Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog! I’m so happy you chose to be with me today.
In my last post for the Altenew Educator Certification Program, Background Bonanza, I featured two cards with lots of in-laid die cutting. One of my friends saw my cards and commented, “Wow! Those are beautiful. They must have taken a long time to create.” That comment gave me pause.
Now, I don’t usually think about how long a project takes. I’m one of those crazy card makers who doesn’t mind spending an entire afternoon designing a card, remaking it, and then making it again. And, I don’t mind spending a lot of time on a particular technique or card. But since this blog is ostensibly about me teaching you how to make cards and enjoying the process, it occurred to me that not everyone wants to spend hours on one card. So today, I’m going to show you how to create two beautiful cards full of shimmer and shine that are fun and easy (er) to make.
My most recent course for AECP was Creative Watercolor Media, wherein three fabulous instructors, Jennifer Rzasa, Debby Hughes and Laura Bassen, explore various ways to use water and pigment in card making. I loved the creative ways they used inks, markers, and sprays to create their cards. It got me thinking about some of my favorite color mediums.
Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I am a fan of Lindy’s Stamp Gang products, especially her Magical Powders. I’ve shown in past blog posts ways to create gorgeous backgrounds with these powders, but now I’m going to take it a step further and demonstrate how to paint with them like watercolor!
Painting with Magical Powders
Featured Products
Altenew Gold Crisp Embossing Powder
Altenew Craft Your Life Project Kit: Floral Acanthus Die Set
Altenew Craft Your Life Project Kit: Floral Acanthus Stamp Set
Altenew Dotted Swirls Debossing Cover Die
Lindy’s Stamp Gang – Powdered Paint – Magical Set – Summer Break
This card was so much fun to make! I used the newest Craft Your Life Project Kit from Altenew, Floral Acanthus. This is the September CYL Kit; subscribers get the release early and boy is this one fabulous.
For this technique, you’ll want to use a good quality watercolor paper. Altenew has a wonderful cold-pressed smooth watercolor paper pad that is great for this technique, but you can also use Arches or similar. Watercolor paper has two sides; both have texture, but one is usually smoother. Usually, you want to use the more textured side so that pigment has something to grab onto. But since we’re going to be heat embossing on the card, the smoother side works better.
This stamp set is one large stamp, so I stamped it in VersaMark Ink and heat embossed it with Altenew Antique Gold Crisp Embossing Powder. Remember, ALWAYS use an anti static tool BEFORE stamping, especially with watercolor paper. The texture of even the smoothest paper will catch and hold random pieces of the embossing powder and ruin the image if you don’t.
For the color, I applied Lindy’s Stamp Gang – Powdered Paint – Magical Set – Summer Break just as if I was using watercolor. I’ve created a short video below to show you how it works. Basically, you place water down first, then take a small, small, small bit of powder and apply it to the paper. It will react like watercolor and spread with the water.
The result is a gorgeous, colorful, shimmery image.
Here’s the video to show you the coloring process.
After the cardstock was dry, I die cut the images and set them aside. I wanted my background to have interest, but not take away from the main images. So I used Altenew Dotted Swirls Debossing Cover Die. I love pierced paper cover dies! They leave a fun, pierced pattern on the cardstock – kind of like a dry embossed image, but with a different texture. I used this die on a piece of 4 x 5-1/4″ blue cardstock.
To assemble the card, I arranged my flowers and leaves on the blue cardstock, curling up the edges of some of the leaves. I trimmed off the overhang, then mounted the panel on a top-folding, white, A2 cardstock base. Then, I die cut the “hugs” sentiment from the Floral Acanthus kit from white and blue cardstock, and placed it on the card. Some copper sequins were the perfect finishing touch for this card.
For my next card, I used the same technique, but changed up the colors.
Featured Products
Altenew Gold Crisp Embossing Powder
Altenew Dotted Swirls Debossing Cover Die
Lindy’s Stamp Gang – Powdered Paint – Magical Set – Summer Break
Lindy’s Stamp Gang – Powdered Paint – Magical Set – Victorian Bouquet
Lindy’s Stamp Gang – Powdered Paint – Magical Flat Set – Mountain Meadows
Altenew Beauty Within Stamp & Die Bundle
One of the things I love about these powders is the variation and depth of color you can achieve from one powder. For this card, I created the images as before using Altenew Gold Crisp Embossing Powder. Then, I painted the flowers and leaves with water and colors from Lindy’s Stamp Gang – Powdered Paint – Magical Set – Victorian Bouquet and Mountain Meadows. Now the Mountain Meadows set is a flat paint, which means no shimmer BUT, when mixed with the shimmery powders, they work beautifully.
Again, I used Altenew Dotted Swirls Debossing Cover Die for background interest, and also cut some leaves from the set in a Matte Gold Glossy Cardstock from Simon Says Stamp. This time, I allowed the edges of the flowers to hang off the edge and used a gold-embossed sentiment from my stash to finish off the card.
I hope you enjoyed my post today. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below. I’ll be happy to help you create your own shimmery flowers.
UPDATE: Lindy’s Gang as graciously offered this 10% coupon on all orders from their store. They have FAST shipping. Just type in DIVALADYDES at checkout! Enjoy!
Happy crafting!
Leslie Hasen says
Wow, Deborrah! Congratulations on your video! It’s well done, and your cards are beautiful!
Erum Tasneem says
Super duper gorgeous!! LOVE LOVE
Ruth says
Another fantastically designed card!! The colors you got out of the Lindy’s Gang powders were lovely. Thanks for the video as well, it was very helpful.