Be Awesome! Banner

Our oldest niece turned 13 in August - THIRTEEN!! I can't believe how fast time has flown! We wanted to gift her something special for her bedroom, and decided on making a custom banner, predominantly using Lawn Fawn's Stitched Party Banner and Finley's ABCs dies.

For this project, I used papers from a paper pack I found at Michael's that had fun summery neon designs. We chose to use the glittery chevron paper for the circles, and from there, decided on the papers they would be mounted on for the banner, making sure the chevron circles would 'pop' and not blend in with their background.

I started by die-cutting the larger Lawn Fawn stitched party banner from all of the patterned papers, including three of the chevron pages to use at the start and finish of the banner, and in-between the two words. I already had three of the flamingos from Lawn Fawn's Gnome Sweet Gnome that were colored with watercolor pencils and die cut with the coordinating Lawn Cuts dies, and they worked perfectly on the chevron pages to separate the words.

For die-cutting the chevron page, I setup the stitched circle die with the exclamation mark die and the larger stitched party banner die as shown here, so I could run it through the machine and complete a few steps at once. I repeated this process with the stitched circle die and the other letters to spell out my sentiment, which cut the use of the die-cut machine in half since I was able to die-cut the letter from the center of the circle at the same time as cutting the circle.

I then die-cut all of the letters out of a scrap of black Paper Source coverstock in order to make the in-laid die effect on the circles. One benefit of doing this is I had the full custom sentiment - be awesome! - die-cut out of the chevron circles that I didn't need to use for this project, so I kept them aside for a future project.

The next four pictures show how I installed the in-laid die-cut letters into the circle shapes. 

   

I flipped the circle over and placed a piece of tape across the full opening for the letter. I then flipped the circle over, and placed the in-laid die-cut letter in the hole, pushing it against the tape on the table top to get it to stick effectively. With the B, A, and O dies, I made sure to hang on to the chevron bits that go in the middle of those letters, so I could install them as well and have a completely finished panel. 

Here's the completed sentiment (minus the exclamation mark, which I decided to add later).

To finish everything out, I arranged the large stitched banner shapes on our guest bed and moved patterns around until I was satisfied with how the finished project would look. I then used foam squares to adhere the flamingos to the chevron spacer panels and to adhere the circle letters to the banner shapes. And finally, I threaded it all together with pink embroidery floss in a complementary color.

Here's the finished product, hanging in our living room for photographic purposes. :)

This project is being entered into Lawn Fawnatics' current challenge: #10 - Custom Sentiments.

Paper-Pieced Pop-Up Beach-Themed Cards

Y'all, I've discovered my new favorite technique: stamping directly on colorful and/or patterned cardstock instead of coloring, and then paper-piecing! I'd used this technique with patterned papers before, but not with solid cardstock. I'm a huge fan of the end result!

So what is paper-piecing, exactly? Below, you can see the green present and three yellow fish stamped out directly on solid-color cardstock. This eliminates the need for coloring (or provides a base color, if you want to add color on top of the colorful background), and makes a fun result. The fuschia shark is an example of paper-piecing. To create this cool little fella, I stamped the shark from Lawn Fawn's Duh-Nuh set twice - once on white paper, and again on fuschia. I die-cut the shark with the coordinating Lawn Cuts dies on the white sheet only. Then, I fussy-cut out the top portion of the fuschia stamped shark, cutting along the stamped line as I went around. I adhered this fuschia piece on top of the white die-cut shark with a tape runner, which allowed for the fun white outline to show around the completed image. So fun!

Now, for the cards I made. The first card was a thank you to my husband, as he just bought us a striped hammock on Amazon Prime Day, and it's my new favorite spot to relax at home! (I've had my eyes on the Life is Good stamp and die set for years, and decided to buy it when I found out about our hammock.)

When the stamp set arrived, I played around with it on a variety of solid-color cardstock papers from Paper Source, making about 16 or so paper-pieced palm trees, and around 5-10 sand castles, sandy hills, crabs, and other elements from the set. I also found a striped piece of cardstock with colors similar to our new hammock, and stamped and die-cut a few hammocks on this paper, too. I stashed these away to use on future cards, and pulled from these pre-stamped and die-cut elements for both cards.

