A Crisp Leaf

This card was one of my favorites once I finished them, but at the time I was designing and making them I was a mess. It was for turtlelove's "Jack O. Lantern and Friends" swap in the fall of '09.

I used UTTE (Ultra Thick Embossing Powder). Three times I smeared the embosssing ink on the paper and sprinkled the powder, then melt it between each application. After the third time, as soon as you take the heat gun away, you take your already inked stamp and mash it in the goo and let it sit to harden most of the way (about 10 seconds). Truthfully, I don't think I'd do it again for a swap that big, it was very time consumming and MESSY ( did the entire embossing process in an old 8x8 baking pan). I loved how the paper turned out, for that I took beige paper and used 4 different ink pads and smeared them all over in layers. The colors were much more intense when I did it, and the heat and UTTE really faded and blended the colors some.I have been wanting to try this for a long time and figured it was the perfect swap since I had a simple stamp (kind of imperative for this technique)