Yesterday (Saturday, October 6th) was World Card-Making Day – also the start of my 3-day weekend. Since I finally had some time to enjoy crafting, I decided to work on my Mom’s birthday card.
I started planning out my Mom’s birthday card a few weeks ago. I knew I wanted to highlight the Blooming Roses from Spellbinders’ July 2018 Large Die of the Month with a combination of techniques. First, a die inlay technique with multiple colors and types of cardstocks. Then, a faux stained glass effect on top. But before I could start, I opened up my most recent Scrapbook Pal order that was delivered earlier this week.
Gathering Supplies
The main reason I needed to order from ScrapbookPal was because I wanted to try out the faux stained glass look. I’ve seen other crafters use Tonic Crystal Glaze or Ranger Glossy Accents for this effect. I used Glossy Accents in the past but I had trouble with the Ranger applicator. So, I wanted to try out the Crystal Glaze since the other Tonic lines have been really great in my experience.
Because ScrapbookPal has a ‘free shipping to mainland US with a $25 order’ policy – I also ordered a bunch of Lawn Fawn items. I wanted to pick up the matching stamp sets for a bunch of Lawn Fawn coordinating dies that I bought previously from a wholesaler who was emptying out overstock. Plus, the Lawn Fawn dye inks are my favorite so I had to pick up the new releases. I really love ScrapbookPal for Lawn Fawn items, as I’ve said before – they really do have the best prices and fastest shipping.
Along with the Tonic Crystal Glaze, I picked up the two newest Lawn Fawn Ink releases (Pizza Crust, Artichoke) – a nice tan/kraft shade and a really nice olive-y green that I’m definitely going to use on my holiday cards. The stamp sets I got were: Winter Owl, Wheelie Like You, Winter Alpaca, Believe In Yourself, Home For the Holidays, Aloha, Duh-Nuh, Pumpkin Spice, and RAWR. I also got the coordinating dies for Donut Worry, since I already have the stamp set.
Birthday Card for Mom
With my ScrapbookPal order unpacked and put away in my stamp/die storage system – I started on my Mom’s birthday card. Her favorite color is purple, so I cut the 5.5″ x 11″ card base out of Papertrey Ink Perfect Match cardstock in Winter Wisteria. I love using PTI card for colored card bases since it’s such a heavyweight card (110#) and available in so many different shades. PTI has a few different samplers so you can try out a bunch of shades without breaking the bank. I actually still have some sheets of the more unusual colors left from my first sampler, but I’ve repurchased quite a few of my favorites in the full size packs.
After I had my card base cut and scored, I used Spellbinders 6×6 Matting Basics Set B to die cut a patterned paper mat for the inside and the top out of the Prima Enchanted A4 paper pad. I also used Spellbinders 6×6 Matting Basics Set A to cut a cream mat for the inside from Simon Says Stamp Cream/Off-White card. SSS is also a lovely cardstock but it’s 100# so I prefer to use it for layers and die-cuts rather than card bases.
I attached Stick It adhesive to one side of Tonic Studios Satin Mirror Card in Black Velvet and then cut out the larger image from the Blooming Roses die set. I did the same with a Dark Brown piece of fun foam.
After pressing the dimensional fun foam die cut onto the patterned mat, I layered the black card outline on top. Then with the Spellbinders Tool ‘n’ One I made sure to remove all of the inside pieces.
Die-Cut Inlay
Using the same process, I cut out the same die from Tonic Studios Glossy Mirror card in Electric Purple, Simon Says Stamp cardstock in Royal Purple, Lawn Fawn cardstock in Noble Fir, and Papertrey Ink cardstock in New Leaf.
I inlaid the TS Electric Purple pieces into the 2 medium sized roses, the SSS Royal Purple into the main, largest rose, and left the mini rose empty. For the smallest pieces, I used the Zig Fine Tip Glue pen to put some extra adhesive to hold the inlay pieces in place. Initially, I planned to let the patterned paper below show through the smallest rose, but I changed my mind after I finished the rest of the inlay.
For the leaves, I put the darker LF Noble Fir in the smallest of the three leaf section and the larger of the two leaf section. The remaining leaves were inlaid with pieces from PTI New Leaf. After all of the pieces had been inlaid, I didn’t like how the smallest rose looked and used a scrap piece of PTI in Lavender Moon to die cut the inside pieces for the smallest rose.
Faux Stained Glass Effect
Between PTI, Lawn Fawn, SSS, and Bazzill Card Shoppe cardstocks, I had a variety of cardstock colors to choose from. However, I noticed some gaps in my cardstock selection while working on this card. For example, matching the purple in the Prima patterned paper with a solid shade was really difficult. While I waited for the glue to dry, I actually placed a Reverse Confetti cardstock order and a Gina K. Designs, LLC cardstock order. Hopefully, with the addition of these two brands, I’ll round out my cardstock collection and won’t struggle to match colors in the future.
After my shopping break, I placed the cream and patterned mats on the inside of the card base and stamped my logo on the back in Lawn Fawn Sugarplum dye ink. With the glue dry, I started carefully flooding the spaces with Tonic Crystal Glaze. I started in the middle with the largest purple rose and slowly moved out. The larger sections were very easy to fill but with the smaller sections I had to be very careful not to overfill. I used my Tool ‘n’ One to make sure the Crystal Glaze filled to the edges and to break up any bubbles that formed.
I left the Crystal Glaze to dry a few hours. In the evening, I noticed that some sections were under-filled so I topped them up and let the piece dry fully overnight.
Finishing Touches
Sunday morning, I pulled out a bunch of sentiment stamps and dies – trying to figure out what best balanced the focal image. I wanted the greeting to be fairly low key so that attention stays on the faux stained glass rose image. Usually I just lay the stamps and dies on top of a card panel and I can judge from there what I want to use. But for this particular card, I ended up just laying all of the dies out on a dark purple piece of Doodlebug 6×6 patterned paper from the Gingham Linen Rainbow paper pad and cutting out each sentiment I was considering.
That definitely helped and I ended up choosing the ‘Let’s Celebrate’ sentiment from the Celebratory Sentiments die set from Spellbinders’ June 2017 Small Die of the Month. I straightened out the sentiment, to help fill the space, then used the Zig glue pen to stick it down. The extra die cuts went in my die storage envelopes for next time, except for the scripty ‘mom’ sentiment from Lawn Fawn, which I glued to the inside panel.
To finish off the card I used Tonic Studios Nuvo Drops in Violet Galaxy. I did try various other embellishments, particularly some fancy ribbons and buttons, but they distracted from the focal image. I really like how the Nuvo Drops fill the space but don’t draw away from the focal image. Overall, I definitely think this card turned out great – and I know my mom will enjoy it!