For this card, I cut a piece of Paper Source Lagoon Coverstock paper down to make a folded 4-bar card for the card base. I found a piece of double-sided patterned paper that had a different shade of blue on one side and colorful stripes on the other, which I decided to use for my waves/water on the inside of the card. I trimmed this down to size, and used the scalloped border die from the Valentine Borders lawn cuts set upside-down to cut out the waves on top, and I used the Speech Bubble Border lawn cut on the bottom to provide a rounded edge to the 'pool'. I wanted the little hillside to look like an island, so this helped provide that look.

I then used the thinnest die in the Everyday Pop-Ups lawn cuts set to make two pop-up elements where I wanted the palm trees to attach, lining up the hammock between them to determine my spacing before running them through my Evolution Die-Cutting Tool. I used a bone folder to score the paper where it would need to fold and help with creating the appropriate creases on the pop-ups, before adhering my elements to the pop-up panel. (This great tutorial video on the Lawn Fawn YouTube channel is helpful in seeing this step in action.) I finished by adhering the panel to the inside of the card.

The next step was to die-cut and adhere the clouds from the Plane and Simple set. I decided not to stamp them, so they'd blend in more to the background. I had a few of the clouds run off the page, and I trimmed off the excess of these clouds, and used them on the front of the card. I added a few of the small and large seagulls from Life is Good to the front of the card, and stamped the Relax sentiment on a cloud that I popped up using 3M foam tape for added dimension. 

I finished out the card by stamping the life is good sentiment on the bottom of the inside card flap. I love doing this with pop-up cards!

 My second card is another paper-pieced pop-up card, made in a similar fashion to the first one. I started with color and theme inspiration for the current Lawn Fawnatics Challenge #9 - Color Inspiration Board. For this card, I wanted the background to have more ocean waves, so I used multiple shades of blue cardstock to create this one. I used the paper-piecing technique with the Duh-nuh shark, palm tree, and tiny present from the Party Animals sets. Also, I stamped and die-cut a new crab, since I wanted to use the fuschia cardstock to match it to the Jawsome banner above and fit with the theme.  The card base here is actually the double-sided patterned paper that I'd used for just the waves on the other card, so when you close this card it has a fun striped pattern on the outside. I didn't get a chance to snap a photo of it closed with a 'belly band' slider element to open and close it. #missedopportunity

The main difference in this card is the use of just one die from Everyday Pop-Ups, mostly because I wanted the card to have greater depth and this specific die makes the pop-up stand out further from the background. (sidenote: I was disappointed in the lighting of the pictures below, as it doesn't show the full brightness of the card - the one above is a better representation. If you have recommendations for a better lighting setup for cards, I'd love to hear it!)

  

For the pop-up element on this card, I used a circle die and partially die-cut the paper to create the larger rounded 'sea' here. I had thought about using the fuschia shark in this card, but decided on the blue instead, as the fuschia shark stood out less with the sentiment and crab. I love that little fuschia shark, though, and am looking forward to finding another use for it soon!

This card is being entered in to the Lawn Fawnatics Challenge #9 - Color Inspiration Board.

8 Days of Holiday Cards! Day 8: Wedding Snowglobes!!!

Oh my goodness, friends! Today's card is quite possibly my favorite for this season, and is a very special card for my friends who just got hitched!!

I knew I would be making this awesome couple a card, and decided to head straight to Paper Source to buy a stamp I'd been eyeing for quite some time! This fantastic scripted Mr & Mr stamp is one of my favorites from Paper Source both because it is beautiful, and because it speaks to their support of the LGBTQ community. I've appreciated this so much about the company, and love that their support feels genuine and authentic, and not just another marketing ploy to get more money from another niche audience.

I wanted to make these fantastic gentlemen a somewhat rustic card, and opted for a buffalo check background, made with the Lawn Fawn Gingham Backdrops stamp set using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink over a Paper Source Red piece of cardstock cut to 3.75x5.5 inches. I mounted the background to my Paper Source A2 Paperbag folded card base, leaving the 1/4 inch strips on the left and right of the panel.

Once I'd decided on the use of the Mr & Mr stamp and the buffalo check, I wanted to find something Christmasy to class up the card so it was appropriate for both a congrats wedding card and a Christmas card - which brought me to the BEAUTIFUL snowglobe from Stampin' Up's Sparkly Seasons!

I stamped the base of the snowglobe with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink on a scrap of Paper Source Superfine White paper, and fussy-cut it out. I used Moonlight Gel Pens for the holly and berries, a white ball-point pen for the year, and a gold pen for the branches, which helped soften the base of the snowglobe, and make it look less blocky.

