Saturday, June 6, 2009

Vintage Fluffles

I'm almost positive I made this card based on one from Sharon Johnson's blog . . . but I can't find it anywhere! I remember it was a sketch challenge, and that the three embellishments arranged vertically along the bottom right edge was part of the sketch, along with the overall layout, but I am not sure of the who or where or when; I just know I loved the sketch and found it very fun to work with!Using a double-sided patterned cardstock, and coordinating solid cardstocks from Stampin Up's 2006 In Colours made this card really easy and relaxing to create. I received the stamped Fluffles image in an image RAK -- so sweet! I cut the image out using my oval Coluzzle template, and after colouring it with my Prismacolor pencil crayons, and gently sponging Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink around the egdes to soften the starkness of the white cardstock the focal image is stamped on, I layered that onto a scalloped oval punched out of white cardstock. If you look closely, you can see that I coloured around the insides of the scallops with a light blue Prisma, to keep in the theme of the overall look of the card.

I always place the card elements together first without gluing them down, and when I did that with this card, I realised sponging the edges of ALL the layers would tie everything together really well -- I think this is the first time I've tried that, and just love the results. I also did a little rough rubbing of the inkpad around the edges of the patterned paper layer, and made the Buckaroo Blue card base recede a little by stamping a small flower from a Studio G clear stamp set in Frost White pigment ink randomly all over it.

Paper: Stampin Up solid cardstock (Buckaroo Blue, Vintage Violet), white cardstock (Domtar), double-sided patterned cardstock.

Stamps: Stampendous Fluffles and snail, "hello" by Inkadinkado

Ink: Brushed Corduroy Ranger Distress Ink, black, Frost White by Colorbox

Other: Giga scallop punch by Marvy, Threading Water border punch by Fiskars, Prismacolor pencil crayons, ribbon by Offray, sponge by Royal & Langnickel, foam dimensionals.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Warped words

I saw this phrase on a tshirt online, and instantly had this card idea. Finally got around to doing it last week, and here it is. :) It was a lot of fun, and a great "excuse" to use things I tend to hoard, like the large eyelets by ProvoCraft, and the silver metallic Bazzill cardstock.


After stamping the sentiment in black using a Studio G photopolymer alpha, I crumpled the silver cardstock by lightly misting the back of it with water and wadding it gently into a loose ball. After uncrumpling the paper, I added some strategic folds wherever I felt like to add more depth and visual interest to the light crumpled look. It didn't take long for the cardstock to dry; I might have hit it with my heat gun, but also might not have. Once it was dry, though, I rubbed Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink lightly over top the silver cs, mostly to highlight the fold lines. After that, I rubbed Tattered Rose Distress Ink a little more firmly over top to add some subtler "lowlights" (to borrow a term from hair colouring-ese). Sounds kinda nutso, but the pale pink tones work really well in this application; I've done it in the past with other projects and love the effect.

The silver cs is matted onto brown cs spritzed with Memories Mist in Espresso, then mounted onto some light grey Bazzill Smoothies cardstock that I stamped with some funky geometric shapes by Inkadinkado. I ran a black Brilliance dewdrop along the edges of the card layer to increase its visual weight; it really enhanced the look of the card, and helped balance the visual weight of the textured silver cs.