Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Nachos: Hello from the Seashore

I'm not really at the seashore, but that's what today's brand-new Nacho Average Challenge colors made me think of:


And once that idea came to me, I jut couldn't do anything else with these colors.  So here's what I made:


I stamped the shells on my main image panel and then got the sudden idea to do cracked glass, which I haven't done in YEARS.  Usually it's done with Ultra-Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE), but a.) I was too lazy to dig around to find mine and b.) mine's at least seven years old, and does embossing powder go bad?  I feel like I should know the answer to that.  I'll ask Google later, Google knows everything.

So here's a quick step-by-step on how to do the cracked glass technique:

1.  Put on some good music.  (I just got the score to the 1963 film Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.  Awesome.)
2.  Stamp your image, and then sponge it too if you want.
3.  Cover it in Versamark and then emboss with either UTEE or clear EP.  Maybe drop the paper once or twice before you get the embossing done (nope, just me?  Ok).
4.  Lather, rinse, repeat.
5.  Emboss a third time, and accidentally get your finger in the still-soft embossing powder.
6.  Try not to trip over a very helpful dog on your way back to your craft room to cover your image in another layer of EP.
7.  Emboss for the fifth time and decide that's enough EP, more because you're tired of walking back and forth than anything else.  (My heat gun lives in the computer room because that's where the transformer is.  I can't plug it in the wall in my craft room because our house is 220-volt and the heat gun is not.  The perils of being an American living in England.)
8.  Stick your newly embossed paper in the freezer for a bit, and then amuse yourself imagining what your hubs will say if he sees random paper in the freezer even though he's not home right now.
9.  Wander off to do something else for at least 20 minutes.  Facebook is a good time-filler.
10.  Take your paper out of the freezer and then bend and scrunch it to make the embossing powder crack.
11.  Sponge dark-colored ink into the cracks until it looks how you want it.  Get ink all over your fingers because it doesn't stick to the EP, but ink does stick to you.
12.  Buff the EP with a paper towel so you don't get any more ink all over (even though it's pretty much too late at this point).
13.  Use super-strength adhesive to attach your brand-new cracked glass panel to the rest of your card.  Pat yourself on the back for making something purty.

And that's it!  I think the UTEE might be better than the EP because it's thicker (duh) and it cracks better, but maybe if I'd done a few more layers of EP it might have helped.  I still think it looks alright.

So let's see what you've got!  Check out what my fellow Nachos have made for your viewing pleasure, and then make your own pretty card.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  By the Seashore, Happy Day
Ink:  Marina Mist, Perfect Plum, Sahara Sand, Early Espresso, Versamark
Paper:  Marina Mist, Perfect Plum, Early Espresso, Whisper White
Accessories:  Clear EP, Delicate Dots EF, Dimensionals

1 comment:

CCsMom said...

Coolness! And that DOES look AWESOME. LOVE the colors. Simply beautiful. LOVE IT!!!