Noodle Embossing

I had seen a couple of posts on the internet about using those silicon basting brushes as a way to do embossing.  The beauty of these brushes is, unlike an ordinary paint brush, the noodle type bristles separate and can place more randomly spaced lines on the card.  The other really unusual thing about this particular technique is no embossing ink is used.  (Note:  K-Mart sell the noodle brushes for $2 each!!!)

 

Generally when you do embossing, it's embossing ink onto a stamp and then pour your embossing powder on, tip off excess and heat the design to get the beautiful embossed stamped image.  There really is no other way to get this more random, organic effect than with the noodle brush and, wait for it....... water!   You need to work quickly so the water doesn't dry, don't use too much water and a low blow heat gun works the best as it won't blow all your embossing powder everywhere before it has a chance to heat and melt.  If you don't have the Ranger low-blow heat gun you can use a normal one, just heat from the underneath of the card and watch the embossing powder on the top as it melts and try not to burn the underneath of the card.   The smell should give it away, nothing like the smell of burnt card stock!!!  After the embossing is done you can go to town using your Glimmer Mists or Starburst Stains or whatever other shimmer sprays you have.  Here's my samples.

 

 

"Disenchanted"...

 

"Fragile"... (the tape up the top and down the bottom is

gold washi tape with one of my clear

sticky words placed on it)

 

"Obedient"... (this is me being my obedient wifely self.... lol... nope!)

"Nocturnal Spirit"... (love the organic effect of the stick

and the string on this one)

 

"Eternal Dreamscape"... (the shimmery paper up the top, which

you probably can't see very well, is actually some

gift wrap that I've had for years and use little

bits of it occasionally on my atc's.  It's very shimmery

and is quite crinkly, very hard to describe.  Keep your

eyes open for good gift-wraps to use!)

 

"Mystic"...

 

Finally one more sample from the previous class, Alcohol

Acetate Smoosh.

"Flourish"...

 

More Noodle embossing to follow.....



Alcohol Acetate Smoosh

The technique for this fortnight's class is called Alcohol Acetate Smoosh.   I wanted to use alcohol inks on acetate as I know how wonderful they look when placed against a light coloured background.  Usually you would stamp an image on the un-inked side of the acetate and place the ink down against the card to protect it and the light coloured card stock would show not only the wonderful ink colours, but the stamping as well.   This technique incorporates that technique but also uses the fantastic properties of glossy card stock as it also takes alcohol ink really well!    So we've all done Tim Holtz's Distress Ink Pad smoosh technique on craft sheets but I wanted to do a similar thing but using the acetate on one side and the gloss card on the other.   This way you get two pieces of wonderfully coloured background to work with. 

 

There are several ways to treat the card and acetate once it's coloured.  The first sample below "Horticulture" is the gloss card with Red Pepper, Pitch Black and Silver Alcohol Inks, then stamped with Black Archival Ink.  You can see how wonderfully the silver actually shows up and this would have to be one of the first times when I've seen Pitch Black actually behave as a black.  Sometimes it ends up a weird dark purple colour, depending on what you are doing it on.  The sample below is the acetate piece that was smooshed against the gloss card, then the image was stamped on white card stock and the coloured acetate was layered over the top.  Wonderful!!!

 

"Horticulture"

"Rules"...

 

"Wicked Intention"... (This one has the coloured acetate layered over a stamped image that was

stamped onto a piece of book paper instead of plain card stock.)

"Black Bird"... (This is the gloss card piece of the acetate/gloss card smoosh

from above.  The moon is a small piece of acetate

that has been coloured with alcohol inks

then layered over a piece of foil tape to give it shine. 

This was layered under a hole that was punched in the atc.)

 

"Destiny"... (Alcohol Ink on acetate and then stamped onto the

un-inked side of the acetate, layered over a buff coloured

piece of card stock.)

 

"Like a Star"... (This stamp was stamped onto a piece of white card stock, then

coloured with markers and a coloured piece of acetate layered over the top.)

 

"No Fear"... (Alcohol Ink acetate layered over stamped image on white card stock).

 

 

I know people have some difficulty in working out how to attach acetate to cards.  As you can see from some of the samples above, I stitch the layers together using a sewing machine, you can also run the acetate piece through a Xyron sticker maker machine to add adhesive as it's pretty clear (you can't use JAC paper, it's too milky).  I have also used a very thin double-sided tape around the 4 edges to attach some of them and if the adhesive shows up you can also disguise this with thin German Scrap or similar (as in the sample above called "Destiny").  Of course you can also use brads or even the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher (mini stapler) but just make sure that you have no buckling in either the acetate or the card behind and they both lay nice and flat against each other.