Two new techniques...new to me!

Well tonight I bring you a birthday card I've recently made, and whilst making it I was playing around with a couple of new tecniques and products I have.

On the main card I used one of my new Wild Asparagus stamps from Minds Eye. Its a lovely Art Deco inspired flower. I did the background strip in Papermanias dark blue ink and then stamped a Labels 4 nestie with the stamp along with an art deco sentiment. All pretty standard up til now. I then tried something which I'd spotted on Ikkis Cuttlebug cupboard( http://www.ikkiscuttlebugcupboard.blogspot.com/ ) which uses 3 layers of clear embossing.  I was a bit dubious at first, and as a first attempt it wasn't perfect, but it gives this lovely glossy, almost enamel like finish. I'm really pleased with it, and am already planning future projects with this technique!

The second thing is Shrink Plastic! I picked some up at the Range a few months back, purely out of intrigue. Since then I've seen it demonstrated on Create and Craft and have been meaning to give it a go. I was thinking I might use the charm I made on the same card, but in the end decided against it. I started by cutting the shrink plastic in my cuttlebug using the same labels 4 nestie as the central image. I then stamped the same flower on it and as it wasn't that clear went over the stamp with a blue Sharpie marker. I'm really glad I did watch the demo as when you start heating it with the embossing gun it starts to shrivel and I panicked a little, but I remembered them saying to just push through that stage and it'll get better...and it did! I was so pleased with my little dinky embellishment, it is so cute! I put it on the picture next to the card to show just how much it shrank! I have no idea what I'm going to use it for, but its very cool. I might buy the white shrink plastic next time as it might show the stamping up better.

Anyway, hopefully I might inspire you to try these two techniques now, they're very satisfying, and also very fun to do!