God is Always With You - Distress Inks and Embossing Folder techniques

Do you have any crafty tools that if you were stranded on a crafter's desert island, you would have to have - no questions asked?? For me that is my embossing machine. I love my dies but I l-o-v-e, love my embossing folders! They can add texture and dimension to a CAS card giving it movement but still keeping it simple. They are versatile in the techniques you can do with them and they are fairly inexpensive. It is one of my favorite things for card making. 

Today I used my embossing folders and created 2 different cards. I used distress oxides on both sides of the folder for a stamp/stencil look and a debossed look. I used a honeycomb embossing folder, and paired it with the bee from the Sweet as Honey Stamp Set. The nature theme of the background made me think of the sentiment "God is Always with You" from the God is For You Stamp Set so I also paired it with my cards.

For the first card ...

• Lightly tap Spiced Marmalade and Fossilized Amber Distress Oxides randomly over the inside/FRONT side of the folder (this is the side that typically has the brand stamped on it)
• Spritz it with water
• Gently lay the the watercolor paper on top of it
• Close the folder and allow the color to soak into the paper for a couple of minutes
• Take it out of the folder and sit it aside to dry.
• While I didn't press hard enough to emboss, you can do so even running it through your machine. However, it squeezes the color out a bit and I wanted a more "crisp" image (water color-y crisp if that makes sense?)
• I heat embossed the sentiment onto the card with bronze power (If you emboss the background, you can't stamp it directly to the card...)
• I heat embossed the bee as well and water colored it, fussy cut it, and adhered it with glue dots (three high under the wings for dimension)

For the second card...

• Lightly tap Spiced Marmalade and Fossilized Amber Distress Oxides randomly over the inside/BACKside of the folder (this is the side that does not have a brand stamped on it)
• Spritz it with water
• Gently lay the the watercolor paper on top of it.
• The backside usually has more space to cover so it isn't' going to be crisp, therefore, this time I close the folder and run it through my embossing machine
• Take it out of the folder and sit it aside to dry.
• I heat embossed the sentiment onto a separate piece of paper with black powder and mounted it onto the background.
• I heat embossed the bee as well and water colored it, fussy cut it, and adhered it with foam dots. 

You can definitely see how different each card is and yet you use the same simple tool and basically the same process for both. What do you think? What is your favorite versatile tool?

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!

Lyn