Embossing with Paper Sushi

Embossing is a fun way to add dimension and shine to your rubber stamp projects! The result is a raised, shiny, version of your normal two-dimensional stamp print. Embossing is also a lovely way to add sophistication to your stamped wedding stationery, as well as bringing your cards and tags to life!

Beautifully sophisticated, right?

  

We offer Colorbox's clear embossing powder in our shop, and now it's time to show you how to use it. I'll take you through the steps to make your stamp printing one-of-a-kind.

First, we'll show you how to use clear embossing powder, with colored pigment ink. This is our recommended embossing set-up, as pigment inks sit on top of the stamping surface and dry slowly enough to allow you time to distribute your powder. 

Second, we'll show you how to use colored embossing powder with clear embossing ink. Through much experimentation, we've discovered that with clear embossing powder and colored pigment ink, the embossed image results in a more solid, shiny, polished raised impression of your stamp print. Using the clear embossing powder is a great way to highlight your beautiful pigment ink colors. With the clear embossing ink and colored embossing powder, we noticed that the result is a more vibrant color with lots of shine, but can be more spotty and bubbly-looking. 

Typically, one embosses on paper.  But, after a fun conversation with a customer, we turned to wood and discovered you can emboss even more surfaces!

Clear Embossing Powder

 

Stamp your surface with its respective stamp ink. Here we've used Versacraft, which is great for stamping on wood.

Pour a thin layer of embossing powder on top of the stamped image, covering all of the ink. We found that lightly pressing a dry, clean finger against the powder can help make more powder stick to the ink.

Tap off excess powder and pour back into your embossing powder container. Grab a dry paintbrush and wipe off any excess embossing powder. Excess powder can melt in the heating process, resulting in shiny, raised spots in areas you may not want to be embossed. 

To heat set the embossing powder, we recommend using an embossing tool. Simply turn on your embossing tool and hold 3 inches over your stamp image, making swirling motions as to not burn the embossing powder. You can tell if it's melting if the powder turns into a liquid, forms into a solid image, and becomes super shiny. This might take 2-3 minutes. We found that the embossing tool heat sets a lot faster on paper, than on wood. Be patient! If your powder is burning, it'll start to bubble, spread out, and look spotty. Once your entire image is heat set, melted, shiny, and dry, it's all finished! Give them as gifts, use in your scapbook, decorate your walls, use as wedding invitations, etc. 

Here is a completed embossed wood slice, made with clear embossing powder and black Versacraft stamp ink. It's so shiny!!!

Colored Embossing Powder

Clear embossing ink and colored embossing powder, makes a more vibrant color, but can burn easily and result in a spotty look. The process is the same as the clear embossing powder, however, it's always nice to go over the process again.

Stamp your surface with clear embossing stamp ink. Here, we've used Top Boss brand, which is great for all surfaces. Pour a thin layer of colored embossing powder on top of the stamped image, covering all of the clear ink. It may be difficult to see the clear ink, so we recommend using lots of light and moving the surface around at different angles, to make sure the entire image is covered. We found that lightly pressing a dry, clean finger against the colored powder, can help make more powder stick to the ink.

Tap off excess powder and pour back into your embossing powder container. Grab a dry paintbrush and wipe off any excess embossing powder. Excess powder can melt in the heating process, resulting in shiny, raised spots in areas you may not want to be embossed. 

  

To heat set the embossing powder, we recommend using an embossing tool. Simply turn on your embossing tool and hold about 3 inches over your stamp image, making swirling motions as to not burn the embossing powder. You can tell if it's melting if the powder turns into a liquid, forms into a solid image, and becomes super shiny. This might take 2-3 minutes. We found that the embossing tool heat sets a lot faster on paper, than on wood. Be patient! If your powder is burning, it'll start to bubble, spread out, and look spotty. Once your entire image is heat set, melted, shiny, and dry, it's all finished! 

Here is a finished wood slice made with clear embossing ink and colored embossing powder. Perfect for a whimsical wedding invitation!

Free Printable Valentine's Day Cards

What's better than old school rap lyrics turned into bookish puns?  Probably nothing.  So check these out --

We've created printable bookmarks for your school aged music lovers to give to their rainbow reading friends on Valentine's Day.  - jen

Alicia here with your School Valentine DIY!  You'll need the printable, some scissors, glue and paper clips.  I happened to have these colorful ones on hand.

