Hello! Bugaboo is back as sponsor of Creative Fingers Challenge and my inspiration uses the silhouette image called Love Blocks – Day After Forever.
This is a great image for Valentine’s creations but I wanted to expand its use to birthdays as well. I just printed it large enough for a rectangular die to cut the central region of the image after I had completed working on it.
After printing with a laser printer, I coloured a few select areas with alcohol markers and covered them with Glossy Accents. This ink resist method is a great way to protect any coloured areas from damage or discolouration when you plan to ink a background with Distress inks. The hard part is walking away to allow it to dry when you’ve just started working.
I let the Glossy Accents dry overnight and then did some basic ink blending with a cosmetics brush, using glycerine as I worked. I used the glycerine in this project because I didn’t want the inks to be water reactive in this project. The glycerine stops the water having its usual mottling affect on the inks. You can see exactly how I use glycerine for both Distress Inks and Oxides in this tutorial. I also love that the glycerine seals the cardstock and helps to prevent pilling if ever I overwork an area so I can work until I’m happy with the blend. While I did my ink blending on the main panel, I inked a second piece of cardstock in the exact same way to use as a matting layer when constructing the card.
Once the blending was complete, I die cut the image and sprayed the entire piece with Perfect Pearls mixed in water. This is where the glycerine came into effect. The Perfect Pearls spray settled evenly and smoothly over the entire piece, without any of the ink reacting as it normally would. I allowed it to dry on the cardstock and used a cheap facial tissue to dab any excess from where it had settled on the Glossy Accents. I was left with a metallic finish all over the ink blending but not over the areas covered with the Glossy Accents; a great mixture of techniques on a single piece!
To add this panel to a card base, I cut two ascending frames, using the Phill Martin Elegant Eyelet Rectangle die set. I added the smaller rectangle onto my second ink blending panel and the second frame directly onto a 5″×6.75″ yellow card base. I mounted the smaller frame over the larger with some foam tape and added four photo corners to frame the image a little better.
To finish off, I stamped a Taylored Expressions Simple Strips greeting onto a scrap piece of yellow cardstock and die cut it with a matching skinny fishtail sentiment die. I also cut two extra sentiment strips and stacked them beneath my sentiment. I glued these directly to the card front and added a layer of Glossy Accents to finish it off. That extra little step tied all the glossy areas together a little better.
Don’t forget to stop by the Creative Fingers Challenge and add an entry. A Bugaboo voucher is always worth entering for! Thanks so much for spending time with me today, I look forward to next time! 😊
Constantly Carding 