I’m so excited to be sharing Mixed Media tutorials with you here on the blog and so I wanted to ask our community what they were wanting to learn. I’m so thankful for this list of ideas and one of them in particular was one I really wanted to share. The comment was that the stamp inks that come in the devotional kits smear or smudge when you use wet media like watercolors. I had replied that one way of waterproofing the ink is to use clear embossing on it. Clear embossing is one of my favorite techniques to use with watercolors and I’m so excited to share this technique with you.
I really wanted to highlight the part of verse 4 that says, “Love is patient and kind”. Not that I’m having issues with being patient or kind, but that I struggle with being patient and kind with myself. It’s kinda hard to love others as yourself if you struggle with loving yourself. I wanted to find a picture of what that would look like and I came to 1 Corinthians 13. Right there it was obvious what I needed to work on… patience and kindness. To highlight that verse I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use the clear embossing technique since I wanted to highlight the rest of the passage too.
STEP ONE:
Align the stamp you want to use on your acrylic block, I chose the paint brush mark that fit across the words I wanted to highlight. I love that there are so many different sizes to choose from, you could even highlight other parts in different colors in a passage with all the options.
STEP TWO:
Ink up your stamp using pigment ink… it must be pigment ink because it’s sticky when wet, while other types of ink will dry too fast for it to work.
STEP THREE:
Press your stamp onto the paper. Don’t press too hard that it smooshes, just enough to get your full image.
STEP FOUR:
Pour embossing powder over the image, then you will pick up your Bible and allow the excess powder to fall, either on a scratch piece of paper or your Bible mat. Your image should be covered in the powder and everywhere else will be clean.
STEP FIVE:
Turn your heat tool on and wave it over the image and after a little bit you will see it melting and magically turn clear. You want to make sure it’s cooled off before the next step.
STEP SIX:
add your wet media like watercolor over the top. You will see it resist and the stamp won’t smear or smudge since it’s protected with the clear coat now.
I later extended the watercoloring to the margins and then layered on some paper pieces and , stickers and more stamping to finish it off.
ESV Single Column Journaling Bible | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Clear Acrylic Stamp Block | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Elements Clear Stamp Set | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Shanna’s Favorites Watercolor Set | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Be Bold Bible Mat | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd You Are Loved Cardstock Stickers | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd You Are Loved Paper Pieces | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Tape Runner | Ranger Clear Embossing Powder
