Faux Metal & Acrylic Poinsettia Tutorial

In this tutorial I'll be showing how I went about making the faux metal & acrylic poinsettia embellishment seen in 'The Christmas Money Shot' layout. I learned this technique from my local scrapbook store on a class I attended.

I completely improvised as I went along for this embellishment which is why I don't have a picture of my list of supplies. I kept adding & changing as I went. This is the list of supplies I finally ended up using: Sizzix die cut, aluminum foil, diamond dust, acrylic or transparency, sturdy scrap paper or grunge board, embossing folder, Big Shot or any other compatible die cut machine, brush, white acrylic paint, scissors, gold stamens or any other suitable item that you'd like to use for the center of the poinsettia, Staz-On black ink, foam pop up dots, glue stick & a partridge in a pear tree! Sorry, had to throw that in there--nix the partridge--whatever that is--I'm guessing it's some kind of bird? Let's get started before I get more sidetracked...

Cut out your layers of petals using the Sizzix die cut. I ended up using grunge board instead of sturdy cardstock for mine. I cut out 2 petals of each size--one from the grungeboard & one from the acrylic. I ended up using all layers except for the smallest petal cut out from acrylic.

Put your petals into an embossing folder with aluminum foil. NOTE: It's preferred that you use the heavy duty aluminum foil for this or else your foil will rip. If you do not have heavy duty aluminum foil, it's recommended that you fold your foil several times in order to thicken it. Technically with the pressure the Big Shot applies when embossing, the foil should simply stick to your die cuts. But I still added a bit of glue to my dies to be extra sure that the foil stays on my dies. Also make sure that when you place your dies in the folder that the foiled side will be the raised side of the embossed designs.

Run both the grungeboard & acrylic through your Big Shot & emboss them. You only need the foil on the grungeboard--not on the acrylic. This is what they'll look like afterwards.

Proceed to cut out the foiled petals with scissors.

Here's a picture of my petals after cutting them out.

Next you alcohol ink your petals. In this picture I have already done this. I used Currant & drops of Copper alcohol inks.

I wanted the embossed designs to show more on my petals so I took my StazOn Black ink & softly tapped on the raised embossed side of all my petals. Do not smear the ink on or you'll end up smearing your petals & then the embossed images will not stand out as much.

After inking my petals I felt that the acrylic petals didn't stand out enough against the foiled petals. So I decided to add some white acrylic paint all along the edges of my acrylic petals. With a brush I tapped or stippled on the white acrylic paint as shown in this picture.

Since I made this poinsettia for a holiday themed page--I decided to add some Diamond Dust to my acrylica petals as well to give it a snow effect. With a glue stick I ran a fine line along the edges of the acrylic petals & then dipped them into the Diamond Dust.

Now I was happy & felt that my acrylic petals will stand out against the foiled petals.

Next you shape & mold your petals. I bent all the acrylic petals up at the base. I bent the foiled petals both up at the base of each petal & then curled the tip of the petals down.

Once the petals are shaped, it's time to start putting your flower together. Pardon my messy painted & inked fingers--as you can see I get down & dirty when I scrap!

I put two to three foam pop up dots between each layer of my poinsettia to give it more dimension. I alternated each layer as I went between foiled petals & acrylic. I also made sure that each petal on my top layer fell in between two petals from the bottom layer.

Finally, I took my top two smallest layers, punched a hole in the center of each one & slid my gold stamens into the center of the flower.

Adhere your top layer & you're done! Just 'fluff up' your flower when done because you tend to flatten your flower as you adhere your layers.

My scrap buddy Natasha who attended this class with me has a very good tutorial on her blog on how to use this faux metal technique with letters in order to make some very attractive & unique titles--feel free to visit her tutorial here.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial & as always thank you for your visit!

Till my next post...