Technique Tip | Adding Gilding Flakes After Colouring an Image

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

For last week's product review, I discussed the Nuvo Gilding Flakes by Tonic Studios. In that post, I briefly touched on a fun technique where you add the flakes after you've coloured an image. I had promised a card using this technique but then I got sick and my daughter got sick and my other daughter got sick and frankly it was a whole sickly mess.

Today I have that card for you. I'd like to walk you through my process and discuss some of the things that I learned along the way.

There are a few things you're going to need:

• MISTI - I can't line up a stamp to save my life after it's been stamped. Even the clear ones, so the MISTI has become an invaluable tool. If you are able to do this with an acrylic block then I envy you.
• Heat embossing supplies - Powder Tool, Sticky Embossing powder by Ranger, Gilding Flakes and a stiff brush
• Swiffer or Duster cloth to catch all the stray flakes and dust
• Images to stamp and colour
• Colour Medium of your choice - I'm using Copics

To begin, I stamped these leaf images from Inkadinkado using Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I arranged these cling stamps in my MISTI so that after stamping I could turn the panel upside down and stamp the images a second time with without having to move them. I then coloured them with Copic markers.

After the images were coloured, I prepped the panel with my powder tool and returned it to the MISTI. I inked up the stamps using VersaMark ink and used Sticky Embossing powder by Ranger to cover the lines of the original stamping, and used my heat tool to melt the powder.

As you can see from the little leaf on the right, my stamp moved slightly and I despaired; I had originally thought to toss the panel and start over but then I thought that this would make an excellent practice piece - because you can never have too much practice when it comes to a new technique. Moreover, I'm a big fan of trying to save the card - so on I trudged.

The trick with this powder is to not over heat it. If you do the powder it will lose it's stickiness and defeat the purpose. This happens here too as you'll see in the next photo, but again - I trudged on.

I added my Sunkissed Copper flakes, patting them down with my finger to ensure they were sticking to the embossing, I then use the stiff brush (mine is from Faber-Castell, but you can use an round stiff brush) to burnish away the extra flakes.

Don't forget to breathe softly during this part. These flakes are light as air and one sigh will have flakes floating about your work space like metallic snow on a clear day.

Once the flakes had been swept away, I was left with this beautiful panel. The light is tricky in my craft room, but they really do shine.

On the right middle leaf you can really see how the stamp had misaligned and the gilding did not cover the original ink lines. You can also see on the same leaf how I had over heated the sticky powder and it no longer was sticky. Again, I thought to toss it. But all experiences are learning experiences in the craft room, and frankly I was very pleased with how the rest of the leaves turned out.

I used a finger dobber and sponged in Weathered Wood Distress ink to fill in the white space between my leaves. I prepped a piece of vellum and heat embossed my greeting using Copper Embossing powder by Recollections.

I added some glue drops behind the letters and wrapped the band around my panel. This mostly covered up the errors that I made on this card. As I looked at it, I actually liked that worn look that my errors had resulted in. To me, it created this rustic finish which worked for the card. If this were not a fall card I likely would have started new.

I mounted that to a piece of green cardstock and then adhered the whole lot to the front of a standard A2 sized card base.

Somethings I learned:

• Make sure your cling stamps are actually stuck to the MISTI door. That's what happened with the one leaf. It wasn't stuck properly and that's why it moved. Had it been a clear stamp, I could have lined it up more easily but as a cling I had to roll with it.
• I would have done one leaf at a time. Heat embossed, applied flakes then burnished them away and moved on to the next. I think the reason I over heated some areas was because I did the whole panel at once.
• It would totally have been possible to skip the initial stamping - just gilded from the beginning and then coloured the images in, but I was concerned about what the flakes would do to the tips of my markers. While I'm certain I would have been very careful, I find it best to play it safe - especially when it is a technique that I am not familiar with.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss out on any future posts. If you have any further information regarding this technique, please drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you!