I cut them out, glued the paperclips to the back and let them dry.  

Your new little bookmarks clip right to the Valentine that reads "You're great in my book!"

The four different bookmarks read "STOP grammar time!", "Mama said check you out", "You down with A-B-C? Yeah, you know me", and "She's got a ticket to READ"

Ok, so the last one wasn't a classic rap song.

  There's a second page with extra Valentines cards for your bookmarks.  You'll print each sheet a different number of times depending on how many you're giving out.

Download the printable School Valentines file here

Enjoy!

Photo Booth Roundup

Want a great way for two families and their friends to break the ice at your wedding reception?  Add a photo booth! We've rounded up different styles to suit your wedding.  They all have one thing in common: an instant fun factor.

This photo booth featured a stark white background and fun chair... get a little closer!

A wall of photo frames is a great prop!  You can have people behind and in front of the wall, interacting with each other, or pretending they're just part of the background.

More than just a background, you can have a photo set created with three walls, flooring, and a prop.  This one uses ivy and roses for the back wall and framed art for the side walls.

A chalk wall background means you can customize it completely, and also change or add things as the reception progresses.

A wall of giant sequins?  We're in!  And this one is a DIY tutorial.

South African Wedding (white chair) from 100 Layer Cake

DIY Lime Green & Navy Blue Wedding from Wedding Chicks 

Photo Booths from Project Wedding Blog

Chalk Inspired Wedding Ideas from Green Wedding Shoes

Sequin Photo Booth DIY by Oh Happy Day

Hostess Gift and Free Printable!

Hello, friends!  It's that time of year for celebrating with family and friends and that means lots of invitations and fun events!  Alicia created this lovely DIY hostess gift, perfect for the holiday season.  I've designed a coordinating printable so you can recreate her project for the hostesses you're thankful for this season!  Enjoy!  - Jen

This hostess gift was pretty fun to put together.

 I filled clear ornaments with popcorn kernels, and I strung popcorn and wrapped it around a small rosemary plant.  I picked this one up at Lowe's.  The plastic planter it came in wasn't so pretty, so I used our Merry Christmas stamp and Encore silver ink on kraft paper to wrap the pot.  I printed out the easy peasy printable, cut on the lines, and tied it on with red yarn.  This smells lovely, and makes me want to eat gourmet popcorn every time I pass by.

And just because we love you so much, here's the hand lettered and hand drawn Printable Hostess Gift Tag - which also has a card you can cut out and fold.

Download the printable PDF at the link!

Printable Hostess Gift Tag and Card

If you're feeling a bit more ambitious, I'd suggest making a loaf of rosemary herb bread.  This would be a good way to get two hostess gifts from the plant.  Or just pass along this recipe with it, I've made it before and it is really tasty. It's Pastor Ryan's Herb bread from the Pioneer Woman's blog.

Tags Roundup!

We've rounded up a few stunning ways to use blank tags.

Find vintage style manila and kraft tags in Paper Sushi shop and get wrapping!

Sources: (Stamped Gift Tags from Craft & Creativity), (Gift Tags with wildflowers, wrapped with twine, from the fabulous Local Milk), (Wooden spools + paperclips + tags = place cards for your tablescape, from House of Earnest), (Gift wrap with evergreen bough from Latte Lisa), (Tags with pom pom ribbon and colored doilies from ThePaperedNest on etsy), (Glittered Deer place card found at New Home Interior Design), (Pig place card via Hatch Creative Studio), (RSVP cards via Oh So Beautiful Paper)

Stamped Napkins and Tea Towels

Hey guys, Alicia here.  I am honored to be part of Paper Sushi helping Jen get some of her great ideas posted for you to see.  I'm going to dive right in with a project she came up with months ago that would be an easy DIY Christmas gift.  I imagine this could work great for just about anyone- neighbors, teachers, your brother's girlfriend, or yourself.

Jen sent me a big box of goodies and an idea.  The supplies were some fun stamps, VersaCraft fabric ink stamps and a couple packs of plain white flour sack towels.

 This tea towel has bright pink hand drawn succulents in a random pattern covering the towel.

