Embossing accents - Frosted Designs tutorial

It's my turn to share a tutorial over at Frosted Designs, so I wanted to share a way to use embossing on your pages, without using any stamps.

When I'm making a page or card with several layers of paper, I like to accent the edges of the paper with a little color.  Usually I do this by inking the edges of the papers, or by matting them with a narrow mat of cardstock.  But, another fun way to add a little emphasis is to emboss the edges of the papers, like I've done on the layout below.

You will need an embossing ink pad or pen, some embossing powder and a heat gun.  Ink the edges of the paper with the embossing pad or pen, then sprinkle on the embossing powder and heat it to melt the powder.  I usually do one side of the paper at a time, so I don't worry about handling the other edges and knocking off the powder.  You can ink just the outside edge of the paper, or ink the edges so a little bit of ink is on the front of the paper.  (If you want ink just on the outside edge, just pour a little embossing powder onto a piece of scrap paper or tray, apply the ink to the paper, and just dip the edges into the powder.)

On my layout, I used clear embossing ink and vertigris powder on the papers, with silver powder on the gray photo mat.  You can see it better in the close up photo:

Another way to add embossed accents is to fussy cut or punch images from the patterned paper, or use diecuts or stickers if you prefer, ink them with the embossing pad, sprinkle on clear embossing powder and heat.  You can add a second layer of clear embossing powder if you want an even shinier look.  I fussy cut some flowers from the patterned paper, embossed them, and added them to the tag on my page.  

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and get a chance to try these techniques on a project sometime!