Shaving Cream Embossing Part 2 (with tutorial)

Last night I spent a bit more time in the stamp room experimenting with the shaving cream embossing technique and I think I figured it out. Just to be clear, this isn't embossing card stock after it has been colored with dyed shaving cream. Rather, it's a technique where the shaving cream dyed with reinkers is pressed into the crevices of an embossing folder before the folder is run through the big shot with white card stock in it. The goal is to get the color only on the parts of the card stock that are raised/embossed.

Unfortunately, I don't think this technique will ever turn out as sharp and marbled as the shaving cream stenciling technique does, but that's OK. A little imperfection is what stamping is all about. What this technique lacks in sharpness it makes up in letting you use very little shaving cream and reinker with it (a dallop of shaving cream with a drop or two will do - I explain this in the process I used with the flames folder, below) and you can also utilize this techniques with the messy shaving cream you have left over after you create some backgrounds using other shaving cream techniques (as long as you still like the colors, of course).

The background for the dreamcatcher card, above, was my 5th or 6th attempt with this technique, and it gave me a really nice clean impression. I hope it's clear from the picture that the color is only applied to the raised (embossed) portion of the card stock, leaving the rest mostly white (again, this technique will never give precise, crisp and sharp results, but this background got close).  There's not as much color variation in this background because by the time I did it the colors had pretty much all blended together, but I think it still came out nice.

The best wishes card has more color variation, but the lower left hand corner of the embossed background was quite messy, barely any white left at all. This was one of my first tries at cleaning off the excess shaving cream, and I obviously did not do a great job in that corner.

I'm including a step by step tutorial with pictures. I know the pictures aren't great, but hopefully they're good enough to give you an idea of what needs to be done.

Step1: spray shaving cream onto a plate (I used my Stampin' Up! small powder pal tray and drop in two or more colors of reinkers. I used way too many drops here of almost amethyst and soft sky. Use toothpick or another similar instrument to marble the colors together. I "muddied" mine too much, because I wanted to avoid white spots in the folder. Unfortunately, that didn't work as well as I wanted it to.

Step 2: use an old credit card, gift card or something similar to pick up the dyed shaving cream. You need something sturdy with a hard enough edge to drag along the embossing folder.

Steps 3 and 4: drag credit card along the embossing folder so that the dyed shaving cream settles in the crevices of the folder. Do this in several passed until all crevices are full of shaving cream. Make sure the shaving cream is in the parts of the folder that you want to see raised in your background. On some folders this takes a bit of consideration. Also, try to make sure the shaving cream in the crevices is dyed. White shaving cream in the crevices (like you see on the sides of the embossing folder in these pictures) means no color on the embossed design.

Step 5: wipe all dyed shaving cream off the credit card with a tissue (or rinse it off in a  sink and dry). Wrap a tissue around the once again clean and dry edge of the credit card and drag it along the embossing folder to wipe off excess shaving cream. This is to make sure the excess doesn't spill into the flat spaces as the folder is squeezed together by the Big Shot. You may need to use several tissues to complete this step, as a clean tissue edge is critical every time. It's best to hold the card almost perpendicular to the embossing folder as you do this.

Step 6: this is what your folder should look like when you're done with step 5. You can use a tissue to clear off any stray shaving cream off the edges. Place a piece of white card stock in your folder and close it, then run it thought your big shot as you normally would.

As you can see in these pictures, the almost amethyst/soft sky combination did not yield great results because despite all the mixing I still had a lot of white shaving cream on the edges of the folder. Also, the soft colors resulted in minimal contrast against the white card stock.

My next experiment involved using the three shades of green reinkers: gumball green, green galore and glorious green. My initial tries with this combination were sort of a disaster, so I won't show them here. After a while, though, the colors all bizarrely mixed together into this seafoam green color, which I actually kind of liked. I added just a drop or two of the amethyst reinker and this combination finally started yielding results I liked.

This next picture shows the folder and the after results with the background that I used on the best wishes card. Obviously it came out much better. The color variations really show in this one. And isn't this Tropical Paisley embossing folder from Sizzix fantastic? I just love it.

After I was done with the seafoam green, I experimented with yo yo yellow, only orange and real red and a Darrice flames embossing folder. You can see the results in the picture showing my other samples. for this folder I sprayed three small spots of shaving cream and added just a couple of drops of reinker to each, then mixed them to give me three solid colors. I applied the dyed shaving cream one color at a time, filling in only a portion of the folder with each color. To keep the colors from muddying too much, while applying the second and third colors I dragged the credit card away from the "border" where two colors touched instead of towards it. The colors at the border blended as I cleaned off the excess shaving cream  in step 5.