We try to use cloth napkins in our house, and with little ones, I can always use more.  One tea towel cut into four napkins and I was able to iron, fold and stitch a simple hem for all four in under thirty minutes.  I stamped away to my heart's content and ended up with some adorable napkins.

I did learn that these need to be set with an iron, not the dryer.  The dryer left some ghost images of the stamp across the fabric.  

Seriously easy! The VersaCraft ink comes in Pink, Red,  Blue, Black, and White. And that Hello! stamp?  You can get it here. 

Printable Hand Lettered Homemade Cleaner Labels and Recipes

Almost a full year of radio silence! I think this might be my new record, you guys. But, I was procrastinating while cleaning the bathrooms the other day and now I have something to share. Read on for some natural cleaning recipes and free printable hand lettered labels!

We try to use homemade and natural cleaners and avoid the harsh chemicals. There are a lot of great recipes out there on the Internet, though you must be a bit careful as many of them would have failed your basic high school chemistry quiz. Even more importantly, you must label your bottles very awesomely as cleaning needs all the help it can get when it comes to general awesomeness.


Clean All the Things - your general all purpose cleaner. Many of the recipes call for both vinegar and baking soda. Yes, this makes an impressively fun reaction, what with all the bubbling and foaming, but don't let that fool you into thinking you've created a super cleaner! What you've created is water, a bit of salt and a whole bunch of carbon dioxide flouncing off in a dramatic bubbly rage. And, water and a bit of salt aren't much of a cleaning agent.

I soak orange peels in vinegar in a mason jar, hidden off in the pantry for a few weeks. If you'd like to cut to the chase, substitute a few drops of your tea tree or lavender essential oil for several weeks of orange and vinegar on honeymoon.

Clean All The Things

2 cups orange infused white vinegar
2 cups water
a squirt of dish soap

Dat Glass - glass cleaner that smells terrible and works wonderfully! Wheee!

Dat Glass

2 Tbsp white vinegar
1 cup water
1 cup rubbing alcohol
I've read that corn starch added to this mix will make an even better glass cleaner, but it works so well without it and I don't remember enough of high school chemistry to understand what difference the corn starch would make and what the possible downside could be. An experiment for you to carry out, friends!


Glow Your Bowl - a toilet bowl cleaner that doesn't require you to throw every window open and fan on, just to breathe. Again, lots of fans of baking soda + vinegar and castile soap + vinegar out there. If you absolutely must include vinegar in your toilet bowl cleaning routine, use it as a rinsing agent AFTER you've cleaned.

Glow Your Bowl

1/2 cup baking soda
1/4 cup hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup castile soap
1 cup hot water
For this one, I just use dish soap. I don't have castile soap and I firmly believe one only needs so many different kinds of soap in the house. Whisk it all together in a bowl and pour it into a little squeeze-y bottle, then go to town.

A few bonus homemade cleaning tips:

- we keep baking soda in one of those shakers you see in every pizza joint with hot pepper flakes in it all over the house. Perfect for the bathtub, for the glass top stove, for a stubborn stain or crunchy bit on the kitchen counter, for sprinkling over stains on the carpet.

- this magical carpet cleaner really is magical. To cut down to a normal stain sized portion, I just use 1 tsp vinegar, 1 tsp clear dish soap and 2/3 cup hot water.

- go straight for the super industrial sprayer bottles. There are very cute spray bottles at Target. Don't waste your time.

Want your own bottle labels? Download the free homemade cleaner bottle label printable here! I printed on label paper and used a 2" punch for mine, but I've included a row with a 2" frame for cutting out the old fashioned way as well. Enjoy!

Well, hello friends.

Seems like it's about that time to dust off the ol' blog and let both of you know what I've been up to! While, I really enjoyed Fuzzy Sushi (and I do still have some knit and crochet patterns available), I've started down a new creative path that I love all the way down to my toes. You know that incredible moment when everything comes together and you know in your soul that you're doing exactly what you want to be doing? I'm calling that moment Paper Sushi. And I am completely in love with it! Granted, my friends and farflung family are occasionally curious if I'm still alive and - at least until the kids are back in school - there've been a lot of late nights trying to keep up with it all. But, putting pen to paper and letting the creativity flow is nothing but joy. So, here's a peek!



