Wednesday Trends - Adding Texture

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday to you all :) It's me, Kim to bring you this weeks Wednesday Trend and today I'm going to be showing you how a little bit of texture can bring out the "Wow Factor" in any card. The techniques that I'm showing here just involve a little bit of ink and some embossing folders and it's really, very easy!

First of all I just wanted to show you what the card featuring the Dance set, would have looked like without adding any texture:

And here is what the finished product looks like, note the dots on the green designer paper and the subtle differences in the texture on the rest of the designer papers:

The differences are very subtle in the photo, but when held up close, the texture and sponging add a really nice finishing touch and look very professional. So...would you like to know how to do this? Alright, let's get started :D

Here are the supplies that you will need for the sponging and texture:

• Texture machine (Cuttlebug/ Bigshot)  and Embossing Folders
• Light brown, dark brown and a green ink
• Sponges or daubers
• Designer papers of your choice (I used Basic Grey Green at Heart)

For this card, I have added sponging and embossing to all of my designer papers and just sponging to the card stock.

Step 1: Sponge the edges of your card stock with coordinating inks. For the leaves I have chosen to use a darker artichoke colour and the chocolate matting on the card, I used chocolate ink.

Step 2: I sponged my light brown ink on the edges and part way on to the designer paper. This is hard to notice up close but it adds depth when you stand back and look at the card.

Step 3: Add sponging in your dark brown ink to just the edges of all your designer papers. The two brown inks put together will add a slightly aged look and with give the impression of texture and depth.

After this has been done to all of your papers, we break out the embossing folders! I chose these ones to work with: Victoria, Seeing Spots and Diamonds in the Rough.

Step 4: Run all your designer papers through the folders that you picked. For example, on my card the green paper is with the seeing spots folder, the spotted designer paper is with the victoria folder and the green floral pattern is with the diamonds in the rough folder. I usually don't just grab a handful of embossing folders when doing this and don't really have any specific reasons for choosing particular patterns to work with - anything goes ;)

Step 5: Assemble your card and stand back to admire your brilliance! lol For the final version of my card I added some machine stitching because I just can't help myself but it's an added texture and completely optional :)

Here is a side by side comparison. The left side is before the texture and sponging and the right side is the final product.

Thanks for coming by today and I hope that you enjoyed the mini tutorial :D If you have any questions please leave it in the comments section below.