I’m a little bit rusty..in a good way!

Hi there crafters! I was in need of a birthday card for a guy and came up with this:

 

I die cut some gears from cardstock and wanted them to look like metal so I inked them with pigment ink and used copper embossing powder and heat it…but wait? Where is my shiny finish?!? My old embossing powder had tarnished from either age, humidity or both and my gears looked rusty…but wait, I like it!

 

I even bent the gear in the center to crack the embossing and it flaked off like real rust, score! I never thought I’d be so excited about rust LOL! In case rust is not your thing you can get a metal look too, check out these tags. The one on the left I inked with tumbled glass distress ink and swiped with a gold inkpad (I also tried it with gold powder eyeshadow and it worked great too!) then I inked up an embossing folder with brown ink (the side that will face the right side of the tag) and ran it through my big shot. Since the tag was damp with ink I quickly dipped it in clear embossing powder and heated it for a glassy shine. Since I used some gold ink it look rather metallic but to enhance the effect you can use more metallic inks, it is all up to you.

 

To grungify the tag on the right I did all the steps as the other tag then brushed some acrylic paint over the raised area and sprinkled my tarnished copper EP on top. I heated it and the paint cracked and the EP got all rusty, overall a great old distressed look I think!

I guess I won’t be throwing away my old embossing powders after all 😛 Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!