The difficulty with this flames folder was the large areas that were going to be embossed, which made it difficult to clean off the excess shaving cream without lifting it out of the crevices. The final result wasn't perfect, but I still like it and  I'm sure I'll be using it on a future card. The same is true for the other samples seen in this picture (except, of course, for the one I already used on the dreamcatcher card.)

While all the above makes sense to me, I know some of you may have questions. Feel free to leave those in the comments and I'll answer as best as I can. Thanks for reading!

Recipes (all products Stampin' Up! Unless otherwise indicated)

Dreamcather card:

Paper: whisper white, wisteria wonder, vintage violet
Ink: wisteria wonder, Color Splash Recollections Ombre Inkpad (only seafoam green color used), reinkers in green galore, gable green, glorious green and almost amethyst
Stamps: Dreamcather from Color Splash by Recollections; Feathers by Inkadinkado
Accessories: Lacy Brocade embossing folder, stampin' sponge.

Best Wishes Card:

Paper: whisper white, wisteria wonder
Ink: Color Splash Recollections Ombre Inkpad (only seafoam green color used), reinkers in green galore, gable green, glorious green and almost amethyst
Stamps: Oval All
Accessories: Tropical Paisley embossing folder by Sizzix

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hi Everyone. I know it's been forever since I posted to the blog. I am so sorry about this. Unfortunately during the past year I became swept up in my Twilight obsession, and, more to the point, my obsession with writing Twilight fan fiction. I continued to stamp, though not as frequently as I used to, and I simply ran out of time for blogging.

Now, however, I am ready to dip my toes into the blogging world again. Probably not daily, as I used to do, but you should see something new form me every couple of weeks. :-)

Just to show you that I haven't been completely slacking off, I came back with a tutorial of sorts. It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of punches and I really love the new type of punches Stampin' Up! introduced in the new Occasions mini catalog. I love the traditional way to use these punches, as is shown in this first card -- simply to make pretty corners on your main stamped surface or on a mat!

However, as I was working on Valentine's Day cards this past week, I discovered another way to use these, and I thought I would share this with you. Now, it is entirely possible that someone else out these in stamping land has already thought of this idea. If so, I apologize for thinking this was something new, but I promise I came up with it independently, since I no longer have time to read stamping blogs or other stamping sites. But if someone else did think of this first let me know via comment and I will be sure to update the post.

OK, so here goes the mini tutorial. Start with one of the new corner punches. I used the pinking hearts corner punch. Punch a corner of a scrap piece of card stock just as you normally would.

Your card stock should look like this.


















Now insert the punched card stock into the smaller photo corner of the Photo Corners punch (available in the Idea Book and Catalog) as shown in the picture and punch. (You can save the larger photo corner for another project.)

Once you punch it out, your piece should look like this. And you can use it alone as a fancy photo corner just as I did in this picture.

Or, if you prefer, you can use it with the large or small photo corners punched out of a contrasting color of card stock with the Photo Corners punch. Here you see the punched piece layered over a small photo corner.

Here you can see the punched piece layered over a large contrasting photo corner.

In this picture I trimmed off the last heart on each side of the punched piece and layered it over a large contrasting photo corner.

And here is what that trimmed piece would look like layered over a small contrasting photo corner (sorry for the blurriness of the photo)

Here I took two corners trimmed off straight and layered them onto a contrasting large photo corner.

And here I used the scrap card stock left over from punching to layer on top of the large contrasting photo corner.

If you'd like to see what the corner might look like on a card, here's one I made last week, I used the I {Love} Love jumbo wheel with versamark ink to make the background on a real red card base and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I added a strip of black card stock punched with the new pinking hearts border punch. To accent the strip I used some retired real red zigzag ribbon. for the main image I used the Like-O-Meter stamp that I colored with my real red and basic black stampin' write markers. I used the real red and pretty in pink stamping write markers to color in the "meter". I then used 2 way glue and real red fine glitter on the heard, and the versamarker and clear embossing powder over the pretty in pink part of the card. I added mats in basic black, real red and whisper white. Then, as a final touch, I added a small real red photo corner layered with the pinking heart photo corner punched out of pretty in pink card stock.

And here is another way to use the heart photo corner over a mat so just the hearts show through.

You can do the very same thing with the new Scallop trim corner punch and the photo corners punch, as shown in this picture.

Here is what the punched piece looks like layered over a contrasting small photo corner.

And here is what a punched piece looks like layered over a large contrasting photo corner.

Here is what the trimmed piece would look like layered over a large contrasting photo corner with the two end pieces trimmed off.

