We are so thrilled to welcome the super talented Jessica Frost-Ballas to The Classroom today! Jessica always dazzles us with the special sparkle & shine she adds to her cards!
You can see more of Jessica's sparkle on her blog, All The Sparkle. And while you are there, show Jessica some love and leave a comment there before July 22nd for a chance to win a $50 coupon to use in our store!
Thank you for sharing you talent with us Jessica! And thank you for the gorgeous alcohol ink wave inspiration!!!
Hello! I am super excited to be in the Classroom today sharing a pair of cards featuring the gorgeous Mermaid’s Tail stamps and two different techniques for using alcohol inks!
To start I created backgrounds for my cards using alcohol inks and blending solution. I dripped blending solution along the left side of my yupo paper and then quickly dropped sailboat blue, indigo, mermaid, pool, clover alcohol ink over the blending solution. I also added a few drops of silver mixative which adds a gorgeous shimmery sheen over the background and on one background I added a few drops of raspberry alcohol ink.
Then I tilted the paper and let the alcohol ink and blending solution run towards the right side of the paper.
As it reached the right side I tilted it down slightly to create curves to resemble waves!
I did this each background and set them aside to dry while I worked on other elements of the cards.
For my first card I dropped sailboat blue, indigo, mermaid, pool, and clover alcohol inks onto a piece of vellum. I trimmed a piece of alcohol ink blending felt into a circle and stuck it on a regular circular blending tool. I wanted a smoother blending of colors which is why I didn’t add the alcohol ink to my blending felt.
After dropping color onto the vellum I carefully and quickly blurred the lines between the drops with the blending tool to create a brightly colored background.
I let it dry completely and then prepped it with a powder tool. I stamped the tail from Mermaid’s Tail with versamark and heat-embossed it with metallic silver sparkle embossing powder. I used the coordinating die to die-cut it and then die-cut an additional tail from white cardstock. I adhered them together with vellum adhesive and then repeated the process two more times.
Once my tails were complete I started to assemble my card. I started by trimming my background down to a 4.25” by 5.5” panel. Then I prepped the background with a powder tool, stamped the sentiment from Mermaid’s Tail with versamark, and heat-embossed it with silver embossing powder. I adhered two of my mermaid tails with regular ATG adhesive and trimmed off the rest excess. I used an action wobbler to adhere my third tail and trimmed off the overhanging edge. Finally I adhered a few clear droplets with glossy accents to create some bubbles in the water!
My second color follows a similar layout but with different colors and embellishments.
For my second card I followed the same process for my mermaid tail but used alcohol inks in Terra Cotta, Raspberry, Salmon, Poppyfield, and Honeycomb. I stamped the tail in versamark and heat-embossed it with metallic gold sparkle embossing powder.
I stamped the sentiment from Mermaid’s Tail onto the background with versamark and heat-embossed it with silver embossing powder. After die-cutting the mermaid tail I adhered it with foam mounting tape for a little dimension and trimmed off the overhang. I adhered it to a white card base and then started arranging sequins. Originally I was just going to add a small odd number of sequins scattered around the card but then I decided to go all out! I arranged a wave of sequins from the mermaids tail and then adhered them one by one with glossy accents. I took a photo with my camera before I started glueing so that I’d have a reference in case I accidentally moved some of them or if, more likely, the cat walked across my project. I love how the different sized sequins really help create the illusion of bubbles!
I hope you enjoyed my cards and that they inspired you to look at your alcohol inks in different ways! The mermaid’s tail is so beautifully intricate and the ombre alcohol inks and glittery embossing powders coordinate amazingly well to create bright mermaid underwater scenes! Thanks so much to Ellen for inviting me to guest and thanks to you for stopping by today! Have a fantastic day!
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