I Thank My Lucky Stars for You

As I mentioned in this post, I received one of the tags Sandy Allnock created as part of a challenge. She white heat embossed a few images on each white cardstock tag, then sent them to card makers to use in a card. Since I have only one shot at getting the tag coloring right, I've been doing a little practicing. Since the tag is just cardstock, watercoloring is out. So I've been working with blending Distress inks instead. This card is the result of Experiment #2.

I began by choosing the newest sketch from Operation Write Home:

I decided to go with a star/space theme for my card. To create the background, I stamped a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper with the Hero Arts/Basic Grey "Tiny Star Background" stamp, using Versamark ink. I heat embossed that with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder. Then I used watercolors to paint a night sky background. The different colors don't show up especially well in the photo, but I went with mostly purple, blues, and black; with a touch of yellow in a few spots for contrast. Then I set that aside to air dry.

After die cutting a tag from white cardstock with one of the dies from the "Blueprints 13" set by My Favorite Things, I stamped one of the greetings from this stamp set in Versamark ink. I white heat embossed that, then stamped 2 of the stars from the same set several times around the greeting. I sprinkled on more white embossing powder, and melted that with my heat gun. Next, I blended Distress inks in Salty Ocean, Chipped Sapphire, and Seedless Preserves onto the tag. I felt the Salty Ocean was too light, and the Seedless Preserves a bit too overpowering, though. So I ended up going over the whole tag with the Chipped Sapphire, to try and bring everything together more. Finally, I spritzed it a few times with water in a mister bottle. I also sprayed some water into the palm of my hand, and flicked it onto the tag. Then I blotted that with a paper towel. I did that a couple more times. The water kind of "bleached" the Distress inks, causing water spots, which I feel give a nice visual texture. I then set that aside to dry while I worked on the rest of the card.

I used a 5/8" star punch by Recollections to punch a total of 10 stars, 5 each from 2 different patterned papers I have in my (overflowing) scrap stash. I used those in place of the 8 squares or banners the sketch calls for. I had to add a couple extra stars (10 rather than 8), because of the way I butted them up against each other.

By this time, my background had dried, so I matted that with a piece of light blue cardstock. I marked where my punched stars would go, and glued them down, alternating the patterned papers. For the strip running alongside those, I cut a piece of white cardstock, and inked it with Hero Arts' Navy mid-tone shadow ink. After I glued that down, I adhered the tag next to it. Finally, I inked another piece of white cardstock that I'd cut to 4.25x5.5", with the same Navy ink. I used that to mat my card front, then adhered that to an A2-size card base. I will be sending this card on to Operation Write Home.

I'm also entering this card in Operation Write Home's "Sketch #249" challenge, Virginia's View Challenge #13: "Embossing," & Hero Arts' "Nature" challenge.