Heat Embossing with Visible Image Unicorn stamp

Hi!

Yes, I know, I haven't been blogging the in the last month or so! Little secret, it was my 40th last month and we had lots of things planned (I got a surprise trip to Milan and bought.... nothing for myself!!) Plus lots of other 'real-life' things got in the way, but I am back, and I have been crafting, just not posting, so I might do a few catch up posts to show what I have been up to... However this is what I made today! 


Unicorn encouragement cards
I like to make some generic cards, that you could use for all occasions. I'd say these are encouragement cards that you could send to someone about to takes exams, or for anyone who might just need a little boost. Kindness seems to get a little lost in our world sometimes, and I know this would brighten my day if it landed on the door mat amongst all the bills and junk mail!

I used a stamp set that has, shamefully, been sitting in my stash for a while un-used (but not un-loved!) from Visible Image, who are a UK stamp company who make stamps that are a little bit different from the more traditional, cute and floral you get on a lot of stamps.

Visible Image, Believe in Unicorns

I only used three of the stamps, not the clouds and the star images because the paper I found already had stars and cloud type images on it. I was in fact inspired by a 6x6 paper pad I came across while in The Range last week to dig these stamps out of my stash and finally use them! 

New favourite paper pad!

The pad is from Craft Sensations and is called 'dreamy feelings'. Half the sheets have these beautiful galaxy style backgrounds and the other half have watercolour style patterns and only one sheet with flowers. Both things that are 'bang on trend' (trust me, my 12 year old endorsed the galaxy papers!)

These were such simple makes because the paper was so perfect I didn't need to do much, and I decided to leave the cards as flat, single-layered cards so you could frame them if you wanted to.

First I set up my stamps in my MISTI stamping tool, any stamping tool, or none would work, I only used it as I decided to make 5 cards at once, with each different sheet of paper.


Then dusted my papers with an antistatic powder to make sure I didn't get any powder sticking where I didn't want it, and stamped the images onto each paper with VersaMark (a clear sticky ink.) Then I added Heat It Up! Silver Pearl embossing powder.
This is with just the embossing powder added, before melting it.
Then I heat embossed each panel, from behind the paper with my heat gun. I did try embossing from the front with the paper held onto a piece of board. I thought this might help the paper to not warp so much, as it is quite thin paper, but I wasn't happy with how smooth the embossing turned out, so I went back to embossing from behind and actually stamped over and added a second layer of powder on the one I had done from the front. You might be able to see the difference in these pictures.

This was embossed from the front of the paper, but it looks quite grainy and not very smooth.

In this image I had embossed from behind.
Much smoother this time, and it didn't warp much more than when I had kept it flat on a board.
So today's tip is definitely to heat emboss from behind rather than putting your heat gun on the front of your image.

Finally all I had to do was trim my panels down slightly, which I did with a Tonic Layering die as I struggle to get things square with a trimmer (I think it's me, not the trimmers!), and then stick them to the front of some 6x6 card blanks. I left the inside blank to make them suitable for any occasion.

You can see the warped paper a little at the bottom of this card, but it has smoothed out now it has been stuck down!
Aren't those papers gorgeous?

Hope you like them and that you will pop by again soon.

Lesley x


Supplies:

Stamps
Visible Image Believe in Unicorns

Dies
Tonic square layering die

White card blanks (6x6)
Craft Sensations dreamy feelings 6x6 paper pad
VersaMark watermark stamp pad
Heat It Up! Silver Pearl embossing powder

Tools
My Sweet Petunia MISTI stamping tool
Sizzix Bigshot die cutting machine
Heat It Up! embossing heat gun
Antistatic powder

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