Hello! It’s Meghann here with you today to share a beautiful background technique that can easily be used on a card or layout this month using the amazing “You’re the Sweetest” stamp set. I typically use this technique with watercolor ink, but this time I decided to try a different medium, Gelatos.

To begin, I gathered a few stamping and embossing supplies: embossing ink, white embossing powder, “You’re the Sweetest” stamp set, a piece of watercolor paper cut to 4” x 5-1/4”, and an Embossing Buddy, a powder primer in a small cloth sack that helps make your embossing impression more clear. I went ahead and primed the entire surface of my watercolor paper before stamping.

Using embossing ink, I started stamping the hearts & “XO” image onto my paper, but since the ink was clear, I couldn’t see where to stamp the next image so that they would make a complete background, like Elle did on this great video.

To be able to see my image, I went ahead and covered it with the white embossing powder.

As you can see here, the textural difference in the image covered with powder before heat embossing was perfect for seeing where to stamp the next image.

Following Elle’s video, I stamped the image three times and covered with powder before heat embossing.

I continued these embossed, diagonal lines of the stamped image until the entire card was covered, being sure to run off the edge of the paper.

Next, I gathered Gelatos, and scrap paper. I knew I wanted to create an ombre effect on my background, so I chose three colors that worked best together.

I began by using the lightest pink at the top of the card. Gelatos have a similar texture to crayons, so to get in between the raised, embossed images I colored with the Gelato at an angle.

I continued with the two other colors, being sure that I didn’t color in a straight line across the page, so it would be easier to blend the colors together to create seamless color transitions.

Next, I grabbed a water brush pen, but you could also use a paintbrush and a cup of water. Moving the brush in a horizontal direction across the page, I blended the color into the paper, cleaning the pen on a piece of paper towel whenever the Gelato got too built-up on the brush tip. I did a full pass across the paper, allowed it to dry a bit, then went back and blended the color transitions a bit more before allowing the paper to dry fully.

After the paper was dry, I took a dry piece of paper towel and began to wipe off the paper, which rubbed the Gelato colors off of the embossed image.

After the entire background was rubbed, I tied some baker’s twine three times around the width of the card and tied into a bow.

The perfect touch to the card front was the acrylic sentiment “Adore You” that I adhered with small glue dot adhesive. I then embellished with heart chipboard and brads in the same three colors as I used on the background to continue the ombre effect.

To finish, I adhered the paper to a 4-1/4”  x 5-1/2” folded card using dimensional adhesive. I hope you will give this technique a try, using the lovely background stamp from the “You’re the Sweetest” stamp set!