EMERGING COLOR

Our 13-year-old granddaughter came for a weekend visit a few weeks ago. She and I have had a looooong history of happily doing crafts together. And I wanted to continue the tradition during that weekend. So I put on my thinking cap to come up with a few projects that the two of us would have fun doing. 

One of the projects that I came up with involved a really old stamping technique. If you are fairly new to stamping, you may never even have heard of the Emerging Color technique. The card below incorporates it. It's the flowery background that's done with Emerging Color.

To do this technique, start out with a piece of Basic White cardstock. I cut my original piece to 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" so I can trim it to a good size once I know what I'm doing with it.

The first step is to choose a few colors to work with. I used three, an orange, a green and a blue. With each of these colors, stamp little designs randomly across the cardstock. Make the piece fairly full of these fun little designs. 

Next step is to choose a stamp that is a solid stamp, not an outline stamp which you could color. You can see thata I used a flower design. Starting close to the center, stamp this solid stamp in VersaMark ink. From the center stamp, work outwards from there, stamping the images close repeatedly, but not overlapping. 

Once you have a few more centralized stamps done, go to your Heat Station and pour clear embossing powder over the sticky stamping and use the Heat Tool to set the embossing. After you have these few embossed, it is easier to see where the stamping is and where you need to proceed. Keep stamping in VersaMark and heat to emboss until the entire sheet of white cardstock is completely embossed with the solid stamp image.

Choose a color that will coordinate with one of the colors you used in your initial stamping for the next step. I chose the darker blue. Ink up a brayer well in the chosen color ink pad, rolling always in the same direction. Remember, always in the same direction. 

This brayering step may take you up to ten minutes to do, depening on the depth of the color you chose. Keep inking up the brayer and going over and over the stamped cardstock. You will get some uneven streaks initially, but the more layers of brayering you add, the smoother and consistent the color will look.

When you feel you have done the best you can with the brayering, get a tissue and rub off the ink from the embossed images. This is when the magic happens: the first colors you used are now emerging to become part of your embossed image! Cool, huh?

A closeup of my final work with the emerging color:

Once you are satisfied with your emerged color piece, decide how you are going to use it. If it is going to be part of a card, figure out what size it should be and trim it as needed. If you have some areas on the edges that are a little iffy, try to trim those areas.

To complete my card, as you can see, I added a simple sentiment and a layer of colored cardstock before adding it to a white card base. I also stamped my same solid flower on white cardstock, then used the coordinating punch on it. I popped it up alongside my sentiment with a Stampin' Dimensional. 

Not exactly a quick technique, and one that takes some elbow grease, but I like the finished look. 

Have you ever tried the Emerging Color technique? If not, well, you have no excuse. You now know exactly how to go about it. Give it a try! I think you'll be satisfied with the end result!

Emerging

Smiles.