And the same piece layered over a small contrasting photo corner.

Here is what the remaining scrap would look like layered over a small contrasting photo corner.

And last but not least, the same leftover scrap layered over a large contrasting photo corner.

And that's basically it. I hope I managed to show you at least one new idea in all these pictures that you can use on your own cards. Happy Valentine's Day and happy stamping!

Peppermint Patty Holder Template

I received so many e-mail asking me for this peppermint patty holder box pattern and, regrettably, I wasn't able to answer individually because this week was really quite a tough week for me. I confess, now that blogger has a delayed posting feature, I tend to do a lot of stamping on the weekend and then I prepare and pre-schedule my weekly posts. So even though it looks like I spend time on-line daily, there are times when I'm just too busy.

In any case, please forgive me if it seemed like I was ignoring those of you who wrote in your requests. I wasn't! I just did not have time to send individual responses and had to wait until tonight to create and post a template.


Please keep in mind that this template is not drawn to scale, so be sure to follow the measurements. Start with a 3x7.5" piece of cards stock. Score at 0.5 and 2.5" on the short side. Score at 0.5, 2.5, 3, and 5 inches on the long side. Cut 1/2x2" panels off at one end as shown on the right side of the template. cut along the score lines where you see the dotted lines on the template. Cut the other tabs on a diagonal. Punch out your desired shape (a circle or scalloped circle works very nicely). Attach 2x2 inch piece of acetate on the inside of the lid. Decorate the outside of the box as desired. Use sticky strip or another strong adhesive on the 1/2x1/2" tabs, peel and fold to form the bottom of the box. Fold the lid over. Decorate the back as desired and decorate the contents of the box as desired.

I sure hope this template makes sense and that you'll be able to use it for Thanksgiving or any other occasion. Enjoy!

Halloween Treat holder tutorial

Tonight I was finally able to put together the tutorial I promised. I decorated the treat holder a but differently than the last one, but the "bones" are the same.

Start with a 3.5x8.5 piece of card stock (in this case, basic black) scored along the longer side at 1, 4.25 and 7.5 inches. Eventually you will fold this piece of card stock as shown in this photo.



Fold the card stock in half (along the 4.25" score line and use the 1" circle punch to punch a semi-circle along the fold.


Decorate the front of the treat holder, making sure that all the decorations are above the 1" score line. In this case I used some textured old olive card stock, a piece of Summer Picnic designer series paper, and the spider from the Batty For you set stamped in basic black ink on whisper white card stock, punched out with the 1" circle punch and distressed with the distressing tool from the cutter kit. The spiders were attached using dimensionals and I used my basic black stampin' write marker to simulate the thread outside of the whisper white circles.





I took 3 Hershey's miniatures and wrapped them up in strips of the Ghostly Greetings designer series paper before placing them in a small cello bag.

I folded the basic black card stock into a triangle, with the two 1" pieces overlapping at the bottom and adhered to each other with SNAIL. Then I fished the top of the cello bag through the 1" circle opening at the top.

I stamped the tag from the "Eat, Drink & Be Scary set (available October 1 in the Holiday mini catalog) in versamark ink on pumpkin pie card stock and heat embossed it with black embossing powder. I punched the tag out with the small tag punch, layered it over a larger tag punched from old olive textured card stock, punched a hole at the top with my 1/16" handheld punch and tied a piece of black hemp twine through the tag.


As a final touch I looped the tag through a piece of pumpkin pie narrow grosgrain ribbon, which I tied around the top of the cello bag.


This is such a cute and fun design. I can't take credit for it, though. I actually copied it right from page 86 of the Fall Winter Idea Book and catalog. I guessed on the dimensions, but I think they're fairly close. I also modified some of the details, but the basic inspiration was definitely from the catalog.

As I've said before, there are a ton of great ideas in that Idea Book. I always study each page very carefully dozens of times and take notes on particular details that catch my eye. And even with that, I still find new cool things every time I look in there. Every page is filled with inspiration!

For example, take a close look at page 86. Besides the neat treat holder, you'll also find a very cool way to use a half-pearl on a card plus, a unique way to use the ribbon slide from the hodgepodge hardware, plus a very interesting way to create a corner treatment with taffeta ribbon. And that's just what caught my eye -- you may find other neat things by closely looking at the samples on this page. So be sure to study your Idea Book and Catalog closely, and really use it as the inspiration piece it is intended to be!

Say it with scallops - larger mat tutorial

Here's another card we'll be making at this month's stamp camp on September 20. Would you believe this whole card uses only one stamp? Looks pretty good, doesn't it? It just goes to show, you don't need a lot of stamps if you have the right accessories.

