Emerald creek embossing powders

I know it has been a while, but I wanted to share a few projects I made with some heat embossed accents, made with the incredible embossing enamels by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. I have a vast collection of powders, from Tim Holtz' distress powders to Lindy's stamp gang iridescent powders, but the effects from the Emerald Creek ones just are like no other!

On this card I not only used the charred gold embossing powder on the corners and to age the double heart charm, but I also used a stamp by Emerald Creek. It is of a single rose and a rosebud. I added a second rose to give it more dimension. Oh who am I kidding ... I dropped the sentiment stamp on the card when I wanted to stamp it.... as seen below... and I managed to salvage the card by adding the second rose.

Initially I wanted to stamp the sentiment in the upper right corner. My hands were cold and I lost grip on my block and boom..... a bright blue print where it was not intended.... In hindsight I like the one with two roses better! I guess the proverbial "Everything happens for a reason" applies here. 

The double heart charm that hangs from the bow is also from Emerald Creek. I dipped it in embossing ink and then in the jar of charred gold embossing powder. It gives and awesome antique look!

I was playing with embossing paste and distress crayons. Sometimes you need to experiment to see what happens. After the embossing paste dried, I smeared distress crayons mixed with water all over the tag. I love the soft colours it creates. I wanted the butterfly to pop, so I heat embossed it with Northern Lights embossing powder by Emerald Creek. It is a gorgeous mix of blue, green, yellow and more, with a metallic sheen. I think it is sooooo pretty!

Again a tag with embossing paste and distress crayons. This time I smeared the crayons directly over the dried up paste and tag and spread it aroubd with my fingers. It created a much deeper colour. I wondered what would happen if I sprayed over it with distress stain....OMG I am so glad I took that risk! I looooooove how the brushed corduroy (my absolute favourite distress stain) made this tag look totally different. 

The die cut word is heatembossed with Soft fallen Snow embossing powder. It is a white with a teeny tiny metallic blue glitter. And when you heat set it, it pufs up a tiny bit. Such a nice contrast to the bold and dark background.  

And that is it for now. I will be back very soon, with more heat embossed goodness.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and I hope to see you again.

Take care and keep your craft on!

Freddie

xxx

Perfect pearls tutorial

Wow.... this has been an exciting couple of days. Not only did I win a mixed media challenge, but Ranger Ink has been reposting my Instagram post, of a work in progress with perfect pearls. On their post on facebook quite a few ladies asked for a tutorial.....so here it goes!

This is the unfinished tag in question, as I only have this pic and the one of the finished tag, I decided to do the whole process again with another tag, and make sure to take pics at every step.

This is the finished shell tag. I love this stamp by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. The little semi precious stones are from the Quarry range, also by Emerald Creek. 

This is how I made a similar tag:

You need a stamp, your surface, I prefer tags, some colors of Perfect Pearls, Perfect Medium, a fine brush and a broader brush, a spray bottle of water and I finish off with hair spray. Just to make sure nothing rubbs off when I send it in the mail.

I stamped my image with Perfect Medium. No need to use black Perfect Medium as your surface is already black. I do use black Medium when stamping on lighter surfaces, that way the Perfect Pearls shine even more. 

Then I color the image with different colors. I leave the excess powder there, as when you brush it away at this stage, you brush it only areas you want to give another color. And once the powder is stuck.... it is stuck!

All colors are done, the whole image is colored. Now the real magic will happen......brushing away the exces powder, to reveal the crisp image.....

Tadaaaaaa. It is fine as it is, but ever since the release of the distress oxides, I have been quite obessed with them. And their chalky finish, once oxidised, makes the pearlescence of the perfect pearls pop even more. So this is what I did......

I surrounded it with broken china Oxide. I left a bit of a black border around the image, just so it stands out even more.

This is the finished tag. I did not add any embellishments at this stage, as I might want to add a banner with a sentiment at some point. Not sure yet.

Thank you so much for your visit and have a wonderful day :-)

Keep your craft on and take care.

Freddie

xxx

Gone fishin'

Today I want to share something completely different than my "regular" work. I like to push my creative boundaries every now and again. And today I decided to create a scene with stamps. I am a big fan of outdoor programmes on tv, about Alaska and Canada, and my dad is a hobby fisherman, so I wanted to create a fishing scene to give to him for Fathers Day. I thought I would practice a few first though.

All the stamps I used are by and from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies.
I am rather new to stamping scapes and watercolouring, but I quite like how this turned out. I love colouring with my waterbrush and distress inks and markers. It make it so easy.....well a lot easier hahaha.

These are the supplies I used.

And this is the end result. Not sure if I am going to make it into a card, or frame it and give it like a little painting...

Thank you for stepping by.

Take care and keep your craft on :-)

Freddie

xxx

Rocking the red

February is the month of luuuuurve. So a lot of challenges are about hearts or red. As I was asked to participate in two mixed media challenges, one for red, the Emerald Creek Dare and one for hearts and wings, I decided to combine the two.

I took a mixed media tag from Ranger and inked it with fired brick distress ink. I then too the flourish stencil from Tim Holtz and inked again with fired brick. I wanted the heart to be on top so I inked through that stencil with fired brick distress Oxide.... Oh how I love the oxides!! I stamped the background and the sentiment with the oxide also. It stamps amazing!

With an embossing pen I traced the left side of the stenciled hearts and heat embossed that with Chinese New Year embossing powder by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. It is a gorgeous deep red with a gold glitter in it.

