Bodacious Batik

Today's Technique Lovers challenge on SCS was a technique that I've been wanting to try out. In fact, I even stopped at AC Moore last week to pick up some mulberry paper so I could give it a shot. The technique is called Mulberry Batik. There's a tutorial for it here on SCS.

For both of these cards, I used the bold flower images from Bodacious Bouquet along with Cool Caribbean, Yoyo Yellow, and Green Galore reinkers. The reinkers replaced the watercolor crayons in the tutorial directions-- I can't bring myself to "waste" those special crayons on a project or technique I'm not sure I'll be totally thrilled with. Things went smoothly until it came to the ironing part. I used my dedicated craft iron (the one I ruined as a kindergarten teacher) and copy paper, as directed, but my mulberry paper kept sticking to the copy paper. I had a hard time peeling it off and portions of it ripped a little. Maybe it was the quality of the mulberry paper? Anyway, the batik-ed paper came out okay. I used a Tempting Turquoise cardstock base and was able to create two cards using the un-ripped pieces of my mulberry paper.

The brad at the center of the sequin flower is heat embossed and covered with Iridescent Ice embossing powder. This is the first time I tried heat embossing a brad and it was SO easy--just hold the brad with tweezers, heat with the heat gun, and dip in the powder. I'll definitely be doing that again soon.

I've decided to start publishing the pictures on my blog at a larger size. I hope that helps make it more reader/viewer friendly!

Materials Used (for both cards):
From Stampin' Up!: Bodacious Bouquet and Happy Everything stamp sets; Cool Caribbean, Yoyo Yellow, and Green Galore Classic reinkers; Tempting Turquoise Classic ink; Green Galore marker; Versamark; Tempting Turquoise, Yoyo Yellow, Green Galore, Barely Banana, and Whisper White cardstock; turquoise grosgrain; large oval punch; Crystal Clear and Iridescent Ice embossing powder; sponges; dimensionals
Other: Faux Ribbon stamp set (Papertrey Ink); mulberry paper ; iridescent flower sequins and brad (Queen and Co.); yellow eyelet (Making Memories)