On this card I started with a kiwi kiss base, then wrapped some baja breeze double stitched ribbon around the front so that the raw edges would be hidden under the front panel. I then attached a piece of the Muirfield double sided designer series paper to a piece of whisper white card stock, added a pacific point mat and attached the whole panel to my card base. Next I punched two large stars out of baja breeze and pacific point card stock and attached them to each other, offsetting the points. I punched a hole in the center through which I inserted a 3/8" star brad from the styled silver hodgepodge hardware collection, and attached the star over the front panel with a dimensional. Finally, I stamped the congrats sentiment from the Say it With Scallops set in pacific point ink on whisper white card stock and punched it out with the scalloped square punch.

I liked the card so far, but I wanted a scalloped mat for the sentiment, so I decided to make one using my scalloped square punch. And since some of you asked me how I did this back when I made this Dreams du Jour card, I decided to do a quick tutorial.

Take the card stock in the color of your desired mat. Punch on whole scalloped square and three sides measuring just 2 scallops on one side and all scallops on the other. (If you wanted a bigger mat you could have 3 or even 4 scallops per shorter side).


Attach one of the smaller sides to the full square by overlapping the last scallop on the full square with the scallops on the smaller piece, so that your composite is now 1 scallop longer than the full punched square.

Next attach the other smaller piece to the longer side of the new scalloped rectangle as shown in photo.


Finally, attach the third piece so that all the sides are now 6 scallops long, as shown in photo.
The reverse side of this "mat" will look like this photo. I prefer to attach my stamped piece to this reverse side. For some reason the "joints" between all the pieces don't seem as prominent to me on this side.

As a final step just adhere your stamped piece over your mat. From far away the joints are almost invisible, and even up close you have to be looking for them to find them. This technique is a really good way to introduce some more color to your scalloped squares, adn you could take it one step further by adding yet another bigger mat.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial!

Faux Single Layer with Masking Tutorial

I love stamping cards that look like they're multi-layer but are, in fact, just single layer cards. Most of the time this look is achieved through a multi-step masking process. Tonight I thought I'd do a tutorial to show you how I created the single layer card in this photo, which is a card I used for a single layer Convention swap earlier today.

I started with a 5.5x8.5 piece of glossy white card stock, folded in half. I stamped an image from the Frames with a Flourish set on a post it note (making sure the long part of the image was on the sticky part of the post-it) and cut the image out with my paper snips, leaving a bit of a border around the image (the border is important to help you create a faux layered look). I also took a longer post-it note (long enough to cover the entire card front) and tore the sticky part of the note. I stuck the torn off strip onto the straight side of the note. This is important too, as you'll see in the rest of the tutorial. I then stuck the trimmed out frame image in the lower right hand corner of the card and placed the post it note across the card front, approximately where I wanted a faux strip of card stock to show. I inked up my brayer in certainly celery and brayered the ink the lower portion of the card front. It may take 2-3 times of brayering ink to the same card front to achieve a nice even application.

And this is what the card front looks like after you peel off the post it masks. You've already created a faux layer, and could simply add a sentiment to the label and stop here if you wanted. But for the Convention swap I needed to take this several steps further.

I took the long post it note again and this time lined up the other long edge (the torn edge that I stuck to the straight edge) and lined it up with the edge of the certainly celery faux layer. I like to offset my post it just a slight bit to be sure that the next color will come right up to the edge of the certainly celery layer, leaving no white in between. I then inked up a clean brayer in lovely lilac ink and brayered it onto the top of the card front.

This is what the card looked like after I brayered on the lovely lilac. The faux torn edge really helps with the illusion that these are two separate layers of colored card stock. Again, I could stop here, but I wanted a little more detail.

I brought back my mask and masked off the certainly celery part of the card front again, inked up my Floral background stamp with elegant eggplant ink, and stamped it over the lovely lilac part of the card front. Here's what the card looked like after I stamped the Floral background stamp.

As a final touch I used my Stamp-A- ma-jig to line up my Frames with a Flourish image, which I stamped over the white label area with elegant eggplant ink.




Then I used my stamp-a-ma-jig again to lineup the sentiment from Sincere Salutations in the frame and stamped that in Elegant Eggplant ink.

And there you have it, three faux layers (certainly celery, floral and white) on a single layer card. Pretty neat, huh? If you don't have a brayer at home, you can achieve a similar result by using a stamping sponge or a sponge dauber to apply the color to the glossy or non-glossy card stock. You can also use a sponge dauber or a cotton ball to apply stampin' pastels to non-glossy card stock to create a similar look.
So what do you think? Are you ready to create layers with a mask and a brayer?