Be Not Afraid! Of the heat embosser.

Today I took on a project that I have really been meaning to do for quite a while. I keep hearing and seeing things about heat embossing with stamps. I even experimented with it a little at card day once. Usually my results were not so good. I am also one of those types of people who. . . if there is some sort of accident to happen. . . it will happen to me. So, I have lived in fear of the heat embosser for quite some time. Facing your fears - however, can be the best way to get over them, or so I have heard. So armed with New Heat Embossing Tool. . . I gave it a go today. . . with help from Tiffani who is my heat embossing hero!

Here are the results, and a few extra goodies that I have been meaning to post for Stars & Stamps. I really am that far behind. Sorry :(

I used some navy blue cardstock, some lighter blue cardstock, some white cardstock, my snowflake embossing folder for Cuttlebug, and the stamps are from the Close To My Heart set called Nature's Gift. (Pg. 40, C1424) I embossed with a white embossing powder on the dark blue paper - I LOVE the look of this.

I used a stamp set called Ice Crystals (Pg. 42, C1428) that Tiffani bought. The set comes with 13 pieces of snowflakes, you build the flake however you want. I stamped and embossed with gold, white and silver as I added pieces to the flake, starting with the gold, then white, then silver tips. I love how this works out too!

Another from the Ice Crystals set, and a Tag from Christmas Melodies (Pg. 50, D1324) I did also add a little bit of stickles to the flakes after embossing to give them even more dimension and sparkle. I love snowflakes! This stamp set is so much fun to work with!

Here is another Moose from the Nature's Gift set . . this set is one of the lesser expensive stamp sets in the catalogue this month, and I love it. This is my set of choice for my own cards this year I think. :) And also, because I am not completely exclusive, I added a strip of paper with the snowflakes stamped and embossed with white to the bottom half of the card - that little snowflake stamp set is from Michael's dollar bin! Love the dollar bin.

More moose - this one was done on a pretty metallic brown paper and I used a metallic red paper to mat the moose stamped and embossed with a pretty copper color. The colors didn't turn out as well on film as they do in person. This card looks like a cherry chocolate card - it's actually one of my favorites!

To show the detail of those Nature's Gift stamps - here is an example of one done with ink (New England Ivy green) instead of embossing powder. I guess I was afraid that the heat embossing would take away a lot of the detail of the stamps, but I was really excited to find out, that heat embossing leaves as much detail as stamping alone!

Here is one for Stars & Stamps that I finished a few weeks ago and I am sorry that I took so long to post it.

Inside. :)

And another for Stars & Stamps. I love their layout ideas. This one was fun!

Thanks for checking out my cards - I think that Tiffani finally ran screaming from my house because I was going so crazy with the Christmas cards. I also had the TV tuned in to the "Sounds of the Season" music channel in the background - maybe it's a little too early for all of the cheesy carols? Sorry Tif!!!

(Don't forget, if you like any of the stamp sets, you can get them here or through your Close To My Heart consultant. . . there are so many beautiful Christmas sets to chose from this year!)