SOS293: all it's cracked up to be

are you curious about the title of this week's challenge at shopping our stash? or do you think you've already guessed it? ok, i won't keep you in suspense: we want to see projects that use some sort of crackle medium: crackle paint, crackle embossing paste or powder... heck i even saw a video on youtube showing how to use to use elmer's glue to make a cool crackle effect! i've used crackle embossing paste in conjunction with layers of vintage paper and i have to say i'm pretty pleased with the result.

textured birch bark giftwrap: paper source; vintage illustraton and book paper from my stash; dreamweaver white crackle embossing paste tinted with sepia colorburst and spread through penny black and tcw stencils; foliage dies: spellbinders; scraps of green patterned paper: 7 gypsies, basic grey, recollections; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

i love dreamweaver's crackle embossing paste, but for the vintage vibe of this piece, bright white just wasn't the look i wanted. so i placed a scoop of the paste onto a paper plate and used a palette knife to mix in a teeny (srsly TEENY) bit of sepia colorburst pigment powder. when it was pretty well incorporated, i applied the softly sepia paste through a couple of my favorite foliage stencils, et voila!

when it had dried completely, i added my focal panel --a slightly stained and tattered illustration from a 1930's bird book-- and some diecut ferns. as soon as he saw the finished collage, lovely husband jeff dibbsed this to be his dad's birthday card! ♥

i was inspired by the foliage and colors of the march 1st curtain call challenge, "green":

meanwhile there's loads more inspiration over at SOS where both the design team and the projects definitely ARE all they're cracked up to be!!! :)