Happy Anniversary To Me!

Today's blog post is in celebration of my one year anniversary as Twinkling Paper Studio. My first blog post was July 31, 2015 but the name came to me one year ago today. It seems that once I could think of a fitting name for me and my style of card making, the blog part got easier.  In the past year I've done 207 Blog Posts, made a few hundred cards and learned a lot by watching how others create.  My favorites include Jennifer McGuire, Yana Smakula and Marika Rahtu all of whom generously share their talents with this industry. I don't typically copy anyone's projects exactly, but I do use many of the same techniques tweaked to what works for me personally. From the beginning I have loved heat embossing and using gold on my cards. My friend, Yana, shares my love of gold and gold accents. I'm always happy when she has a new blog post or video up because I know somewhere in there she is going to have some shimmer, some sparkle or a bit of gold. Sometimes, (like me), she has all three.

Today's card (also for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge for their "Anything Goes" theme) has all three (of course) and in colors that are slightly different for me although I do love this Salmon color nearly as much as I love Pink. I started with a panel of Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper and did some ink blending in Berry Sorbet with a stencil brush going from upper left to lower right.  The stencil brushes (i.e. cosmetic brushes in my case or you can find Clarity Stencil Brushes HERE) give such a soft overlay of color and I couldn't possibly match it with a Mini Ink Blending Tool.  Both have their place in my arsenal, but I do love the super soft wash of color I get by doing it this way.  For more intense color (like in a night sky background) the Mini Ink Blending Tools are the way to go.  Next I put a drop of Berry Sorbet Reinker onto an acrylic block and mixed it with a bit of water then splattered drops onto my panel using a #4 Silver Black Velvet Round Brush.  By tapping my paintbrush against another brush handle, it makes splatter really easy and you can sort of predict the general area where it will fall.  After I let that dry for a couple of minutes, I put splatters of Finetec Arabic Gold Mica Watercolor onto the panel using a #8 Silver Black Velvet Round Brush.  Finally I went back in with my #4 brush and some Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist mixed into a stronger concentration of Berry Sorbet for the more vibrant of the coral splatters.  I've started using another brush to tap against as my hand was really starting to take a beating whacking my paintbrush against it all the time. *Ü* This way is much less painful.  I never thought of doing it that way before Stamp-A-Faire. I set that aside to dry while I worked on the rest of my elements.

I'm thinking this will be a good place to mention that I keep the rinse water in a separate container when I'm using the Finetec Mica Gold Watercolors. My container has a lid that I can leave open slightly so the water can evaporate out of it.  There is so much paint left in the brush when you are using it so I started keeping it several months ago.  I can add a few drops of water to it to mix with a color or to make less concentrated splatter. Most of the rest of the time I am using a tiny drop of reinker with a mist of water on an acrylic block for this technique and I use it up.  Whatever is left, if anything, wipes right off.

Next I  stamped the bloom and the leaves in Versamark Ink on more watercolor paper and heat set it with a gold embossing powder that I made by mixing Simon's Rose Gold with Simon's regular Gold Embossing Powder.  I call this mix "18 Karat" because of it's distinctive Yellow Gold tone.  Next I lightly misted my watercolor paper then stamped one of the detail layers of the bloom and the solid layer of the leaves. With the water on the paper the ink immediately begins to soften and blend.  This technique gives me the look of watercolor without all the time invested.  I enjoy doing it both ways - traditional and this way, but I wanted to make sure I told you how I got this look today. You can lightly mist the inked up stamp also for an even softer blend of color.  I tend to get too liberal with water if I mist both, but everyone should just do whatever works for them.  I die cut the Impression Obsession Butterfly and the "Amazing" from Gold Poster Board. The "Amazing" word came from the Papertrey Ink "It's the Thought" Die Collection. Once my ink splattered background was completely dry, I heat embossed the rest of the sentiment directly on to that panel using the same "18 Karat" Embossing Powder while still leaving room to put the last die cut word on there.

Before I assembled my elements to an A2 Top Folding card made from Berry Sorbet Cardstock, I heat set the background panel and then lightly misted it with Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist.  This is similar to Tsukineko Gold Shimmer Spritz.  The one I have is from Tattered Angels and isn't made anymore but I still have several bottles in my stash.  Basically, I sprayed it into the air and waved my panel under the falling mist a couple of times.  I wanted to be careful not to undo all my work on the background panel.  Once that was completely dry, I cut it with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Die and started putting the card together.  I used Thin 3D Foam Squares for the bloom, the upper part of the leaves and the body of the butterfly and Ranger Multi Medium Matte for the die cut word.  This way it has some dimension but is still easily mailable.

This is a really simple design that I've used before and is similar to a card I made when I was in a class at Altenew Academy with Marika, only there are more splatters here. I really miss seeing her out here in blog land, but she is on to very important work and doesn't have much time for crafting right now.  Thank goodness Yana isn't going anywhere!

Thank you so much for stopping by today and helping me to celebrate my first year as a blogger/cardmaker & sometimes artist.