Sunday, December 14, 2014

Embossing with Winter Moon, or Why Juicy Ink Pads Are Important

It's been forever since I used pigment ink and embossing powder. Oh, I've embossed, but I've used either VersaMark ink or specialty embossing ink with opaque embossing powder, or with clear EP for resist techniques. But for Winter Moon, I wanted to use a silver pearl embossing powder and a deep royal blue pigment ink. The combination turns the blue into a lovely, soft, pearlescent blue.

Only it's been years since I used the blue pigment pad, and it was really dry. I dabbed and dabbed and dabbed the pad onto the stamp, but it never looked fully covered. I stamped it, and it just didn't have that rich, pigment ink look, and when I embossed, the results were sort of pebbly. See?



It's pretty, but not as pretty as it should be. Guess I need to go shopping!

Actually, I did do some shopping for my birthday a few weeks ago, but it wasn't for ink. I picked up my first Simon Says Stamps. Don't you just love the smell of high-quality photopolymer as you open a mailer envelope?

Of course you do!


These should give me some fun playtime in the coming weeks, along with all the Hero Arts and Papertrey goodness I bought.

Since my card's not great today, let's share good stamp companies with each other. Whose stamps have you purchased recently? What pre-holiday purchases have you made that made you really happy? What are you planning on purchasing? Inquiring minds, and all that....

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts Winter Moon, Papertrey Keep It Simple: Christmas
ink: ColorBox royal blue, Hero Arts soft silver
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: embossing powder (silver pearl, Ranger), embossing gun, silver cord, dimensionals

13 comments:

  1. i like that pebbly effect on your sky. my EP's almost always turn out that way.

    i still love me some RED rubber and I love the feel of the wood stamp in my hand. Door County Rubber Stamps, YES and Prickley Pear are two of my most recent purchases.

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  2. I like your card, too, Susan. I have a cute Casual Fridays set I bought a while back and haven't used yet. I also like Paper Smooches. I have a Simon Says gift card and can't decide what to buy.

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  3. I think your card looks perfect! Pebbly effect and all...I bought myself a few goodies on cyber Monday - a paper smooches set and die, and a couple from whimsy stamps (I am in LOVE with whimsy stamps, I use the sets over and over and over again, especially the happy everything set)

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  4. I just love the card Susan. I very rarely buy stamps, I like to be on Design Teams instead. I really like SugarPea Designs and A Jillian Vance Design. SPD's images tell stories from our childhood and AJVD stamp nice and I love their sentiment fonts that are nice and bold.

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  5. Wonderful card today, Susan! I've really been enjoying the Winter Moon cards. I have a brand new order of Lawn Fawn that came the other day. I just love the cuteness of them. With the busyness (sp?) of Christmas, though, they have yet to see ink. But, Christmas vacation is coming up. I'm sure I'll be in my stamp room soon. Merry Christmas! (and Happy Belated Birthday!)

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  6. Thanks to your posts, I ordered that stamp. Can't wait to get it. And I do love today's card...looks great to me even with the dry ink pad!! I think my last stamp purchase was Lawn Fawn and/or SSS?? I'm not at home to be sure.

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  7. I second Janeen's recommendation of Prickly Pear, and also highly recommend Pink and Main(love them!), Impression Obsession(both cover-a-card backgrounds and their sets), Darcie's background stamps, and Local King rubber stamps. I'm fortunate to live in an area that has 2 stamp shows per year as well as the Scrapbook Expo. There are no LSS here anymore though, so I love the stamp shows for the chance to see products the chain craft stores don't carry. I like Penny Black, Hero Arts, and JustRite too, and have asked Santa for my first batch of SSS for Christmas!

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  8. My favorite purchase lately has been the Comfy Sweater die from Die-Namics. I've been making ugly sweater cards. I think their stamp line is My Favorite Things. The stamps I've used the most: Simply Snowflake from Stampin' Up!'s November Paper Pumpkin kit. So far I have been happy with their photopolymer stamps.

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  9. My stamp purchases since October have been Hero Arts photo-polymer and Stampin Up cling mount stamps as well as photo-polymer stamps. Great quality with either company. You really can't go wrong imo. I've been the most excited though over my punches by EK Success---a prancing deer, a woodsy Christmas tree, a whimsical Christmas tree (think Who-ville) and a snowman; and a mini set that had a bell, an angel and a star. Didn't need the star, but the bell and angel were too cute to leave on the shelf. Found those all at Hobby Lobby. ALSO--in the fall HL had their glitter paper pads half price---talk about fun. I punched several things for Halloween and Christmas in glitter paper---love the sparkle. A small 4x6 pad is $9.99, which is a bit steep, but $5 is too good to pass up. HL has the 12 x12's too. Didn't know if I'd use the glimmer paper much so passed on it. But I will be buying that next time it's half off. The pads have a large assortment of colors. SU has some gorgeous glimmer paper but it's too expensive imo at $4.99 for 2 sheets of 12x12, plus shipping.

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  10. Your card is beautiful - pebbly or not. Skies aren´t always smooth and even, are they?
    I´ve treated myself to some new ink. Tried the pigment inks from My favourite things and another Memento luxe, also the hydrangea from Archival. A nice purblish blue with a hint of gray. The last stamps were from Create a Smile and from Clearly besotted (both clear stamps).

    Our hobby is just great - we can treat ourselves to wonderful things that do not land on the hips and are still very enjoyable, sometimes even delicious.

    Wishing all of you a wonderful, peaceful and blessed Christmas,
    greetings from Germany,
    Christine

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  11. love the card - i get the same effect of the "pebble" -i always thought it was the card at fault ! I store my (rarely used )ink pads upside down and that seems to stop them drying out .I will have to buy this stamp .........because I really need more - not !

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  12. Love the pebbly affect from this ink. I think it gives it depth. I haven't been doing much in the craft room the last month. But I have 2 full weeks off for Christmas. So, I plan at least a couple days of inky fun. I have not made any new stamp purchases lately; but I did go crazy on inks. While cyber Christmas shopping over Thanksgiving I found a great deal on the Tim Holtz mini distress inks. I ordered them all. Alas they are all still in their packages in the box they arrived in. I can't wait to start playing with them.

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  13. I actually LIKE the pebbly look. I thought you meant to do that.

    Congratulations on entering the world of Simon! I love their products. I have some cool sentiment sets from Clearly Besotted, The Alley Way Stamps, and Reverse Confetti, in addition to Paper Smooches and Hero Arts. I might be a sentiment ho.

    I'm moving away from red rubber. I need to SEE what and where I'm stamping.

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!