Marblelized Thank You Cards

Today's cards use a technique that has been on my to do list for some time but which I just hadn't got around to trying. I had several cards to make so I thought that using shaving cream to produce a marblelized effect would be appropriate since several similar yet different backgrounds can be made at one time. An excellent tutorial can be found here.

The cards also use the 6 x 6" Glimmer Paper Assortment Pack, one of the new FREE Sale-A-Bration items that can be earned by placing a $60 order!

I started by cutting 4 x 5.25" mattes from Whisper White. I then sprayed shaving cream onto a foam plate (one that was larger than my matte) and smoothed the surface of the cream with a piece of cardboard saved from some packaging.

Next, I placed drops of reinker–Mint Macaron, Bermuda Bay, and Sweet Sugarplum–randomly on the shaving cream. I used a wooden dowel to drag through the drops both vertically and horizontally (and sometimes circularly). There is no right way of doing this–feel free to experiment!

I placed one of my mattes face down into the shaving cream and then removed it, checking to be sure I had color in all areas of the matte. If not, I re-dipped the matte.

I let the matte sit for a minute or two and then scraped off the shaving cream, leaving behind a marbled ink pattern. The matte was then set aside to dry while I repeated the process with other mattes.

Because the ink pattern tends to lose its crispness after producing a few mattes, I rinsed off the plate and began again. It was fun to try different "patterns" created with the wooden dowel. Sometimes I would only apply drops of Mint Macaron and Bermuda Bay, stir it with the dowel, and then add a few drops of the Sweet Sugarplum and stir it briefly with the dowel. It is important when working with colors that are complements on the color wheel, (red and green; blue and orange, purple and yellow) not to stir them together too much because the color will quickly turn to mud.

After my mattes were dry, I sponged the edges with Basic Gray ink and then adhered the mattes to standard card fronts cut from Smoky Slate.

The sentiment, from the now retired Happy Watercolor stamp set was stamped on either Sweet Sugarplum, Mint Macaron or Bermuda Bay card stock and then die cut using a square from the Stitched Shapes Framelits.

The Triple Banner Punch was used to flag the ends of Glimmer paper that matched the card stock used for the sentiment and these strips were adhered behind the sentiment. The sentiment piece was adhered to the card front using Dimensionals to complete each card.

I hope you will give this technique a try! Between colors and patterns, the possibilities are endless! What colors will you use and what patterns will you produce?