Thanx Squash Fold Card

I decided to do one more entry for A Blog Named Hero's "Bokeh" challenge (#46). The other day, I saw an older video on YouTube by Dawn Olchefske on making a squash fold card. You can check out her original post on her blog. I decided to give it a go myself.

I began by making my card front panel. I smooshed Distress inks in Mustard Seed, Evergreen Bough, and Peacock Feathers onto my craft mat, then sprayed them liberally with my water mister bottle. I took a piece of watercolor paper I'd cut to size, and pressed it into the inks on the mat, creating a spotty blend of colors. When that had dried, I taped Hero Arts "Tweed" stencil over the panel, and smeared Golden's Fiber Paste over it. This paste gives the feel of handmade paper where it's applied. It picked up a little bit of the ink, but mostly stayed kind of a translucent white. I let that dry overnight, just to make sure it was thoroughly dry.

For my greeting panel, I stamped the "thanx" from this Hero Arts stamp set onto the smooth side of a piece of watercolor paper with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I then heat embossed it with American Crafts Zing! clear embossing powder. I die cut the label with a die from Sizzix's "Labels, Wavy" set. To color inside the letters, I pressed my Wild Honey Distress ink pad onto an acrylic block, to use as my palette. I took a small paintbrush and used it to apply clear water inside each letter. After I wet each letter, I picked up some ink and dropped it in to the water layer, "guiding" the color down towards the bottom of the letter, to give a gradient effect. Finally, I blended Scattered Straw Distress ink around the word, out to the edges of the label, and went around the very edges with Wild Honey, to give it more definition.

The inside is where the bokeh effect happens. I took the larger star stamp from this set, and stamped it repeatedly all over the inside, using Scattered Straw, Wild Honey, and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks. I thought this star tied in nicely with the small star in the "a" in the greeting. I matted 2 pieces of bristol paper with yellow cardstock, to use for writing on, and adhered them to the unfolded panels.

To finish the card front, I cut a piece of white cardstock to 4x4", then blended Wild Honey around the perimeter. I glued the stenciled panel, cut to 3-7/8" square, to that, then glued that to the front of the card base. I punched a hole in each end of the label and threaded a length of bakers twine from Maya Road (to keep the finished card closed) through the holes and around the back. I applied liquid glue very liberally to the back of the label, and glued it in place, placing a weight on top until it dried so it wouldn't shift. Since this wouldn't qualify as a "regular" card for Operation Write Home, I am going to use it as an AnyHero card, to write a thank you note to one of our overseas heroes.

I am also entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes" challenge.