Black Ice Technique - a complete guide to mastering this eye-catching effect

This interesting background technique is created by using foiled cardstock, a little scrap paper, black archival ink and embossing powder. It's a really simple effect, you 'brush' your stamp pad over the foiled card to create fine lines with a darker edge, like a vignette. The Black ice Technique makes your card look just like burnished metal when you have finished and with so many different coloured foiled cards you can have a lot of fun experimenting with the black ice technique.

We also share a couple of similar techniques below for creating a tarnished metal effect, let us know if you have been experimenting with these techniques we'd love to see the results.

Helen Griffin, one of our fabulous Craft Experts here at CraftWorld has a fantastic tutorial showing you how she has created this stunning Christmas Card with gorgeous gold foiled card and dramatic black stamping!

Step by Step Tutorial to achieve the Black Ice Effect

What you'll need:

A Heat Tool
Clear Embossing powder
Black StazOn
Clear Embossing pad
Stamps (silhouette stamps work really well)
Foiled / Mirrored Cardstock

You can find all of these craft supplies over at CraftStash! Shop Craft Supplies

1. Stamp your design onto the cardstock, solid stamps like Helen is using work best to create a dramatic design

2. Gently drag your StazOn stamp pad across the card allowing the top edge to gently touch - do this in both directions to give an aged and distressed look (start off slow and build up!)

2. Dry the ink with a low heat setting and let it cool down

3. Swipe the clear embossing pad all over the cardstock

4. Cover with clear embossing powder (best to do in stages for a large card)

5. Use your heat gun to melt the embossing powder

6. You can now embellish your card and add a sentiment!

Who came up with the name for this technique?

We were hunting for more detail on this technique and who coined the expression 'Black Ice', Melissa from the craft blog Melissa's Crafting Treehouse described naming the technique like this:

I think of the signature black ice effect to be tiny ice like droplets in linear streaks. It is this look that made me think of the technique name because it’s how I envision what real black ice on a road might look like in the winter. In these next few photos, you may be able to see the effect that I’m talking about.

It's a fantastic way to use your mirrored card from your stash without it having to be Christmas themed - you can see from our huge Pinterest Board of Black ice cards the many different occasions the technique will work for. I think it would be ideal for those really special big birthdays with the gold and black but you can choose any colour foiled card!

Kitchen Foil Technique (when you don't have any mirrored card!)

While researching this technique we also came across a post from another of our CraftWorld Experts John Lockwood of John Next Door - John calls it the kitchen foil technique - but the results are similar, using archival ink over standard kitchen foil which has been glued down onto card which is then embossed to create a tarnished metallic finish - it's just stunning!

I embossed the foil covered card ( just Kitchen Foil spray glued to foundation car) and rubbed Jet Black Archival ink over the surface.  Next I added matt clear embossing powder and heat set this to make the tarnished metal look shown here.

The technique is also quite similar to a distress metal technique, Lou Collins has a video tutorial for the rusted metallic look here - Rusted Metal Background Effect

We're building a huge Pinterest board full of examples of this technique - be sure to follow us over there and make sure you're pinning all your favourite tutorials from CraftWorld!

Have you tried this burnished metal or 'Black Ice' technique or perhaps John's kitchen foil technique (what a bargain!) we'd love to see your work and share them here in our new Black Ice Technique Group - here are a few cards from our own members on CraftWorld.