You Mean the World to Me

Day 3 of Online Card Classes' "Clean & Simple 4" class focuses on inked backgrounds. The inspiration for my card came from Karolyn Loncon's lesson on a technique called "velveteen stamping."

The technique relies on solid stamps (i.e. without a lot of fine lines in the image). You also need a background stamp. I used Our Daily Bread Designs' "Gingham" background stamp; and Wplus9's "Spring Blooms" & Paper Smooches "Botanicals 2" stamps for the flowers & foliage.

I inked the background stamp with Hero Arts' Unicorn white pigment ink, and stamped it onto a piece of white cardstock. After heat setting that, I chose the image stamps I wanted to use, and worked out the placement. I also chose 7 dye inks to stamp my images: Hero Arts' Pool, Forever Green, & Green Hills (all mid-tone shadow inks); and Memento Cantaloupe, London Fog, Grape Jelly, and Elderberry.

Beginning with the foliage in the lower left corner, I stamped the branches with the 2 green inks. I also added some branches to the top right corner with Forever Green. I stamped my flowers in Pool, Grape Jelly, and Elderberry; using Cantaloupe & London Fog for the centers. I did some masking on the flowers towards the left side, so they appear to be in a cluster, even though they are 3 separate stamps. I used one of the small flowers from the "Botanicals 2" stamp set & Elderberry for the flowers in the upper right. Finally, I filled in with a few more branches along the bottom of the panel. The white ink resisted the dye inks slightly, giving a slightly textured, two-tone look to the flowers & leaves. Pretty cool!

Detail of inked texture

I stamped one of the greetings from the "Word Labels" set by Sizzix onto a piece of green cardstock, then heat embossed it with Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder. I cut that into a banner shape, and inked along the sides & bottom with Forever Green. This is where I hit potential disaster.

When I went to put the lid back onto the ink pad, I accidentally dropped it onto my focal panel, and got spots of green ink onto the white background. Having spent over an hour working on that panel, I panicked for a moment. I tried covering up the spots with a white gel pen, but that just wasn't cutting it. So I decided to embrace the "disaster," and borrow a technique I've seen Julie Ebersole do in some of her videos. I smooshed some Forever Green onto an acrylic block, thinned it with water, and flicked droplets onto my panel. Thankfully, the green flecks camouflage my "oops" quite well, and it looks like I meant to do that all along!

To finish my card, I mounted my focal panel with foam tape onto a piece of the same green cardstock I'd used for the greeting banner, nestling it in the upper left corner. I adhered that to an A2 card base, and this love card is ready to send to Operation Write Home!

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