I assembled various embellishments and painted them with a few different browns, greens and turquoise to age it all. On the heart I glued a "diamond" in the hole and colored the centre of the heart with red pepper alcohol ink. And also glued a bigger "diamond" in there. I cut a little stitched banner from some manila card with a Simonsaysstamp die and ibked it and put a remnant rub on it. Some rings make it possible to hang it from the arrow.

I glued it all to the tag and coloured the crinkle ribbon with fired brick distress ink and made my fluffy bow to finish it all off.

Thank you for stepping by.
Keep your craft on :-)

Freddie
xxx

Distress stain dabber splatter

A while back I made a christmas card with this technique, and quite a few people asked for a turorial. So here the step by step on how to make cards and tags with this technique.

This is the christmas card in question. It makes very colorful and fun cards and is incredibly easy.

For this tutorial I used a mixed media tag and I selected a few colours of distress stains to start with.

All I did was splat the stain, with a little bit of force, on the tag. Some create bigger splats than others. Sometimes a drop of one colour will land in the other. Of you don't want these to mix, heat set the individual colours in between splats.

I finished my splats and stamped a sentiment over it after the splatters were dry. I stained a piece of crinkle ribbon with distress stain, and will thread that through the hole of the tag.

I inked the edges with a tiny bit of walnut stain distress ink to give it a bit of depth and as a finishing touch I added the fluffy bow.

The stamp set is by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies . For more inspiration look on blog.emeraldcreek.org.

Thank you so much for taking time to have a peek. 

Take care and keep your craft on :-)

Freddie

xxx

Valentine's Day tag

I made this tag with the heart stencil by Tim Holtz and various embossing enamels by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. The top rows are Oh Canada red, the second red is Sweet Valentine embossing powder and the last red I used is Chinese New Year. I love the variety of reds.
I was inspired by the Emerald Creek Dare blog.
I didn't want to cover the background too much with any embellishments, so I kept it simple. Just a few tickets and some roses I made from paper clay.

Thank you for stepping by :-)

Freddie
xxx

Ombre cards

The other day Jennifer McGuire shared a video tutorial on how to make easy but very pretty ombre cards with white heatembossed images and distress inks.

To watch the video click here.

These are the cards I made with that technique...

Thank you for taking the time to stop by. 

Take xare and keep your craft on :-)

Freddie

xxx

A dirty mind...

A naughty birthday tag for a man with a dirty mind hahaha.

Image coloured with spun sugar, festive berries, gathered twigs and faded jeans distress markers, ribbon stained with faded jeans distress stain, edge inked with vintage photo distress ink and splattered with festive berries, fosselised amber and forest moss. Shadow around image is pumice stone distress ink painted with a waterbrush...

Thanks for stepping by :-)

Take care and keep your craft on!

Freddie
xxx

Altered wooden block

My husband brought home a load of wooden blocks of various sizes a while back. We heat the house mainly with a wood burner, so they were initially for that purpose.

But some of them just whispered to me, they need to be altered :-)

So I started with one, got inspired, and will make more.

 I covered the block with patterned paper by Tim Holtz. The person I made this for is into movies, shows and theatre, so I made a block representing all that. I added some washi tape to create layers and die cut the letters from card board. I heat embossed them with hammered metal embossing powder by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. I loooove their specialty powders.

I added a little piece of the film strip also from Tim Holtz and stamped various tickets and either cut them to size or stamped them on ticket strip die cuts.

Here you see some of the tickets I stamped on the ticket strip die cuts, the Paris ticket is a vintage one I was given by a friend. It just needed to be added.

I coloured the tickets with distress inks and distressed them.

More ticket stubs on top of the block. The recipient of the name block, as I decided to call it, is a ticket collector so this is right up her alley.

I quite enjoyed making thise! I am planning to start a junk journal and will.make some to put in there :-)

Last but not least the final side of the block. Stay tuned for other versions ;-)

Keep your craft on and take care.

Freddie

xxx

Sympathy card

Always sad to make a sympathy card... I clear embossed the flourish on white linen cardstock and inked over it with blending tool and Hickory Smoke distress ink. Stamped sentiment in black archival ink and mounted on a very dark blue card blank.

Thank you for stepping by and have a wonderful day.

Freddie
xxx

Yes they keep coming...christmas cards...

A few more posts with christmas cards and then we move on to other things ;-)

A poinsettia card with a dutch christmas song. The poinsettias were cut from mulberry paper with the Tim Holtz tattered poinsettia die and embossed with the coordinating texture fade.

Don't you just love the Dapper die? I cut it out of green card and I stuck a plaid background I made behind it. I wanted to make it a bit more festive so I stamped, coloured and cut the Santa hat from the Crazy accessories by Tim Holtz and added it to the card. The stamps are heatembossed in silver.

This card ended up completely different than I had planned. I stamped the card with platinum stazon ink, the first time I used my new striped background stamp by Tim Holtz. I loved the result so much, that I did not want to cover it up with embellishmemts. So all I did was stamp and heatemboss the wreath and add some stickles to the edge of the topper. That was it.

These tags were all made the same. I stamped images with perfect medium and dustred over them with various colours of perfect pearls. I dragged stickled along the edges to crate a sort of frame.

There will be more posts to show you the rest of my christmas cards and tags... I didn't want this post to be a mile long hahaha.

Thank you for stepping by.

Take care and keep your craft on!

Freddie

Xxx

The christmas cards keep coming...

Another post filled with christmas cards and tags....

If you want details of how I made a card, just let me know in the comments and I might do a tutorial :-)

Thank you for taking the time to stop by. 

Have a wonderful day and keep your craft on!

Freddie

Xxx