, so the size of that project is a little more than I want to think about right now. Maybe after the holidays. So instead I have 2 cards, just for fun today. Oh, and did you see that while I was away my blog went up over 1000 hits? Check out my blog on Saturday for a little give away I'll be doing in honor of that mile stone!

Tuesday's Terrific Technique: Faux Metal

I love embossing, so the next few Tuesdays, I thought I take you through a few of my favorite embossing techniques. First up: Faux Metal.

Today you'll need:
A piece of card stock. Any color will do.
Versamark Ink
Silver, Gold, or other metallic colored embossing powder
A Heat Gun
A Scissors or Paper Punch
A Stamp

Cover a section of your paper with Versamark, then sprinkle with embossing powder. The area covered by embossing powder should be larger than your stamp, but does not need to cover the entire paper.

Heat the embossing powder until set.

Cover the embossed area with Versamark Ink again, and sprinkle with silver embossing powder again.

Heat powder until set.

Immediately, while the embossed area is still hot, press a stamp into the embossed area.

You should now have an image set into the embossed area. If your image doesn't turn out the way you want, you can just reheat the embossed area until it liquefies, and try again.

Punch or cut out your image.

You should now have a faux metal tag that looks something like this.

Now all you have to do is add your faux metal tag to a project!

I hope you enjoyed today's tutorial. Next week we'll try out another embossing technique.

Wedding Scrapbook

I think I mentioned that a few weekends ago I was in my cousin's wedding. We had a great time, and I was able to get some really beautiful pictures. Including this one of My sister, her husband, my husband, and me (my husband and I are on the left).


I have so many great pictures, that I decided I would do a scrapbook for the bride as a surprise. I just completed the first page of the book. This page is very simple. I wanted the picture to be the focal point, not my amazing ability to embellish (I'll showcase that later on throughout the book :-) The paper doesn't photograph well, but it is a lovely pearlized paper from DCWV.
The words were cut from SU! silver card stock with my Silhouette SD.

I stamped on the bottom right hand corner with Versamark ink using a stamp from Baroque Motifs (SU!). I sprinkled a little silver embossing powder on, heated, and added a few dimensional wedding stickers from K & Company. Now a little note about embossing on photos. Photos don't like heat, so this must be done VERY carefully. I also wouldn't recommend doing this on a treasured heirloom photo, heating the photo may ruin it. Heat just until the powder starts melting. If your photo bubbles from the heat, let it cool. Don't touch or try to smooth the bubble out. Many times it will deflate on its own. That being said, if you have success with this technique it really is a beautiful, unexpected touch.

I have one more picture for you. It's a little closer so you can see more of the beautiful detail of this paper and some of the dimension of the embellishments.

Just Stop

Sometimes, when making a card, I just can't seem to stop myself. I want to add more, cut more, stamp more, color more...you get the idea. Sometimes, though, simple is better. This is one of those cards that I just wanted to add more, but simple is better. This is a card for a wedding shower I have coming up in a few weeks. A few notes on things that don't show up well in pictures. The bells are embossed with silver embossing powder and then popped up from the paper with Stampin' Dimensionals. The ribbon is double layered. There is pink satin lined organza ribbon over silver organza ribbon. Very pretty in person. A recipe follows the picture.

Stamp: Goody Goody Gum Drops (SU!)
Ink: Versamark
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Silver (SU!)
Markers: Pretty in Pink (SU!)
Ribbon: Silver Organza, Pink Satin Edged Organza
Tools: Sizzix Texturz (Stampin Up! #1)
Adhesives: Stampin' Dimensionals (SU!)
Silver Embossing Powder (SU!) Scallop Square Punch (SU!)