Happy SPRING! I'm Sandy Allnock, and I'm pretty sure the whole nation is now ready to put all that winter behind us, right? I've got a pretty little card to share that packs a lot of springtime color and shimmer - and you can create it with a variety of mediums. PLUS...a sneaky peeky at one of the new release stamps coming up VERY soon! Ready?
First, the basic supplies. The Bohemian Garden set (ohmygosh how fun, right?) designed by the talented Julie Ebersole is going to be great in SO many ways. I also pulled out some of my Essentials by Ellen vellum - I just adore the weight of it!
You can use different inks or markers to do this technique - but I had to get out all my fun Distress Inks in their little storage tins - can you believe I am probably the LAST on the train to collect all 12 sets of mini inks? Call me slow! But I'm a happy camper now since I can have more ink at-hand when they're the little ones, and the round pads for the blending tool tuck right underneath the pads themselves. Genius, I say, that Tim Holtz is genius! (We won't need that tool for this card but I just had to tell you in case you're like me and didn't know about the pads!)
Alrighty, on with the card! If you know anything about distress inks - they aren't great at stamping with clear stamps, right? The ink, because of its forumulation, bubbles up a little bit on the polymer surface, unlike some other inks. But I had an idea to try with the vellum, so I inked one of the flowers up in ombré fashion with Wild Honey, Ripe Persimmon, and Seedless Preserves, just tapping them onto the stamp itself.
I wanted to see how a bunch of the flowers would stamp on the 4" x 5-1/2" piece of vellum, and here's the result....the flowers are all in the three colors above, and the leaves use the same technique with Crushed Olive and Peacock Feathers. The result is a little marbly stamping - though I'll let you ponder what happens when we turn over that vellum.
I placed a paper towel over the wet ink and pressed once so as not to move any of the ink, just to pick up any major excess, then heat dried it just a little bit and stopped before any curling began. Here's a closeup of the result so far:
Next I wanted to attach my stamped vellum panel face down onto a white card base. Yup, stamping side down! That'll smooth out the look of the ink.
It's always interesting to figure out how to attach vellum to our card without adhesive showing - what I opted for was dots of Glossy Accents on spots on the flowers that wouldn't show.
I placed it gently onto the card front made of Neenah 110lb, with a little bit of tape runner (I love the dot Stamp Runner from Tombow) across one strip at the top, so I could cover that with this goooorrrrgeous 1-1/4" May Arts Silk Ribbon in Antique Gold. It comes in yard increments and so many pretty colors, so you could do this with a lot of different color schemes.
If you struggle with getting a big bow to go through the mail, try this trick - tie a knot with your beautiful ribbon, and just cut the two ends so they have points - fold it in half and snip it at an angle, and it makes a knot look so much fancier! And oooh, what's that sentiment? Could it be from another new release stamp set coming soon....? Hmmm, you'll have to wait and see! *grin*
I wanted to now add a little shimmer. I got out my clear Wink of Stella pen, which doesn't "move" any of that distress ink since it's on the other side of the paper, so you get to just see the soft shine on top.
This could work with a variety of inks on the vellum - I wish my photo of the shimmer showed it better. It's hard to capture on a camera. Trust me though, it's beautiful!
The finished card is bright and cheerful, and yet has a lot of white to keep it fresh for spring - and of course a little shimmer makes everything better!
Stay tuned for the release coming your way soon....you're gonna love it. #hideyourwallets!
Happy crafting!
Sandy