For the globe itself, I diecut a circle from vellum, and positioned it where I wanted it on my card, to determine placement of the snow stamp from the Sparkly Seasons set with my MISTI tool. Once I'd positioned the stamp, I stamped it directly over the buffalo check panel where the globe would sit, using Frost White Pigment Ink. I then moved the panel off the MISTI and stamped the snow again directly on the vellum circle. This way, when I mounted the globe over the buffalo check, it adds two layers of snow that are facing each other, which gives more snow and more dimension to the finished image. Because the frost white was a very wet pigment ink, I ran the heat tool over the vellum carefully to help it dry without warping the vellum, and over the buffalo check background.

Once the snow was dry enough on my vellum circle, I flipped it upside-down and stamped the Mr & Mr stamp with a clear VersaMark ink pad, and then added copper embossing powder and heat-embossed the sentiment. I then mounted all of the pieces to my card using my tape runner delicately around the outside edge of the snowglobe vellum piece.

On the inside of the card, I stamped this beautiful scripted Merry Christmas sentiment from Paper Source's 2016 Christmas line. I'm still SOOOO happy with this card, and can't wait to hear their reaction!!

We also went to a wedding of another couple this past weekend, and I wanted to use the snowglobe again since it's a December wedding! I don't own the Mr & Mrs stamp from Paper Source with the same scripted font, so I couldn't stamp a sentiment that would make sense for this couple directly on the vellum, so I had to change it up a bit. I followed a similar process for preparing the snow globe base and the snow on the inside of the vellum and the outside of the card base, once again creating two layers of snow here - but the snow this time was with silver pigment ink. I also stamped some tiny hearts from the Lawn Fawn Party Animal set with a bright pink pigment ink. I initially finished this card with a scripty Congratulations sentiment from Paper Source, heat embossed with copper powder, but then wasn't completely satisfied. Because there wasn't a sentiment on this snow globe, it felt like it was missing something inside. I carefully peeled up the globe and added in five die cut hearts that I'd previously die cut with coordinating Lawn Cuts dies from You're Stinkin' Cute and Stuck On You. I added some pink watercolor to it via watercolor pencils, and then carefully adhered the snowglobe again. This helped finish off the card.

I'm still not sure if I like the card better with or without the larger hearts inside, but I'm definitely happy I could use Christmas-y themed fun with these wedding cards!

Well, friends, that wraps up my 8 Days of Holiday Cards for 2016! I hope this gave you some fun inspiration for your holiday season!

Happy Holidays!
-JBJ

8 Days of Holiday Cards! - Day 3: Ombre Lights!

Welcome back! For day 3 of my 8 Days of Holiday Cards series, I'm sharing two different techniques for stamping ombre images.

I learned the first technique from the incomparable Jennifer McGuire. I find that I learn so much from her video tutorials, and am always impressed with her super crisp, clean, and professional finished products!

For both cards, I used the Reverse Confetti Merry & Bright stamp set. For the first card, I cut a 3.75x5.5 inch panel from Paper Source Superfine White coverweight paper for the main image, and cut and scored a piece of Paper Source Black Coverweight paper. I love Paper Source's papers, but sometimes want to have a vertical fold card, so I make my own by cutting an 8.5x11 inch sheet in half lengthwise, making a 4.25x11 inch sheet, and then scoring at the 5.5 inch halfway point for the fold. I then got to stamping with my MISTI tool - seriously, the BEST crafting purchase I've ever made!

For this first card, I found three die inks that coordinate well together (My red die ink came in a set with stamp carving tools from Yellow Owl Workshop, the blue die ink is the Lawn Fawn Fish Tank ink pad, and the green is the Hero Arts Neon Green ink pad)., and found my ColorBox Frost White Pigment Ink as well. I positioned my clear stamps on the MISTI tool lid, and positioned the paper where I wanted it, securing it with the MISTI magnets, and then started my stamping!

To create the ombre effect, start by stamping the entire image with your one color. Then, ink up just a portion of the stamp with that same color (in this case, I inked up a little more than the tip at a diagonal of each light bulbs). Before stamping it again, I took a paper towel and lightly tapped/rubbed it along the diagonal line made from the ink on the stamp, in order to make less of a harsh line when it is stamped again. Once you have the ink where you want it, you then stamp again in exactly the same spot. This is where the MISTI is a life safer! By keeping the stamps and paper in position, you get a perfect image each time! :) You can repeat this process multiple times to get the desired look you're wanting to achieve. Essentially, every time you add more ink to the stamp, it darkens that part of your final product, creating that ombre effect.

