Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentines Day everyone! I don't make a lot of Valentines, but I made two this year for a couple of friends that I thought would enjoy them. They are almost exactly alike.

The heart in this one was made from a panel of watercolor cardstock on which I had added Nuance powder in a variety of colors and sprayed. I particularly liked the spray pattern on this. Here's a close-up

The heart on the second card is from a panel that was stencil stamped

Here's a close up. I have posts about how to do stencil stamping here (scroll down), here and here amoung others.

Unfortunately the stencil I used on this heart is a Magenta one that was discontinued, but you can get the same look with any stencil that has about the same amount of negative and positive space. I used Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade and Wild Honey Distress inks for this heart.

I cut these hearts out with the Hero Arts DI334 Nesting Hearts Infinity die set. I love this set! It has 10 heart dies, the largest being 4.66" x 4.11", and the smallest being .27" x .23". The hearts are a nice shape and the dies are open, so that you can place them on a colored panel to cut it in just the right place to capture the look you want.

The rectangular background panel is something that I already had in my stash. It illustrates ink blending over emboss resist. You can see this technique demonstrated in a previous post here. I made lots of panels where I stamped with Versamark ink, using a large background stamp, and embossed it with JudiKins Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder. You can't see it in these pictures, but what looks like white in the background is actually very very sparkly, almost like lines of glitter. It's beautiful in real life. You can also use other embossing powder for this technique, such as opaque white or White Diamond. 

The background panel that I had was 4" x 5.25" and I cut it in half and use half for each of these cards. The stamp I used on this panel was Impression Obsession CC024 Tapestry Cover a Card.

The Happy Valentine's Day sentiment was die cut with a Mama Elephant die out of glossy black cardstock on which I had applied Stick-It adhesive to the back.

The background strip, heart and sentiment were adhered to a panel of Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock that was die cut with the stitched rectangle die from Die-Namics MFT 643 Blueprints 13. This die cuts a rectangle that is exactly 4" x 5.25" and has a stitched edge. I matted the panel with a slightly larger piece of Stardream Flame cardstock, and the whole thing was mounted to a base card of Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock.

I hope you enjoyed these. I did a Zentangle square recently that I think I will make into a Valentine for my hubby. He didn't photograph this, so it's not a great picture, but here it is. I will probably add some color to it before it's turned into a card.

Products Used:

Magenta Nuance

Magenta Stencil TM79 (discontinued)

Hero Arts DI334 Nesting Hearts Infinity Dies

Mama Elephant Valentine's Day die

Die-Namics MFT 643 Blueprints 13 die set

Impression Obsession CC024 Tapestry Cover-a-Card

Distress inks: Picked Raspberry, Orange Marmalade, Wild Honey

Distress inks for background: Fired Brick, Orange Marmalade, Carved Pumpkin

JudiKins Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder

Versamark ink

Stick-It Adhesive

Tim Holtz Watercolor cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 100# cardstock

Stardream Flame cardstock

Black glossy cardstock

All you need is Love

This post is in featured on the Magenta blog today. I love this Magenta Floral Background stamp designed by Nathalie Métivier. It's beautiful, and it's sized perfectly to cover a card 5.5" x 4.25"

I stamped the Floral Background onto a 5.5"  4.25" piece of 80# Neenah solar white cardstock with Versamark ink, and embossed with JudiKins Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder. Using a blending tool, I applied Distress ink in Wilted Violet, Twisted Citron, and Blueprint Sketch, until the colors were well blended.

I matted the panel with So Silk black cardstock, and used another piece of the black cardstock to add the sentiment. 

I stamped the "All you need is love" sentiment with Versamark ink and embossed it with JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder. I cut a fishtail at the end to make it look like a banner, and popped it up with foam tape. I added a few sequins and it was done!

If you want to see this background technique step by step on another card, please link to my original post here.

Magenta Products Used:

(If you are local, please look for products at Art 'n Soul. If you are not local and wish to find Magenta products, you can click on the link in the stamp or product name below each image, or you can visit the Magenta online store here).

14.660.R Floral Background

07.970.G All you need is love

Other Products Used:

Distress Inks: Wilted Violet, Twisted Citron, Blueprint Sketch

Versamark ink

JudiKins Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder

JudiKins White Diamond Embossing powder

Neenah Solar White cardstock 80# and 110#

So Silk Black cardstock

Foam tape 

Technique of the Week: Distress Blending/Emboss Resist

This post is in conjunction with the Art 'n Soul weekly newsletter article, "Technique of the Week"

This is a super easy way to make lots of backgrounds to have on hand for your cards. I made quite a few in one sitting, and have already used some of them for cards I needed to make.

First, choose a background stamp that will cover your panel. I used 80# Neenah Solar White cardstock, cut to 5.25" x 4". I have a great many Cover a Card stamps from Impression Obsession. these stamps are 5.75" x 5.75" square, so they should cover any A2 size panel. For this example I chose "Medallion" CC032.

The first step is to ink your stamp with Versamark ink. Your MISTI tool would work well for stamping your panel, but I find it just as easy to turn my stamp face-up on the table, ink it, and put my cardstock panel onto the stamp.

I cover the whole thing with a piece of scrap paper and hold it down with one hand, while rubbing the paper with the other to press the cardstock onto the stamp. This will nearly always give a good impression.

I used JudiKins Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder to emboss my panel, but you could also use Clear, Opaque White, or White Diamond. I wanted my panel to sparkle, and Iridescent Sparkle really does. Unfortunately this is very hard to capture in a photograph.

I chose 3 colors of Distress Ink for the example shown here: Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, and Shaded Lilac. Using blending tools, I started blending the colors onto the embossed panel. 

With this method, you don't have to worry about pressing too hard and making splotches. You can press hard right from the start. The more ink you add, the more the embossing will pop.

After blending the colors, I cut the panel to 5" x 3.75" and adhered it to an A2 size base card made from 110# Neenah Solar White cardstock.

I cut a frame from So Silk Passion Purple cardstock and adhered it to the panel to frame the card.

Out of the same Purple cardstock I die-cut the word "happy" using Hero Arts DC150 "Happy Stamp & Cut". This set from Hero Arts has coordinating stamps, so I cut a small banner from the So Silk cardstock and stamped "birthday in Versamark ink. I embossed it with JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder.

I adhered the "happy" die-cut to the panel and popped up the banner with the "birthday" sentiment using foam tape. I scattered a few sequins at the end.

I.O. Small Swirls CC117; Tapestry CC024; Mesh Circles CC161; Tapestry 2 CC025

I chose a number of background stamps to make more of these panels in the same way, choosing lots of other distress colors for blending. They were easy and fun to make and now I have background panels that I can use to quickly make a card. I hope you will give this technique a try.