Marcella has a delightful way of adding depth and dimension to all her designs with perfectly placed petals, leaves, shadows, highlights, and even little surprises, making her images super fun to color and create with. Now there are a variety of ways to add dimension to a card: style of coloring, shadows and highlights or even paper tole (to cut out the same image and layer it on top with dimensional tape). All of these add dimension to a project, but today, I want to take it a step further and show you how to burnish. It’s very subtle and extremely hard to show in photographs, so I encourage you to try this for yourself and see up close the effects this technique has. It’s not only fun, but it adds an extra little physical dimension to the image. I used two Power Poppy images to demonstrate this technique today. The first is the newly released digital image called Dancing with Daffodils. It’s gorgeous and perfect for this technique.
First, you need to print (or stamp) your images twice onto cardstock. I used X-Press It Blending cardstock for today’s project.
Second, color your base image entirely, and only the sections of your second image that you want to use for extra dimension. You can see below how I colored mine. I experimented with a couple of color combinations on the leaves (ignore those), but I was really focused on the two daffodils, the snail, and the 4 Periwinkle blooms.
I then diecut my main image using Labels 28 (Spellbinders), cut out my dimensional pieces from the other colored image, and got out a foam mat and a stylus. That's all you need for this technique. If you don't have a foam mat, you can use a mouse pad, or a stack of magazines.
Now, all you do is trace all the outlines of the image with the smallest part of your stylus. Be careful not to press too hard, or you can pierce your cardstock. (I traced the entire main image as well as the cut out pieces.) Below you can see what it looks like on the back after all the tracing is done. If you look closely at the bottom petal of the top daffodil on the right, you can see a little bit of the burnishing.
To burnish, just take the larger side of the stylus and “color” with it in a circular motion inside the traced lines. Again, don’t press too hard, or the paper might rip.
After I finish burnishing, I flip the cardstock over and run the smaller end of the stylus over edges where I really want to show more depth. For example: the coiled back of the snail. Can you see how the coils pop where I traced on the lines and burnished between the traced lines on the back?
Here’s a close-up of the daffodil. I really wanted the petals to pop, as well as the center, so I worked a little more around the centers' base.
Below is the finished product. The entire image has been burnished, so even the leaves have depth and texture, and a few sections are popped up with dimensional tape. I finished the card off with the sweet little “Just Because” sentiment, as well as some Gesso on the diecut and main panel.
You can use this technique on virtually any image. I made my husband this San Francisco Giants card by printing out the SF logo onto cardstock and stamping the cap (from the Play Ball set) right over it and coloring it. Then, for some added interest, I burnished it. I LOVE how the panels of the cap pop IRL. It’s fun just to rub your fingers over it to feel the texture.
Here’s an angled view to try to give you a better look at the dimension the burnishing gives.
And here’s a straight on look. Like I said, it’s tricky to photograph the depth because it’s so subtle. I even outlined the logo so it pops a bit also.
Lastly, I finished off the inside of the card with an “All Star” banner from the Play Ball set.
That’s it. I hope I’ve explained this technique clearly enough and have inspired you to try burnishing. It’s really easy, and adds just a little extra “pop” to your project.
Happy Stamping!
