I usually don't do "clean and simple" - but this time it somehow just turned out this way as I didn't want to distract the view from the blossoms and the quote. I wanted to create dimensional glossy flowers using various Emerald Creek embossing powders from Kim's wide and wonderful range. There has been a lot of talk about Kim and Seth Apter's amazing Baked Texture recently, but I wanted to showcase some of her other powders she designs - as I think they're fab too and should not be forgotten. ;)
Sorry for the (still) poor lighting - one of my two cool daylight bulbs went off some time ago and it is really hard to find a replacement. Obviously now - with having different light from two slightly different bulbs in my two work desk lamps - my camera does not do the white balance properly.
Here's the list with the embossing powders I used , but I will name them with the detail shots too, so you can see which ones I used for each blossom or leaf.
Emerald Creek embossing powders used:
other products used available at Emerald Creek Craft Supplies:
I just love how chunky my die cut flowers (I used the new Tim Holtz "Funky Florals" Sizzix die to cut all the blossoms and leaves) turned out!
But let's start from the very beginning.
I used heavy black cardstock to die cut my funky florals from and arranged all the cut out pieces on a sheet of white paper so I could easily see and pick them up.
Then I got out a bunch of Emerald Creek embossing powders I wanted to play with. Not all of these made it into the finished tag (like the Fractured Ice, Winter's Mistake and the Ultra Puff White embossing powders).
On the green-yellow leaf to the very left I used St. Paddy's Day ( a sparkly light green) and Flourescent Yellow embossing powders. The red flower was done using Chinese New Year (a sparkly vibrant red with glitter), St. Paddy's Day and Moss Stone Green (a dark earthy green) with Clear Ultra Thick Gloss enamel on top. The pointy twig was covered with Moss Stone Green.
The large leaf at the bottom was done with a mix of St. Paddy's Day and Flourescent Yellow on the base and Moss Stone Green for the veins. The dark blue flower was created using Steel Sapphire (a very dark metallic blue) and Chinese New Year powders.
The twig to the left was done using St. Paddy's Day embossing powder with a layer of the Clear Ulta Thick Gloss on top. The yellow flower showcases the Fluorescent Yellow embossing powder (in a single layer that I didn't melt right to the very finish, so some of the black card still shows through) with Steel Sapphire and Tangerine Orange Sparkle powders for the pieces on top. The bright red flowers showcases Chinese New Year and Wysteria Wonder (a metal purple) embossing powders.
The blossom to the very right was done using Wysteria Wonder and Moss Stone Green and Fluorescent Yellow on top. This image also beautifully shows the Steel Sapphire and Tangerine Orange Sparkle powders again that I used on the yellow flower. And it has captured the sparkle of the Chinese New Year powder as well! Yay!
And I just needed to show you the twig with the Easter Parade embossing powder close up as I love all the sparkly bits Kim puts into the pastel yellow powder! Love love love this one so much!
As I knew that gluing the layers with all those tiny bits and pieces together would end in disaster (as smudged glue would dull the sheen of the embossing enamels' surfaces), I tried to fuse the blossoms' layers by first adding all the different powders to the single pieces, then layering them with tweezers and finally setting heat to all the layers at once - and that worked pretty well!
To not blow away the tiny bits I started with my Ranger heat tool from quite far away and got closer veeeery slowly - this way a bit of the melting had already started and held the tiny bits in place. So no glued was needed at all! Yay!
I also finished off some of my blossoms with a layer of Clear Ultra Thick Gloss enamel. I found that if you heat it too long it changes the colour of the embossing powder underneath a bit towards a more pastel tone (as you can see with the two red flowers in the picture below. These were originally both done using Chinese New Year embossing powder, but the UTE turned the bright intense red into a more pastel looking red. So using UTE on top of embossing powders helps get more colour tones from your embossing powder palette - cool, huh?
I left some without UTE-layer therefore.
The quote was stamped using a clear stamp I found at a dollar store and two different greens - the image using the lighter green (Memento "pear tart" stamping ink) was stamped on top of the darker green (Ranger "Library Green" archival stamping ink), but I moved the stamp slightly to the bottom right this time. This way I got a kind of dimensional effect that I like a lot.
Then I added some sprinkles of Primary Yellow and Yellow Green from my DecoArt media Misters and drew a thin green outline by hand using a permanent ink marker with a very fine tip.
Using tacky glue I arranged and fixed all my leaves and flowers on the tag and then pressed them down by placing an old heavy dictionary on top while the glue dried.
Done!
I hope to see you play along with us at Emerald Creek Dares soon! There's a $25 voucher to be won for spending at Kim's shop! So don't miss the chance and play along! Show us your spring flowers!!!
Hugs and happy crafting!
Claudia
xxx
Oh so fun and cheerful...a real pick me up tag!
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