Shimmering Elegance

The Always Playing With Paper Challenge Blog gave us this gorgeous image to be inspired by this week.  The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for this week is "Emboss It" I wanted to paint another card using my favorite butterfly from the Stampendous Pen Pattern Butterflies and Coordinating Dies. There are actually 3 different butterflies in the set, but I love this large graphic one.  I wanted something a bit different looking so I tried to combine a few different methods in my card; Stamping, Heat Embossing, Dry Embossing, Watercolor, DTP, Shimmer Spray and Die Cutting.  I needed three to play over at the CAS Mix Up Challenge. 

   

I started with a 4.25 x 5.5 inch piece of Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper then stamped the butterfly in Versamark and heat embossed it using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I love this color because it's a warm rich gold than looks good with everything.  Using a #4 Silver Black Velvet Paint Brush, I painted the butterfly with a couple of Twinkling H20's in Ocean Wave and Egyptian Gold.  I chose that type of paint because it has a shimmer to it when dry. You could also add Perfect Pearls + Water Solution to any other coloring medium to get the same effect if you don't have Twinkling H20's. You can make it more or less shimmery by how much of the pigment powder you add to your water.

Once I had that painted, I set it aside to dry and grabbed a piece of A2 sized Stamper's Select White Cardstock. I ran that through my Cuttlebug machine using the Embossing Sandwich with a Taylored Expressions Embossing Folder called Leafy Vine.  I felt it was the perfect backdrop for the butterfly since mostly when you see butterflies they are around flowers or foliage of some kind.

To add a bit more interest to this background piece, I used Papertrey's Lemon Tart Ink and went Direct To Paper (DTP) with it.  Because the design is so close together, this worked very well at getting the color on the most raised areas.  Once I had that done, I spritzed it with some Glimmer Mist in Iridescent Gold and set it aside to dry. The spray mixes with all the color and makes it look so well blended. 

I wanted to add a bit more texture and dimension to the card front, so I cut three of the Poppy Stamps Massa Leaf Background.  I left these in the negative so that I could do some ink blending on them using a Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tool.  It helps to hold the positive in place without bending it which could have been tricky since the stems are so small. Once I had these inked up, I sprayed them with the same Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist and set that aside to dry for a few minutes before I pulled the positive pieces from the negative place holder.  The butterfly in this set is so large and I knew I could only accommodate a small sized greeting so I cut the Simon Says Stamp Circle Smile Die from a scrap of gold foil cardstock.  I wanted the area behind it to be smooth so I used the ink blended negative scrap from the leafy branches to cut a positive circle to go behind the Smile die cut.  

I assembled everything to a 5.25 x 4 inch top folding note card using mostly Multi Medium Matte but I added a couple of strips of foam adhesive behind the butterfly's body and I used my ATG to adhere the background panel to the card base.  I used my Teflon Bone Folder to "curl" the top wings but I adhered the bottom wings to the card base directly with Multi Medium Matte.

My girlfriend and my daughter were both gaga over this card so I think I'll be making another one so I can send one to each of them.  Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Please feel free to leave a comment if you like.  I'm going to get busy painting another butterfly!

Inkspirational Challenge #104

Today I am sharing a card that I made for the challenge over at Inkspirational; #104 Pink and Grey.  This happens to be a combination that I love and always makes me think of Art Deco Architecture & Decor.  That is probably because the first time I actually saw any Art Deco Decor in person was at The Rock House on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Estate. I drafted a blog post about that once before, but it got to be soooo long that I deleted it.

For this card, I started with a piece of Smoky Slate Card Stock from Stampin' Up! since it was the only grey I have.  It wasn't nearly dark enough as I was going for a Pewter color.  To fix this, I used a Mini Ink Blending Tool with my Smoky Slate Ink and applied it to the panel until I had achieved the color depth I wanted. Once that was done, I misted the pewter, rose and pink cardstocks with Pearl Glimmer Mist.  When they were dry, I dry embossed two of them using a Cuttlebug Embossing Folder from Anna Griffin called Elaborate Quatrefoil. Really, I need to use my embossing folders more often as another quick way to add lots of texture. I cut all 3 panels with the largest of the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Dies but I realigned the Pink and Pewter panels within the same die to make narrower panels.  You can keep the pieces that you cut off as it will all have the stitch lines and you can probably use it later.  Next I started assembling my card onto a Smoky Slate Top Folding A2 Card Base.

