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!

Best Thoughts Joy Fold Card

Finally had the chance to get back to the images I colored using my new Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers!

It seems that I can't get enough of the Best Thoughts stamp set as I am drawn to use it again and again.

Using my MISTI I stamped the rhododendrons using Ranger Archival ink on watercolor paper. My MISTI allowed me to re-stamp the image a couple of times to get a good print. Watercolor paper tends to be hard to stamp on, even using the smooth side so using the MISTI is a good practice.

I used Cornflower Blue (037) for the flowers and Olive Green (043) and Mid Green (046) for the leaves, using my Aqua Pen to blend the watercolor inks. When it was completely dry, I fussy cut it. To ensure a continuous black edge, I used a Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker to edge the image.

I wanted to use patterned paper as well as an embossing folder with the flower image so I decided to make a Joy Fold card. This is a lovely fold technique that uses a regular card with a narrower front than usual and a smaller card that overlaps and opens within the base card. You can find a great tutorial for a Joy Fold card on Debbie Henderson's blog.

I changed the measurements for my card as follows:

6.5 x 7.5" for the Pear Pizzazz card base, scored on the 7.5" side at 2.5"
2.5 x 6.25" DSP for the small flap
4.75 x 6.25" DSP for the inside of the card base
4.75 x 8" for the smaller Pear Pizzazz card base, scored at 4" on the 8" side
3.5 x 4.25" for the Night of Navy piece
3.5 x 4.25" for inner matte of Naturals White card stock

The patterned paper comes from the Regals DSP Paper Stack. All pieces of DSP had the edges inked with Night of Navy using a sponge dauber. All pieces of DSP were adhered to the larger card base using Fuse Fast adhesive.

The Night of Navy card stock panel was embossed using the Woodgrain Embossing Folder. It was adhered to the front of the smaller Pear Pizzazz card base using Fuse Fast adhesive, making sure the card opened in the opposite direction to usual.

The sentiment was stamped on a matte of the now retired Naturals White card stock using Night of Navy ink and the edges were also inked. It was adhered to the inside of the smaller card base using Fuse Fast adhesive. The smaller card base was centred and adhered to the larger DSP panel on the larger card base.

The colored flower was adhered to the embossed panel using Dimensionals. Sequins were scattered around the card and adhered using Crystal Effects. Wink of Stella provided a nice glimmer for the flower petals. (I really wish that I could get a good picture of the Wink of Stella effect to show those of you who are not familiar with it, but no picture seems to capture the subtle yet shimmery goodness Wink of Stella creates!)

A small bow of Old Olive 1/8" ribbon was added to the flower stem using Crystal Effects.

I hope you'll try creating a card using the Joy Fold technique. It's a great way to use some of your patterned paper and creates a lovely card!

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog