Sanctuary Layout with 3-D Embossing

Hello there crafty friends!  I have a layout on my blog today, featuring one of Sizzix's new 3-d Textured Impressions embossing folders:

I've used the Leaves folder for this layout, along with a few Sizzix Thinlits dies.

These embossing folders have a deeper and bolder texture to them.  Love this leaf one, and there are other fabulous ones here.

These folders are thicker than your regular ones, so the Sizzix Sandwich for these is a little different.   Open your Sizzix Platform to Tab 1, place your folder, with your paper inside,  and then adding a standard cutting pad on top.  You are only using one cutting pad, two will make it too thick to go through your machine.

Love the extra dimension on these folders.

I decided to paint and distress my embossed paper.  I used a mixed media cardstock, which I lightly gessoed after embossing.  I used various colours of Distress paint until I got this end result.  Just a note here; I probably would test what colour combination I wanted to use, on a test sheet first.  I ended up adding a few too many layers of paint, trying to get the right colour combo I wanted on here, and the raised areas weren't as pronounced.  After the paint dried I lightly sanded the top, highlighting the embossed pattern.

My leaves were die-cut with the Sizzix Tim Holtz Garden Greens Thinlits die and patterned paper.  

After they were die-cut out, I lightly sprayed them with Tim Holtz Distress Stain Spray.

On my layout, I added a few hand cut leaves from my paper (49 & Market, Vintage Artistry) and my die-cut leaves.  The butterfly is also hand-cut out. 

My larger butterfly was die-cut from the Sizzix Tim Holtz Detailed Butterflies Thinlits set. The top layer was die-cut from patterned paper and the bottom was a solid colour cardstock.  Both were spritzed with Distress Spray and a Distress Brass Mica Spray.

Once I had all my pieces cut out, distressed, and inked, I adhered them to my paper.  The background paper has some paint and stain splattered randomly.  

My photos were taken at an amazing park, The William Rickets Sanctuary, in the Dandenongs, Victoria, Australia.  When we were visiting our son, we spent the day up in the Dandenongs and this was our last stop. It was just before closing, so we didn't get to spend as much time there as I would have liked. As soon as you enter the park, you feel the peacefulness and tranquility amongst the ferns and trees.  William Ricketts bought this property in the 1930s and began these amazing mystical pottery sculptures representing the Aboriginal people and their culture.  He created these pieces and embedded them into the  rocks and trees so they look like they are part of the landscape.  I think there's close to a 100 pieces, some hidden or almost completely covered with moss, you almost miss them.  It was such an inspiring place to visit, I hope to visit again one day.

I also want to thank all of you for the wonderful comments I received on my Tim Holtz CHA projects.  Thank you so much, it means a lot to me.  I will be posting the rest of them later this week!

Thanks for stopping by,

Jan