Altered Playing Cards, Week 27: Embossing and Wrap-up

For this final week with Claudine at Claudine's Art Corner, we were to use embossing powders.  Although I only had about three items Claudine used, I came up with a way to make these cards my own.  I suggest you visit Claudine for the beautiful cards she made, because mine look NOTHING like hers this week.

Before we begin the show and tell portion of this post, I want to let everyone who is interested know that I have nearly finished the sewing, gluing, and adhering part of my friend Kathy's Kings and Queens altered book (AB).  However, I have a TON of pages left over, too many to rip out, so I will need to create a niche, something I said I wouldn't do in this book.    For those of you who took my AB class (those of you new to my blog are free to peruse the lessons that are listed on my right sidebar under the photo of the beautiful Bleubeard), know how I said it was SO MUCH EASIER to create a niche before anything else went in the book.  Since this is the first time I will have created the niche once the book is full, I can assure you, it is already harder than you can possibly imagine once all the other pages are filled.  Even the logistics are different.  Of course, if you don't hear from me for awhile, you know I've glued myself inside that niche and can't get to my computer (grin).

After the niche, I'll be able to decorate and embellish the pages and the covers.   I hope to make and share some of the embellishments beginning April 1, when I start my bEARTHday celebration with 22 days of recycling, reusing, and reducing, leading up to Earth Day.

But I've taken up enough of your time, so let's get to these last two cards.

Here they are, the final two cards in the deck.  All that's left now is the empty container they originally came in.

Claudine told us to use archival ink, but I don't have anything like that.  Instead, I got out an ink pad that has several colors in it.  I also got a dabber I bought several years ago in case I ever used this ink pad with something besides my brayer.  Sad, but true!

Unfortunately, as i was applying the ink, I realized I would have to deal with that wimpy gesso I own.  That's when I

decided to glue on some white printer paper.  Adding paper worked well last week, so why not try it again this week with a different technique.  I never expected the turquoise green to be so dark, and when I tried to remove some of the ink, it didn't help that much.

I chose my embossing powders based on the background colors of the cards, and finally found a pad of VersaMark, which is the only thing I know works with embossing powder.  I'm sure many of you stampers know of other products, but I'm unfamiliar with them.

When I chose the embossing powders, I also grabbed a few rubber stamps I thought I would audition.

I love the messy numbers stamp, first because I LOVE numbers, and second, because you can mis-stamp this one and it still comes out looking good.  I added the last of my red embossing powder that I bought probably eight or so years ago when I was participating in a lot of swaps.

Ironically, I still had lots of the red embossing powder left over to return to the jar.

I decided on a portion of this stamp for my second card, and allowed it to sit on the card while I took a picture.

The nice thing about embossing powder is, once you have added it to the ink, you have plenty of time to apply heat to it.  It's not one of those "gotta be quick as a bunny" events that happen so often when we play with mixed media.  In fact, I put my embossing powder and my stamps away before I heated the powder on these two cards.

I was very happy with these backgrounds.

I'm leaving these two stamps as a surprise, but before you ask where I got them (and I suspect someone would), I got them at a garage sale many years ago for $0.25 (US) for both.  It's also the first time I've ever used them.

I wanted these last two cards to reflect the fact that I found this project to be a challenge from the beginning

to the very end.

The final two cards together: Card on left I added a postage stamp and part of a ticket.  Card on right I added part of the same ticket and three clear acrylic self-stick "bubbles."  I fussy cut both pigs I stamped on colored printer paper.

And now for my wrap-up.  I didn't want to remove these from their "homes," so I decided to show them as they were.

This first set is one side of Weeks One thru Nine.  You can see I tried to show that they are in order from left to right, top to bottom.  I didn't like the white, but couldn't figure out how to remove the writing after I had saved the text.

I decided white was not a good color for showing the week number, so changed it to a color I hoped would be easier to read.  Read these from RIGHT to LEFT, and top to bottom.  They correspond with the same week's card on the reverse side.

Although I named the cards properly when I saved them, I messed up with the numbers when I changed colors.  They should read Week 10, not Week 9.  At least I got Week 18 correct.

I got back on track when I showed the other set of cards for Weeks 10 through 18.  Again, the reverse cards should read right to left, top to bottom.

I got both sides labeled correctly when I scanned and named the last set Weeks 19 through 26.  Read these left to right and top to bottom.

The reverse side with labels showing right to left and top to bottom.  Technically, we gessoed all our cards the first week, but somehow, I didn't bother to count that week.

I guess you can tell I'm keeping these cards in baseball card holders.  These holders also hold ATCs, which is approximately the same size as the playing cards I used.

Thanks to everyone who stuck with me through this journey.  Needless to say, I'm glad I participated, but would have liked to have had a few more of the products Claudine had/used, or else had the prompts be a bit more general.  However, I am grateful you visited and joined me on this very, very difficult (for me) APC challenge.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Claudine for all she has done to guide us through these cards, too.  I greatly appreciate her visits and her upbeat posts.   

Thanks for doing this, Claudine.  You put a lot into this project and it shows.  Although it may not have sounded like it at times, I was very glad I participated, because it certainly made me think outside the box, and for that, I'm grateful to you.