emboss like a boss!

you may already have guessed that this week's challenge at shopping our stash is to incorporate *EMBOSSING* into your card, but possibly you have not realized that what we actually want to see is both dry (with a folder or stylus) AND wet (using powder or paste) embossing! don't worry, once you get your head around the idea, it's pretty easy, i promise. the proof being that even i managed to pull it off, lol!

multiple shades of colorburst pigment powders, as well as cut-n-color flower stamp and die sets "flowers 1" and "flowers 2" by ken oliver crafts; various wow and zing embossing powders; sheena douglass embossing folder: the crafter's companion; patterned papers: pink paislee, october afternoon, glitz design, lily bee; inks: ranger, prima, stewart superior, versamark; pearl brads: eyelet outlet; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

it's funny, because the night before i made this card, i had re-found a bunch of ken oliver cut and color mandala flower images that i had made one day whilst minding the store at paper anthology. i had a great time stamping them over rainbows of colorburst-ed paper and then heat embossing with loads of cool embossing powders, experimenting with pretty much every color combination imaginable. (and yes, a few that turned out to be unimaginable, which will never make it onto a card!) but a bunch of them were really lovely and i was thinking that i should make them into a card... and then this challenge came up, which was perfect. for my dry embossing, i used a beautiful sheena douglass e/f that i'm embarrassed to say i rarely use, not because i don't love it (i do!) but because there are whole months that go by in which i seem to have forgotten entirely that i have a bunch of gorgeous embossing folders that i rarely use. this one has a loose floral design which paired really well, so i just added some very light inking to showcase the design without letting the colors compete too much with the mandala flowers. i kept the rest of my papers very neutral, as well, but they have a bit of tone-on-tone pattern that i tend to use in place of plain cardstock.

there's lots more inspiration to be found at SOS where my design team darlings are embossing like bosses, check it out! ♥

*my "LSS" as they used to say back in the day, is a fabulous papercrafting store called paper anthology in kenvil, morris county, new jersey. it's the store in which i teach, hang out, and occasionally "mind the store"... the latter being shorthand for days in which i get to sit in a room full of art supplies, play with all of my friend elisabeth's cool stuff, and she thinks i'm doing her the favor, lol??!?! :) :) :)