Ink + Embossing Folders

Hi everyone, I'm Jennifer, today I wanted to do a technique that I haven't done in a few years, but I really like it, it's called ink

embossing

folders

, it gives a typographic look, but I'm going to take it a step further. today so you can see here I created six backgrounds, I actually created eight, but I only turned six into cards, it's hard to tell in the photos, but all of these backgrounds have great texture and a really rich color that goes along with the texture. , this is super easy to do, all you need is some good inks and some

embossing

folders

for your die cutting machine.

Now for the video, today I'm using some new embossing folders from Lifestyle Crafts, which are now part of Wer Memory Keepers. What I liked about these folders is that they are 6x6, so you can orient the paper on the card either horizontally or vertically and they will still fit in most of your die cutting machines. I'm going to use the Big Shot today, but you can use it. With your vagabond or whatever machine you have now, what I want to do is ink one side of this embossing folder. The first thing I do is clean it, since it is a new fold.

I just wipe it with a baby wipe just to have it ready. to apply the ink, I'm not sure this will make a big difference, but for some reason I think in my head it will, so I'm doing it now. I'm going to cover the ink on one side of this embossing folder, the side that has all the raised area between the words, so there's a lot of flat area on this side, so I'm going to use some Simon Sea Glass Ink Says Stamp to apply it all over the inside of this stamping folder. Now you can try any ink you have, however you like.

I have found that Simon Says Stamp inks, Hero Arts Shadow inks and wplus9 inks work best because they have the same formulation that absorbs into the paper and slowly evens out and softens over time, which really works with this technique again. Try it with whatever ink you have, but I've found that they work perfectly, so try it with whatever folders and inks you have, so now that I've inked the inside of that stamping folder it's hard to see because it's a very light pool color. and I'm going to put my paper on it and I'm going to be very careful not to let this move around while you're taking it and putting it through your die cutting machine, so I've got my big break here. open it up to tab number one you basically want to run this through your die cutting machine the way you normally do an embossing folder so do this however you normally make an embossing folder the way I do the mine on my Big Shot is on tab one.

I do the same thing on my hobo two, so I'm going to run this through my die cutting machine and when I take it out you'll see, don't worry, it'll look a little smudged, but all the ink is in the deep valleys between the raised words on this embossed folder pattern. Now I wanted to take this a step further and add some ink to the raised areas so I wouldn't worry again that the background wasn't smoothed out. I'll talk about that in a moment, what I'm doing is I'm taking a slightly darker ink, this is Simon Says Stamp surf blue, it's another one of those really good formulations and I'm lightly dabbing it onto the raised areas of my paper so that the ink is just right. catching those raised areas so I have a light color in the background on a darker color and the raised areas and it's so cool now this ink is going to be smudged and uneven at first but it slowly shifts and levels out and gives good coverage so you can see the backgrounds are already starting to look better, now there were a few spots where the ink didn't transfer completely and I didn't want to press too hard so I'm using my fantastic little sponge as a pencil tool to pick up some ink from the ink pad and color it directly in the areas where I need.

I think this is a great tool to fix any areas where the ink wasn't fully applied or transferred when you did stamping or any type of technique and here is the result. get the light color ink in the valleys and the darker color ink in the raised areas so I wanted to do some other color combinations and other embossing folders just to show you how versatile this technique is so let's go ahead and Let's do this this time. and I think it's one of my favorites. I'm going to apply Hero Arts soft shadow ink in the soft vanilla color.

This is actually one of my favorite colors to apply to the embossing folder. I think it's better if you use a light color. the embossing folder and then a darker color on the raised areas because this lighter color is a little more forgiving when you try to transfer it from the embossing folder to the paper so I think you would get better results but at all it means you can try whatever color ink you have and I'll show you another option later in this video where I made a darker color on the folder. I also really like that these embossed folders from We are keepers of memories and lifestyle crafts.

Have the lines and grid lines, which helps make sure the paper is straight and look at the result. I love that look. It would be beautiful as is without applying this other color on top. It would be great for a wedding card, but I decided to add dark quartz or sorry, the cool peach color from Hero Arts. Now all of these colors will soften as they dry and they will also even out and soften so you can see. I even love the back. I think it looks great. You can see the great results you get with these colors and this is what it looks like when it dries, it was one of my favorites, but again you can try any embossing folders you already have and any inks you already have.

