Faux Batik by Karen McAlpine

Hi Everyone! It is Karen McAlpine visiting from Dreaming and Creating today.  I am back with another faux fabric technique. Today, I will show you how to create projects using a Faux Batik technique. This is the card we will be making today.

You will need the following Supplies to complete this project:

Stamps: Painted Butterflies Set from Blockheads Paper Arts
Cardstock: White and three shades of rose/wine
Ink Reinkers: Distress Reinkers Tattered Rose , Memento Reinker Rhubarb Stalk
VersaMark ink pad
Clear Embossing Powder
Spray bottle with water
Iron
Scrap sheets of paper
Wax paper or a craft sheet
Sheer Ribbon
Gem stickers
Rubber Gloves -optional

Start off with a white piece of cardstock. Stamp the large butterfly on the white CS with VersaMark ink several times.

Sprinkle the clear embossing powder over the white CS.

Heat with a heat gun to emboss.

This technique looks great when using black CS too. Here is what the black CS looks like.

Now, this is the messy part. You may want to put on some rubber gloves at this point. Of course, I did not think of this until after my hands were all covered with ink. Spray the embossed piece of CS with lots of water. Get the paper very wet.

Start adding the ink from the reinker bottles.

You can tip the CS to let the ink run around if you like. I like how the ink looked after tipping.

Spray more water and add more ink until the CS is covered. I used two different colors on this example and started with the lightest color.

Now, at this point, you will have to go and run the vacuum or answer some emails while the CS dies. The next step is to remove the embossing powder with a hot iron. I know you are thinking, “What, take off the powder, I just put it on.” Trust me. You will really love how the paper looks after ironing. Set the iron to the Cotton/Dry setting. Protect your iron and ironing board by laying down some scrap paper. Place the CS on the scrap paper and cover with more scrap paper.

Removing all the embossing powder takes time, so be patient. I had to put a new sheet of paper over the card stock and iron more to remove all of the embossing powder. Now your Batik Paper is ready to use. Here are three samples that I made. I used White CS on the two on the left and black on the one on the right. I used clear embossing powder on all of these samples. Many varied looks are attainable by just changing the ink and embossing powder colors. Experiment and see what you come up with.

I decided to go with Wine and Rose shades of CS to complete my project.

I wanted to keep the card on the simple side to showcase the Batik Paper. You can see how easily your projects will go together once your Batik Paper is made. For this project, I layered the CS and added a wide sheer ribbon and three gem stickers. If you would like to see more samples of the Batik Paper, hop over to my Blog.
I have more samples that used White embossing powder and I made up two more cards from the Batik Papers. Check them out and tell me which one is your favorite. Thank you for joining me for this tutorial and I hope you will give this technique a try. It really is easy and fun. I will be back in a few weeks with another tutorial. I will see if I can come up with another faux fabric technique. See you then.