Let's get started!
The items you'll need to do this project exactly like I did are listed below, but remember, you can use the things you have on hand too- your own stamps, inks, etc.
You'll need:
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Inks (Black Soot and Vintage Photo)
Acrylic block and cling font stamps
Ivory smooth cardstock
I specifically didn't link to places you could purchase these tools, linking to their product descriptions from the manufacturer online for an important reason-- I've seen soooooo many independent scrapbook and craft shops rise and then go under in the last few years and it breaks my heart. Take this list to your local store and if they don't already have it, let them order it for you. I know it's faster to go to Michael's or JoAnn's, but if we don't support our local stores, whose income in turn supports our communities and the places we love to go cropping, who will?
Philosophical rant completed! Moving on!
Perfect Medium is super versatile-- you can use it to stamp for embossing, for dusting on Perfect Pearls, for glitter-- all kinds of things! It even comes in a pen form so you can emboss or embellish your own hand-drawn items or handwriting! Neat!
Tap your stamp on the Perfect Medium Pad (or vice versa; I do either, depending on the stamp I'm using), and stamp your image onto the cardstock. It won't look like much, but I promise it's there!
Pour some of the clear embossing powder over your stamped image, tapping the edge of the cardstock on the edge of either your table or your little craft tray that I have here to shake off the extra embossing powder, but don't be too picky- if there's some that falls off or extra that sticks on, it gives it a nice aged look which you'll see a little better later on. You can kind of see this happening on the "I" up there.
Use your heat tool to melt the embossing powder. I particularly like the Ranger Heat-It because it's very hot, doesn't blow a bunch of air that makes your papers go zooming all over the place, and because it's very quiet-- which keeps my dog who is scared of my hairdryer from freaking out!
Repeat the stamp, powder, heat process until all of your images have been stamped. My finished embossed product looked like this:
Now, using your blending tool and foam which you've tapped on your Distress Ink several times, start at the edges of your cardstock, rubbing the ink onto the paper from the craft mat, using a circular motion to avoid weird lines and edges from the edges of the foam. The harder your press or longer you linger in one spot, the more saturated that spot will become, so remember that less can be more! I like mine to have a kind of mottled look, but if you want to be bold, you can skip the blending tool altogether and just rub the Distress Ink pad directly onto your paper.
Using your mini mister, spray a rag or paper towel until it's damp, then rub gently (again in a circular motion, especially if your ink is still pretty wet), removing the ink from the embossed parts of the card.
Pretty nice, huh?
For this project, I dried the black ink with the Heat-It, then, using a different foam, blended some Vintage Photo Distress Ink onto the edges and gently in various spots throughout the paper, giving it an aged look. The comparison between the paper with the extra ink on the left and without on the right is below:
And there you have it! A beautiful, vintage-styled piece of cardstock, great for backgrounds, details, contrast text, anything! Here's the finished card again:
So what do you think? Is embossed resist all I claimed it would be? : )
Stay tuned for another tutorial this weekend on how to use the Distress Inks to dye ribbon-- and remember to enter our contest on Facebook by liking McLion Design here and tagging us in a status/ sharing our contest status! You could win an item from the shop or a pack of 3 Distress Inks!
