A warm welcome to all my visitors,

Thank you for taking the time to come and look at my blog, I really do appreciate it. I would love you to leave me a comment, even if it’s just to say Hi. It means I can come visit you!

All my designs are original, so copyrighted to me. If I have been inspired by someone elses work, I have named them in the post, and where able, I have provided a link.

Please feel free to use my designs for inspiration, I just ask you to credit me, and provide a link back to my blog.

Thanks, Shaz XX

Saturday 24 September 2011

Triple Embossed Fake Glass Hearts

The triple embossed hearts I have used lately have been very popular, so I thought I would show you how I made them. By the way, I called this post FAKE glass hearts deliberately- I really hate the word 'faux'! I'm a 'call a spade a spade' type of person!
You will need:
 Heat Gun
UTEE, or clear embossing powder
A coloured Embossing powder
Your choice of inkpad
An embossing pad, or Versamark pad
Texture stamp
Pigment ink, or Staz-on
 Card, or chipboard

Firstly, I cut a number of heart shapes. I still have my old Red Sizzix, and a Hearts die, which has 4 different sized hearts on it.They are cut from any reasonably thick card- the back of notepads is perfect, as is mountboard. I got hold of some old 'sale' cards from a store near me- the sort of thing they stand by sale items. The back of them is white, as you can see. The thicker the card the better, as there is a tendency for thinner card to warp, but you could stick two or three pieces of thinner card together, or have something handy to help flatten them when you have finished. Equally, you could get some interesting dimensional effects from not flattening. I am thinking this could produce some great flowers & leaves.

Next choose your inkpads. You want a base colour, in this case I am using Distress Chipped Sapphire. The black Adirondack will be for another set I want for a mans card. If you are going to stamp into your Triple Embossing, you also want either a Staz-on ink, or a Pigment ink. I have Encore Silver here. I also have a clear embossing pad (you can also use Versamark). This is useful if your embossing goes too hard for each layer to stick to- just pat over with the Embossing ink, and carry on.

 

 Next find a stamp to stamp into the top layer with. Any swirl/flourish/text stamp is perfect.



Finally, you need your embossing powders. UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) is the ideal choice, however you can still do this using ordinary embossing powder, you will just need more layers, and to be careful with the heating process as the finer grained powder will have a tendency to blow away. To avoid this, start heating from further away and bring your heat gun closer as you see the powder begin to melt.I first started off using ordinary powder, but loved what you could create with this technique, so I bought UTEE, and I got mine from ebay, which came in a plastic bag, and was MUCH cheaper than buying a branded name.Then you need a colour, and on this I have used Heat It Up's 'Blue Glass'.

First off, colour your heart with your chosen inkpad. You don't have to be too fussy getting a  smooth coat- you can see on mine the lines where I swiped the pad over the heart- it won't show later. I've coloured two hearts here, but only try to emboss one at a time, you can start the other one after by dabbing it with the clear pad.If you are going to use a pigment ink to stamp your texture with, ink up your stamp now- the pigment ink will stay wet for a very long time, more than long enough to complete this. If you are using Staz-on, you will have to wait until you are ready to sprinkle the last layer on. In that case, sprinkle on your last layer of EP or UTEE whilst the heart is still wet, tip off the excess, then ink up your stamp before you begin heating.
If your heart cools too much for the EP or UTEE to stick to it  for any reason, you have a couple of ways to put things right. Either re-heat the heart until the layers soften, or dab over it with the embossing pad and then continue.

 WORDS OF WARNING:  Embossing powder, especially UTEE, gets EXTREMELY HOT- don't get it on your fingers (Yes, I learnt the hard way, lol). Now I have two pieces of paper, one I tip the powder onto the piece on, then lift the piece with my scalpel and slip it onto the other piece to heat. Tip your excess powder back into its tub,then you have two empty sheets again to continue the process.

Now sprinkle on your first layer of UTEE, the ink should be plenty wet enough to hold the powder.

Tip on plenty of powder to make sure its all coated, then tip off the excess.




Now heat the powder/UTEE until it melts- it will look a bit uneven on this first coat, as you can see here.


    Repeat this process three of four times if you are using UTEE. If you are using normal fine embossing powder, you may need 8 or 10 layers- just stop when it looks thick enough.






