Experimenting with Rust Emboss & Emerald Creek

Hello,today we are playing with rust for Mixed Media Monthly's next challenge! The theme for May is... all things rust. We have one of my favorite companies as the sponsor, Emerald Creek! They are an awesome Woman Owned company that make incredible embossing powder. Kim Evans is the master designer, chemist, powerhouse behind & in front of the scenes. I am so excited that I get to work with her products. Emerald Creek's newest venture is a collaboration with Seth Apter. This amazing product called Baked Texture, is in my opinion the hottest new product from Creativation 2018. 

 

Let's Play with Emerald Creek!

 

Experiment with die cuts!

For my post today I started by experimenting with the Chunky Rust. That was my idea but I soon got distracted & had to play with a bunch of the powders. I ended up making more of a sampler. Yes I do like to use all the crayons in the box!  

I have a bunch of different design team posts & classes coming up & Kim sent me a nice plethora of her emboss powders. This is just a fraction of what is available so you need to check out them out!  Please look to buy at your local scrapbook store & support them 1st. Save the scrapbook stores!! If you don't have one or they don't carry the powders they just arrived at Topflight Stamps. Seth also sells them in his store along with his awesome line of stamps... You can also get them directly from Emerald Creek, along with stamps, decorative brads & charms. In the US go here, for Canada here.

May Challenge Rust!

The prize is 3 jars of Baked Texture & 3 jars of Emerald Creek emboss. I decided to play with some die cuts and started out with Rust in mind. I wanted to make something cool, grungy & different so I went with rust flowers. Using Eileen Hull's Heart Petal die seemed a good place to start. I simply layered color using the different emboss. 

Sadly I did not take many step out pics but I do intend on doing a video on the process. Here is the largest petal (cut it kinda catty wonkess but it worked as I trimmed it) I started with a layer of Patina Oxide.

Rusty, Shiny, Grungy Eileen Hull Flower

Here is my assembled flower you can see the large petal from above on the bottom layer. Next step was to add sprinkles of Chunky Rust but still letting some of the patina show through. The middle petal I started with Burnt Copper Leaves then added the Chunky Rust. The smallest petal has Rocky Road. I was going to add the rust on top but loved the look of the 3 together as is. I simply layered my 3 petals & adhered with a brad.

Time to Emboss

 

Embossing Tips & Tricks!

I do have some emboss tips for you. These powders have multiple layers of chunkiness. For example the Chunky Rust has little balls of fluff like substance. The challenge with this  when you heat with an emboss tool it blows the balls of fluff off or the top layers of cool chunkiness. You can heat from the bottom of the die piece but what if I am working in an art journal page? That is not an option. Here are the tricks.

1.  Use an emboss ink pad or dabber to ink up your piece.
2.  With a folded, clean piece of paper underneath , sprinkle your emboss powder on liberally & gently tap of extra. Using the paper return excess into jar. Be careful to keep powder colors separate or create a new exciting color!  
3. Start your heat guns & let them run for 30 seconds-ish to get them warm.
4.  Use a low blow heat gun like the Ranger Heat Tool. Hold over the piece, moving slowly to get the powders warm and start the process. This will heat the emboss enough to hold the chunky top pieces.
5. Switch to the emboss heat tool & move slowly & watch the magic as your emboss turns to a shiny amazing finish.

Baked Textures

 

Shiny & Chunky! 

This is where my experiment went awry and I just wanted to test/swatch out the different colors. I took other pieces of cardboard cut with Tim Holtz's Gadget Gear 2 and heat embossed using the above steps. Cutting some of the gears allowed me to add more color. Emerald Creek has different categories of emboss like Seth's Baked Texture. There are 7 powders in this collection. 

Add some glitter to your emboss!

Here are 2 of the colors in the Allure category. They have some glitter which the camera doesn't really pick up. My last step was just putting the pieces together to make a fun embellishment. I hope you join us this month for our challenge. You can win 6 jars of this amazing powder!!! Join my blog & follow me as I will be working a lot more with this emboss in the coming months!!