Impressive Heat Embossing Techniques - AECP Journey

Welcome back crafty friends! Well I have finally gotten myself going again on my AECP (Altenew Educator Certification Program) journey and started my level 2 courses. Tbh.....I really should have started these alot sooner than now as I have taken WAY too long of a break but hey, better late than never. And let me tell you...I am so ready to dive right back in and make my way to becoming a certified instructor! Let's get to it!

For the first class of level 2, I decided to begin with the Impressive Heat Embossing Techniques, but it is actually a combination of another class from level 1 - Let It Shine....because you can never have enough sparkle or shine. For my card there are 2 bits of heat embossing...I used the watermark/embossing ink pad that you normally do for one of them and the other I decided to add a twist. One of the techniques that Svetlana Marchenko demonstrated in the course was heat embossing with a stencil and since I had never done heat embossing this way before, I wanted to try this. However I didn't do it the traditional way using the usual sticky embossing ink pad that you would normally use, but rather texture paste that is traditionally used with a stencil. I had seen a video some time ago where someone had used embossing paste with embossing powders, so that is what I wanted to try, but since I don't have embossing paste I used texture paste that is normally used for stencils.

So to begin I placed my Flowing Drops stencil over a piece of black glitter cardstock and added my texture paste using a metal spatula knife. I didn't want the application of the paste to be perfect so I made sure not to have a full and even coverage of it. I am really partial to the imperfect look of texture paste with stencils...something about the imperfectly perfect. Once I was happy with the application, I removed my stencil and promptly added my embossing powder before it started to harden and then took my heat gun to it and started to heat the powder (I made sure to heat up my heat gun for approx. 1 minute before I took it to my paper). The embossing powder did a bit longer to melt than it usually would as there is the texture paste under it, but when it started to melt it bubbled up in some spots, which gave it a rather cool texture to it that I really liked.

For the sentiment I diecut the Fancy Thanks using black cardstock 4x to give it some dimension. I wanted to add a bit of gold foil to it so I used my Decofoil adhesive glue pen and just added some adhesive to the bottom half of the word thanks and added the foil right away as the adhesive dries fairly quickly, using my bone folder to get a nice and even pressure and to ensure that the foil adhered well. Tip - make sure to hold on to all of your bits of used foil so you can use them for small things like this...no need to use a new full sheet for this. I have an envelope that I keep all my bits and ends from previously foiled projects for exactly this reason. I really love the kind of distressed look of it and that it is not perfectly covered with foil. For the second part of the sentiment I heat embossed the You Are Awesome from the Painted Butterflies stamp set using the same gold embossing powder. I made sure to use my anti-static powder first, especially seeing as I was using black cardstock.

To assemble my card, I trimmed down my embossed black glitter piece to 3.75 x 5" and my smaller embossed sentiment and added a small piece of gold mirror to the bottom of that smaller piece. I then adhered all of my diecut Thanks together and added that over top of a piece of vellum that I eyeballed to cut it down. I glued the Thanks first to the vellum so that I could also add a bit of glue behind the vellum exactly where the diecut is to hide the adhesive, as on vellum you would see the glue behind it. I wrapped the sides of the vellum around the panel and then added the gold mirror piece to the side. I added a few foam squares to the smaller sentiment and placed it just underneath the thanks (yes it does cover up the little swirl on the bottom of the k but it looked best there) and then added it all to my black top folding cardbase. To finish it I added a few gold sequins, because it needed just a touch more shine to it and I think they finish it off perfectly.

I absolutely love how this turned out on the black glitter cardstock with the gold heat embossing! It is quite elegant with the gold and black! This is definitely a technique I will be trying again and maybe, just maybe I'll use the proper ink next time lol. I am most definitely going to go back and do the rest of the techniques covered in this class too! And Svetlana was a very thorough and wonderful teacher! It was a pleasure to have her as the teacher.

I'd love to hear what you think down below....have you ever tried heat embossing using texture paste before? Thank you all so very much for stopping by and spending a bit of your day with me. I hope you all have the most wonderful day and find some time to get crafty.

Until next time,

Michelle 💗

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