Can You Feel The Sun? Emboss Resist Distress Ink Tutorial

Greetings fellow Oddies!!  So excited to be here with you on this fabulous FUN weekend!!  Today I have a tutorial for you showing you how to create a beautiful background to any creation!  I'm using the GORGEOUS soon to be released Sunny Mae clear acrylic stamp set.  I've also used fun elements from the upcoming Under The Sea Mae and Beach Kids - Tobie and Tia sets!  Oh they are all just SUPER fabulous, fun and full of amazing images and sentiments. 

Today I am going to show you how I created a fun embossed resist background using white craft ink, white embossing powder and Distress Inks.  Now I must admit, for the longest time I shied away from fun and funky techniques like this as I didn't quite know how to do them or even what they really meant.  So for this technique, I will give you a very basic explanation so that it makes sense for everyone.  Let's break it down.

 

Embossing is a technique that can be done in many ways.  It can be done with what is called dry embossing and it can be done with heat called heat embossing.  The technique I am demonstrating today is called embossed heat resist which is done with a heat tool or gun along with ink or paint or other viscous medium.  The embossing causes whatever image you choose to be raised or popped up slightly from the paper and the resist part comes into play when you rub ink/paint etc. over that raised image and it 'resists' whatever medium you've applied over it.

To start out here are the basic supplies you will need:

• Stamps
• White Craft Ink or Versamark Ink
• White embossing powder
  
• Dryer sheet
• Water color paper
• Distress Inks
• Pearlized water or regular water in a mister bottle
• Heat gun
  

I use this water color paper as I find the quality to be absolutely amazing.

*Note - you do not have to use watercolor paper if you are going to simply emboss.  I am using watercolor paper because we will be adding ink and water to this project.

I then went through my Distress Inks and pulled out some colors that I might like to use. 
The next step is to lightly rub your dryer sheet over the watercolor paper.  I do this whenever I heat emboss as it helps minimize any static cling that might occur causing your embossing powder to stick in places other than your stamped areas.  I find this to be especially helpful when using black embossing powder. 

The next step is to choose the elements for your background.  I used the small accent stamps from the three sets listed above in addition to one sentiment stamp from the Sunny Mae set.  I absolutely LOVE my Fiskars Stamp Press and I have one in both small and large sizes.  As you can see, I fiddled with the stamps until I had them just where I wanted them.
I always work on my Scor-Mat which is attached to my Scor-Pal as it really allows for a nice spongy surface with just the right amount of 'give' when you are stamping with acrylic.  I then generously applied my white craft ink.
I try to work relatively fast when heat embossing so that my ink doesn't dry before I get my embossing powder sprinkled on.

I will stamp once, coat with embossing powder and then stamp again as I found that waiting the few minutes in between can cause too much drying to happen and then the powder won't stick. 
I then zapped it with my heat gun until it was shiny and dry.
Once it was all dry, I took out my ink blending tools and started at the bottom with Peacock Distress Ink and worked my way up to the top where I ended with Rusty Hinge.  I have a different blending pad for each color so I simply switched out each time I used a different color.  I work in circles lightly picking up color from the pad and working it across the paper. 

Once I had the desired colors I sprayed the entire panel about 5 times with my pearlized water.  Pearlized water is regular water in a mini mister bottle with a scoop or two of Perfect Pearls powder.  If you don't have the powder, no worries.  Distress Inks work and blend wonderfully with water so spritzing with plain water will give you the super fabulous watercolor effect without the shine that the Pearls powder lends. 
I am impatient, so I use my heat tool to dry the entire panel.  You can simply let it air dry if you'd like.  Once dry, I take a baby wipe (a damp paper towel would work as well) and gently rub the embossed areas to remove any excess ink that may have rubbed off onto those areas - it's usually very little but you want to make sure that those images really shine through!  And there you have your brilliant summery background!

Here is my finished product:
Thanks SO much for being here with me today!!  If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!  Just leave them in the comments section with a way to get in touch with you and I will get back to you!!

Crafty Hugs!
Meredith