So at this point I figure there is no longer any point in numbering the days since obviously I have not been on schedule for sometime but for those of you that have a need to know which day this should be...it should be day #6. Hooray!! That means this is the last post before I post that video I've mentioned like 100 times. But that's tomorrow...today we have no video but we do have a picture...
ta-da! my latest creation. I love it...hope my hubby does to...I made it for him...but that's a secret so shhhh! OK? OK! What's not a secret is the cool way I created this card ...of course I used alcohol inks and vellum...at this point that should go without saying...but to get this effect I did a masking technique. Masking of course is nothing new but I've never done it with alcohol inks and vellum and really thought the finished effect was pretty cool! What also was pretty cool is the fact that I was able to use some pretty old and otherwise useless stickers for the mask so it was a win-win...got rid of the stickers and got a cool card.
Ok so If your super excited to try this yourself and just need instructions...here's the simple steps to make this...
step 1: cut a piece of vellum about an 1" larger than finished size
step 2: adhere mask (in this case stickers) on vellum ...burnish to ensure good adhesion especially at edges
step 3: using piece of felt and alcohol ink...dab color over entire surface, allow to dry
step 4: adhere additional mask (same as in step 2)
step 5: dab 2nd color over entire surface (same as in step 3)
repeat with remaining mask and colors.
step 6: once inking is complete and dry ... use a piece of felt and black stazon ink to rub-over entire image, allow to dry
step 7: remove mask (stickers) and cut vellum to size
step 8: use spray adhesive to mount image to card and add word strips
super duper simple to make right?
OK so here's some other little tidbits of information I learned along the way that will most definitely be helpful to you...
First...stickers make great masks but you can also use rub-ons or paper die cuts. To use rub-ons...simply rub-on the rub-on and then ink over ...after you've inked...use Un-du to remove the rub-on...the trick to this though is not to remove the color when you remove the rub-on...I was able to remove a rub-on mask successfully by lightly dabbing with Un-du and then using a razor knife to lightly scrap it off. To use paper die-cuts...simply spray back of die cuts with spray adhesive to create a sticker....then apply the same way you would a sticker...only thing you have to be careful of is most die-cuts are paper which means if you get the paper super wet you will get bleed through...so dab sparingly and lightly with alcohol ink and make sure to allow to dry in between applications. As for sticker masks...obviously the best and easiest choice but you still need to know a few things...first...check the color fastness of the sticker...the stickers I used were red and when I rubbed the alcohol ink over the color bled..which is why my yellow hearts have red streaks...no biggie there cause I liked the effect..this time at least...so check first ...second thing you need to know is all stickers are not created equal...some stickers that don't have a glossy finish or that are thinner may get soggy from the ink and then you will have a heck of time getting them off successfully...again check a sample to make sure you won't have issues before starting your project. One last tip about masks...be sure to pick images that have good defined images so you get the best look..you want the outline of the sticker to be crisp and clean...if you can find them...Anita's outline stickers would work great for this project.
As for tips on using inks on this technique ..you have to remember two really important things...#1 ..you are layering color over color repeatedly....soooo you need to know how your colors are going to work together and in what order to use them...I recommend using lighter colors first and progressing to darker shades with each application...in my example I used sunshine yellow, followed by sunshine orange, then watermelon and lastly red pepper....since the sunshine yellow was applied first to plain vellum I got a true color ...well except for the red streaks from the stickers...but when I applied sunshine orange it was over sunshine yellow so I got a mix of the 2 colors...same with the following colors...each color I applied mixed with the previous color. So again be careful in selecting your color palette and deciding what order. And tip #2...use less and do more...what I mean by that is do light coats of ink so you don't over saturate the mask or vellum and do more layers of ink to get intenser colors...by using less and doing more you will get way less bleed-through. Obviously I got some bleed through on my image but I didn't care...can't be perfect all the time.
So that's it for the how-to on how to use mask with vellum and alcohol inks.
Next post...video...I promise!!
