Tarnished Foil Technique

I saw some cards online using this tarnished foil technique, and wanted to give it a try.

The layout of the card is inspired by Melissa Kerman. 

I started with a silver foil paper and used the new Hexagons Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder (whew... that is a mouthful...). It is a bit different from the other embossing folders. It makes a much deeper impression. The folder itself is much thicker, and you actually use it with just ONE cutting plate! They recommend that you sprits your card stock with water before embossing, so that you avoid any wrinkles in your paper. 

So here is what I did:

Sprits the back of your foil paper with water lightly (you can also use gold or copper foil).

Place the foil in the embossing folder. You want to emboss in reverse, so that the impression is SINKING IN rather than raised! This way the design stands out more - this is specially important if you use folders like Falling Petals and similar.

Then I randomly swiped the embossed image with VersaMark ink pad, then applied Copper Embossing powder and heated it. I tried to just heat it enough to set it, so that it still is 'granular' rather than smooth.

Next, I took a StazOn ink pad and rubbed it on the copper embossing. This adds the tarnished look. Then I heat set the ink. 

Then you build your colours by using other embossing powders. So in this case I inked the foil again with VersaMark, and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. 

I went a bit crazy, as after this you barely saw any copper embossing, so I rubbed it again with Black StazOn ink, and re-did the copper embossing. 

The background paper is from the Urban Underground specialty Designer Series Paper.