Thank You Card

It's always good to have some thank you cards on hand - I already know who is going to get this one. This is the last of three cards I made inspired by the current Unity Stamp challenge. To see the other posts, click here and here.

Now on to today's card:

I used a couple of sets from Unity for this card - Donna Poppies and Butterflies & Sunbeams. I wanted to do a resist technique for this card, so I stamped the poppy with Versamark ink on a manila shipping tag, allowing the image to hang off the edge. (I think it adds some interest that way.) Versamark is a clear, sticky ink that is wonderful for heat embossing. I poured clear embossing powder over the image and set it with a heat tool. I chose a couple of colors of Distress Inks - Bundled Sage & Rusty Hinge, using blending tools to cover the surface of the tag. The area that was stamped & embossed resists the color, allowing the base color of the tag to show through - pretty cool!

Next I dabbed some Distress Stain in Peeled Paint on my craft sheet and pressed the surface of the tag into the wet color. This creates the darker areas of green. I really like the uneven, splotchy look I got. Once it was dry, I got out an iron I keep just for craft techniques and ironed the back of the tag with scratch paper under the front. The scratch paper soaks up the embossing powder as the iron melts it. This leaves the original tag color showing, but the surface is smooth rather than raised as it would be if I left the embossing alone. It almost looks like batik, and I guess it's the same principle. The sentiment was stamped with Making Memories Artprint Brown and embossed with clear powder.

I used two colors of twine that coordinated with my palette to tie a bow through the hole in the top of the tag. The papers underneath all got some Distress Ink treatment to darken the edges, and everything is mounted on a cream colored card base.

Here is the challenge image from the Unity blog:

I enjoyed this challenge a lot, and had fun working with these colors.

Hope your week is going well,

Immi

Unity Stamp Challenge

The current challenge at Unity Stamps is about to end, so I'm barely going to get this posted in time to participate.

As shown on their blog, here is the starting point. Participants can choose to follow the color scheme or layout as loosely as they like. I thought the color scheme was great, and I liked the card layout as well. I recently purchased the stamp set (Butterflies & Sunbeams) featured in the layout, so I decided to use that.

Here's my interpretation:

I stamped the heart & butterfly image on watercolor paper using Black Archival ink. The coloring was super simple with watered down inks and a paintbrush. The inks I used on the butterflies are Distress Picked Raspberry and Dried Marigold (I combined the two for the largest butterfly.) The heart is a combination of Distress Spun Sugar and Tea Dye. The ink splatters are Picked Raspberry & Dried Marigold.

Once that was dry, I stitched the panel to a piece of black paper with gold script I had in my stash. I didn't do the neatest job the first time around on the stitching, so I went around again, deliberately making it look at little wonky. Now no one can tell where I messed up the first time!

The card base is white cardstock, stamped repeatedly with one of the sentiments from this stamp set, using Creamy Caramel ink from Stampin' Up! Between the black paper and the card base, I layered a piece of pink patterned paper from a 6 x 6 Colorbok pad called Light Bright.

The sentiment at the top was stamped on a scrap of watercolor paper with Versafine Onyx Black and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I used some of the Picked Raspberry & Dried Marigold to color it, and stitched one end with black thread. I notched the opposite end, and used Distress Black Soot to go around the edge.

I hope your week is going well. I'll be back at work beginning next week - this summer has flown by!

Till next time,

Immi