Two Love Cards

Tomorrow is the final day for Online Card Classes' "Clean & Simple 4" class. While it will still be available as a self-paced class, the interactive portion ends tomorrow. Even though I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy it, I have had a lot of fun learning new techniques, and I'm sorry to see it end, as with all their classes. Here are 2 more of the cards I made inspired by this class.

Shari Carroll had a lesson on Day 2 about creating your own stamps. Basically, you just need a die--preferably with cut or embossing lines in the interior--and some fun foam. You die cut the foam, adhere it to an acrylic block with temporary adhesive, and then use it as a stamp. The best part is, after you get through stamping, you can use your foam stamp as an embellishment on your project. A true "two-fer"!

For my card I used 2 leaf dies from Spellbinders "Foliage" set. I die cut them from 2mm white fun foam. After adhering each one to an acrylic block, I inked them up with Memento dye inks in New Sprout & Bamboo Leaves, using my finger to "pat" the colors on the foam so they would blend smoothly. I stamped the larger grouping twice, and filled in with several impressions of the single leaf. Finally, I glued the stamps down to my panel with Weldbond glue. Not only does this glue adhere just about any surfaces, it is also not tested on animals. In my book, that's just a win-win!

I stamped the greeting from this Hero Arts set onto a piece of white cardstock in Versamark ink. After heat embossing it with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder, I inked the cardstock with Bamboo Leaves. I wiped the excess ink off the embossing, and cut the cardstock into a narrow strip. Then, I adhered it to the card with foam tape, wrapping the ends to the back of the panel and gluing them, just to provide extra stability.

To finish my card, I chose 2 patterned papers from my scrap stash, cut them into strips, and glued them to the left side of an A2 card base. Finally, I adhered my main panel to the card base, and this one was done!

Julie Ebersole's lesson on Day 3 (Inked Backgrounds) was on gesso resist. I used a stamp from Avery Elle's "Rounded Diamonds" set and stamped onto a piece of white cardstock with white gesso. This is actually my third attempt at this card. In the first two, I tried to stamp multiple times around a center point, but never got the lines to match up right. (Nobody ever said that stamping white-on-white is easy!) So I finally decided to scrap that idea and do a more random pattern.

After the gesso dried, I blended Distress inks in Peacock Feathers, Squeezed Lemonade, Picked Raspberry, and Mowed Lawn over the stamped areas. Then I took a paintbrush and clean water and blended the patches of color together. The gesso resisted the ink, even more so where I went over it with water, allowing the stamped pattern to show through.

I drew a couple of guidelines to line up the greeting (from the same Hero Arts set as my first card), and used my Stamp-a-ma-jig to place the stamp perfectly. Then I stamped it in Versafine Onyx Black ink. I die cut 3 butterflies (die source unknown) from white cardstock. I felt they got a little lost on the background, and also wanted to echo the black greeting, so I die cut them again from black cardstock. I adhered the white butterflies over the black, slightly offset, to give a more 3-dimensional look. Finally, I adhered them to the card front. I cut and glued 2 narrow black strips to either side of an A2 card base, and adhered my completed card front on top. I will be sending both these cards to Operation Write Home.

I'm entering these cards in the following challenges:

Hero Arts' "Nature Challenge" (both cards)
Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "All Things Bright & Beautiful" (butterfly card only)