“Floating” Press ‘N’ Seal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What??? What am I talking about??

Well, it’s a new  technique that’s showing up on the internet, and we can make some stunning cards with it.  I first saw it in the Facebook group Demonstrator Planning Place and it caught my attention. I did a little more research which led me to Jennifer McGuire’s blog and her guest artist Laurie Willison, who seems to have developed this technique. It is so so easy to do.

You would want to use this technique if you had a design that had lots of little pieces in it. Basically the Press ‘n’ Seal is used to hold down the elements so you don’t mess up your design or try to recreate your exact idea after you remove everything so you can glue everything down. 

The “floating” part is using dimensionals to glue things down so that the elements seem to float above the surface of the card. This shows up pretty well in the third photo above.

• Basic steps to creating a “Floating” Press ‘n’ Seal card:
• choose your stamps
• stamp a page full of images
• color images
• cut out images, using a punch, die, or pair of scissors
• arrange images on piece of card stock – or card base
• place a piece of press ‘n’ seal over the images and card stock
• trim the edges
• remove the card stock
• flip over the press ‘n’ seal and put dimensionals (LOTS of dimensionals!) on each image
• remove the backing papers on the dimensionals (tedious!)
• flip the press ‘n’ seal over and carefully place it and the images on the card stock
• slowly and carefully remove the press ‘n’ seal

Let’s try it out with the middle card – the one with a frame.

Instructions

I chose the Humming Along and Butterfly Gala stamp sets from Stampin’ Up!

I stamped a page of four flowers, three hummingbirds, and a bunch of butterflies in two sizes, and colored them with alcohol markers. Then I cut the flowers and hummingbirds out with the matching dies, and the butterflies with the butterfly punch.

Then I carefully arranged everything on a 4 x 5 1/4 piece of card stock. My idea was to put the hummingbird in the middle with flowers and butterflies around him, which would form a frame on the card stock. I planned to get two cards from this one design. here’s what it all looked like at this point. You can  see that I really needed more little butterflies or something around that hummingbird. 

 

So I pressed the press ‘n’ seal carefully and firmly onto the card stock, and then trimmed around the outside, saving the scraps. (There were large chunks of flowers and butterflies, and I didn’t want to waste them

 

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Next I took a stitched rectangle framelet and cut out the hummingbird making a nice frame on the card stock. However, the hummingbird center was…not so good.  I put that aside for later.

Step three was to remove the card stock frame from the back of the piece of press ‘n’ seal with all those images attached just where I wanted them to be. I flipped the piece over and started to put dimensionals, lots and lots of dimensionals, on each image, using both regular size and mini dimensionals. Then removed the backing from each one.  This probably took the most time – maybe even more time than the coloring did. You can see that I really did use a lot of dimensionals. then I took my sentiment and stamped it in the center of my card stock piece. That was a bit tricky to get centered. I took the card stock frame that I had removed from the press ‘n’ seal and used that to make sure I stamped it in the center.

 Finally I took my piece of press ‘n’ seal and carefully placed it on the card stock where I wanted the frame to be and pressed down all those dimensionals. Gave it all a good press, to make sure they were all stuck down tight. (But don’t press down the press ‘n’ seal.) Finally I slowly and carefully removed the press ‘n’ seal, and it was (almost) done. it looked a little bare, so I glued a large butterfly that I had left over under the sentiment, and made a knot bow for the top. Except I hadn’t made the knot bow when I took the picture.  I think you’ll agree that I needed it. NOW it’s done!

I still had that not so good hummingbird left over a bunch of butterflies and flowers with pieces cut out of them stuck to some press ‘n’ seal, a card stock frame and a smaller card stock rectangle from the back of the butterfly. I did the dimensional thing for the hummingbird and put him and whatever was around him on another piece of 4 x 5 1/4 piece of card stock. No improvement. So I took the card stock frame and placed it around everything and – tada! it worked.  Or at least made it a lot better.

Now I’m down to a bunch of butterflies and flowers with pieces cut out of them. And two hummingbirds, which I’m saving for something else someday.  I took yet another piece of 4 x 5 1/4 inch piece of card stock and began arranging the flowers and butterflies on it. I had to cover up some gaping holes with butterflies, but I finally got it to where I liked it. I put the piece of press ‘n’ seal on, trimmed the edges, took off the card stock backing, put on a zillion dimensionals, pressed it back down onto the card stock, removed the press ‘n’ seal, and there it was! And I think it’s my favorite of them all. Here’s a picture of it again.    

So that’s it. It’s really easy, as you can see. Here’s a link to Jennifer McGuire’s  blog where Laurie Willison shows how she uses this technique. 

Just as an interesting aside, Jennifer’s husband invented Press ‘n’ Seal, and holds the patents on it. 

I hope you give this a try. 

Thanks for reading all the way to the end – you are the best! Thank you again for your support.

Until next time!

Blessings, Carole