Guest Designer for Shannon of my-o-scrappin'

Greeting to all my crafty peeps!


I come to you on this Terrific Tuesday as the Guest Designer Shannon's blog. She is so amazing and we serve on the same design team for JME Creations. On Tuesdays, Shannon likes to share techniques. Well my one turned into 2. I decided that I was going to show a bit about heat embossing and how it makes it easy for coloring. I was one of those kids that would color a picture and then outline the whole thing with black crayon. Now that I am grown and into stamping, I tried this technique and loved it. Here is my warning though: Do not attempt to do this with a stamp with teeny tiny areas. Let me show you the supplies that I used:

Here is my embossing gun from a chain store-USE a coupon!

Hero Art stamp, $1 stamp from M's, Versamark, black embossing powder and Stampin' Up embossing buddy

Now I promise you that this is very easy to do but you cannot get too crazy about it. When I heat emboss I like some stray embossing powder to get a speckled look. I used the embossing buddy to remove extra static from the paper I am stamping on and the paper that will catch the extra embossing powder. Lay out a piece of scrap paper under the paper you will be stamping the image on. All you do is use the Versamark like an ink pad. Put the Versamark on the stamp and press on paper; it will leave a shiny impression. Take your embossing powder and liberally add  on top of the Versamarked image. I then tap off the excess onto the scrap paper and blow some of the excess off around the embossed image. You then take the embossing gun and heat the powder until it is shiny. WARNING: That embossing gun air is pretty hot and can burn you. If you are working with a small piece of paper or chipboard cutout, use a tweezer. Here is what you will get:

Now do you see how the outline of the bird is raised? Well, when you color it is a great guideline and the color will not bleed beyond the embossed area. Here is my little birdie colored:

Now do you remember that I told you there was a second technique? Well when I began to put this card together it was really late and I wanted something special using ribbon. I must admit that I am bow challenged. Well, I had an epiphany. I took my craft knife (think Exacto) and made two slits beside the paper on the card base. I was able to thread the ribbon through and tie a bow without my hair falling out! Here is what the finished product looks like:

I hope that you have enjoyed my tips and encourage you to try heat embossing. Please hop over to Shannon's blog and show her some bloggie LOVE. Until next time.....