Remarkable You and a Mixed Media Technique

I hope you all are enjoying this wonderful summer! My husband and I have been enjoying spending time with our granddaughter, Raine. She's growing up so fast but she is such a total delight!

I've snuck in a few photos of her to show you below!

Though I thought that when she was napping (and she is a GREAT napper) I would have time to make some cards, it appeared that Grandma sometimes needed a nap then, too!

Regardless, I was able to put together a card today and dabble with a mixed media technique.
I started by creating a watercolor background using four reinkers–Rich Razzleberry, Blackberry Bliss, Coastal Cabana and Bermuda Bay. I simply wet my paper well with a spray bottle and then dabbed on color. I dried with my heat tool and added a bit more where I thought it was needed and then dried it completely.

Next, I chose to use the stripes mask from the Dots and Stripes Masks set. I adhered my watercolored matte to my craft matte and then adhered the mask over it.

I added a few drops of Bermuda Bay reinker to some Golden Gel Medium Light Molding Paste and mixed it well using an old gift card. I then proceeded to wipe the molding paste from bottom to top of the mask over the watercolored matte, being sure to swipe the excess paste from the matte. I then lifted the mask straight up and off of the watercolor and set it aside to dry.

Meanwhile, I used my MISTI to stamp the flower from the Remarkable You stamp set with Versamark onto both a piece of Blackberry Bliss and a piece of Bermuda Bay card stock. I heat embossed both with Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder and then fussy cut them. They were adhered to the watercolor matte with Dimensionals.

The sentiment was also stamped with Versamark and heat embossed. It was die cut using the Lots of Labels Framelits and then trimmed down slightly.

Once it was completely dry, I trimmed up the watercolor matte and wrapped a length of Gold Sequin Trim around it and then adhered the sentiment on top, using Dimensionals.

A piece of paper from the Bohemian Designer Series papers was adhered to a Bermuda Bay card base using Snail Adhesive and then the watercolor matte was adhered on top using Dimensionals.

I love how the use of the Molding Paste turned out! Because it was only thinly applied, some of the watercolored background showed through, making it look kind of like a two-toned ombré stripe! It gives a nice dimensionality to the matte as well.

I'm looking forward to more experiments with Molding Paste on future cards so stay tuned! Let me know in the comments below if you have tried Molding Paste in your card making.


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Remarkable You Sympathy Card

All too often these days, I find myself needing to make a sympathy card. I am ever hopeful that by designing a heartfelt card, it can bring the recipient of the card some measure of comfort.

Inspiration for my card actually came to me while I was working at Walmart.

In the last couple of days, several people have purchased Calla Lilies. We have yellow ones as well as purple ones that are almost black in color. I think that they are one of the most elegant looking flowers I've seen and I thought they would work well for my card.

Though a lot of sympathy cards utilize muted colors, I decided on strong, rich colors for my card.




Though I knew what stamp set I wanted to use as well as what techniques I wanted to employ, it still took me awhile to bring the card to completion as I tried out different matte sizes and embellishments. I also had a hard time deciding what color to use for my sentiment piece.

I remembered that there were a lovely pair of Calla Lilies in the The Remarkable You stamp set. I chose to stamp these on watercolor paper using Versamark and then heat embossed with Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder.

I used Blackberry Bliss reinker with my Blender Pen to color the flowers. The blend of colors from the dark, rich blackberry to the lighter, fruitier pink made me very happy!

I adhered the lilies to a very thin matte of Mossy Meadow using Fuse Fast adhesive. I inked the edges of a slightly larger Mossy Meadow matte with Versamark and then heat embossed with gold. I adhered the thin matte to the embossed matte. Then, using Dimensionals, I adhered these mattes to a Tip Top Taupe matte.

Using a Stampin' Spritzer, I prepared a mixture of Rubbing Alcohol and a couple of drops of Rich Razzleberry reinker. In my makeshift spray booth (an old shoe box) I sprayed some Jute Ribbon to match my card. Once the ribbon was dry, I wrapped it around the matte, adhering it with Sticky Strip and tape.

Earlier in the day, I had rolled out a piece of the now retired Simply Pressed Clay (Why on earth did Stampin' Up retire this product? It's wonderful!) and pressed my sentiment stamp, from the Best Thoughts stamp set, into the clay. This is one of my favorite techniques for using the clay! I then pressed one of the Oval Collection Framelits into the clay to provide a shape to cut out the sentiment when it was dry.

I trimmed the dried clay with scissors, following the outline left by the oval framelit. I pressed the dry clay sentiment into my Old Olive stamp pad, being sure it was well inked on both sides and edges. I then wiped off some of the ink until I was pleased with the distressed look of the sentiment.

Using a sponge dauber, I applied Mossy Meadow ink to the edges and rubbed a little bit over the words themselves to make them stand out more. The sentiment was then adhered to the card front using Dimensionals.

Close up of Simply Pressed Clay sentiment

The mattes were adhered to the Blackberry Bliss card base using Dimensionals.

For the inside matte, I used a piece of the now retired Naturals White card stock. I stamped a portion of the Calla Lilies in the bottom right corner, using Sahara Sand. The edges were inked with Versamark and heat embossed with gold.

I think my card turned out well though I wish I had rolled the piece of clay just a little bit thinner so that it didn't look so thick on the bottom of the card. There's always next time to get it right, isn't there?

Drop me a comment below letting me know how you have used Simply Pressed Clay in your projects!

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