So Special to Me

Lately, I've been on somewhat of a "one-layer card" kick. Granted, I have been doing ones with multiple layers as well. But the Hero Arts challenge now on their blog has gotten me experimenting with what techniques work well on one-layer cards.

For this card, I didn't use any particular sketch. Rather, I started by choosing the stamps I wanted to use, and then placing them on the card front to get a rough idea of what would go where. (Also, what would fit where!) I had not used any of the stamps from this Stampers Anonymous set before, and felt the bird and smaller flower would be perfect, especially combined with the greeting from this Hero Arts set. After playing around with the placement of the stamps, I decided to have a curved section at the top of the card, with some sort of pattern in it.

I began by blending Scattered Straw Distress ink over the whole card front, to give it a kind of parchment look. I cut a piece of copy paper to 4.25x5.5", the size of my card front. I drew a curve on it, and cut along that line, creating 2 masks. I first adhered the smaller piece to the top of the card with temporary adhesive. The I did my stamping. I stamped the flowers using Colorbox Putty Archival Dye ink. After stamping the first couple of flowers, I went ahead and stamped the greeting using Walnut Stain Distress ink, so I would know where not to stamp the flowers. Then I added one more flower next to the greeting. Finally I stamped the bird, also in Walnut Stain. I like the contrast between the darker greeting & bird and the lighter flowers.

After I finished my stamping, I removed the mask, and adhered the larger mask to the lower part of the card. I took this Prima stencil and taped it over the upper part of the card. Then I smooshed my Versamark ink pad through the openings in the stencil. After removing the stencil, I heat embossed that area on the card with American Crafts Zing! Clear embossing powder. I then blended Brushed Corduroy Distress ink over that area.

I removed the larger mask, and then did a technique called "iron-off embossing." I placed the card between sheets of copy paper, and ironed over the embossed area, to melt the embossing into the copy paper. This technique gives a nice, "how'd you do that?" effect. And that finished this elegant monochromatic card.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Operation Write Home's/Our Daily Bread Designs July challenge: "Things with Wings"
A Blog Named Hero's Challenge #48: "Sheet Cake"
a2z Scrapbooking Blog's July Linky Party: "Anything Goes"