Asian inspired

Last week I spent a little time playing around with a couple of sketches and this awesome paper set from 7Gypsies called Sushi Journey.



This card was meant to follow SCS sketch challenge 193, except I forgot to add the three horizontal stripes behind the focal image until I had stuck the image down (with Mono Multi). I've had this beautiful Asian stamp for a while now and hadn't inked it up yet, and thought it was especially suited for this layout and patterned paper. I stamped the image in black and embossed with clear powder before colouring with Pebbles i-kan-dee chalks. I wanted a little more variation in colour than I could attain with just the chalks, so I augmented and added a little detail with my Prismacolor pencil crayons.

I (almost) always do a dry run with my card elements before actually gluing anything down. When I did so with this card, I decided I wanted to enhance the Asian theme a little more by covering the edges of the black matting layer in clear embossing powder to give it the look of a glossy black laquered finish. After putting on two layers of clear EP using my Versamark pen and heat gun, I decided to continue the theme by coating the focal image layer with two layers of embossing powder too. This time I used my Versamark pad, partly because the pen didn't work as well as the pad, and partly because the image layer was quite a bit larger than the edges of the black cardstock matting layer. Even after the second coat of EP, the finish was not quite as amazingly and perfectly smooth as I'd hoped; I didn't continue adding layers tho because the focal image was kinda weighty. Plus, I was not enthused about having to go through the process any more (stupid EP gets all over my table even though I use a sandwich container to hold it in). After I glued everything down, I realised that 1) I'd forgotten about the horizontal lines from the sketch, and; 2) the thin black matting under the strip on the right should have been coated with EP too. I rectified this by using my Versamark pen to put a line on the black cardstock only -- didn't work that well and I don't recommend it. I wound up scraping off EP from the red paper beneath it after melting it. I suppose an even smarter solution would be to brush off the EP before melting it, but at that point I hated loose EP getting all over my table and decided to deal with it in melted form.




My second card was made using exactly the same stamp and papers, except this time I used the sketch from Cyndi Bundy's fantastic "Family" card (which you can see on her blog The Scrappy Chick). I made the oval focal image pretty much as above except this time I didn't emboss the image, and used my Coluzzle oval and companion oval templates. Instead of using plain white cardstock, I stamped the image on white cardstock that I had previously spritzed with home-made glimmer mists. On this sheet of cardstock, I spritzed it with two different mists:

• 10 drops of orange re-inker with ~a quarter teaspoon of white Perfect Pearls, topped up to one fluid ounce total volume withtap water
• 10 drops of Vintage Photo Ranger Distress re-inker with ~a quarter teaspoon of copper Perfect Pearls, topped up to one fluid ounce with tap water

I use Mini Misters to spritz my mists, and two pieces of advice with this: don't use Pearl-ex instead of Perfect Pearls, cos it won't work and will just fall off the paper after the water dries. Don't use alcohol instead of or in combo with tap water to try and reduce the amount of paper curl you get, because spritzing out alcohol makes a highly flammable cloud of dangerbad.

The patterned papers were a little bright and white in contrast to the focal image, so I stippled them with Brushed Corduroy Ranger Distress Ink. That made all the difference! To finish it all off, I used a brown cardstock diecut from a Cuttlebug die. I considered colouring it black or embossing it to make it glossy, but in the end I left it as it was and I like the result.

Stamps: sorry, I don't know the manufacturer -- it was in a grab bag

Inks: Graphite Black Brilliance Ink (yep you can emboss with it if you're quick) on both cards, Brushed Corduroy Ranger Distress Ink on second card.

Paper: Sushi Journey pack by 7 Gypsies, black cardstock

Other: clear embossing powder, Prismacolor pencil crayons. Pebbles chalks on first card. Cuttlebug die-cut brown cardstock and home-made glimmer mists on second card.