I made this card for my awesome Father In-law, Frank. He's my husband's step father but you would never know it. He's just Pop to all of us and we love him dearly, the whole family. He seems to really appreciate the craft that I do and always tells me how much he enjoys my cards, him and my Mother in-law, Judy. I just love it because it gives me such a big head, you know? To get all that praise. I'm just kidding, but they do make me feel good about the projects I've created for them.
On that note, I always try to put just a little more craftyness into their cards. For this card I used a Tim Holtz technique, one from his book, where you take white card stock and heat emboss it with clear ink, then you color the card stock with whatever distress ink you like and use some water to really get the ink moving around the paper. I used watercolor paper for this card, it helps with the warping from all the water. Then you heat set and dry your inks and then lastly, you take an iron (one just for crafts) and a sheet of newsprint paper or I just used copy paper and it worked fine, and you place the paper over the image and use the hot iron to "remove" the embossing powder. What happens is when you heat up the image that has been heat embossed the embossing powder will transfer to the copy paper and it leaves the white card stock behind, no more shine from embossing powder and the whole reason for using embossing powder is because it preserves the color of card stock underneath and resist the distress ink. once you are done adding all that distress ink and water and then drying it all you have to do is use a dry towel or baby wipe to wipe away any stray ink. It's really cool and I really should use the technique more than I do. I always like the results. I didn't use any designer paper on this card just stamps and inks. The background is faux letterpress. You just take any embossing folder, (I used one from the Paper Studio) and ink up one side using dye based ink and a brayer, then CAREFULLY place your paper inside the folder trying not to move it any once you've closed the folder or the ink will smear. Then run it thru your cutting or embossing machine like usual and when it comes out the ink has transferred to the debossed areas of your paper. It's totally cool too. Then to finish off the card I stamped the sentiment and star from a Hero Arts stamp set in black and yellow for the star and cut it into a banner shape. I let it hang off the right side of the card a little so I had to use an envelope that was slightly larger or you could just cut a little off one side of your card if you were going to do this. That's it for today. I really hope Frank enjoys this card. I certainly had fun creating it. As my friend, Robin says, "You know you've done a good job when you don't want to let your project go". Sometimes I find I just like a card so much I want to keep it myself. lol. When I create a card using all these cool techniques I've learned I usually just sit back and think to myself, "I really made this!" It's like I can't believe I made it. lol. I hope you all have a really great day and I'll see you back here again tomorrow with a wedding card. ttys, Hugs, amyk
