Stamp Ink Paper 76 Embossed Poinsettia

Hi everyone!  It's the last Tuesday of the month, and that means it's my final challenge as a GD with the fabulous Stamp Ink Paper team!  I want to thank them for allowing me to have such a great time creating with them!  This week their challenge just happened to fit into my schedule quite nicely:  embossing!  It can be dry embossing or heat embossing, or both!

One of my newer customers had a question about heat embossing and I realized that while SU has white craft ink and white embossing powder, we no longer have black embossing powder or black craft ink!  So it gave me a chance to do some experimenting to answer my own question:  can I emboss with SU's Black Archival ink and clear embossing powder?  The answer, happily, is "YES"!  I had embossed this pretty Verve poinsettia because this set happened to be on my desk, and I went ahead and colored it in with some ink and an aquapainter and made it into today's card!

The "joy" sentiment (My Favorite Things' Hand Lettered Holiday) was heat embossed with Gold encore ink (again, sadly retired from SU) and gold embossing powder atop a gold foil stitched square:

And here's a closer shot of my embossed poinsettia!  Poor Rose Red is sadly neglected, in my opinion, but pairs nicely with Cherry Cobbler!  I used Rose Red for the outer petals and Cherry Cobbler for the inner petals, finishing it off with a gold glimmer brad;

 

I even got daring and actually used some metallic thread from my Stitched with Love kit...surprisingly, it's not as difficult to use as I first imagined!  The floral and the gold panel were adhere to another embossed piece...this time, the paper was pre-embossed, a pretty Cherry Cobbler pattern from Kaiser Craft's Home for Christmas 6x6 pad.  

I hope you'll play along with us....the DT has come up with some fabulous embossed creations...be sure to check them all out at the SIP blog!

Last week while on vacation, we decided to try our hand at making soft pretzels!  I mixed up the dough, and Cassidy helped knead it:

 

Then we rolled it into long thin logs:

and formed them into the pretzel shapes!  Even Grampy got in the action!  (He really likes any kind of pretzels!):

Cassidy sprinkled on some salt, and we baked them in the oven!

YUM!  For our first try, they weren't too bad.  Next time I would not do the baking soda bath...to me, it gave them a strange taste.  And I might bake them a wee bit longer.  But all in all, they were pretty good!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!