Tim Holtz stencils, embossing paste & stuff

Right then,I was watching a You Tube video by Kamila Rotsis, called ' 4cards using one stencil by Tim Holtz and Embossing Paste'.
She used just the Flourish stencil, and 4 different ways of treating it- colouring the embossing paste with Distress inks, Colouring over the embossing paste with DI's, Adding Embossing powder to the paste, then heating it when it had dried and  finally just leaving the pearlescent paste plain.

The whole process caught my imagination, and as you can see from the two pictures, I've now got a whole bunch of panels for cards. I also tried the techniques out with more than one stencil, another few of Tims, Lace,Rays and Bricked,  a couple of Crafters Workshop stencils, and a couple who's makers I don't know. I tried a few variations on the theme too- some worked well, but not all. One or two I'm not so happy with, but I will find a way of using them, even if that's cutting them up to form smaller panels or mosaics.
One of my favourites is the black and white one top left. It seems to be black embossing on white, but it's actually the other way around. Bit of an optical illusion. Not so happy with the black sparkle on black below it, that didn't work as well as I expected.
 I'll briefly go through the process in this post, then link back to this as I blog each card that gets made.
First off,  choose your stencil and cardstock. For the ones where you apply DI's as a watercolour over the top, use Watercolour paper, and I also found that the ones where you colour the paste with DI work better on watercolour paper. It takes a while to mix each colour to apply, and the normal cardstock starts to buckle part way through. As the stencils are not totally rigid anyway, this makes it far more likely you will get seepage under the stencil.

It helps if you tape the stencil in place, and also to tape at least one side of your cardstock to the work surface.

 
Once the paste is added  remove the tape and carefully peel up the stencil. Put  the panel to one side and clean off your stencil. It's easier to clean if you do it whilst it's fresh. I used a baby wipe over some kitchen paper, but after a few uses, it's a good idea to go give it a wash, especially if you want to go from a dark paste to a light one.

If you are going to add embossing powder, now is the time to do it.  You can use just one colour, or a combination. On this one I've used Midnight Black and Copper Detail, both from Stampendous. Once you have it covered, put it aside to dry.

When it's dry you can bring it back and heat the embossing powder with your heat gun.

This is the finished panel, prior to being trimmed down.


Another way to do the stencil is to colour the Embossing paste with some DI's. I used the same colour combo Kamila did- Mustard Seed, Worn Lipstick and Wilted Violet. By splodging an inkpad onto your craft mat, you can then add a little Embossing paste, I used Pearlescent, to the ink. You will get a pastel shade of paste.
  If you have some small pots to hand, any extra paste can be stored for later use.

Add the paste a section at a time, then peel off the stencil to reveal the design. Put aside to dry.

This is the fully dried panel.






Her third method was to do a watercolour wash over the dried stencil paste using Distress inks again. Firstly spray over the design with water, and use a brush to make sure the whole design is covered. This is why you definitely need watercolour paper for this one.

Again, splodge some ink onto your craft mat, and spray with some water. Now paint this over a third of the design. This one uses Mustard Seed, Peacock Feathers and Mermaid Lagoon.

Let the ink dry, and buff any ink off the Embossing paste.

I've created about 25 panels using various of these methods and colours. I'll blog a couple of cards at a time, so that the posts are not too long.