I always intended to use the seahorse stamp set and the new Seth Apter Baked Velvet Texture Powders and so this came together (in the end!).

I started off with one of Laura's fantastic ATC Art Shrines and constructed it, painted it on the outside with Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body Paint in Turquoise. For the inside I took a piece of watercolour paper and coloured it with PaperArtsy Infusions - A Bit Jaded colour.  The frame (above) went a bit wrong so just ignore that for the moment!

The turquoise was a little bright for my liking so I took Dina's paint in Umber and used my fingers to randomly cover the shrine and painted the frame in the same colour.

Before assembling I sanded the whole of the outside of the shrine and also the frame, to give a 'distressed' look.

Here is where I changed completely, my stamped and embossed seahorse did not go to plan and so I got out my melt pot and mixed all three colours of Seth's Baked Velvets, poured them out onto my heat resistant mat and stamped the seahorse skeleton stamp into the molten liquid, using Black Archival Ink. Hold in place for a moment or two and then remove the stamp. It was a risk because I was not sure that the polymer stamp would take the heat but it did, so a great result for me! 

 Note: This method works well with most red rubber stamps, so if you do try this with one of your polymer stamps, it is always wise to to a 'test' first on one of the small stamps (like I did with the word) and be careful, the molten liquid is VERY hot! 

To finish off the frame I added a word band. I highlighted the number with the turquoise paint.

The colours of the Baked Textures are gorgeous and the textures of each colour is slightly different, the result was a marbled look that reminded me of Jade, and so my 'fossil' emerged. I loved it. The Baked Textures are available in Laura's shop in different colour combos, I think I need them all now!

Products Used:

That's Crafty! Surfaces - ATC Art Shrine - Rectangle

That's Crafty! Surfaces Mixed Media Paper/Card Kit - (Watercolour paper)

Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body Paint - Turquoise

Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body Paint - Umber

Seth Apter Baked Velvet - Mediterranean Kit (Lime, Dusk, Aegean Sea)

AALL & Create - Underwater Wonders by Olga Heldwein

PaperArtsy Infusions - A Bit Jaded

Sanding block - from my stash

Tim Holtz Word Band - from my stash

Thanks so much for your visit, it is much appreciated.

Crafty wishes, Anne xx

I wanted it to look like it is an old museum piece.

The Process:

I used one of That's Crafty! Surfaces, ATC MDF Art Shrine (approx 3" x 4"), constructed it and painted all the outside surfaces with Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body paint in Black. I roughly painted the inside with Buff (again by Dina Wakley).

Next, I sanded the MDF to give a worn look. I decided later to add some patterned paper to the box but not the frame element which looked lovely with the sanding.

For the inside of the box, I watered down some That's Crafty! fabulous Walnut Crystals. I applied a wash very randomly to the inside walls of the box. At this point I didn't like how bare the back looked so I applied the same wash to a piece of cotton watercolour paper. I over-stamped the paper with the script element of Tim Holtz's Entomology Stamp set, again just using the watered down Walnut Crystals.

And now for the fun part! I can't really show a step by step for this bit because it all has to happen quite quickly. I took some of Seth Apter's Baked Textures in Vintage Beeswax and also Ancient Amber, mixed about 50/50 give or take. In terms of measure, I probably used about a rounded tablespoon of each powder, so it does take quite a bit to make a nice deep impression. I didn't want to get my Melt Pot out so I used a small foil pie tin, put the Baked Textures in together and heated them from underneath until they melted fully.

Whilst the powders are heating up, I inked up the bug stamp (again from Entomology), with Onyx Black Versafine, applying lots and lots of ink.  I poured the hot melted powder onto my craft mat and very quickly stamped into it, holding it in firmly for around 30 seconds.

Tip:  this technique works really well with red rubber stamps but be really careful with other non rubber stamps, they may not like the heat of the molten powder.

Lift the stamp off and you should have a lovely impressed image, as shown above. I did try applying more embossing powder over the top and heating it to try and encapsulate the bug but it didn't work, the bug image was distorted, so I don't recommend doing that.

Here is a bit of a close up of the bug, the detail is quite amazing!  If your stamped image is not clear enough, you can ink up the stamp again and stamp over, the stamp should fit perfectly into the recess.

I finished off the piece by adding a Tim Holtz Word Band from my stash, to the frame.

The Products I used:

That's Crafty! Surfaces ATC MDF Shrine - 3 Pack

13Arts 6" x 6" Paper Pack, His & Hers Re-mastered (out of stock currently)