Foam Embossing

Still playing catch up with Life Book 2012, Jodi Ohl showed us how to make these embossed foam embellishments – really cool!

They really are very simple and cheap to make and can be made into simple embellishments, buttons or anything else you can dream up! Heat up the foam with a heat gun and then press a rubber stamp into it to emboss the pattern. You need to press very hard, and the foam is quite hot so I don’t think it will work with clear stamps (they don’t like heat, and tend to go all squadgy if you press too hard). If you don’t like the result just heat and try again. When you are happy with the result you can colour them any way you want. I used a mixture of acrylic paint, perfect pearls and gel medium to give a nice glossy finish and seal them.

Like the backgrounds, I’m not sure what I’m gong to use them for yet … but keep watching … they’ll turn up on something soon!

Smelly Plants, Messy Hands and Gooey Paint!

Smelly plants, messy hands and gooey paint …… mmmm …… now what could I have been up to? …. Yes, you’re right …. I’ve been playing with/destroying my journal over the weekend!

The hot weather has killed most of the weeds wildflowers that normally can be found in my garden, but I managed to find a few, and some lovely variegated leaves. I’m no gardener …. my thumbs are black – not green …. so I have no idea what any of the plants I gathered are called apart from the one at the bottom right corner which is mint …. It’s smelled the whole book out! Any ideas anyone?

Painting my hands is much more my kind of thing …..

…… and dripping and squidging paint …… Yes! Lead me there!! Just one slight problem ….. the paint was soooo thick (even after the squidging) that it didn’t want to dry. So I set the heat gun on it and nearly caught the page on fire!! Even though the paint is now dry … I still have to prise the pages apart as they keep sticking together 🙂

p.s. If you look really closely …. you can see where the paint bubbled and blistered!