modeling paste or flexible paste

[Yankee]

When you do stencil, it is good to have an old plastic  dish pan (like you would wash the dishes in)
Put an inch or two of water in it, toss you stencil in it right away.  Wash the paste off in the pan and toss water outside when finished ( not good for pipes, it will build up over time in pipes)
With the pan next to you there is no hurry or messing up project, just lots of fun!  Love it!

[yellowcherrios]

Good to know about the build up on pipes Yankee.     I think I will write a note on the container itself that I use for the paste as a reminder.  Throwing out on grass doesn't kill the grass does it?------not that that matters too much since the drought itself killed parts of the grass.   

[djc]

I don't have a lot to add about embossing pastes.  I always use Dreamweaver's EP.  As Jan said, the Wendi Vecchi pastes are also by Dreamweaver.

Jennifer's video comparing TH's Texture Paste and Wendi Vecchi or Dreamweaver's EP is interesting.  In her current video about stencils, she talks about Ferro Texture Paste, and that looks like a fun one to use but not for regular use.

The Dreamweaver's Paste comes in regular (The jar doesn't say Regular.), Glossy, Translucent, Crackle, and Metallic.  I use the regular one most often.  I also use the metallics especially if I'm going to add foil. Some of these also come in limited colors, but I don't seem to use those even though I bought some on sale once.  I do use black.  I have made my own colors by adding a tiny amount of mica powder, and you can also add heavy body acrylic paints to change the color.  Thinner paints aren't recommended since they can alter the consistency of the paste.

Rather than change the color of the paste, I normally color the images with inks or mica powders, but I usually use metal stencils to paste emboss images rather than use plastic stencils to add texture to backgrounds.  I do plan to do more of the latter soon.

Paper:  I usually use watercolor paper.  It can take the abuse.  Lynell Harlow of Dreamweavers cautions not to overwork the paste.  The paper absorbs the moisture and expands causing it raise up.  Pretty soon you're scraping against paper and not paste.  I don't seem to have that problem with watercolor paper.  Also, I do work quickly. 

Palette Knife:  I use the offset palette knife from Dreamweavers, and it only takes a swipe or two to add the paste and then scrape away the excess.  Dreamweavers also sells a large spreader that I love.  You pick up the paste with the palette knife and lay it along the straight edge of the large blade.  You hold it on the curved edge, and it's a breeze to apply paste to larger stencils.  Again, I usually  work with metal stencils.  Maybe the plastic knives work better with plastic stencils.  Whichever one you use, it's easier to use an offset knife.  BTW, you pick up the paste with the bottom of the knife, not the top (which I've seen in several video tutorials). 

I second what Yankee said about having a container of water ready so you can just put your used stencils in water as soon as you take them off your project.  I add a tiny bit of Dawn dish detergent to the water. 

Another tip--clean the top of the jar and close it.  If you leave bits of paste on the lip of the jar to dry, they can fall into the paste.  That can mess up your next project.

Crackle Paste--Don't apply crackle paste directly to paper.  It can flake off.  First apply another embossing paste, and when that is dry, apply the crackle paste over the dry one.  If you use a dark color on the bottom, tht will help accentuate the look of the cracks.


Now that I'm writing all of this, I realize that I've said a lot of it before.  I wrote up detailed descriptions of the workshops I attended when I posted my paste-embossed pieces on Two Peas.  Those posts are now available on Scrapbook.com.

I'm going to post this.  Then I'll look for some links for you.
Daria

LINKS:
Jennifer McGuire's Embossing Paste vs Texture Paste

Stencils and Embossing Paste -- Tips & Techniques (Jennifer McGuire)

My Gallery
Below the heading, there's a search button; just click on it and input "embossing paste." That should take you to two pages of posts with cards made using EP.

Jan, thanks for your help with the links.

HTH.
Daria

[Far North]

Yeah Daria, the last link to your gallery works!...then I did the search on Djc embossing paste.  All worked fine but after the first card/page the paragraphs became 1 run-on so just jumped back to the 1st page to read and that was easy enough.  I remember all of this fabulous post once I saw it.  But this time it is more meaningful since I have done more stenciling.  Thanks for all your efforts to share.

[djc]

Hi, Jan.  Well, now I know how to fix the problem.  I guess when the owner of the page links "My Gallery," the url changes to something that begins with "my page."  It must only be accessible to the person whose gallery it is.  Weird.  I went back and clicked on my user name to get a different url to link here.

When scrapbook.com helped us to save our galleries, I was so happy that they included everything--multiple cards in each post and all the comments I had written.  However, the comments were one long stream of print.  I had to go into every single post and edit them.  Well, I started to do that.  Then I realized I could just copy and paste from my Two Peas Gallery which had not been closed yet.  That worked great especially since when you want to edit something at scrapbook.com, you only see about three lines of text at a time; then you have to scroll to see the next three lines.

At the time, I didn't realize that there were separate pages of comments for each card within a post.  It's not like 2Peas where you wrote your comment once and could see it even as you clicked on different cards.  I almost always had multiple cards.  What a thought to have to go back and edit all of those pages!  Now what I do when I upload a card is write everything on the first page.   I copy the intro and only the information about the card you're seeing on the subsequent pages. 

