You're So Special to Me

I had seen Jennifer McGuire demonstrate a technique she called "Distress Ink Splatter" in her video in this recent post. I filed the idea away for trying at a future date. I didn't realize, though, how soon I'd try it!

I was in my craft room the other day, feeling a serious lack of inspiration. I finally thought of that video, and decided to try the technique on a card. I pulled out a heart stamp by Stampabilities, and chose Distress Inks in Seedless Preserves, Peacock Feathers, Festive Berries, & Mowed Lawn for stamping. I also found this Operation Write Home sketch to base my design on:

Rather than punch hearts, I stamped them, but otherwise stuck to the sketch. I first cut a piece of watercolor paper to 4.25x5.5". I masked off where the patterned papers & greeting would go, and started stamping the hearts. (In hindsight, I could just as easily not have masked, but it ended up not really mattering anyway.) After stamping all the hearts in the Distress Inks, I took a paintbrush and water and flicked water droplets on the hearts. Since Distress Inks react when they come in contact with water, the colors bled. Just as Jennifer did, I also added some more "controlled" drops by touching the wet paintbrush to the paper directly. Once I had them as I wanted, I dried the paper with my heat tool. I thought it was interesting how the bleeding ink ended up looking like beads strung on heart shapes!

I cut 2 strips of patterned paper from Simple Stories' "Vintage Bliss" 6x6" pad & adhered them to the watercolor panel. I stamped the greeting using one of the stamps in this set by Hero Arts on white cardstock I had colored by blending on Spun Sugar Distress Ink. I rounded the right-hand corners with my 1/8" Corner Chomper, and adhered it to the card front. I threaded a button with yellow baker's twine and glued it on with Glossy Accents. After I adhered the front panel to the card base, I rounded the top & bottom corners with my 3/8" Corner Chomper.

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes with Buttons" challenge.