Group of Seven - Embossing Paste Product Focus

Hi everyone.  Another month has rushed by and this month over at the Group of Seven we are looking at embossing paste and what you can do with it.  This is not something that I have used very much before but it does add an extra something to your stencilling, adding texture and with lots of different finished looks using pastes with shimmer in them, or adding glitter or embossing powder or things like fibres or micro beads, and waiting until it's dry to heat emboss the powder, or whilst wet to give a more puffed up look to it.  You can also add colour to white paste using any water based medium for endlessly different looks, mixing it in or adding it after it is dry.  For my card I chose a shimmery relief paste with a titanium coloured finish to it, and I used a Crafter's Companion heart stencil which came as part of a set of three different designs and called Love Hearts and being used for the first time.  I also incorporated a few die cuts from a Spellbinders set called Bold Blooms the rest of which I have yet to use, and ditto another Spellbinders set called Balloons and Birthday Wishes.

I cut a piece of card to fit a 6" square base card and then added the paste through the taped down stencil masking off the rest of the card.  I used a small palette knife to spread it, and it worked quite well, though I do think that I found it easier the few times I have tried this before by using an old plastic store card at a slight angle to pull the paste across. When dry I decided to add the extra hearts placed on the ends of some flower stems and balloon strings.  I cut off the branches on the flower stems to give one long stem, and they were a bit shorter, and I also used the balloon strings from the other set but as they were rather thin and seemed a bit flimsy I glued two back to back on three of them..not the easiest thing, but they look OK I think.  I also used the stencil and pencil marked around one of the larger hearts cutting two with my small decoupage scissors which I doubled up for more dimension.  I then found various little die cut hearts which I keep in a pot and used some in three different sizes and I coloured them with a couple of pink alcohol pens.  I used a lighter pink then decided to darken them a bit so added another colour over the top of each.  I then added a heart to each of the stems, and I decided at this point to add some Glossy Accents to all of them for a bit of pretty shine.  I also used some of the Glossy Accents as a glue over the right hand heart and stuck the heart stems down to it before adding the double layer pink heart over the top and used it behind each of the hearts to stick them down to the card..it is good for something like this as it sticks extremely firmly.  I didn't like the look of the stems beneath the heart so I cut them off so that they emerge from under the heart, and I also added the sentiment heat embossing with WOW Metallic Silver Embossing Powder, and added the five tiny hearts around it.  The titanium colour of the paste does look more silver in reality than it does in the photo which has given it a more beige tone for some reason, so the silver embossed sentiment does look a better match than it appears here.

I hope that if you haven't tried this you will be encouraged to give these pastes a go as they do give the card a bit of a 'wow' factor, and I think mine could have been smoother but not too bad considering I haven't done this technique much before.  I have seen some pastes used over an open embossing folder and left to dry, and I did give this a try with a normal folder using one that I got years ago and which if ruined would not be the end of the world.  This paste didn't release from the folder very well, but I may not have spread it quite thick enough I think, but I have another paste which has a thicker consistency which is a modelling paste made by DecoArt and this did work better and released well..again would have looked better if it had been applied a bit thicker, and I will perhaps give it a proper go during the month and put the card up on the GO7 post.

If you do give this a try do come and add your card to the Linky which you will find at the bottom of the post so we can all enjoy them, and you will also find some wonderful cards made with this technique there from the other ladies, and explanations of how they made them over on their own blogs.  

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I'll see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Stencil Fun Challenge - Anything Goes/Splatters.

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.

N.B.U.S. Challenge - No. 72 Where we use our Never Before Used Schtuff.
Darnell's I.D.E.A.S. - Week 4 - A = Anything Goes.
Simply Clean & Simple Challenge - March'25 Anything Goes/Shades of Green.