Painted Embellishments
How I make mixed metal and shabby chic embossed embellishments from scrap card stock or repurposed inked and embossing techniques that didn’t go as planned. An easy embellishment for a variety of paper crafts.
materials
What you’ll need:
Scrap card stock
Embossing machine, folders and die cut pieces
Acrylic paints – metallic, gold, silver, copper, bronze and colors of your choice (I chose pastel colors)
Gesso or matte white acrylic paint
Text stamp
Ink – color your choice
Begin with a variety of die cut pieces from scrap card stock in any color. These can be any shape.
Lightly spray the backs with water and place at random in an embossing folder of your choice and emboss. Water helps keep the paper from cracking and gives a crisp impression.
For shabby chic style, lightly gesso each piece by lightly rubbing the gesso over the raised impression. Allow to dry. Choose a variety of acrylic paint colors, usually two or three is fine. After gesso is dry, randomly smear the colored paint on top to give a worn paint effect.
After all paint is dry use your text stamp to randomly stamp on each piece.
For the mixed metal pieces begin with a metallic acrylic color of your choice. Lightly smear over the top of the embossed piece. Smear additional metallic colors randomly across the embossed areas. Try not to mix the paint but let a little of each color show, gold, silver, copper or bronze.
To finish use a patina like ink color to edge your pieces to give them a worn aged look. I used Tim Holtz Broken China but any blue or green ink will probably do.
These embellishments can be used to decorate in a variety of ways and are a good way to use scraps or to re-purpose failed emboss techniques.
Happy paper crafting!
