The Flock You Say!

Here's a tutorial I did for Scrappy Jo's February Technique of the Month. With May on the horizon, I thought it might be a fun technique for those Mother's Day cards we'll all be making!

Here's what you'll need:

Tsukineko’s Essential Glue Pad

Stampendous! Fun Flock

Let's get started cuz I'm here to tell you. . . FLOCKING IS FUN!!

There are only a couple of things you have to remember about gluing flock onto your cards or layouts:

1. Don’t sneeze.

2. Turn off overhead fans.

3. Close your windows.

If you can handle those few things, you can flock especially if you’ve handled embossing powder before. Instead of inking a stamp, sprinkling on embossing powder and heating it, you're now going to use glue on your stamps and then ad the flocking material. Trust me - it's cinchy.

Here’s how you, too, can become a master at flocking-

1. Squeeze glue from the bottle onto the pad and work it in with the tip as you squeeze. Be sure to cover the entire pad. The instructions say to use about a teaspoon and that should give you about 100 impressions. I’m not good at measuring and probably used more than that.

2. Once you’ve glued the pad, you just tamp the pad all over your stamp in the same way you’d ink your stamp. Once your stamp is covered, it’ll be shiny which shows up better for pictures on a rubber stamp as opposed to a clear stamp.

3. Then just stamp your paper. I tried to take a picture for this step, but guess what? Clear glue on white paper doesn’t photograph well. Don’t panic when you can see anything on your paper – just relax and go onto the next step. Trust me- you’ll be fine. Be sure to cover up the glue pad even in between stampings because the glue does dry out pretty quickly.
4. After you’ve stamped your paper with glue, tap out the flock over the glue. This is where you need to minimize whatever breezes might be in your house, cuz I’m here to tell you that flock LOVES to fly. The good thing is that it’s not sticky at all, so if it lands on your shirt (or your nosy dog, say) it won’t stick there forever. (Or turn your dog pink).

5. Now go ahead and press the flock into the glue. You don’t have to be
gentle but try not to schooch it around. Just press straight
down with your fingers.






6. Now it's time to return the excess flock back to the jar for you to use again. Just pick up your card or LO, curl it up into sort of a loose cone shape and tap it so the flock slides into the jar. Or if you're like me . . .into the jar, down my lap and onto the dog.

At this point, wash off your stamp with soap and water and pat dry.

Let your beautiful flocked things sit overnight before working with them. I didn't, and if you look closely at my flowery card below, you can see where I smooshed off some of the flocking in the lower left hand corner with my thumb. That's because I have no patience and played with it before it was dry. My mom would not be surprised. . . I was the kid who ate cookie and pie dough because I couldn't wait for the part where you're supposed to bake 'em first.

I’m definitely buying more colors and playing with this some more. While working with this, all kinds of ideas popped into my head. Wouldn't flocked flowers in every color be beautiful on a Mother’s Day card? Or what about flocked frames around pics in your next layout?? Or flocked titles?? What an easy and cool technique – and the fun you can have is endless!

So go get yourself some flocking and start playing around. Just remember – no whistling while you work!