Foiling with glue pen

Hello there,

My latest obsession is foiling. I was introduced to it a while back and was experimenting, but wasn't very successful :-(. I kept looking for ways to add foil accents to cards and tags but I don't have a foiling machine.
Then I found a technique that totally works for me! I use a two way glue pen. This means that the glue stays tacky after it dries. This way you can add foil to anything you want!

All you need is a two way glue pen and some transfer foil. I always cut my foil in pieces to size, I find it easier to work with and I waste less of it. 

I just "write" where I want my foil. Here you see the wet glue. It dries clear and tacky. 

You see the shiny glue. It is dry and ready to foil. Make sure the glue is completely dry. I always use my heat tool to dry it. Make sure you don't overheat it, because it will bubble. 

Just place the piece of foil with the coloured side up on the glue and start rubbing. I just use my fingers, the cheapest tools I have ;-)

Tadaaaaa. That is it! Isn't it super easy? You can add foil accents to any card or project this way. 

Here you see that the foil only transfers where the glue is. The rest stays in tact. I use these "leftovers" for other projects. If I need some red for tiny holly berries or things like that, this will be perfect!

Here I covered the whole text with various colours. Just add a mat and a card blank and you are done :-)

And there you have a finished christmas card. For international mail I prefer this type of cards as the chance of it not arriving is smaller. Somehow cards with embellishments and such seem to disappear more often... :-(

I hope you have a great day and take care,
Keep your craft on :-)

Freddie
xox

Background stamp and embossing folder

Welcome to my blog,

In this post I want to share how you can use background stamps with matching embossing folders. There are so many techniques, I just want to share one of mine. This is a twist on a technique that Tim Holtz shared on his blog years ago. 

Here you can find his original post.

This is the original tag made by Tim. He uses a custom made stamp pad to stamp this. I am going to show a way that is kind of cheating a little. 

Here we go:

I went for the christmas theme as I am making christmas cards at the moment. Tim has several background stamp and embossing folder combos. These make great vintage looking cards 

This technique works best when you use a stamping tool, as we need to stamp the stamp several times in the same position. To make sure my paper stays in place, I always have a piece of Sizzix Sticky Grid on my platform. It is like double sided Post It. A must have for your craft room!!

This way I can stick my card away from the edge as I want a nice print all over my card. 

My trick is... Distress Markers! Instead of creating a giant stamp pad, I colour the stamp in various colours and stamp!

I colour the desired part of the stamp with my marker. Here you see I coloured the numbers with fosselized amber distress marker. Before I stamp, I breathe a few times on my stamp to moisten the ink. And yes I have accidentally touched my stamp with my lips and had distress lipstick that way lol. Just add new colour and huff and stamp. This is why it really only works with a stamping platform.

Here you see that I already stamped with barn door and fosselized amber. You do this with all the different colours. 

Here you see the finished stamped background. Now we need to vintage this up ;-)

I always use frayed burlap distress ink to give my cards a vintage feel. There is something about that colour that makes everything look warmer.

The next step is embossing the card to give it some dimension and interested. You line up the words with the embossing folder and run it through your machine. 

Don't be shocked when you find out that the top is perfectly lined up, and the bottom is totally offset... this is normal and has a logical explanation... the top runs through the machine first and pulls up the paper a bit when embossing. You just have to embrace that imperfection ;-)

This is the bottom of the card and you see the text is not aligned with the folder anymore. The only way to kind of prevent that is to wet the paper before embossing, but that would make your ink run. I don't mind this offset look, it all adds to the vintage feel in my eyes :-)

To complete the look I ink the edges with walnut stain distress ink. Mind you, no craft item leaves my desk without walnut stain ink hahaha.

These are my tag and cards that I made using this technique. The middle one has some foil on it. I will do a tutorial on that technique tomorrow ;-)

Thanks for stepping by and taking the time to read through my post.

Have a wonderful day, take care and...

Keep your craft on!

Freddie

xox