So obviously I haven't posted day 6 or day 7 in my series yet..and yes I know I know I know I promised and your all waiting but seriously this weekend was just insane...both good insane and bad insane and a little in between insane...so it just wasn't happening...not for lack of trying though..seriously...I tried...I just gave up in utter frustration... so here's the what and why of my weekend so you can understand why there are no blog posts from this weekend...
first friday...work..ugggh...getting out early...hooray...boss held me up so I got out later than planned...uggh....jump in car to go home...vroooom...rush in and get changed for wake......brush, spritz, etc.....rush back out again...vroom...go to wake of co-workers significant other....hug, sob :( .... rush back out to drive home...vroooom...have to speed pack for scrapping with good buddy Tina....shuffle, thump, crash, shove, zippppp, done....ready to leave...waiting on hubby...ugh...uncle stops by...hi, bye, love u too...hubby finally home...hooray...off to Tina's....vroom....get to Tina's and unload all my stuff....lug, thump, uggh, woof woof (her dog)...finally sit down to scrap...yea!...have witty conversations...blah, blah, blah...try to scrap some more....shuffle, cut, shuffle some more....not making much progress...ugh...time for a beer...glug glug...time for dinner...pizza ...yum...back to scrapping...shuffle and shuffle some more...still no progress...grrr....more conversation...blah, blah, blah...more beer...glug, glug...more failed attempts at creating a layout...uggggggggh! ...discuss new Creating Keepsakes magazine...blah, blah, love that, blah, hate that, blah, like that, blah, blah, blah...gave up in exasperation on layout ...sigh, grrr, wahahaha....decided to have some fun and worked on a layout with Tina...laugh, giggle, laugh, laugh....packed up all my stuff.....ugggh...drove home...vroom...went to bed....zzzzzzzzzzzz.
Saturday... woke up early to shower because they were turning off water sometime after 7 a.m. ...grrr....showered and ate breakfast.. I'll spare you those sounds !! ...drove kid #1 to soccer fundraiser...vrooom, honk, vroom...back home...vroom...drove kid #2 to cross country practice...vroom...back home...vroom....vacuumed my car... varoommmm....picked up kid #1 at soccer fundraiser...vrrooom...back home...vrooom...cleaned the house...too many sounds too list....sat down in scraproom chair to start creating ...ahhhh...screwed up 1st project i made...darn...screwed up 2nd project I made...double darn...made 3rd attempt and succeeded...hooray, yippee....got out camera to photograph project and got interrupted several times...mom! phone...rushed to photograph project because we are leaving in 20 minutes...click, click, click...try to upload pics ...clickety, cli...camera battery dies.. uggggh!!!! ...kid #2 is late coming home...grrr...call kid #2 ...ring, ring, voicemail...call again 10 minutes later....ring, ring, voicemail...kid #2 finally arrives home almost an hour late...grrr....lecture kid #2 about being responsible and calling....blah, blah, blah...finally get car packed and off to vermont...hooray...dad calls to tell me he's in town...um thanks for the 2 minute notice...finally get to vermont...lots to do....dinner...yum...got a text from brother...grandmother is in hospital...again?..finally get to relax with family, a beer and a movie...ahhhhh...bed...zzzzzzz
sunday....woken up at 8 a.m. by neighbors lawnmower....vrrrrrrum (ok so i'm not sure what the noise is a lawnmaker exactly makes but it was loud!!!)...get up unwillingly ...ugghh....lug boxes out for tag sale...lug, lug, lug...spend day selling stuff...kaching!...put everything away...lug, lug, lug...get a call from brother...grandmother has been diagnosed with alzheimers...sob...finally relax with a beer and some dinner...ahhhh...drive home....vroom...unpack car...lug, lug, lug...bed...zzzz
phew...weekend is over.
Now it's monday so the plan is to get my project uploaded and get on with my series....hopefully tonight is less hectic...fingers crossed.
So here I am again...day 5... talking about the same things again...alcohol inks and vellum....yawn. Seriously big yawn. And no that is not a big "OMG 5 days of the same old stuff this is so boring" yawn...it's actually a big "I'm so exhausted cause I've been spending way too many hours playing with this cool stuff" yawn. Seriously I'm whooped! LOL. By the time I'm done with this series I'm going to need a nice long nap! That is if I can get my brain to stop churning up ideas long enough to get some sleep. Seriously I have vellum on the brain. This morning I was watching the Today show and saw a screen in the back of the host with an image and I was like "Oh snap! that is so cool! I could totally do that with alcohol inks and vellum!" ...so now of course I will have to try and see if I can do it and if it's a success I will probably have to add yet another day to this series. At this rate I am going to run out of vellum long before I run out of ideas. LOL. Anyways enough about projects I am dreaming about and projects I will post in the future...let's talk about today's projects.
