Hello crafty people! Today’s pair of cards were quick cards as time is precious right now at our house. I used a couple of different sparkly ink pads to color the flat part of an embossing folder and came up with some fun and quick embossed cards to send out for thank you notes.
Card #1
I began by die cutting a piece of watercolor paper with a stitched rectangle die. I then pressed a shimmery copper ink pad onto the flat parts of the embossed side of an embossing folder (in this case, the spaces between the flowers) and then spraying the embossing folder with a coppery/brassy shimmery spray to help move the ink around as well as help keep the watercolor paper moist while embossing so that the paper doesn’t tear.
After the watercolor panel dried, I used three colors of pigment ink–an orange, blue and yellow–to color the floral images. I used some finger sponge daubers to apply the ink so that it was relatively focused on the individual flowers. After ink blending the flowers, heat embossed the flowers with some holographic embossing powder.
To finish the panel, I ink blended the edges with more of the shimmery copper ink pad and heat embossed again.
The sentiment was stamped with the same blue ink onto another piece of watercolor paper and heat embossed with more holographic embossing powder. Using my paper trimmer, I trimmed the sentiment and then pressed the edges of the sentiment into the same blue ink pad to add some color to the border. The sentiment was attached to the embossed panel with foam tape.
I then die cut a wood panel patterned piece of paper with the matte layer die from the same set as the stitched rectangular die used to die cut the watercolor paper. I added a little color to the panel by gently rubbing more of the shimmery copper ink pad across the edges of the panel. The matte layer was glued behind the embossed one.
To finish the card, the card panels were glued onto an A2-sized kraft card base and clear sequins were glued around the sentiment. While this card looks really good, it took about 30 minutes to make, which is record time for me!
Card #2
This card was created in the same way, but with a monotone pink color palate. A light pink shiny ink pad was pressed into the embossing folder before spritzing it with a shiny spray. After embossing a previously die cut watercolor panel and letting it dry, I then gently rubbed a darker pink ink onto the embossed panel so that the dark pink touched the raised floral areas of the card only. I then heat embossed the whole panel with a holographic embossing powder.
The matte layer was die cut out of pink glitter cardstock and clear sequins were glued onto the card panel.
I hope that these cards inspire you to play with your embossing folders.
Anna York is from Oregon, US. She has been writing for TPC since 2023. Anna started paper crafting in 2008, had a break while her kids were small and started cardmaking again in 2019. Anna mostly makes cards. Her paper projects are often made in sparkly, whimsical style and she loves colors.