When you have completed your clear layers, you are ready to add the last, coloured layer.Sprinkle your coloured powder into the still melted UTEE, and carefully tip away the excess powder.  Heat with your heat gun.



Your heart should look like this. If you are going to stamp a texture into it, you need to do this whilst the UTEE is still molten. Just press your stamp into the UTEE, don't worry, it does not harm your stamp!, as long as you have either Pigment ink, Staz-on or Versamark ink on your stamp.The ink coats the rubber, and helps to release it from the UTEE. Use Versamark/clear embossing ink if you just want texture, or want to rub some colour into it after, Staz-on if you want a dark imprint against a pale embossing, or a Pigment ink if you want a metallic finish, such as gold or silver.
Your textured Heart.





At this point, I remembered a technique I had seen in Julia Andrus' book, Paper Transformed, where she added Perfect Pearls before reheating to get 'trails' of mica seeming to fall down into the UTEE.The link takes you to the post. So I repeated the above process, until I reached the stage where you add the coloured powder.
What I did now was to sprinkle on my Blue embossing powder & tip off the excess, then I sprinkled a very small amount of Cosmic Shimmer Mica powder on the top, using the little brush that came with it.



           This is how it looked as the powder started to melt, and the heat gun blew the mica across the surface slightly.



It looks a little heavy here,to be honest, and I thought I had overdone it.





You can see the heating has left the surface a little bubbled.



    So, I let it cool a while, then patted it over with the clear embossing pad and sprinkled on another layer of UTEE.
                                       
                                          This is what appeared from beneath the melting powder:
  
 I was really stunned & surprised by how well this little technique worked, to be honest. It really does look like blue glass, with trails of shimmery colour through it.
This is now waiting for the perfect project- that's if I can bear to use it!
  Well I hope this little how to has been of help-if anyone has a question, feel free to e-mail me from the link in my sidebar, and I'll try to help.By the way, I found the Blue Glass Embossing powder available Here,Here,Here and Here. I shall definitely be getting myself another couple of tubs of this :)

18 comments:

Sherry said...

Your heart is stunning! I never tire of seeing beautiful UTEE projects and it is one of my favourite techniques. TFS x

Unknown said...

You make it look so easy I might just have a go. Mary x

Anonymous said...

Very pretty! Thanks for the great tutorial.

Em said...

Wow, nice looking heart there!! And great detailed tutorial with pictures.
I tried this before. It's too much work for me, but it's fun!

Jackie Rockwell said...

WOW that is STUNNING! Fantastic effect!!! Thanks for sharing the technique. I will have to give it a try.

Cheryl said...

These are gorgeous! What a great technique! I have this bookmarked and am definitely going to give it a try.

Jacquel said...

What an awesome technique! Thanks for sharing this with us & showing off your gorgeous work!!!

MaggieC (Silvercrafter) said...

Shaz, you are in trouble again for making me spend more money. I cannot wait to have a go at this idea, especially as I have now found at least half a craft room again.

Elizabeth said...

Stunning effect! I am going to have a go with this - it looks beautiful.

Samantha said...

Thank you for the play by play what a fun technique.

Carrie Sampsel said...

AWESOME!! I can't wait to give this a try. It turned out just beautiful. Thanks for sharing how to do it!!

MaggieC (Silvercrafter) said...

OK Shaz, I now have my UTEE and the blue stuff so time and space is all that is required. Have you tried adding glitter to the mix? If it works, it could make some lovely Christmas tree decorations. I am going to try melting it all using my enamelling kiln and foil trays

Hope G. said...

How great looking! I will have to try this! I have yet to try any UTEE projects lol, nice details in the tutorial too!

Inkyfingers said...

Great tutorial Shaz and I love your blog.

Zoechaos said...

Lovely hearts, see that you have joined us at Tanda Forum thought I'd drop by and see your crafting so glad your work is gorgeous. XOXO Zoe

Sheree said...

Wow!! Those hearts are GORGEOUS!! Once again you amaze me with your art!

Anonymous said...

Wow...those hearts are simply beautiful!
I'm new to stamping and found your blog through SCS, and this just about blew me away- I had no idea techniques like this were out there! Off to stickybeak through the rest of your posts to see what other amazing creations you have come up with :)

Unknown said...

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An End of an era

An end of an era

I write this with a broken heart, that only time can heal My beautiful, wonderful wifelet Shaz (Silverwolf) passed away peacefully in the ea...