Stretch Your Stamps 2--Day 2 revisited

When doing the rainbow water-coloring of my background stamp I made a second one on regular card stock.  I liked how it turned out, and decided to make a card with that one. 

The front of the card

I used the die cut technique that was presented in the video by Jennifer McGuire.  I'm really happy with how this card turned out.  Now I just have to find someone really special to get the card!

The inside of the card

And here's what the inside looks like.
















And then I had to make a card with the leftover heart from the background, and the negative of the yellow heart, so I inlaid the background heart in the cutout, and popped a sentiment on top!

Stretch Your Stamps 2 Day 3, Card 2

I really liked the way Julie used the alphabet as a background, so I thought I'd give that a try. 

 I didn't try to do a word search type background, but stamped the background in multicolored ink (Tomato Vine by Kaleidacolor). I inked the edges with red before attaching to card front.

I then stamped the sentiment in the same ink, and matted it with three different colors of cardstock, then popped it up on the front of the card.  Still missing are my enamel dots, which, when found, will be placed on the sentiment and possibly the rest of the card front randomly.

Stretch Your Stamps 2 Day Two

I thought I would try the Perfect Pearls technique from Jennifer McGuire's video, but then discovered I actually had PearlEx.  They are not exactly the same, but close.  I decided to do try the PearlEx, and then looked for a background stamp to use.  I didn't find a reverse background stamp, but did find a pretty sea shell background stamp I had forgotten I had.

I used VersaMark to ink up my stamp, which was made up of various sea shells for the background.  I then applied the PearlEx, and used hairspray as a fixative.The photos do not do this justice.

 The first photo isn't very good, but does show the shiny gold where the flash hit it.  In real life the whole front has nice shiny gold highlights.










The second photo doesn't show the shine as well, but you can actually see the whole stamp.  I accidentally got my thumb on the VersaMark and rubbed off a bit on one of the shells on the right edge, but that will be covered by the sentiment--as soon as I decide what sentiment I want to use!

 

I'm really enjoying this class, as I have all of the classes I've taken from OnlineCardClasses.com.  They are just chock full of different ideas, and are clearly explained!  They also include helpful hints that make it easier to use the techniques in my own cards.

Here's a photo of the updated card with sentiment and ribbon.

Stretch Your Stamps 2 Class Day One, Card 2

After making the first card from Kristina's video, I decided to try making a card based on Lisa Spangler's video.  She used VersaMark ink and heat embossed the design, then sprayed the card with gold spray ink.  She then removed the embossed areas.

I stamped and embossed my background design, then sprayed it with a red spray ink.  When I lightly wiped the surface to remove the ink from the embossing, it spread the ink around, and when it dried it was very dull looking.  I decided to spray it again with a gold spray ink.  I was much more pleased with how this turned out.

2nd card from 1st day of class

I followed her directions on how to leave enough room for your sentiment, stamped it on black card stock with VersaMark and used gold embossing powder, and it came out pretty well.  Due to my embossed background design being slightly warped, I taped it directly to the black as oppsed to popping it up as Lisa had done.  I then taped the whole thing to a red card.  I'm pretty pleased with this card, although I know there is a lot of room for improvement!

Stretch Your Stamps 2 Class Day One

I signed up for an online card making class called Stretch Your Stamps 2.  I've taken several other classes from OnlineCardClasses.com and have learned so much from each of them.  I've been looking forward to the start of this class for weeks.

The first day of class was about using background stamps, and different ways to use them.  Kristina Werner's video intrigued me as she used watercolors on the design after she had heat embossed it, and I decided to try it as I've never used watercolors before, but had some on hand.  I didn't use a full background stamp, but used a border stamp by Paper Smooches to mimic one.  I had a lot of trouble lining up the stamp for the repeats when I used VersaMark ink, so I switched to white pigment ink, and for some reason the embossing powder didn't seem to be working well. I'm not sure if the ink was sticky enough.

I then decided to just go with Momento black ink on white cardstock, and then to use the watercolor paint to add color.  This worked out a little better, except the black ink smeared a little with the watercolors.  Still, not too bad as a learning experience.

2nd attempt using watercolors with background stamp