It's one of my other favorites here, the green and green and the chevron pattern. Now you'll notice that with this embossing folder, the area where I'm applying the ink is a larger area, so it will be harder to transfer everything. that ink on the paper, but we're going to try our best and you'll also notice that I first smoothed the ink lightly onto the surface and then dabbed it on. I want to be careful not to get ink on the areas that aren't raised on this embossing folder, so I'm going to go ahead and put my paper back in, make sure it doesn't move, and run it through your die cutting machine.

Now when I open this, I want to be careful not to take it out. anything from the edges and you'll see it did a pretty good job, this will smooth out and even out, but you'll see some areas at the bottom, the ink didn't transfer all the way, okay, I'll just use my It's great to take some of that ink and fill those areas. If you don't have this tool, you can try using any pointed object or removing the corner or tip of a makeup sponge applicator and try. I really like these fantastic ones. because I think they're great tools for things like this, they're also pretty inexpensive and I only keep one for each color, so now I'm going to apply a darker ink, Simon Says Stamp Green Apple Ink, over the blades.

Think it's cool how these two look together with this embossing folder. I love the results and I'll show you the finished card in a moment, but you can see the dimension there, it's hard to get the texture. the video camera, but it has a large dimension. Another one I like is this sun background. I love sunshine cards. I think it's a great way to send a cheerful greeting to someone, so I was excited to see this embossed folder. This is one of the ones you want. You want to be very careful when applying the ink, you don't want to get the ink into other areas when you do this, so be very careful not to press too hard and only apply the ink to the area that is raised on the bus. folder, put your paper in and this is clean.

You could put it so that the center of its sun rays is a little off center if you wanted, but I'm going to put it right in the center, run it through my die cutting machine and when I take it out, I have the dark area pressed in, so this time I did the dark area on the embossing folder and that's the darkest area, the deepest area and I'm applying the softest ink to the raised area so I'm doing it the other way around this time just to show you that it will work fine now when I do this for first time while it's still wet, it won't look as good, it will look like the two colors are mixed together, but when they dry.

You'll get a nice difference and end up with a really cool dark yellow light yellow background so here you can see what the final card looks like after drying but I think a lot of things and the stamping look better after drying it just needs a Soon, another one I wanted to show you is this one where I used a very light gray in the background and a blue in the raised area. Now this embossing folder has a lot of air surface right here where I am. When applying the ink, this is Simon Says Mist, which is a super light gray ink that is perfect for this, but notice that there is a lot of flat area that I'm applying this ink to, so I think for embossing folders like this it is better to use a lighter. ink for these backgrounds because it's more forgiving when you're trying to transfer that ink, so when you see that I ran it through my die cutting machine, I see that the background is a little smudged right now, but it will dry.

Even now I'm going to apply a darker ink on top and it's a little hard to stay on the raised areas because there's a lot of area between the raised areas, so you'll notice I'm actually getting some blue. ink on the background around the edges, but I think it's okay if you really want a clean look, you have to be careful to get an embossing folder where the pattern isn't as far apart as these butterflies, but I think it really works. Well, you could actually cut out some of these butterflies and use them as embellishments too because that raised area is so fun and different and you can see after it dries that the gray is just beautiful in the background, very subtle.

You could use a soft gray cardstock and just run it through the embossing folder and rub blue ink on top, but I really like the look of the two inks applied, so now this is a faux wood embossing folder, which which I think is fantastic. I'm going to soft sand the inside of the boss folder now this one has super small areas that are raised, this can also be tricky because there really isn't enough area to transfer all that ink, so you can see here right now, no It looks so attractive but when I go over and apply the soft brown stain over the raised areas then it all comes together and looks much better and really looks like a real wood background.

I think it's fantastic. I mentioned before that I like the shadow inks from Hero Arts and Simon Says. Stamp inks for this. I also like the wplus9 inks. They are all dye-based inks that absorb slowly into the paper and give it a nice, uniform look, but try again with any ink you already have. Now there are two more that I made. They don't actually turn into cards, but I wanted to show you this tree background. I thought it was fun with the sea glass in the bottom of the embossing folder and then the soft sand in the raised areas.

I thought it would be fun for a Christmas card. You could put some birds on it however you want. I didn't actually make it into a card, but I wanted to show you this option so you can make contrasting colors like this blue and this brown. Here's another additional example that I didn't convert. a card, but I did a dark color in the embossing folder, this is audrey blue from Simon Says Stamp and you can see there's a lot of area where I'm trying to transfer the ink. There's a lot in that background here, but I think it's turned.

Okay, it's a little spotty, but it will get better as it dries with lime green ink added on top, so I want a very deep color here. I think the results are fine, but it just didn't work with the cards I was making. some of the ink didn't transfer so again I used the Fantastics tool to transfer it so now it's time to show you what they look like when they've dried you can see the texture you get just from an embossing folder and there it is the green. in green, which I think is one of my favorites.

