Embossing Scraps

This is another technique in Bernie Berlin's book that I had to try. This is somewhat similar to the serendipity squares that I have done in the past. I do like the random embossing though.

What you need to do first is take an ATC sized backing and add scraps to it with glue stick. Use a lot of little scraps and cut off excess. I edged the scraps with Distress Old Paper stamp pad before gluing. You are supposed to use a liberal amount of glue stick so some of it comes out the sides. Do not wipe the excess off. Just a note: stamping does not work well after you have embossed because it acts as a resist. If you want to stamp before doing the embossing, then you might want to wipe off the excess glue stick, stamp, and then swipe glue stick over various areas of ATC, and then emboss. I am not a messy glue person. I had to swipe the glue anyway on random areas to get the UTEE to stick to it.

Immediately take some embossing powder - I used gold UTEE (what I had on hand) - and sprinkle it over the ATC. The glue will hold the embossing powder. Tap off excess. I always put my stuff to be embossed in a box to minimize the powder flying away, having some of the embossing powder emboss something it is not supposed to (like my carpet), and to prevent burning something while heating. I heat the embossing powder until the gold came out. The gold color is not as contrasting here because of my background. You might choose to do a contrasting color - embossing powder vs. the background.

I did like this background technique more. I might emboss next time in black, blue, or bronze to see what a contrasting color would do for it. I created two finished ATCs so you would see what it would look like. There are a lot of examples in Bernie's book.

Please leave a comment. Always love to hear people's opinions.