Papertrey MIM #181: Paper Casting

Hello! I am trying out Danielle's technique to make paper castings of our stamps. You can read all about how to do this over on Nicole's blog here. This was alot of fun! Who would have ever thought you could make such beautiful little castings from toilet paper? 

I used 6 sheets of TP for each casting. After die cutting the sheets using a Matt Stack die,  I just laid my stamp face up on my granite kitchen countertop, laid the die cut TP on top, added a little water on top and pressed with a kitchen towel and then a paper towel until I got most of the water out. 

Then I just laid them out on a cookie rack to dry (overnight). The hardest part of this whole thing was figuring what to do with them once they were dry. They are a bit delicate on their own, so I was afraid they wouldn't hold up by themselves as a tag. I tried mounting them to the same die cut shape cut out of cardstock, but found that the shape distorts once you add the water. So they wouldn't fit nicely on the die cut shape of cardstock. 

Here are a few of the ideas I came up with.
One of the die cut shapes I wanted to try out was the lace edge heart in Limitless Layers Hearts. I wanted to see if the little lace edges would die cut and stay in tack once wet. I was very pleased with the result! I just used a little bit of water in the center of the heart and tried not to get the edges wet. I use a sentiment from Love and Marriage. I put the heart on top of a little hexagon shaped box, which I covered with pretty patterned paper. Tied it all up with a little gold cord.

Next up is one of my favorties. I die cut the TP with Mega Matt Stack 3, and impressed the tree from Love and Marriage into it. I decided that since this was bigger, I would try to use it as a tag on a wedding present. I embellished it with some pearl strands, a flower, and some tulle. 

And lastly, I wanted to give this  technique a real test and see just how detailed it would do well. I impressed all four of the Hills series scenes and they came out beautiful. I then thought I'd try to add some color to them. I experimented on a messed up impression with markers, and they just soaked in too much. I decided to use some of my chalks for some light color. After coloring them, I scored a piece of Smokey Shadow cardstock every 2", die cut the medium scallop for the top edge and stamped a background from Background Basics: Twinkle with Fresh Snow ink. I then mounted each little scene onto a panel. Just a cute little decoration for my stamping room. I tried to capture the detail on the impressions - hopefully you can see it.

Thanks for sticking with me through all these pictures! You NEED to try this out for yourself!