Set these panels aside to dry (in my case, I sped up that process using my heat tool to help the ink dry faster). Once dry, reposition the panel on the MISTI again. This time, ink up the opposite side of your stamp (in this case, the larger part of the lightbulbs) with the white pigment ink, and use the paper towel to soften the edge again. Then, stamp it on top of your original image, and repeat if necessary. This helps lighten the area opposite your darkened area from the previous stamping, finishing the ombre effect.

After the lightbulbs had dried, I used VersaMark Ink to stamp the lightbulb base, and embossed them with silver embossing powder. I finished the card off by adhering the panel to the card base with my tape runner (and now that I'm looking at them again, am debating adding in strings to the top of the bulbs to make them look like they're hanging down, and not floating...).

For my second card, I used three ombre ink pads from Hero Arts, which made the process go much more quickly. :) These were stamped directly onto the A2 Paper Source Superfine White folded card, which also reduced the additional steps of making my own folded card and panel. I also drew in a string to connect the three bulbs so they look like a string of lights. Both processes ended up making fun results, and I appreciate that I've learned how to make an ombre effect without using ombre ink pads.

I'll be back again tomorrow with another holiday card. :)

8 Days of Holiday Cards! - Day 2: Buffalo Check Watercolor

For Day 2 of my 8 Days of Holiday Cards, I'm sharing a buffalo check-inspired card! I masked a rectangle on my A2 Paper Source Superfine White Folded Notecard using post-it note tape, and painted in the watercolor lines for the Buffalo Check background with a wide brush. I die-cut a Tag, You're It gift tag using the Lawn Fawn die, and added a Paper Source Superfine Soft White ribbon to the end. Using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, I stamped the mug and sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Love You a Latte set, then colored it in with Prismacolor colored pencils. I mounted this to my card with foam squares, and was done! SUPER fast and simple, and very easy to replicate!

8 Days of Holiday Cards! - Day 1: Yeti It's Cold Outside

December 1st is finally here, and I'm excited to share some of my 2016 holiday card designs! Each year, I begin making my cards in July (to celebrate Christmas in July, obviously!). I typically start with taking inspiration from some fantastic ideas I've found online from others who have the same or similar papercrafting supplies, and then as I play with my supplies, find my own creations. The cards I'll be showcasing are more from my own designs and imagination. :)

My first card to share made use of the Lawn Fawn Yeti Set Snow set. I'd wanted the set for a few years, and finally got around to buying it this past year, with plans to use it for my holiday cards.

I started by making the scene you'd see through the round 'window', beginning with the Forest Border panel on Paper Source Superfine White cardstock and layering it on top of the Stitched Hillside Border panel (with Paper Source Paper Bag cardstock for the mountains and the same Paper Source Superfine White  for the snowcaps), and adding the light blue plaid from the 6x6 Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Summer pack for the sky. I also ran a piece of Paper Source Spruce coverweight paper through my Evolution die cut machine to make the stitched circle frame for my round window border. After adhering the panels for my scene together with my tape runner, I ran them through my diecut machine with a circle die that matched the same size as my stitched circle frame die. I finished the window by adding the stitched circle frame on top.

On another piece of Paper Source Pure White coverweight paper, I stamped the yeti and his ear muffs/headphones with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, then colored him in with colored pencils and used the coordinating Lawn Cuts dies to cut him out. I laid all of my elements on my card front to determine my preferred placement, and then stamped the music notes and the sentiment directly onto the Paper Source Superfine White A2 Folded Notecard. I scattered some foam squares around the back of my window scene, and adhered it to the front of the card. I then used my tape runner to adhere the yeti, making sure to tuck him in behind the window so he's popping out.

I wanted another sentiment inside, and wanted to use my Lawn Fawn Love You a Latte set (since it's clearly my favorite...), so I stamped the hot chocolate mug, the happy holidays sentiment, and the mustachioed face with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink on the inside. I figured the round window could be in the kitchen, and the recipient of my card could be enjoying some hot cocoa while looking outside - completely unaware of the yeti in the distance. :)

Join me tomorrow for another card!

Fungi Gift Tag!

I received happy mail today from scrapbook.com! These two sets are going to be favorites, for sure!

I was so excited about the exclusive Scrapbook Day fungi set, and had to use it right away! Check out this fun gift tag for my friend! I used Paper Source's new Summer color, lagoon, for the sky, and clover for the grass. There are legends about albino squirrels on our campus/workplace, so I had to throw one in for her, too. The sentiment and gift are from holiday party animal.

