Little Bits: : Club Scrap: Dahlia Blog Hop

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Club Scrap: Dahlia Blog Hop

Time again for another blog hop, this month is the Dahlia kit. An amazing kit of flowers, soft, muted tones and gorgeous watercolor. What to do with it? Well as you go along the blog hop you will see me amazing creations. If this is your next stop, you should have arrived from Debbie or if you are lost, you can start at the Beginning.

I have 3 cards for today. The first one is just a beautiful card. The next 2 are using a technique that I tried with my Minc. So check out the whole post, LOL!!!

Card 1:

This is a window card. The image is actually on the inside of the card and the opening in the fromt is covered by acetate.

So lets take a closer look.

The challenge with this card was in the planning. I used a die, plastic sheet with graph paper marking to determine where on my card to place the window. I marked the inside of the die onto the cardstock.

Using post it tape, I masked off the area. Then using spun sugar distress ink, inked the opening.

After inking, misted it with water and allowed it to dry. This is important, I did not, so well I have several of these lovely inked boxes.

Placed back in misty, lined up my "planning sheet, stamped the image over the inked box. I then colored this with copics. Stamped the sentiment. Inside done.

Next, taking the pink cardstock in the kit, cut it down to size, and using my planning sheet, attached the die to the cardstock.

Using an exacto knife cut out the center of the die.

Added score tape, and placed a piece of acetate over the opening. Next I cut out the die from white cardstock and gently inked the edges and covered the outside of the window.

Attached a white ribbon to the front, all that is left is to adhere the image sheet to the inside. Finished.

Card 2 and 3

These cards are very similar but vary in some respects.

First step for both was to stamp the image onto Watercolor paper and heat emboss in white or clear. I used Clear, but white works just as well.

Emboss and heat. I did use the same stamps for both. I added a butterfly to the softer one. In hindsight I could have used another stamp from the kit, but I love this stamp. So what can I say.

Once embossed, how I chose to color them is all that makes them different.

So Card 2 was colored using Primary Elements. Like any pigment powder the challenge is in controlling them. I almost used color burst but I wanted it soft and delicate. I can't get that with Color Burst, so turned to my Primary Elements by ColourArte.

Using a dry paint brush and a very soft hand, laid the pigment into the areas. Choosing colors that best reflected the image. So green in the leaves, pinks and purple in the flowers, yellow-orange over the butterfly and blue in the background.

Gently mist with water, allow to sit for a bit and then I gently blotted up any excess water and dried with a heat tool. Then I gently added a gold powder over the entire card, misted and dried.

In this photo I am gently picking up the excess water. You can see how the color is concentrated in areas.

This is after all the pigment is dry and before the next step. Not bad, but not crisp images either.

Ok, let's switch to Card 3.

Same process, stamp and heat emboss. This one was colored using a distress ink pads. This is my all time favorite way to make a background fast. Place the ink onto my glass mat or craft mat, mist with water until beads up and place paper into the ink . I used Aged Mahogany and Crushed Olive. Lately this has been my favorite combination!

Once inked, dry with heat tool or allow to air dry.

Next for both, I placed into a piece of cardstock and ran it though my minc. This melted and removed the embossing powder and leaves the crisp white paper underneath.

For the distressed one, I had my Minc on a setting of 4. All the embossing powder was removed in one pass. For the Primary Element, I was worried about the Gold, so ran it through on a setting of 2. Amazing that too melted and removed most of the embossing powder, but did not damage or remove the mica from the Primary elements. I still have a glimmer!!!

After this was completed I enhanced some of the areas by blending in more ink. Distress with this technique often will seep under the embossing, you can see that here on the upper right flower, but I like it. All that was left was to mount it onto cardstock, add a piece of twine. The Sentiment was embossed in Gold on Velum and careful tacked down to give the impression of floating.

The Primary elements, I did nothing to the image once it was removed from the MINC. Just mounted it, added a sentiment, also embossed in gold on Velum and added a white ribbon. Elegant!

This one is my favorite, as I love soft and impressionistic. Makes me think of Monet. And who would know I used a stamp, embossing powder and a Minc. This technique will work with a laminator and avoids having to use an iron and is much faster. For more techniques visit my blog posting where I used waxed paper to create a unique background.

Well that is all from me. Your next stop is : Jennifer