 Γεια everybody and welcome back! Today I'm going to play with embossing folders and waxes. It is an amazing technique that brings embossing detail into life and makes the paper look so cool as if it is a completely different material. The inspiration came from this dye with a lovely flower by Cizix that I wanted to use as a focal point inside that frame. This is an embossing folder, the small one that dyecuts as well as embosses. But I'm going to show you in a bigger area how that technique works so that you can see that better. So for that I will use this embossing folder but you can use any embossing folder that you have at home. Either it is one of the new ones, the 3D ones that really emboss and have lots and lots of detail but also with the older ones. For both my examples today I'm using black cardstock because I think that it's so lovely on camera and it helps me demonstrate how something that you can't even see that embossing detail comes to life once you apply wax on top. Some people like to spray very lightly to miss the paper before they run it through the dye cutting machine with the embossing folder. I don't find that necessary. I still get a good impression. Either way, do that if you find that your paper cracks when you run it through. There are different brands of waxes in the market. For today I'm using the ones by Prima. They come in a various collection of colors, even matte or metallic and the packaging used to be like this one in a tin where you pick up the color with a dagger or a cloth or even your finger. I like to work with my finger because I get a good feel of how much of the wax I have and the new packaging is in a tube just so that it doesn't dry so quickly. So no matter which one you have it works just fine. I'm going to apply this lovely color which is called Firebird. It has a metallic shine to it and I'm picking up a very small amount with my finger. I even dab it off on a scrap piece of paper and then go over my frame making sure that I touch only the peaks of the embossing on top of the paper. And here is a close-up look. This is one of the products that is going to last you forever since you use just a tiny amount of product to get a lovely result. You can stop here if you want as it looks just stunning. It also dries quite quickly but if you want you can add an extra color on top. I am cleaning up my tool which is in this case my finger and I will show you one more example on the bigger area with another color. This time I will use Patina Green which is one of the matte waxes. It doesn't leave a shine on top of your project and it really depends what you want. There is a big variety and you can pick your favorite colors and if you want to have a shine or not. I am picking up a tiny bit of the product and I applied that on the glass mat and then I pick up a little bit and go over the design. Remember that when that wax dries it's going to be permanent. Also keep in mind that it's always better to go with a very thin layer just apply it very lightly and you can even go over it again and again to build up the color rather than go from the beginning with a blob of that product on top of your project. It's not going to look ok and you will not be able to remove it so just go lightly with a little bit of color and build up more layers if you need to. I absolutely love how it brings out that detail from the embossing folder on the paper and if you want you can change up colors and you can add a second layer on top as long as the first layer is completely dry so that you don't mix up both colors. Here I'm going with old silver and this is a metallic wax and I'm going to go to apply it even more lightly than the first layer so I'm only picking just a few areas here and there. It's really going to make a huge difference. For my project today I will use the frame to create a card and I'm keeping this lovely background for another card in the future. If you want to check out which embossing folders I used these are both by Sizzix by the way you can find them linked down below. And now let's make a card I will use the Bloom Sizzix die. It comes with many dies in the set that you can group so you get dies to create the leaves you get dies to create the flower etc. For this project I will use only the buds as well as the leaves since I need smaller delicate elements to fit inside my little frame. Now this Sizzix die set is designed by Tim Holtz it's one of his color eyes collection so you get many dies that you can cut out from different colored cardstock and you build one on top of the other which is going to bring the image to life by using different shades of color so at the back it is marked what color you want to use it's just a suggestion if you want of course you can use completely different colors but for the leaves for example it says black which I am going to die cut the main image from and then it says green 1 and green 2 which is exactly what I am going to do when you run it through and die cut everything you will find that the images do have indentations so you know exactly where you are supposed to stick the other layer on top for the leaves there are only 3 layers I started with black then went with darker green and then the lighter at the top it is a super easy system that you can use your scrap piece of paper to work with and it really brings the images to life without having to do any coloring you do coloring and shading with your cardstock another way to go is to die cut everything from white