I honestly love the bow tie and tie options most with this great set. I'm looking forward to using this for a "fungi" soon, too! (LOVE all things punny!!)

Happy Stinkin' Birthday!

For my niece's birthday, I made this fun card using Stinkin' Cute and Holiday Party Animal stamp and coordinating die sets, and used the Speech Bubble Die with the strawberry patterned paper for the background panel. I used watercolor pencils for the skunk, flower, and gift.

This card is being submitted in the Lawnscaping Challenge #129: Calling All Critters!

http://lawnscaping.blogspot.com/2016/05/lawnscaping-challenge-calling-all.html

Happy (b)Earth Day!

My friend Chris was born on Earth Day - the perfect excuse for using Lawn Fawn's Wish You Were Here set!

I started by stamping and die-cutting the globe, heart, and letters from Owen's ABCs. Once dry, I colored in the globe with watercolor pencils and used a waterbrush to watercolor the image. I wanted the end result to look like the speech bubble was coming out of the globe, so I used the die-cut globe to determine my placement for the speech bubble before die-cutting.

The Paper Source Superfine White folded card's top fold was cut with the speech bubble border, and a corresponding Paper Source Lake blue coverweight notecard was cut with the same border, and the negative space was mounted on the inside of the card. The negative space shows when the card is shut, too, as the speech bubble is now the only part of the card that opens (a technique I borrowed from the amazing Jennifer McGuire!)!

The sentiment was created first by stamping earth using quinn's ABCs with versamark ink and heat-embossing it with orange powder from Paper Source. I then added the other words from Let's Bokeh and the arrow from Wish You Were Here with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink on the outside and inside of the card, and drew in the parenthesis on the inside.

After adhering the blue negative space to the inside fold of the card and laying out my pieces where they would go, I felt like it needed something more, so I stamped with the Argyle Backdrops image in Versamark Ink. I then finished the card by adding all of my die-cut elements with foam squares.

Happy Earth Day, y'all (and Happy Birthday, Chris!)!

PS- Lawn Fawn is also celebrating Earth Day today with a 15% off sale on some Earth-themed items.

Floral wreath card

The current Lawnscaping challenge asks that we use floral stamps. Lawn Fawn has some fantastic and beautiful floral sets, and the few flower stamps I have are small flower embellishments that came in other Lawn Fawn sets, making for a fun challenge! I opted to make a floral wreath, using the small leaf stamp from Sweater Weather for the leaves stamped directly on the Paper Source Paper Bag coverstock panel, and the flowers from Sweater Weather and Stuck On You, stamped and die cut. I began the card by tracing a circle with light pencil where I wanted my wreath. The leaves were stamped with first and second generation stamping to give more depth without changing colors. I opted to heat emboss the Stuck On You flower to add more depth, as I felt like using foam squares would add too much depth.

I stamped the Thanks sentiment from Thank You Tags in the wreath's center with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and rounded the two opening corners of the card base and panel before adhering the panel.

I finished the card off with a superfine white satin ribbon, adhered with a glue dot (zot).

This card is being entered in to the current Lawnscaping Challenge #127: Beautiful Florals.

Stuck On You Birthday Card

Jenny had a birthday! :) For her card, I tried to stick with just a few colors with the ink and paper used. I started by stamping the tall cactus and round cactus randomly on the panel with Grass green Pigment Ink, and then added in the spiky succulent with Ocean mint pigment ink and the cactus flower with peacock pigment ink, which was the most important detail for this Lawnscaping Challenge. I mounted the panel to a Paper Source Peacock custom-sized folded coverstock card, as I wanted to have a taller card than usual so I could include a lot of the cacti in the background.

I stamped and heat-embossed a banner image from a Paper Source rubber stamp in my stash with gold embossing powder on Paper Source Mint coverstock paper, and fussy cut it out. I then stamped, heat embossed and die cut the spiky succulent long leaves stamps from the Stuck On You set, and adhered them to the back of the banner to have them popping out at the top. I first tried stamping and embossing these guys with the Ocean ink, but found that I didn't like the contrast with the embossed Ocean ink and the mint banner. I opted for a different lighter green ink, which ended up contrasting better, and standing out more from the busy background I'd created.

This card is being entered in to the current Lawnscaping Challenge #127: Beautiful Florals.