I had previously stamped the Tulips using SU's Pink Pirouette, and Papertrey Ink's Lavender Moon and Autumn Rose from the Papertrey Ink Tulip Time Stamp Set.  For the Stems I used Mint Julep and Vintage Jadeite from Papertrey Ink.  This is a layering stamp set and was the first thing I attempted to stamp in my MISTI.  I don't have my technique perfected yet, but I didn't have to throw a single one of the stamped tulips away and I have made several cards.  This is definitely progress. It was also nice to have the matching cardstock in the Autumn Rose.  I'm truly looking forward to not throwing away so much stamped cardstock because I didn't get everything aligned correctly.  While I think the quality of Papertrey Ink's Perfect Match Cardstock is impeccable, it's also nice that they have it available in 12, 24 or 50 sheet packs so you can buy bigger or smaller based on what you use. That's always a win for me.

To finish up this card, I cut the little embossed greeting from some silver mirror cardstock and tied the stems of the tulips with the silver and black ribbon. Most of the supplies are linked except for the sentiment die and the ribbon.

Thank you so much for stopping by today to check out my creation.  We are supposed to hit a high today of 87 degrees so I think I'm going to go sit on my porch swing!

Audrey Blue

I love Audrey Hepburn.  I think she had style and class that not many could equal.  In fact, the only other person who comes to mind is Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.  I have no idea if the Simon Says Stamp Ink and Card Stock were selected with Audrey Hepburn and Tiffany & Co. Jewelers in mind, but that is immediately where my mind goes whenever I hear this name.  It is a gorgeous shade of blue and Simon Says Stamp has captured my undying loyalty to this color.

Even though I have all the Stampin' Up! ink colors that were available when I bought mine a few years back, I loved the Audrey Blue Card Stock that I bought to make my grandson's wedding card so much that I gave in and bought this ink pad and a few others of the Simon Says Stamp Ink collection this past week.  So far I have not been disappointed.  I find these ink pads to be very "juicy" and easy to use for Ink Blending.

The technique I am using today is called "Pearlized Blending".  I'm participating in a challenge over at Papertrey, Ink Blog where I learned this technique.  I'll also enter this over at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge for "Anything Goes".  I still have a number of Christmas Cards to make and I'm pretty sure this one will get made several times and in several colors.

I started by cutting a 4.25 x 5.5 mask from some pretty heavy chipboard that came out of a package of paper.  I lined up my ornament die in this mask and cut that shape out. I used Post-It Tape to cover my white cardstock panel with the mask.  Using a stamp from the Baroque Motifs Stamp set by SU!, I stamped part of that image as a design on my ornament.  I heat set that using a White Pearl Embossing Powder from WOW!.

Next I used a Tim Holtz Mini Ink Blending Tool with my Simon Says Stamp Audrey Blue Ink and worked the color into the ornament shaped opening of the mask.  Once I had the color on, I went over that with some Versamark using a sponge dauber.  Using a soft paint brush, I took my Perfect Pearls Pigment Powder and dusted the image with that.  After Brushing off the excess,  I polished up the ornament with a clean dry paper towel.  This left a beautiful shimmer on my ornament.  I looped some sheer narrow ribbon through the top piece of my ornament to make it appear to be hanging.

I cut the sentiment in silver foil card stock using a scrap from a set of dies that I bought last winter from Papertrey, Ink.  Then I assembled my card.  The background panel is cut from Simon Says Stamp Audrey Blue Card Stock using the Stitched Rectangles Die.  The paper was treat with some Tattered Angels Dazzling Diamonds Spray before I cut it.  This is another of Simon's great 100# solid color card stocks.  Next I cut the ornament panel with the next size down of the Stitched Rectangle Dies.  I adhered those two pieces then pulled the ends of the ribbon over the top of the background panel and attached them with a glue dot on the back since it wouldn't show once I assembled my card.

Finally I adhered my sentiment using Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  Like Audrey Hepburn, I think this card is simply elegant and classy.  I hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know you visited.