Shelly's Secret Technique!

Last weekend at Wingdoodle, SheRee, Chris, Shelly & Adele worked on a few techniques.

One of my favorites was the stamping & embossing technique using Ranger alcohol inks and seafoam embossing powder!

On Sunday, I stopped bye and Shelly showed me a sample and offered to let me play at the demo table. How could I resist! And, she showed me a secret technique that I will pass along to you.

Here are 2 cards I made using alcohol inks & seafoam embossing powder. I used the same products on both, but came up with different results.... The key was timing....

First off, I took a small piece of paper and used that as my background.

I embossed my image using SEAFOAM white embossing powder. SheRee found that ONLY the seafoam white is effective using this technique. I let the image dry, or rather cool to room temp and then continued with the next step.
Using whatever alcohol inks inks, I chose, I dripped them onto the felt square and attached it to the "Alcohol Ink Applicator". You could use a make up sponge as well or even a piece of felt & a pair of plastic gloves.
I "smooshed" the felt around on the paper, so that the ink colors blended. I let it dry.

You could either dab it up and down - SheRee's preferred method or you could "smoosh" it - Shelly's method. I did a combination of both!

Because I used alcohol inks, they dried very quickly. I took a paper towel and smoothed over my image just to clean it up slightly. Now, you could add another layer of alcohol ink color over your image.

Now, for Shelly's BIG SECRET....

Sandpaper! I took some sandpaper and gently buffed over my image. It softened the edges up a bit and I like the weathered look for this technique.

Now, in my sample below, I did everything as stated above and came out with the image on the left. The image on the right was created with only one variation....

I embossed the image on the right AFTER I made the alcohol background. The card on the left was done with the embossed image before the alcohol inks.

It gives a totally different effect!

The card on the left gives more of a shadow or "ghost" image, whereas the card on the right shows more contrast.....

Hmmmm, the possibilities of endless!

Thanks Shelly & SheRee!