Something New for You

Hello Friends!  Hope you're all doing well today on the 3rd of July.  Probably in the middle of celebrating the birth of our country or getting ready to do that tomorrow.  I had planned on sticking with the Inked & Tiled set for a while, until I was wandering around YouTube yesterday morning.  I found a new video by Tina Zinck that just put me in a creative mood.  She makes some of the most gorgeous backgrounds on her cards and truly inspires me.  It's so funny - after watching the video, I went downstairs and did my version of recreating her cards.  I came back upstairs after I was done and had to laugh at myself.  I stopped when I liked the look of the cards, but totally forgot to make about half of the stamped layering that Ms. Zinck added to make her cards so fabulous.  So, I guess you're getting my very pared down version of her cards.  I thought my cards were fine until I checked back on the video.  Whew, what a huge difference! If you want to see what truly inspired me, here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYe3u6rlR4o  You'll see what I mean about pared down if you check her video out.  😁

What really attracted me to her cards was her technique of using ink and Blending Brushes to color a full sheet of Basic White cardstock.  So that was the part I focused on.  These are the four cards that I made out of that one piece of cardstock.  If you want to make this, start with these colors: Lemon Lime Twist, Coastal Cabana, Flirty Flamingo, and Azure Afternoon.  These are in the Brights color category.  Blend on the colors in that order so you're going pretty much light to dark.  You want all of the white to be covered with color.  Make sure you tap or brush off before going to the paper so there aren't large dark splotches.  Even with doing that, I still had some rather dark areas of Azure Afternoon on my cards.  

The layering cardstock on these cards are the same as the background ink colors.  My favorite of all the cards is the one with the Flirty Flamingo layer.  Not sure why I like it the best, but I do so that's the one I have extra pictures of here.  Please remember that all of the cards are basically the same.  They are just layered on different colors of cardstock, so they seem to look quite a bit different. 

 

After adding on the colors with Blending Brushes, the full piece of Basic White cardstock was cut down to four pieces that measure 5" x 3 3/4".  At this time, all the stamping was done on the individual pieces.  I didn't have the foliage set that she used, so I improvised with what I do have.  I used Lighting the Way (page 24) for the taller greenery stems.  These were stamped on with Shaded Spruce ink.  The bushier branch is from the Botanical Layers (page 107).  It's stamped with Old Olive ink.  This one looked way too heavy, so I off-stamped before adding to the card.  As you can see, 2nd and 3rd generation stamping were added to fill in a little.

I thought it would be fun to add the little lightening bug to the cards.  They were stamped with Basic Gray to be not quite as dark as black.  The little 'light' was stamped with Lemon Lolly ink.  I remembered I had some watercolor Pearl Ex from ages ago.  This was added over the 'light' to make it shine brighter.

I couldn't find the exact sentiment I wanted to use, so I stamped the 'hello' from the Wonderful Thoughts set (page 41), and the 'friend' from a sentiment in the Inked & Tiled set (page 95).  Basic Gray ink was used to stamp these, then they were snipped out close to the sentiment to add to the cards.  Since the 'hello' was on such an angle, I just followed that when cutting.

When adding the sentiments to the cards, some pieces were attached flat with adhesive, and some were attached with Dimensionals to give the card some additional interest.  Each card was handled differently in this aspect and also the placement of the sentiments.

For the last bit of finish on my cards, the pretty Iridescent Rhinestones were added.  I love these for the sparkle effect they give, and also the fact they seem to match just about anything!  

Now that my cards are finished and I checked back to see what Tina did, I wish I had paid more attention to her cards.  For a collage look, all the added stamping and embossing on her cards are perfection.  I just might need to go back and make another set of cards following her directions better.  😁

Thank you for spending some of your time with me today.  I hope you like this technique of making your own backgrounds.  And also my pared down version of Tina Zinck's cards.  They were so fun to create.  Can you just imagine this technique used with some colors for fall?  Oh yes, this is something I don't want to forget about!

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy stamping and creating!

Sharon