Stop by and check out custom wedding stamps, handwritten and handdrawn stamps, custom and address stamps and lots of back to school and bookplate stamps!

Wrapping up the weekend.

We had a lovely long weekend filled with triumphs at the swimming pool, the beautiful movie Hugo and birthday parties. Lots of birthday parties. The kids had four invitations in their hot little hands but a mom has to draw the line somewhere, so we only went to three of them. We have twice been the only people to show up at a birthday party. The heartbreak I imagine those kids would have felt if no one at all showed up compels us to try to make it to every party. But, four! In four days! Just no.

Mom had a lot of fun wrapping those three gifts.

When I saw these adorable glittered clothespin Christmas gift toppers from Creature Comforts, I knew I had to recreate them for little girl birthday gifts.





I wish Hello Kitty didn't have a metal hook protruding from her head, but I still love how these came out.



And, funny...I didn't remember the clothespins holding gift tags in the DIY. Totally thought I came up with that myself!

Then, again inspired by Creature Comforts, I set out to master Ez's pom pom method. This is so so much easier than the way I've always made pom poms that I want to make a million of them! What I love the most about this, is that Cheeseball decided that this wrap was pretty, but not quite sparkly enough. So, while I was in the shower, she broke out the glitter glue and made the pom poms perfect.



We were rushing out the door, so all I have is an instagram photo. But, I love the collaboration!

I always find boys to be a little harder to get creative with. Probably because I don't get to just glitter bomb everything. But, the little boy whose party we attended today is the sweetest, old soul of a child. So, I dressed up his gift with a windsor knot and tie. With footballs. Because, he's still 10.

Love is in the air. Or, on the wall.

So, let's just skip over the usual intermittent blogger dance and dispense with all the "wow, has it really been this long?"'s and "oh look, my blog still here"'s and get right to it.

When I first saw this I Love You Garland by Lovely Indeed (via Creature Comforts) last year, I knew I had to recreate it in sparkly pink for Cheeseball. And, it only took me a year!





I used a finer glitter (Although looking at the original DIY again, I now NEED chunky glitter. Just to have.)



And, I attached the letters to baker's twine with tabs at the top of each letter instead of mid letter. I printed the letters on cardstock, and if I were to do it again, I would glue the letters to a thicker cardboard first before cutting out and glitter bombing. But, I love it and I'm so glad I finally got around to it!

While we are definitely a "fair doesn't mean equal" household, I wanted to put some love up on El Niño's wall too. He is less partial to all things pink and sparkly than his sister. And he has just recently started to move out of the "I am Child and I am Awesome" phase of childhood and begun to discover the self doubt and concern about peer opinion that plagues us all through most of our school age years. So, I wanted to give him a daily reminder that I am still firmly in the "You are Child and You are Awesome" phase of motherhood.





If you would like to print the same in green for yourself, feel free to click through to flickr - just don't forget to click "view all sizes" and grab the largest. I coordinated the color with the JuneCraft print that I do love so. But, I also put together a file with the print in jpegs in several different colors as well as the original photoshop file so you can customize as you like! Download the file here.

I used Market Deco for both projects. Free for personal use!

Working on these two projects over the past two days has been SO fun. I've been feeling Christmas morning levels of anticipation and giddiness. And now, I can't WAIT for the kids to get home from school and see their little surprises.

A new challenge

Wow, my last post was in March!? I knew I'd been neglecting this poor little space, but wowzas! We've been to Paris, spent a week in Provence and done lots of other fun and some not-so-fun things in the meantime. Maybe one day I'll catch up on some of that here. But, not today.

A friend turned me on to the 30 Days of Creativity challenge, and I'm taking up the reins!

Yesterday, I finished off a pair of baby booties that I carry in my handmade accessories shop.

Source: None via Jennifer on Pinterest

Today, Day 2, I tackled a mini-project that I've been meaning to do for too long. This is what I love about challenges like this - just the incentive I sometimes need when my own personal motivation jumps ship. I covered two recycled cans with fabric to create pencil cups that the kids can keep in the living room.



I stitched hems around two Ikea fabrics, then added a little bias tape around the top (sharp) edge and along the base of the covering fabric. Easy peasy!