My stamping friends and I are sharing a very different technique today. It is called Paper Kintsugi.

You may have heard of Kintsugi before. If not, this is the meaning: Kintsugi, “golden joinery”), also known as kintsukuroi (“golden repair”), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum; the method is similar to the maki-e technique. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

I love how it represents that we are stronger in the broken places.

As crafters we have taken the “broken pottery” idea and transferred it to paper.

You can achieve this effect by tearing the paper gently with your fingers, making short rips along the edge. Then, you press one of the torn edges on the VersaMark pad. You only need to do this for one edge, as the other one will be hidden under the top layer. After that, you apply heat and embossing powder to the edges to create a shiny finish. You can use any color of embossing powder you like.

Now you can put the pieces back together to form the card front or image. It helps to have a slightly smaller piece of cardstock to glue the pieces on. For my card, I chose a Pretty Peacock piece of Designer Series Paper (Earthen Elegance). I liked how the paper had a subtle texture that reminded me of pottery. I added a warm sentiment from the Wonderful Thoughts stamp set.

Do you see the gold trim? I made it by pulling out the inner filling of the Simply Elegant Gold Trim. This way, you get a thinner and more textured piece of twine.

I hope you will hop on for more inspiration. I can’t wait to see all the Paper Kintsugi creations.

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For your shopping convenience I have listed the supplies for these projects at the bottom of this post.

If you need any stamping supplies, I’d be very happy to be your Demonstrator. Just click on the Shop Now button to go directly to my online store or drop me an email: ginnyharrell@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Your Shopping List

Wonderful Thoughts Photopolymer Stamp Set (English) [161899] $25.00	Earthen Elegance 12″ X 12″ (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Designer Series Paper [161503] $12.50	Gold Foil Sheets [132622] $5.00	Metallics Embossing Powders [155555] $18.00	Simply Elegant Trim [155766] $7.50
Very Vanilla 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock [101650] $10.50	Very Vanilla 8-1/2″ X 11″ Thick Cardstock [144237] $9.00	Pretty Peacock Classic Stampin’ Pad [150083] $9.00