Today I have 2 cards ...and of course they both have alcohol inks and vellum...but today they are both heavy on the 3rd element I am supposed to be working with this week...texture...betcha you almost forgot that my inspiration this week was supposed to be vellum, alcohol ink and TEXTURE since I've spent so much time on the first 2. But I didn't forget...actually since the day I pulled the slips from my inspiration jar the first ideas I had for projects had more to do with texture and vellum than alcohol inks. Ironic huh...especially considering I haven't posted anything much at all with texture but can't stop obsessing over alcohol inks. Anyways I was really excited about the texture thing because way back when when I worked at ACMoore I remembered a program we had for embossing vellum...it was called Pergamano. Basically you used a stylus and a stencil to emboss the vellum which would turn a bright white where ever it was embossed...I remember it looked really pretty but I had no real interest in it at the time so I didn't know much about it. So not actually knowing how to do it I decided to just jump in and try it. Well I tried and for the most part I failed. Every time I tried to emboss the vellum would rip ...grrr. I could do small bits of embossing...like the bubbles on my fishbowl card...but anything bigger was an epic fail. So totally frustrated I decided to google the technique and found the answer to my problem along with some super mega amazing projects using this technique....seriously if you have some free time go to youtube and put in pergamano in the search and prepared to be amazed..I spent a ton of time checking them out. Anyways thanks to the videos I was able to find out why my attempts were failing...I was working on the wrong stuff. See I was trying to emboss on vellum when what is really needed for this technique is vellum's beefy cousin...parchment... it looks the same but is much heavier. So after I discovered that little bit of helpful info I knew full scale embossing was out but I wasn't ready to give up on adding texture to my vellum so rather than embossing with a stencil and a stylus I turned to my only/fave embossing folder...swiss dot...to see if that would do the trick and it did!! Hooray! So I embossed a bunch of vellum and got to creating and here's what I made...
Card #1 ...Winter Scene
As soon as I embossed the vellum the first thing I thought of was how much it looked like a snowy sky so I knew right away the first thing I'd be making would be a snow scene. I played around with what to put behind the vellum and decided on a darker dusky bluish purple cardstock...totally love how it looked but decided I wanted to add a tad more detail to the sky so I added some depth to the sky by painting on the back of the vellum ...love the end result and here's how to make it... Step 1..emboss vellum with Swiss Dot folder ..Step 2...turn vellum over and with a large brush lightly brush the back of the vellum with eggplant and denim alcohol inks to create some striations, let dry...Step 3...spray ink side of vellum with spray adhesive and mount to a piece of blue cardstock, being careful not to press on the embossing....Step 4...using a piece of felt, dab alcohol ink around border of embossed piece...Step 5....cut hills out of white cardstock and embellish with stickles, let dry and then adhere to card...Step 6...add twine (shown is lilac twine from the twinery) and card sentiment (my sentiment is a very old embellishment from junkitz...you could stamp a sentiment on piece of cardstock and punch 2 holes on the end to get the same look) ...Step 7... spray the back of a piece of green vellum, layer it over a piece of patterned paper and cut out a tree (I used my sizzix tree die to cut mine), use white paint and glitter to add snow, let dry and adhere to card as shown...Step 8 ...add snowflake embellishments...Step 8...adhere design to card blank.
Super simple and super cute. Although I gotta say I really didn't feel comfortable doing a let it snow card in September...I hope mother nature gets that this card was in no way an invitation to her to bring the dreaded white stuff .... seriously cannot stress enough after last winter how much I do not in anyway want to encourage any snow... unless of course it's December 24th...then it's ok but that's the only exception...and even then it better all melt by December 27th! So since the snow card was giving me the willies just thinking about it I switched gears and made a beautiful spring card because as soon as fall ends I will be counting down the days until spring arrives!! Seriously...I will!
Card #2 - Spring Flowers
So pretttty! I will definitely be making more of these cards. Can never have too many thank you cards. Anyways here's how to make this card...Step 1...emboss a piece of vellum with Cuttlebug Swiss dot embossing folder...Step 2...Using pieces of felt dab alcohol inks on the top of the embossed surface using Meadow, Lettuce and Citrus...working from the corner out, alternating colors as you apply, being careful not to press too hard on embossing...Step 3...spray back of embossed vellum and mount to card blank, trim as needed...Step 4 ..on a piece of vellum (unembossed) use pieces of felt to dab one area with cranberry ink and another area in eggplant ink, let dry...Step 5...once dry, punch flowers from cranberry and eggplant painted vellum...Step 6...using glue dots, adhere vellum flowers and add pearl centers (mine are from queen & co.) and pull flower petals forward a bit to add dimension...Step 7...Stamp card sentiment on white cardstock, cut to size and mount to patterned paper and cut to size, adhere sentiment to card and add bee embellishment and your done! Another super simple but wicked pretty card.
Stop by again tomorrow cause the fun continues.
