Happy Friday Crafters! I hope everyone has had a great week and looking forward to a nice weekend. Today I'm sharing my card for this week's Bellarific Friday Challenge which was to use inspiration from the following photo and color swatches. I immediately knew I wanted to use the TINY TOWNIE RACHEL LOVES THE RAIN stamp.
For this card I decided to do a bit of water coloring. I recently picked up an entire set of Tombow Dual Brush Pens and I was inspired after watching some amazing videos from Amy Rysavy using them. By the way, if you have never checked out her blog Prairie Paper & Ink or her YouTube channel you have to. She's hilarious, relatable and makes gorgeous cards!
I cut a piece of Canson XL watercolor paper down to an A2 size and then heat embossed the image using Versafine Onyx black ink and clear embossing powder. For marker water coloring, I typically scribble the marker onto a laminated piece of white card stock and pick it up my paintbrush, but I went bold and applied the marker directly to my image. (I probably wouldn't have done this if I didn't watch Amy have such success in it, lol!) But to my amazement these markers work brilliantly with water. I colored them into the areas I wanted shadows and then used my lightly damp paintbrush to draw the water out. I think you have to be careful with the amount of water as some of these pens are highly pigmented. I definitely want to play around with them some more. After coloring the entire image I fussy cut around it leaving a base at the bottom that was the same width of a A2 size card.
I knew I wanted to create a rain shaker so I started with another piece of the Canson XL watercolor paper cut to an A2 size and used a rectangle die to cut out a thin border. I then adhered a piece of acetate to the border to create my window. I cut thin strips of foam tape and doubled them up around this border piece to create my area to hold the shaker bits. I also added foam tape behind the image to give it more stability. I would always recommend this for large shaker windows.
Next I focused on the background. Since the watercolor paper isn't bright white, I decided to forgo my standard white card base and just cut a top folding card from the Canson XL watercolor paper. It's heavy weight and perfect for card bases. This also meant that I could create my background right on my card base skipping a step and simplifying it. I'm all about that!
Another recent purchase I got was the Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks. I'm absolutely loving their smooth chalky texture and knew I wanted to create the stormy sky using them. I smooshed the two blue inks onto my glass work surface and spritzed them with water. I then used a wide brush to give the background a water wash. I next picked up the colors using even strokes to create a nice stormy sky look. Because I'm impatient, I used my heat tool to dry it completely between washes. Next I created ink splatters using the two blues and heat set them as well. Lastly I grabbed my Distress sprayer and left water droplets all over the piece. I let them sit for about 15 seconds and then picked up the access water with a paper towel. This created a nice matte distressed sky background.
Since it's such a larger shaker window I decided to adhere some dew drops to my background so that when the card it held upright you still see some sparkle behind the image. Just remember to do this before adhering your shaker frame! (Ask me how I know...) Once those were in place, I filled my window with sparkling clear sequins, seed beads, little diamonds from Honey Bee Stamps, and iridescent confetti. I carefully adhered my shaker frame and then gave it a good shake to make sure everything was secure. That's my favorite part of creating shaker cards!
I wasn't loving the plain white frame I had originally so I cut out another frame from a piece of rainbow plaid paper and adhered that on top. This truly brought everything together and helped it better match the inspiration photo. I added Stickles, Glossy Accents, Wink of Stella and some dots to her top using a white gel pen.
Here's a close up of the background and the bits inside:
There is a great sentiment that comes with this stamp but with the way I positioned the image I was not going to have enough room for it in it's entirety. So I grabbed my scissors and cut it up! (I know some of you are cringing but I swear the stamp is okay!) I stamped the "when skies are grey" portion with versafine black ink onto a piece of coordinating purple paper and heat set it with clear embossing powder. I also used a black versafine marker to add three little dots to the end of the sentiment and heat embossed them too. This way everything matched. I decided to cut the sentiment into two strips and positioned them behind the little girl. I really liked how this looked and I thought it helped tie in more of the purple color.
Next, I stamped the first part of the sentiment on the inside of my card heat embossing it as well. Since my card base was watercolor paper I decided to focus on the "sunshine" and create a little sun around the image. I used Distress Oxide ink for this so that it matched the look of the front of the card. Don't be afraid to mix up your sentiments. I try not to get stuck with a sentiment size. I make it work for me instead of working around it. You'll be surprised on what you come up with if you think "outside the sentiment." Here's a peek at the inside of the card:
Next week's Bellariffic Friday challenge is a free form challenge. Use any current Stamping Bella stamp and go crazy! Hope you join along and create something with us! Have a wonderful day and I'll be back soon!