You've just given me the push I need to begin editing the rest of the pages.

See you some time next year.
Daria

ETA:  I just missed my exercise class because I was editing those darn posts.  I only did the ones I where I used embossing paste, and I'm just copying and pasting.  It still takes a lot of time.  While I was at it, I also deleted the links to 2Peas.  Progress.

djc

[yellowcherrios]

Daria thank you so much for all the info you shared!     

It really does help me since now I have a few stencils to use---it makes so much more sense!  I knew you had talked about the pastes at Twopeas and I thought maybe I could find the cached version through Google, but I had no such luck.  I know you had to "RE-say" everything probably, but I really do appreciate it!   

I had seen a video where this one woman bought quite a few products to try to compare to Dreamweaver's and she showed that "super-heavy gel" was very close/if not the same looking to her….now to me, "gel" would seem more liquid than "paste" but maybe since it's "super-heavy" than maybe it is closer to paste.     At any rate, I did pick up a jar of the super-heavy gel and it worked great the first time I used it on the stencil you sent me Daria.  But then it only worked that one time, and not again.     The super-heavy gel always seeped under the stencil and the stencil had a hard time laying flat even when taped down…..I'm going to try Jan's suggestion of laying books on it for a couple days and see if that helps.  Maybe the metal one's work better too.  I have a metal one that I haven't had time to try yet, but will. 

I had been using some long plastic square thing (0.5" x 4") (it was an insert to the top of a package) to scrape the super-heavy gel out of the jar and across the paper (which btw, the super-heavy gel has the consistency of thick white glue).  The plastic thing works ok….but I am going to take the current 60% off coupon for Michaels and see if they have any spatulas NOT on sale so I can use the coupon today or tomorrow.  Jan showed a photo of a plastic one and also with your description of your's, surely I can find something at Michaels.  I know my Michaels is low on art supplies for some reason….and we have a major university in my town!  But when I visit in-laws, their Michaels has LOTS of art supplies, but they only have a small college and junior college….maybe art majors are higher in their town though.  At any rate….

Thank you for the links too!  I will definitely be checking them out! 

I will also look to see if Michaels (or HL/Joanns) has the Wendi Vecchi pastes …. maybe online if nowhere else.  I know one video the woman said that her jar of Dreamweaver paste has lasted her years! 

[djc]

Melissa, some of the other paste are heavy--too heavy for cards. 

I noticed that Jennifer McGuire uses Krylon Repositional Adhesive on some of her plastic stencils to hold them tightly to the paper.  Maybe that would help with yours.

The metal stencils are definitely easier to work with.  However, they have to lie flat.  That's why it's so important to use precautions if you put them through your embossing machines.  The roller can bend them.  Here are the notes I made when I took a class from Lynell Harlow of Dreamweavers:

Embossing metal in an embossing machine:

When using an embossing machine to dry emboss with metal stencils, you need to keep the stencils away from the top of the sandwich where the machine’s roller is so that they will remain flat.  Put them face down on the thickest plate. (For the Cuttlebug, that would be the A Plate.)  Then put your art metal face down on top of the stencil.  You can feel with your fingers and press around the edges to see if you have centered the stencil.  Do not tape the metal stencil down.  If you do, the art metal cannot move, and it will wrinkle up.  Next put down the rubber embossing mat or mats.  On the top, put the two thin plates.  (For the Cuttlebug, that would be the B plates.)  Do not use warped plates with your stencils or the stencils will come out warped and be ruined.  Lynell suggested buying extra plates to be only used with metal stencils.  If you need to add shims (pieces of cardstock), put them above the embossing mat and below the B plates.  With this sandwich, the stencil will be protected from the rollers.

Face down = The identifying information engraved on the front of the stencil must be facing away from the art metal or it will be embossed into the metal.

   With my Cuttlebug, I used the following sandwich, and the metal embossed beautifully without any splitting of or cutting through the
        metal:

   Two B Plates
   Two layers of cushioning (I used two pieces cut from a silicon baking pan.  They are thicker than the tan rubber embossing mats we’re
           used to using—a total of 1/8 inch.)
   Art metal, face down
   Metal stencil, face down
   A plate

The Vagabond

Lynell demoed using the Vagabond embosser/die cut machine from Tim Holtz.  She pointed out that the only problem with using an electric machine was that you can’t feel the resistance the way you can with a hand cranked machine so it’s easier to use too thick a sandwich and jam the machine.  Sure enough, she jammed it.  It was stuck and would not budge.  A man suggested she let it rest a few seconds and then press the arrow.  It moved slightly.  After repeating the rest/press technique several times, she was able to remove the sandwich from the machine.  After removing one of the thin plates, the sandwich went through easily. 

   Vagabond Sandwich
   1 thin plate
   6-7 cardstock shims
   1 Embossing mat that DW sells; it’s thicker than the usual one
   Cardstock, face down
   Metal Stencil, face down
   Thick plate


I hope this helps someone.  I actually straightened a metal stencil by running it through my Cuttlebug using the sandwich I put above.  The trick is to protect it from the rollers at the top.  I bet that old Wizard that uses two thick plates would work great with stencils!

Daria