Cracked Glass

Here is a tutorial on how to do the Cracked Glass Technique from my previous post. For this card, I stamped and cut out the image. You could however, simply cover any watercolored image and get a dramatic effect.

Take the image you want to cover and smush (technical term) it down into a Versamark Pad. Versamark Ink is a clear watermark medium that remains wet for a while, so it is perfect for embossing. It has a little bit of a sticky consistency which really grabs embossing powder. You need a clear ink for this technique. Regular embossing ink would work well. Just don’t use a tinted one.

Make sure your image is completely covered with the Versamark.

Sprinkle Glassy Glaze Embossing Powder over the entire image. Glassy Glaze is a thick embossing powder. The granules are much larger than in the detailed powders. This powder is preferable, because you want a really thick coat for your final piece. It would take many more coats of a finer powder to achieve the same result. If you don’t have a glassy glaze any clear powder will work, with additional coats.

The next step is to heat the powder until it liquefies, leaving a shiny coating on your piece. You will need a heat gun specifically for this technique. We carry an excellent one in the catalog which is very high quality.

If you do not have a heat gun, you can sometimes emboss by heating your piece from the backside over a hot iron. I don’t suggest it with this technique though, because the very thick coat becomes messy and difficult to work with, and would probably leave a permanent mess on your iron.

I frequently am asked if you can use a blow dryer to emboss and unfortunately, you cannot. A blow dryer doesn’t get hot enough to melt the powder and the fan is too powerful and will blow all of your powder away.

I like to line a box with tin foil and place my piece down inside the box. The foil helps it heat more quickly and evenly and the piece is more contained inside the box.

After your powder has melted and cooled, repeat the previous steps 2-3 more times until you have a very thick coating of the shiny glaze.

Place your embossed images on a tray of some kind and put them in your freezer.

If you don’t have access to a freezer where you are crafting, you can still get the same effect. You just have to let the images cool and cure till the glaze is hard enough to crack. The freezer speeds up the process.

After about 10 minutes in the freezer, slightly bend or twist your piece to make several cracks. The key word here is slightly, too much exuberance in this step can make your glaze lift right off your image.

Refreeze if your piece needs to harden up in a specific area. It will become less brittle, the longer it is out of the freezer.

Your finished piece will take on the lovely look of a cracked piece of glass.

You can rub some dark ink into the crevices for a more antiqued look. The ink will also dull the shine a little, so experiment with this process to get the look you are happy with.