I think a tone on tone like that is fantastic for this technique. Next is blue and green. This is probably my least favorite because there was a very large surface area for that dark color. but I still think I'll use it for something the wood grain is fantastic the texture you get here with the light browns here's the first one we did with the embossed words and then the sunlight remembers it looked like those two yellows were the same color well here you can see they were dried to have two different colors and you get a great sun background then the butterflies with the soft gray background and also silver and then my favorite which I think is this cream with the peach elevated and you.

I can see how those colors really softened and gave such a rich color, so I apologize because this video is going to be one of my longer videos, but I wanted to show you how to put these six cards together, so I'm going to use a little inker die set I thinkthat this is a fantastic set, it has a bunch of rectangles that cut the rectangle and also cut a stitch line around the edge now, before moving on to the piece that I'm going to use for this card that I wanted. to show you this large die that is included in the set.

I love it because it makes a faux stitch line around the edge of a four and a quarter by five and a half inch piece, which is great for the finished edge on a note card so you can I can see how it looks here, it just makes this final edge. I think it's fantastic. I'm not going to use it on the card today, but I wanted to show you what it looked like. Okay, so back to the card. use this rectangle and die the small one that makes the faux stitch border. I thought this would be better than just a piece of white cardstock freshly cut and floating on the front of the card for a nice quick finishing touch.

Now the stamp set I'm going to use today is from the Simon Says Stamp card kit from July, but you I can buy the stamp set separately, the card kit is fantastic and I love these handwritten greetings from my friend Kristina , so I'm going to make a variety of embossing powders for the center of each of the cards I've been making. I use embossing powder a lot more lately and I was trying to think of a way to contain the mess and I came up with the idea of ​​using coffee filters instead of doing this on a piece of paper where it can fly around and make a mess. with coffee filters, I can funnel it back into the bottle and then just fold up this filter and throw it away.

These filters are really cheap. I bought several hundred of them for five dollars, it's nothing. I'll link to it in my description below and also on my blog, but you can get them at any grocery store, they're super affordable and a great way to contain clutter. I've tried glitter trays, but static is always a problem. Seems to be the perfect thing for me right now, these are Wow embossing powders and they have glitter in them so if you want to mix them really well, shake them up and then pour a bunch on top. I'm not using my spoon because I wanted to make sure I had a lot of glitter in there, so I just point it up and then I can put all the powder back into my jar and then throw away the coffee filter.

I love these glitter embossing powders and I'm linking to the real ones I used below. Now I wanted to have some little embellishments to put on the card something simple, so I'm going to use my handy dandy little heart die from Simon Says Stamp and ink some paper to make it perfect. match the background now I'm going to add these hearts with just a little bit of sparkly details. You could use the multi medium that I normally use, the liquid adhesive that I normally use, but I wanted to have these bright accents as well to put a layer on. above to make it look like an embellishment, but first I'm going to add some Stella glitter to the hearts and then cover it again with the glitter details just to give it a finished look.

Now you can put buttons on it or Brad's or you know. any type of embellishment here, but I love creating my own with the dies that I hear the dies already have and these I can color perfectly to match my card. I know I'm looking for the exact combination. Now I wanted some silver glitter hearts for some. of my cards, so I'm grabbing that silver glitter embossing powder again. I crushed some Versamark ink onto some white cardstock, added the powder on top, and then heated it up. Now you can see how useful that coffee filter is because I'm not going to blow out the dust, it all stays there until I put it back in, so now that I have this dust covering all of my cardstock, I just run it through my die cutting machine with the heart die and look, I have those perfect ones. little silver hearts that I'm going to cover with some sparkly details and they really look great with that rounded sparkly accent on the top okay now let's finish these six cards and I just wanted to show you how I finish them all. just some simple red on the wooden background.

I thought this would also work for a male card. So we have my favorite that I showed you with the peach hearts that match the background perfectly. Then for the sunlight I decided to use a red embossing powder. one of wow is like a sherbet red color, it's just that it's a coral color - it's just beautiful and has a nice pop against that yellow background and then I use those silver hearts with shiny details on the top for my two blue cards, like this you see it there. Sorry the video is a little long and I rushed through it to show you the six cards.

If you are interested in any of the products, they are linked below my YouTube description. I have linked to more than one source. You have a few different options and if you have any questions or want to see more, you can go to my blog at jennifermcguireink.com. Thank you very much for spending time with me and see you soon.