Mothers are special all year round but it's coming up to that time of year when we start thinking about celebrating them on Mother's Day. While I lost my wonderful mother a few years ago, I'm grateful for other treasured women in my life who are like a mom to me as well, my sweet Mother-in-law and my wonderful aunt. I hope you are blessed to have someone to create a special card for this year.
I had fun creating this unique card using a few simple techniques by getting inky and personalizing my paper and embellishment. I've always adored doilies and am thrilled that they are a hot trend right now. When I saw this Circle Lace stamp by Hero Arts, I just had to have it. It makes a gorgeous image, background or embellishment.
To create the doily layer, I started out with some Neenah Solar White Cardstock and stamped the Circle Lace stamp in Versamark Ink. Versamark is a great ink for embossing as well as creating a watermark on cardstock.
After stamping the image, it was sprinkled with Clear Embossing Powder and heated with the Heat It Craft Tool. The embossing forms what is called a resist. The resist will protect the area underneath the embossing so that it won't change color when ink or other media is applied. This is what it looks like before heating...
...and after.
Here's where you start to make that embossed doily pop. I sponged on some of my favorite Distress Inks. You can see how the embossing resists the ink and keeps the doily white. On my project I used a lot of my new favorite, Tumbled Glass Distress Ink along with Crushed Olive Distress Ink and a tiny bit of Worn Lipstick Distress Ink. Build up and blend the color until you like what you have. I like using the Cut-N-Dry Stamp Pad Foam for Blending.
While sponged ink is pretty, I wanted to add a little extra interest to this inked background to create a watercolor look. I spritzed water into my hand with the Mini Mister and they flicked water droplets onto the inked areas. Allow to spread and create watermarks. You can allow to dry as is or blot of water with a tissue when you have the desired look.
Ellen has some stunning new Prima flowers in the shop that are perfect for altering. For this card I used a Fiesta Innoscence flower and then made it match the card.
Glimmer Mist works beautifully on these flowers and I was thrilled with how well the ink took and how quickly it dried. I tried to make my flower blotchy so it would look hand-dyed. Just spritz more spray on some areas than others. Electric Blue Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels is the color used here.
What do you do when you want to create a specific card but don't have the right sentiment stamp? Create your own of course. I love using adhesive letters on projects and the Prima Ivory Fabric Alphabet is perfect for this. The font choices are fun and they are easy to alter with ink to get the color you need to match your design. Here I've spelled out MOM and sponged the letters with a little more Distress Ink.
The new Faux Linen ribbon is gorgeous and here tied in a bow, it almost looks like leaves for the flower. Here I've tied 12 inches of Olive Faux Linen ribbon into a bow and then adhered it behind the flower. Maya Road Trinket Pins, Leaf Brown and Turquoise & Vintage Pearl are pinned into the ribbon.
I couldn't resist adding a few rhinestones to the doily image to highlight the stamping.
Lastly, to finish off the sentiment I pulled out a sentiment set that I just adore. Anytime Messages is perfect for so many occasions. 1 of a kind is stamped in Coffee Archival Ink. Don't be afraid to mix up stamping with alphabets to create custom sentiments.
Thanks for joining me today in the CLASSroom.
Happy Creating!