cardstock if you want and then you can use your markers to color each and every one of the layers now I am putting together my buds again I used another color of green for the base and a couple of colors for the top I went with pinks for my flowers although in the packaging these are yellow and at the back of these dies you will find yellow 1, yellow 2 but this is just marked like this so it is a reference for you to be able to understand which die is which so for my card today I am going for a vintage look and feel especially since I have this lovely frame and when I am going for a vintage look I cannot stay away from my distress ink which is vintage photo of course I am inking up the edges of the leaves as well as the flowers just a little bit to add a touch of that brown here and there for the back of my frame I want to find a pattern paper that has some text on top of it and I am going through this old etc 8x8 pattern paper collection I have this for years and I keep using it again and again I am going to place the frame on different areas and just audition how it looks and I decided to go with this one here which I am going to cut out I want my frame to be slightly raised so that I can tuck in behind easily the flowers and the leaves that's why I will use a thin strip of my foam tape I am going to peel off the backing and this way I will be able to bend it easily all around the frame and now I can place it on top of my background I will use my deckle edge streamer to cut out a panel the edges really add to that vintage look that I am going for if you don't have such a streamer you can just cut out a panel and use your scissors around the edges to add some distressed look I will also ink up the edges again by using vintage photo and I go with the original distressed ink not the oxide one this way both my flowers and leaves as well as the panel have a touch of the same color so it helps to bring all the elements together I am also smooshing a little bit of ink on my glass mat I am going to spray some water and then add some splashes on my panel to mat my panel I will use a brown chocolate brown cardstock that's 4.25 x 5.5 this is going to cover up completely the standard card before I stick my two panels together I am going to do some stamping for that I am using a tech stamp that I had for ages and I am going to stamp here and there at the background I am not going for the perfect impression and again I am going with vintage photo distressed ink and now finally it's time to assemble my card for that I am using glue at the back of the frame I am going to stick it on top of my panel and then on the inside I am going to tack the leaves and the flowers I don't want them to be completely at the center I think that it looks more interesting if they are slightly on one side so they can still see some of the background back there to stick the leaves down I went with white glue but they still have dimension since I mostly stuck them on top of the frame which is raised for the flowers I did cut out tiny little foam squares at the back of all those buds so they look dimensionless as well absolutely love the result I think it is a stunning card perfect for pretty much any occasion I will stick this panel on top of the brown one and as I applied the glue I made sure that it didn't go all the way to the far edge this way I know that the glue is not going to ooze out from the corners and make a mess and at the same time I am able to use my tweezers and curl up some of the corners to add some more interest on my card and of course many of the things that I do are an afterthought I don't plan the card from the beginning but not having the glue all the way to the far edge I did have the opportunity to do that little detail on the corners which of course you can do on your panel before you stick it down I decided to turn this card into a birthday card so I picked one of the stickers from the sticker booklet that says happy birthday to you I am going to pop it on top of my card as well by using a thin strip of foam tape but since those letters are super bright for a card like this one which is vintage I don't want that to look so bright that's why I will go on top of it with my blending tool and add a touch of that vintage photo so that it blends nicely with the rest of the elements now I do have black on the sentiment I do have black at the back of my frame so I am going to add some black at the very edge of the brown panel now of course this is an afterthought you can do that way before you assemble your card but after I was quite careful and I didn't make a mess and it worked just fine and my panel is ready all I have to do is to stick it on top of a pre-folded card that's 4.25x5.5 I went with vanilla color to match the look and feel of my project I don't like to use bright white when I'm going for a vintage look and as much as I love creating clean and simple cards with lots of white space whenever I create a vintage card I always fall in love with it and this is the case with this card as well that I use it on my craft room to decorate it for weeks and that was the project for today I hope that you had fun that you got inspired I absolutely love the wax on top of the embossed areas it truly turns that paper frame into something completely different thank you all so much for watching you will find links to everything I used down below in the description area don't forget to like the video and to leave me a comment and I hope you will all have a lovely day