Faux Tooled Leather

It really does look like tooled leather.

Supplies you will need to make tooled leather:

black pigment ink

brown fun foam

heat gun

stamp

1. cut the fun foam about 1/2" to 1" larger than your stamp

2. ink the stamp with black pigment and keep it in your hand

3. heat the fun foam until it start to curl

4. immediately place stamp on heated foam and press down HARD

5. keep pressing that stamp into the fun foam until it has cooled

6. now pull up you stamp and admire the 3D image

7. trim the foam as close as desired to the 3D image

A few hints:

Let this stamped 3D piece of art work sit at least over night, WHY? because it is stamped with pigment ink and pigment ink takes a long long time to dry. If you have two people you could probably have one heating the foam and one stamping AND get away with using dye inks. I found that after I stopped heating and inked up my stamp with dye ink, that the foam had cooled. It does not reheat well. You will get the best image from HOT foam.

This technique is fun with medallion stamps. I have a nice collection of multiple colors of fun foam. Great say to get a 3D effect without a lot of hassle. The foam also mails well.

Happy Stamping and God Bless,

Shelly N.

Cowboys and Cowgirl "Cards"

While in the local farm and ranch supply store I spotted two decks of playing cards on sale AND some wonderful gift wrap.

The gift wrap is the background paper on both cards.
The edges have been softened by sponging on black dye ink. This also adds depth.
I measure and punched on the back side of the cards to achieve good corner spacing when placing the black brads.

The barbwire stamp is by Sutter Enterprises, while the Cowboy Up stamp is unknown.

I did a little distressing with a sanding block on the cowgirl playing card. Smaller black brads were used on this version.

The floral flourish is by Inkadinkado and the barbwire is by Sutter Enterprises.

The "Cowboy Up" and the floral flouish were stamped with VersaMark and embossed with fine line embossing powder.

STAMPER BASICS - many everyday items, such as gift wrap and playing cards make wonderful embellishments for your creations.

Gum wrappers, pages from magazines, dried flowers, ribbons, old postage stamps and leaves are just a few more ideas. You will never look at a hardware or gift store in the same way again.

God Bless, Shelly N.