Saturday Showcase - Distress Embossing Glazes

Hello and welcome to this weeks Saturday Showcase. It's Sara Emily here, and today I'm sharing my play with Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Glazes. Since tomorrow is Easter, I'm starting off with a mixed media Easter card with a message of renewal using one of the glazes. But sit back and relax; I have a lot of samples showcasing these fantastic translucent powders along with some how-to's and tips.

I promised you I would share how I used the glazes on my frame of my card HERE.  Sadly, I somehow lost those photos, so I've started over with a Baseboard Frame from Tim's Halloween Layers and Baseboard Frames pack.

I started by spreading Opaque Crackle Paste over the frame. I used a palette knife this time and spread it quite thickly.  I used the knife to create different textures, just for fun. With this frame, I used my finger and spread it rather thinly and smoothly. This gives a whole different effect.

While the paste is still wet, I drown the frame in Broken China powder and tap off the extra  and return it to the jar. Set the frame aside to thoroughly dry.

After the paste dries, you see the cracks, and some flaking. Not to worry; it adds to the effect.

Heat the powder with your heat tool and watch the magic! You can see where a bit was starting to flake off, but when heated it curled and it is STUCK! Normally, I do not like shiny, but there's something really cool about how the light hits the peaks and valleys that is very desirable on this, so I'm leaving it alone. If you want to minimize the shine you can buff it gently with steel wool, as you will see I've done in future samples.

Note: The frame HERE is smudged with Distress Crayon (Walnut Stain) which also minimizes the shine.

On the next sample, I wanted to see what would happen if I used Vintage Photo Collage Medium to adhere the Embossing Glazes. Here I used the bricks from the Mini Stencil Set 28 along with Fired Brick on a Mixed Media tag.

The darker area uses the vintage collage medium in varying thickness to adhere the powder. Once I had allowed that to dry, I heated the powder. If I had heated it while still wet, I would get nice bubbles which would add to the texture. Because of the varying thickness of the medium, I got different shades of brick.

 I went back in with the stencil and blended Vintage Photo ink in the void areas. Working quickly, I sprinkled a tiny bit of the Fired Brick powder and tilted the tag as to allow the powder to slide over the bricks toward the central part of the tag. Heat immediately. I love the subtle texture this makes.

Tip: Although Distress inks can be used as embossing ink,  it is water based and dries quicker than true embossing ink. Do not allow the ink to dry before applying the powders, and heat the powders quickly after applying. If your ink dries, just give it a light spritz of water and apply your powder.

To finish the background, after completely cooled, I blended with Weathered Wood ink. You can see there are some bare spots, even though I really smooshed that ink in. It is one of the mysteries of Distress, and I will cover it up with a Paper Doll or smear on some Distress crayon in the future.

I'm using this next example to show you what NOT to do.  I wanted to make some 'rusty pipes' on a sheet of Abandoned Paper Stash, but I don't have the Rusty Hinge powder or the Circuit stencil yet. (I've linked it below, nevertheless.) Once again, I used Vintage Photo collage medium through a stencil oddly called Short Circuit from my stash.

I decided to use the powders I had to try and make a rusty effect.You can see which colored powders I used in the photo further below. I realized (too late) I dumped on way too much Fired Brick powder. Following Tim's instructions, I did the finger tip dance under the paper to be sure not to muddie the colors, but because I used too much powder this I wasn't successful. Perhaps the separation of colors would show up more on a light paper.

 Tip: To use several colors at a time, pinch just a little of each color between your finger and thumb and rub them together like you are lightly salting your food, leaving a little space between colors. Then tap your fingers on the back of the card to move them around before heating.

Does anyone else think it looks like the lines are recessed rather than raised in the photo below, or is it just me???

After the collage medium dried, I heated the powder.

I saved all that mingled powder I dumped off to make what I hoped to use as rust in a future project.

For my next sample, I used Translucent Grit Paste knifed through the stencil, and I actually used my collected powders left over from my over pour above, which consist of the ones shown below.

Note: Please replace Broken China for the Cracked Pistachio--I goofed when I posed the photo and didn't realize it until editing the post.

If you look closely at the photo below, you can see the colors of the paper through the stencil work, since I used a translucent medium AND the powders are translucent. Compare to the sample above where I used Vintage Photo Collage Medium to adhere the powders.

Distress Embossing Glaze powders can be used to color your metal embellishments, too. In Tim's video,  he advises using silver toned metal as opposed to the brass or copper toned embellishments, so I tried it on this silver and black metal ruler piece. I brushed on collage medium and sprinkled with Cracked Pistachio and heated to melt.

