Birthday Blooms For Kylie Bertucci's International Stampin' Up Blog Highlight

I have been looking forward to participating in Kylie Bertucci's International Stampin' Up Blog Highlight. The theme is Love–any kind. However, as the time to post my project drew nearer, I still had no inkling of what I was going to create!

In the meantime, I have been working on some other projects that have gone awry so I took the evening off and watched tv.

Then, just before going to bed last night, an idea for my project popped into my head! I sat down and sketched it out, noting all the color and paper details, including a new technique that I wanted to try. Just the other day, Michelle Long had posted a card she had created by painting with her Aqua Painter filled with rubbing alcohol. I loved the technique and decided to use it on my card. Satisfied that I had noted everything I needed I headed off to bed.

Today, I sat down in my craft room to create my project and it came together quite nicely–almost exactly as I planned it except for a color change and a change in how I was going to add my sentiment.

I started by designing out the measurements for my project in my Silhouette Cameo design software. Once I knew the actual sizes of paper I needed, I proceeded to cut:

1. 3 1/2 x 3 1/2" Typeset DSP
2. 3 3/4 x 3 3/4" Basic Black matte
3. 5 5/8 x 5 5/8" Pacific Point matte
4. 6 x 6" Basic Black card base

On the Typeset DSP I stamped the floral image from Birthday Blooms with Jet Black Stazon Ink. I used Stazon instead of Basic Black Archival because I would be using alcohol in my Aqua Painter instead of water. I proceeded to paint the image using Pacific Point, Cucumber Crush, and Crushed Curry reinkers.

I loved how this turned out! It really is such a fun technique! I started with very little color and then built it up as the color dried very quickly due to using the rubbing alcohol instead of water. This method works much better than water on normal paper because it dries so fast!

After my image had dried completely, I placed the paper between a couple of sheets of scrap paper, covered it with an old pillowslip and ironed it! The paper had bubbled a bit in the area where I had painted but ironing got it completely flat again! I adhered the painted paper to a black matte using Fast Fuse Adhesive.

Next, I embossed the Pacific Point matte with the Brick Wall Embossing Folder. To give the embossing a more distinct look and to give the wall a bit of character, I sponged over the matte with Night of Navy ink.

For a bit more texture, I used Tear & Tape to adhere two pieces of Basic Black 3/8" Stitched Ribbon diagonally across the matte. Once the ribbon was in place, I adhered a piece of self-adhesive black fun foam and then adhered the matte to the card front using Fast Fuse Adhesive. The fun foam really works well to provide lift to a matte but to do so evenly. I used Dimensionals to adhere the painted image to the middle of the embossed matte.

Now this is where my plans for this project changed. I had wanted to white emboss a sentiment on black card stock. However, because the Typeset DSP has a Very Vanilla background, the white would have looked wrong which leads me to ask, "Why doesn't Stampin' Up have any Very Vanilla Embossing Powder?"

After choosing my sentiment from the First Sight stamp set, I decided to stamp the words and cut them up. I stamped three sentiment "pieces" of Very Vanilla with Jet Black Stazon ink and then trimmed them down in size. For the word, LOVE, I used my MISTI to stamp it first in Basic Black Archival and then in Versamark and heat embossed it with Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder. I inked the edges of each piece using Basic Black Archival ink.

I added Dimensionals to the backs of each sentiment and laid them out on the painted matte. After finding a pleasing arrangement, I used Glue Dots to adhere loops of Gold Metallic Thread behind LOVE to make it the focal point of the sentiment. I added a rhinestone to the "O" as well as three other rhinestones, which I colored with a Copic marker, for the front of the card.

For the inside of the card, I cut a matte from Very Vanilla and stamped the floral image in Pacific Point. I inked the edges of the matte before adhering it with Fast Fuse to complete the card.

 

I'm really liking how my card turned out! If you like it too, could you please vote for my card by visiting Kylie's Blog? To vote, just look for the photo of my card–mine is number 28–and then click on the little heart in the top right of the photo. It should turn red once you have voted. If my card gets into the top five, I will be able to take part in an International Blog Hop! I would really appreciate your help with this because this is such a great opportunity!

Thank you for stopping by today!