Heat It Up

For the past few weeks, Robin and I have been talking about trying to do some heat embossing. We bought a heat gun about a year ago and tried it soon after but the results were unfortunately disastrous. The stamping and powder application went smoothly but we had a lot of trouble with the heating process. The powder melted nicely and we saw that 'wave' of melting that we were told to look for. Unfortunately, the paper around the stamped image turned brown and the card smelled like burnt paper. After this we decided that perhaps embossing was not for us. Yet, about a week ago something changed. We were watching some card making videos online and saw someone emboss a background stamp. I watched this and was determined to try again. Robin went out a few days later and bought some embossing powder. Yet, the bad memories of our past experience kept us from trying it again. The embossing powder just sat on our kitchen table. 

This all changed last Wednesday. The special post on Operation Write Home's new blog was a tutorial about embossing- just what we needed! The timing was just too perfect. After my statistics exam Thursday morning, Robin and I decided to tackle our fears and try this once again. We cleared the table, and set up all of the materials we needed. Robin bought all types of embossing powders- some opaque and some translucent so we wanted to try each one. 

The animal stamps for this card come from the Stampin' Up 'Wild About You' stamp set. I stamped each image on colored paper using a clear Versa Mark ink pad. We liked the opaque white powder the best, so I used it for this card. After we had stamped everything, we plugged in the heat gun. To our surprise, the heating process went incredibly smoothly. The powder melted nicely and the finished images were gorgeous. 

I punched out the stamped animals using the Clever Lever circle punch. I then used the larger scalloped circle for the center image. The circles were mounted on a piece of embossed paper that we made in the Cuttlebug. I used 3D pop dots to attach the circles so that they were not flat on the card. Next, I placed a piece of pink ribbon on the bottom of the card. Finally, I stamped the sentiment from the same stamp set on navy paper. Feeling confident about the embossing process, I decided to emboss the sentiment as well. I hope you enjoy!