Clear Embossing Powder

I wanted to give a big Thank You this week to everyone who sent birthday greetings and who helped out at last week's class in Pensacola. What better way to say thank you than with a simple Thank You technique comparison.

Clear Embossing Powder
A lot of stampers have talked about using clear embossing powder to protect your stamp lines from Copic inks. I've never done an official test before, so I figured now was a good time to run a comparison. To get the strongest effect I decided to just drip inks on and see what worked. I used VersaFine ink, Ranger Super-Fine Embossing Powder, and some Paper Reflections Creative Tags. I used G82, Y13, and Colorless blender inks, the stamp is "Thank You" from Flourishes.

On each tag I stamped, then I dripped on a little G82, lots of Y13, then spritzed on a LOT of colorless blender using my Mist It! from Inspired Crafts. I wanted to be sure that each tag was about as soaked as possible. Also, by working on regular tags, not glossy tags you can see how the inks dyed the paper in a softer pattern- the ink soaked both the front and the back and is not just sitting and pooling on the surface of the glossy paper.

If you look at the photo you can see a distinct difference. The top example is a winner. After heat embossing the clear powder the "Thank You" stayed crisp and clean, the embossing was sharp and shiny, and the results were good.

The next tag I just heat-set it. I heated it about as long as I did on the embossed tag. However, with all the ink I poured on the image did not hold up very well. This is drastic, since most people coloring would not soak the line as much as I did, but I wanted to be sure that my results were consistent.

The last one is a total failure. Heat setting protected the ink slightly but without heat-setting you lose all the stamped lines. This blurry mess is pretty bad. Good thing I didn't touch the marker tip to this ink or else it would have stained the pale yellow marker and made it look bad.

As a final comparison I stamped with my favorite Memento Ink. I noticed instantly that the stamp line wasn't as crisp as the VersaFine. After letting it dry for a minute or so I submitted it to the same test as the others. It held up really well. A couple of areas that had thicker lines bled a little bit, but I think that if I had let it dry longer that would have not been a problem. I consider this ink a winner.

Each of you should run a test like this on your favorite inks, papers and with different embossing powders. Just becuase it worked well for me doesn't guarantee that it will work perfectly for your situation.

Colored Embossing Powders
I do not have any colored embossing powders so I couldn't test myself, but I have had comments from many people who have tried colored powders and the colored powders get eaten up by the alcohol inks. Something about the coloring in the powder does not like alcohol. Clear has no pigmentation so it doesn't bleed or dissolve.

Again, test your inks and your papers to see if it works for you or not. Keep it in your example book so you don't forget. I hope this helps you as you experiment on your own, have a great day!