Thinking of You Card

I had a strong desire to play around with the masking techniques from my recent Creative Chemistry 102 class.  I also desired to play around with the sticky embossing powder techniques.  This card was born of that playing around.

I first created the background paper using an Ink Blending Tool and several colors of Distress Ink (Scattered Straw, Peeled Paint, Seedless Preserves, and Vintage Photo)  I tried to keep the colors bright and light.  I laid the honecomb stencil over the top corner and applied some Vintage Photo with the blending tool.  This created the lighter "masked" portion of the background paper.  The edged were distress with my distressing tool and then inked with Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  I stamped the background image using my Delicate Twining stamp.  I used a water brush and Shaded Lilac Distress Ink to color the flowers and Peeled Paint Distress Ink to color the leaves.

Each of the layers of asters were stamped using my Heartfelt Creations Delicate Asters stamps and embossed with the sticky embossing powder.  I used Ranger's Rock Candy glitter directly after heating up the powder.  The glitter sticks to the embossing powder and then I cut each flower out with my dies.  The center of each flower is a little Shabby Shutters Distress Glitter applied with a dot of Crystal Accents.  The ODBD Fancy Foliage green cardstock swirls and the Heartfelt Creations Ornamental Add On brown cardstock florish were added for interest.

The sentiment frame was cut out of kraft paper (like the card base).  Before removing the cut, I applied Vintage Photo Distress Ink with the blending tool leaving the beautiful outline on the frame.  The sentiment was stamped using brown Archival Ink and then the frame was attached using foam squares.  A few pearl accents and I thought the card was done.

This card was satisfying- beautiful result, fun elements to put together and some playing around without exactly knowing it would all work out.  I can see a fair bit of stress relief poured into this little card.

I'm linking this up over at the Moxie Fab World in their Cards for Cath.  I've mentioned my enjoyment of Cath and her lovely posts over at the Moxie Fab World on more than one occasion.  This is because she has been such an inspiration to me.  Sadly, she's decided to move on to greener pastures and do other things.  This announcement came as such a shock to me- she's been a mainstay for my online blog reading for years!  I'm hoping my sadness at her leaving is a small measure of the great and wonderful things ahead for her.  She really is Moxie Fab!  So long, Cath!  I'll hope to see you in your next endeavors.

I'm also linking this up with the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog: Anything Goes Challenge, The Paper Girls Challenge #43: Cut It Out and Word Art Wednesday's Challenge #104: Anything Goes. Come join the fun!

Creative Chemistry 102: Sticky Embossing Powder

This technique involved using Ranger's Sticky Embossing Powder.  This embossing powder has a small window after melting where the powder will be sticky and glitter will adhere to the embossed image.  I decided to give it a try using my Heartfelt Creations Delicate Aster stamps.  I thought this might be a good test because the aster stamps are so delicate and intricate. 

I used Embossing Ink to stamp the images and sprinkled the Sticky Embossing powder over the stamped images.  I then heated the three flowers to melt the powder.  When the image was still fluid and hot, I poured Peacock Feathers Distress Glitter.  After allowing the images to cool, the glitter is pretty well adhered to the images. 

This close up allows you to see a couple things about the technique.  First- I'm not sure that a delicate, intricate image will be the best result.  A lot of the detail in these stamps is lost.  Second, Distress Glitter is not "micro-fine" in size.  I think a micro-fine glitter might give a more intricate stamp definition.  The idea that Distress Glitter matches to the tone and palette of the Distress line is very appealing.  After having worked with micro-fine glitter, I'm  partial to the detail it provides.  Distress glitter does not provide that detail- guess it make sense with the whole Distress idea.

Still, I'd recommend the Sticky Embossing Powder if you'd like to try something new.