Hello, welcome to my blog. Inspiration for this month’s design came from Rebecca Hall of Bec’s House of Craft. I finally got my hands on some Gilded Leafing and was keen to try it out. There a few cool techniques for applying the Gilded Leafing to your projects; for this design I used the Heat & Stick Powder to adhere the leafing and the Art Gallery stamp set.

We worked with blues for this design, but it could easily be mixed up with a different colour scheme or even a different stamp set – a versatile design which makes a great gift as well as a home decor piece. The flowers were stamped in Balmy Blue and Misty Moonlight, and the leaves were stamped using Pear Pizzazz.

To make the stencil for the large letter I found a font I like on the computer and printed it out to suit the size of my frame. The class participants were able to choose the letter for their own designs.

We randomly stamped the filigree type image in the Tasteful Touches stamp set down the left-hand side of the basic white layer, and then sponged the edges lightly to break up the stark white. Next we stamped the flower heads and stems on the right-hand side, making sure that they would be seen from behind the large letter. The Art Gallery stamp set features fun two-step stamping images. A bit of texture and interest came from curling the top corner.

To decorate the large letter we stamped the flower heads and stem. On two of the flowers we stamped the detail flower stamp in Misty Moonlight. To add the Gilded Leafing to the stamped images we used the detail flower stamp. The Heat & Stick Powder works in the same way that embossing powder does – ink up the stamp with VersaMark, sprinkle with Heat & Stick Powder and melt with a Heat Tool. Immediately after this, push the Heat & Stick powder down into the Gilded Leafing. Finally, lightly brush off the excess Gilded Leafing and it is done.

A tip here is to tip just enough of the Gilded Leafing that you need for the project into a larger container. The leafing is incredible light, and wafts very easily out of the small container it comes in. An ice cream container or similar is perfect for working with.

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We added some gold foil elements from the Expressions in Ink Ephemera Pack to the background, and some of the leaf and berry looking branches in behind the large letter. This layer was then adhered to a piece of Misty Moonlight, which also had a curled corner. And this layer was them adhered to a piece of Basic White cardstock. We lightly sponged the Basic White base to soften the starkness of it.

Happy crafting x

Megan