Party Animals! Expanding Card for New Baby

One of the pastors at our church just had a baby (Everly Grace), and gave me a great reason to create a fun expanding card! I'd never made an expanding card before, and I wanted to use all of the great little party animals I have in my stash, as I just got the Party Animal and Holiday Party Animal sets in recently. I also wanted to try the partial die-cutting method again, as my previous attempt yielded poor results and I learned a new technique for getting it right from Jennifer McGuire's "Rainbow Stamping and On the Edge Die-Cutting" tutorial.

The card I made is a little longer than 11 inches long, but folds down to a standard A2 size so it'll fit in a standard A2 envelope. I cut an 8 1/2" x 11" Superfine White coverstock paper from Paper Source in half lengthwise, to create a 4 1/4" x 11" panel, then scored it at 5 1/2" for the first fold. I then determined where I would want my racoon, and completed the partial die-cut using the tutorial from Jennifer McGuire. After the partial die-cut, I scored the card and ran my bone folder over both score lines I'd created to make crisp folds.  I then stamped all of my fun party critters across the full card, being careful to stamp the raccoon over the die-cut portion effectively. I had to mask off the raccoon stamped on the inside in order to fit the stubborn skunk from You're Stinkin' Cute in there, as their tails go different directions. 

With the card folded shut, I then picked my colors for the bear, raccoon, and skunk and colored them in with just the pink, purple, blue, and grey colored pencils. I stamped and die-cut the gift from Holiday Party Animals for the Raccoon and colored it in, too, before adhering with a foam square. I opened the card and continued to color in the remaining animals, deciding to add in orange and green for some of the critters that were hidden inside the card to help make it pop more when you opened the card. (sidenote: All of my stamping for this card was done with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and the coloring with various Prismacolor colored pencils.)

I initially planned to have the critters holding letters from Owen's ABCs with maybe the baby's name, or "Welcome!" or something, but realized quickly that I needed to ensure the three animals showing before the card opened would need to spell something out with their three letters alone before opening it up, or it would look weird. That's when I realized I could use the baby's middle name and still ensure the letters didn't show until you open the card. :) Once I'd decided on this, I stamped and heat embossed white letters on Peacock Paper Source coverstock paper, then die cut and adhered them to the card with foam squares. I then stamped the baby's first name, Everly, in Quinn's ABCs, being careful to keep the name from showing when the card was shut (which resulted in that slightly squashed ev at the start...). I opted to color this in with orange and pink to ensure the new colors still popped inside the card once opened.

I decided to add the party banners from Birthday Tags after looking at the card and feeling like something was missing. I added them so that the first banner would only show when the card was opened, and I colored this banner in with all five of the colors, and decided to only use pink, blue, and purple on the other banner so that when it was closed, it still kept the orange and green on the inside only. I added the Cheers to a happy life! sentiment inside the card, and then decided to add "Let's Celebrate!" to a strip of Peacock Paper Source coverstock paper, and adhered this to the back of the top flap (which is what makes this card a little longer than 11" when opened). At this point, I thought I was finished, but felt again like something was missing, mostly when the card was shut. I settled on adding the two birds to the card, which show when the card is open and closed, and colored them in with pink/blue/purple once again, since they're on the unopened portion.

This card is being entered in to the Lawnscaping Challenge #129: Calling All Critters. http://lawnscaping.blogspot.com/2016/05/lawnscaping-challenge-calling-all.html

Paper Lantern Congratulations Card

A good friend recently found out incredible news, and I needed to put together a congrats card for her. I hadn't used the Lawn Fawn retired Lunar Lights set in awhile, and loved how the shine bright sentiment from my recently purchased Let's Bokeh set fit perfectly with this set, so I decided to combine the two.

I'd previously made an in-laid die-cut congrats card for a different friend using mint letters in a white panel, so I was able to use the reverse pieces for this project. The letters were stamped with a light grey ink using Quinn's ABCs, and then die-cut and in-laid into the mint panel. The papers used are Paper Source mint and superfine white.

I stamped the small lamps on their strings with versamark ink to create the background, and heat set in order to get a darker watermark effect.

For the large lamps, I first used watercolor to create the soft colors I wanted, then stamped the lamps on the watercolored papers with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, and fussy cut them out. I stamped the lamps again directly on the mint paper where I wanted to position the lamps, using a masking technique, and adding in the hanging elements from the bottoms of two of the lamps. I then used 3M foam tape to pop up the cut out lamps on the mint panel. I finished the front by coloring in the hanging pieces of the middle lamp with a clear shimmer pen.

For the inside, I used a masking technique to stamp two of the lamps and their hanging elements, and then stamped the shine bright sentiment to finish it out.