Two Thank You Cards

I'm still working on cards as part of Online Card Classes' "Clean & Simple 4" class. Two of the demonstrations involved inking techniques. The first, by Jennifer Rzasa on Day 5, was about inking over a masked background. I created this card based on that lesson.

I began by die cutting star-shaped frames using some of the Lifestyle Crafts "Nesting Star" dies. I applied repositionable adhesive to the back of a piece of lightweight cardstock with my Xyron Creative Station machine, and then taped my dies down and ran that through my Grand Calibur. I peeled the backing off 2 of the stars, and positioned them onto another piece of white cardstock, making sure to burnish the edges down well. Then I inked over my masks with Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks, to create an ombre effect. As a finishing touch, I sprayed some of my homemade Perfect Pearls mist into my hand, and flicked it onto the card. The mist reacted with the Distress ink, bleaching out spots of it. I think this gives it a nice bit of texture.

I stamped my greeting from this Hero Arts set in Versafine Onyx Black ink over the center of the stars, and trimmed down my panel to 4x4.25". I cut 2 narrow strips of black paper and glued them to an A2 card base. Finally, I adhered the focal panel over the strips, allowing some of the black to peek through as a mat.

My second card was inspired by Carissa Wiley's lesson on Day 6, "Fab with Five." She demonstrated how to mix rubbing alcohol, Distress inks, and Perfect Pearls powder to color vellum

I chose Pine Needles and Shaded Lilac Distress inks for my card. I created my pearlized alcohol/ink solution on my non-stick craft mat, and painted the colors onto a piece of vellum. I started with the Pine Needles, and worked down to the Shaded Lilac, ending up with just Perfect Pearls and alcohol. Finally, I cut that piece down into a banner shape.

For the main front panel, I cut a piece of white cardstock, and scored lines towards the bottom. I then machine stitched the banner to the top of the panel. I used Lawn Fawn's "Scripty Thanks" to die cut 5 "thanks" out of white cardstock, and one more out of pale grey. I layered 4 of the white die cuts and glued them together. I glued the remaining white thanks to the grey one, slightly offset to give a shadow look. Finally, I glued the thicker stack to the main panel under the banner, and layered the white-&-grey die cut on top of that. The die cuts under the banner help give it some lift.

After adhering this panel towards the upper left corner of a piece of grey cardstock cut to 4.25x5.5", I added some sequins with Ranger Multi Medium in the matte finish. All I had to do then was adhere the completed card front to an A2 card base, and I now have 2 more cards all ready to send to Operation Write Home!