Metal Deck Ornament

I've had this metal deck ornament/mobile for years. I liked it a lot when I bought it, but it probably should have been thrown out years ago because the paint was so worn and faded:

 

I'm so glad I didn't throw it out! A month or so ago I went to an all-day class with Ranger designer Wendy Vecchi. One of the things I learned is that her archival ink coupled with her embossing powders work on metal. You can change the color of anything metal--permanently!

 

First I cleaned the pieces up. Here's what they looked like--pretty bad:

 

 Next apply the archival ink.  I used Buttercup for the sun and star and Cornflower Blue for the crescent moon.

 

After the whole piece is inked (you might not be able to see the color--especially a light color like I used), apply the embossing powder. I didn't take a picture of this step, but it's just like embossing on paper. Apply a generous amount of embossing powder on the wet ink. Use a piece of clean paper underneath your project so you can keep and reuse the powder that doesn't stick.

 

Then melt the embossing powder with a heat gun (not a hair dryer!). You might have to do these steps more than once. You can see a few areas I had to do a second time.  Also, be careful when heating the metal--it gets HOT in your hand!

 

Here's a side-by side look at the difference (courtesy of my phone's photo collage app): 

 

And a picture of all the pieces completed. It's quite a difference!

It's hard to see except on the moon, but I also added some highlights on each piece with Ranger's gold embossing paste. I just applied it with my finger and gave it another shot with the heat gun to set it.

 

And one last shot of the ornament re-hung on the deck after being spray sealed for outdoor use. Much better, right?

 

Nothing metal inside or outside my house is safe! I'm going to be re-coloring everything metal. 

 

Holiday Wishes Embossed Cards

CTMH's "Holiday Wishes" is a beautiful stamp set.  I thought this set screamed to be embossed, so I dug out the silver embossing powder and the heat tool, and came up with this elegant card.  I used a white card, Slate cs mat, and embossed on Outdoor Denim cs.  I also used Outdoor Denim ink around the edges to give it a little depth.  I'm a novice embosser, so I usually do at least two at a time when I have all the gear out, and here's the card I made with the second image:

I used my Cuttlebug to dry emboss snowflakes into the Slate cs background.  The sentiment is also from the "Holiday Wishes" stamp set.  It's not showing up on the picture, but the snowflake is covered in Stardust Glitz. 

Embossing on Clear Cards

Here are a couple clear cards (which photographed incredibly poorly).  On both cards I ran just the front of the card through my Cuttlebug with an embossing folder to give a windy effect.

I used B&T paper from the CTMH Oliva paper pack.  The front stamped scene is from CTMH's Captured Moments stamp set. 

On the inside I punched a circle and stamped a few bats and Happy Halloween.  The bottom of the paper is punched with  Martha Stewart Halloween punch.  Everything is distressed with cocoa ink.

This card photographed even worse, but you can get the idea.  Again, I used Olivia papers, and along the bottom I used one of the scenes from the CTMH Captured Moments stamp set, this time the autumn, blowing leaves scene.  The leaves are all from the Timeless stamp set included in the Olivia Workshop on the Go.

The inside of the front of this card has leaves to hide the backs of some of the leaves peeking through from the front.

Monochromatic Wedding Card

The only stamp set I used was For Every Occasion for "love," which I stamped with vanilla cream, then embossed with translucent embossing powder.

Mother's Day

A little out-of-date, but here's the Mother's Day card I made. The colors are crystal blue and sweet leaf. The flower and words were stamped in color then embossed with clear embossing powder.