 I love the texture, but I wanted a bit of a more rusty texture,  so I smeared on translucent Grit paste, sprinkled with my rust mixture and heated to melt. After it cooled, I smeared with Cracked Pistachio crayon.

Here's how I used the ruler piece along with one of the stenciled Abandoned panels on a masculine birthday card. I also used one of the Distress Embossing pens along with Weathered Wood powder on the professor's lenses.

  On close inspection, you see I scuffed the pipes with steel wool to dull them, but left the lenses shiny.

 Next up, I scraped what was left at the bottom of my Crazing medium container and applied it through Tim's Crackle stencil over a die cut that came in the little gift bag Linda includes with all her orders. Like I did with the crackle medium on the frame above, I added the embossing glaze powder while the medium was still wet, allowed it to dry and heated the powder to melt. Because the medium was quite old and rather dry, the powder didn't stick as well, leaving some white areas. I love the effect in the end.  Don't throw out those last bits of mixed media supplies!

I blended with Weathered Wood ink and edged with Vintage Photo crayon.

Here, I applied Distress Embossing Dabber to a flower stamp from the Illustrated Garden set. I chose this stamp, not only because I love it, but I wanted to see how well this slightly chunky powder works along with such a detailed image. I was quite impressed.

Tip:  It's best to store your Dabber face down, so the ink stays at the ready near the applicator. Even though the name is Dabber, don't dab it on your stamp, rather smooth it on. Practice this once or twice so you get a feel for how much to apply.

This sweet bunny from Bunny Hop, an advert from Field Notes and a Transparent Wings butterfly top the background, and an old Small Talk sticker provides a positive message. I sent this to my friend who is one of the brave hospital doctors on the front line near Pittsburgh, PA.

I have one more background to share with you. Applying ink through the Floral stencil with the blending brush allows you to apply color just where you want it and in varying intensities. On this background, I just moved my stencil around to randomly ink flowers all over the panel.

  Using the brush from the embossing pens set gives you full control of how much embossing ink to apply to each flower and leaf.  Hopefully, you can see how little I applied in the photo below.

I used Tattered Rose powder on the flowers and some leaves and Weathered Wood on other leaves, applying and heating each flower and set of leaves individually before moving onto the next. It sounds time consuming, but it moves along quickly. I love how the glazes deepens the tones, making those flowers just pop off the paper.

Once you add a pinch of powder, tap gently from underneath, slightly tilting your card to move the powder out to the edges of the flower. (It looks like I used a lot of powder, but that was just what I accumulated after doing all the flowers.)

You can see on the completed background further below that I also just applied the powder and dumped it off,which applies the glaze o just where you put the embossing ink. This is intentional, because all flowers look different.

 It's almost too pretty to cover up.

I hope these examples give you inspiration to get your Distress Embossing Glazes out and play. I'm happy to say that at the writing of this post, Linda has restocked her shelves with these lovely little jars of translucent color. So if you haven't gotten them yet, The Funkie Junkie Boutique continues to serve you and is open and shipping directly to your door with their usual level of speed and customer service you have come to know.

On another note, our current challenge  'April Showers Bring May Flowers' is still open, and  we'd love to see your take on the theme.

Take care of yourselves and stay safe.

Sara Emily

The following products were used on these projects and can be purchased at The Funkie Junkie Boutique:

Distress Embossing Glaze - Weathered Wood, Tattered Rose, Fired Brick, Cracked Pistachio,       Fossilized Amber, Vintage Photo, Broken China
Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Dabber
Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Pen 2pk
Distress Collage Medium Matte, Vintage, Crazing
Distress Pastes, Distress Opaque Crackle Paste, Texture Paste, Translucent Grit Paste
Sizzix Chapter 1 Tim Holtz Thinlits Dies - Bunny Hop
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Stamp Set - The Professor 2
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Layering Stencils - Crackle
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Mini Layering Stencils - Set 25
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Mini Layering Stencils - Set 28
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Stencil - Circuit
Distress Spray Stain - Antique Linen
Distress Crayons - Cracked Pistachio Vintage Photo
Distress ink Cracked Pistachio, Ground Espresso, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Tattered Rose,       Vintage Photo, Weathered Wood
Distress Archival Ink - Black Soot, Ground Espresso, Vintage Photo, Faded Jeans
Distress Oxide - Cracked Pistachio, Fossilized Amber
Distress Mixed Media and Kraft Tags
Abandoned Paper Stash
Distress Mixed Media Heavystock
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Ephemera, Field Notes
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Transparent Wings - Clear & Color
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Quote Chips, Theories
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Layers & Baseboard Frames, Halloween
Tim Holtz Distress Blending Brush 2 pk