Experimenting With An Embossing Pen

Hello Scrappers and friends! I just purchased my first embossing pen and my first Tim Holtz blending tool. I've been watching YouTube videos on these two items and I loved seeing all the different things you can do! Now these are not perfect by any means but still pretty cool seeing how these items work together to create something awesome!

I LOVE Tim Holtz products! Now for those not familiar with Tim Holtz, he has a lot of embellishments, inks, paints, stencils, etc that crafters use. Most of his items make the projects look distressed and have an antique look, which I love! You can purchase these items at craft stores and online. I have seen that Hobby Lobby occasionally puts the Tim Holtz's products on sale so be on the look out!

One thing I noticed in the videos I watched was to start from the outside and start rubbing the tool with the ink on it in a circular motion  towards the center. This creates darker edges. Also make sure you have a mat or scrap piece of paper before doing this so you don't get ink on your craft table.

Then I used clear embossing ink and inked the Cake stamp (from Stampin Up) then stamped the paper in the pink area with it. Then I sprinkled the embossing powder you see pictured onto the image I just stamped and then heated it my heat gun. The heat gun I purchased at Hobby Lobby when it was 50% off, its the Paper Studio's brand. Once the powder heats up it melts and goes clear (since this is clear glow in the dark kind). Then I rubbed a darker ink over that and got this result.

What happens is the clear powder protects the ink that you first used underneath the stamp and it prevents the darker ink from penetrating it. So you can see the cake is the "Picked Raspberry" color and then I used "Seedless Preserves" to darken the background to help the cake stand out.
Here are a few more samples I did to show you the new technique I picked up. With practice I hope to improve but not to bad my first time trying it.

Tim Holtz has come out with a smaller blending tool that's rounded. Tim and others have said that the smaller tool blends a lot better than this big square one. The square one is great for large areas but the smaller one is great especially if you don't want the lines from the edge of the tool.

The pads on these tools can be replaced or they are suppose to be reusable just by washing them with soap and water. Some ladies have one for every color. 

Hope you enjoy these few samples that I did and it gets your creative juices flowing! Have a splendid crafty time!