Hello Sunday!  I’m delighted to be hopping again this month (4th Sunday) with the Stamping Sunday Design Team.

Today, it’s all about the embossing paste – and you’re going to love the range of ideas we’ve got for you.

To see more of the design team projects, click on the little blue frog for the full link up list.

I love this new product so much that I’ve already finished one tub and I’m waiting for my new one to arrive.  It’ll be here just in time this week to try some of the design team ideas.

As well as embossing paste, there’s also tools for easy application & a pack of 4 decorative masks.

Although on first glance embossing paste is quite simple and is used to emboss the paste through a mask to add texture, there are lots of different adaptations you can make to increase the variety of looks the paste creates.

The first card I’m sharing today uses reinkers to colour the embossing paste and a mask made from the Eclectic Layers die.

You can transform the paste from white to any Stampin’ Up! colour by adding a couple of drops of reinker to the embossing paste.

I love that the paste gives a really even colour across the whole pattern.  I always get caught when sponging with that one really dark patch!!!

To colour the embossing paste:

Dollop a teaspoon of the paste on your silicone craft sheet, drop on 1-3 drops of reinker (depending on the intensity of colour you want) and mix with your palette knife.

Working on the silicone mat makes for a smooth working surface with an easy clean up.  If you don’t own one of these already, then you’ll want to add one to your collection.  I also use mine for hot glue work and have recently heard that they are a great underlay for stamping.

Although I could have easily used one of the Pattern Party masks, it was great to be able to create a different background for this card to suit the fabulous style of the lady!

You can create a mask from any die that has a pattern to it – or a an interesting solid shape.

I’m so excited to show you my second project….I heat embossed the embossing paste!

I tried this a few ways with the reindeer from Santa’s Sleigh Thinlits, including using a stencil.

In the end I found it worked best when I cut the reindeer out of cardstock, placed on my silicone mat and covered it completely with embossing paste, before layering with embossing powder.

I then gently moved it off my silicone mat and heat embossed it with my heat tool.  The embossing powder bubbles & cracks and creates a fabulous finish that I liken to the crinkly foil on chocolate wrappers!

In the process of my embossing experiments, I ended up with 2 reindeers – a gold & silver version.  You could do this with any metallic embossing powder you own.

And there’s a whole world of experimentation for non-metallic embossing powders!

The first reindeer card using the gold embossing is texture filled!

As well as having my heat embossed reindeer, I’ve also added embossing paste to the base layer using the diamond decorative mask – and then stamped over the whole layer with the new Music Sheet background stamp.

This is another great feature of the embossing paste – you can stamp directly onto it!

The second reindeer card is much simpler (and more my usual style!) with a base of gorgeous Coffee Break DSP and the heat embossed reindeer as the focus.

Here’s a close up of the embossed reindeer in silver.  As you can see, it’s not important to get a totally flat finish on the embossing paste – it all adds to the texture!

That’s all from me today!

If you’d love to see more embossing paste ideas, click on the blue frog to bring up the list of wonderful demonstrators around the world from the Stamping Sunday design team that are sharing their ideas, including our guest hoppers Sarah Fleming & Tanya Boser!

Thanks for visiting!  Have a fantastic week!