Happy Friday! We hope you have some crafting projects lined up this weekend. To provide a little inspiration, we have two handmade cards by Imagine artists that each have their own unique custom touch. Elina created a whimsical heart balloon card using embossing powder and watercoloring and Neva made a dynamic pop-up birthday card that is out of this world!
Fly Away Watercoloring and Embossing by Elina Stromberg
Watercolors and heat-embossed stamped images are a perfect match. Today, I create this sweet card with a young girl releasing a heart balloon. The girl and the balloon figures are embossed, while the blue sky background is created with a watercolor style. The goal was to use heat-set embossing powder to resist watercolors, so when creating watercolored backgrounds you can just simply paint over the stamped images. Preserving white unpainted areas is easy, too, as the embossing powder raises a bit from the surface, and helps you in painting around the image.
Mists and spray inks are perfect liquid watercolors. For this card, I only used Walnut ink and Fireworks Shimmer ink, but applied the colors in several layers on the background. The first light layers I painted using a rich amount of water, and for the next layers I always used less and less water creating darker shades of the same color. Before applying the next layer I dried the previous one with my heat gun.
For heat-embossing this beautiful stamped image, I used both black and red embossing powders. First, I poured the black powder on the stamped image, protecting the heart shaped balloon with a piece of paper. I put the extra powder back into its container, and repeated the step with the red powder. Heat-setting the powder between colors was not necessary, as the second color will stick only on areas that are not yet covered with powder.
Enjoy!
Supplies
Imagine
- Fireworks! Shimmery Craft Spray – Summer Sky
- Walnut Ink – Eucalyptus
- VersaMark – Clear
- Embossing Powder – Black, Candy Red
Other
- Viva Las Vega Stamps – Girl, heart balloon stamp
- Mixed media paper
- Card base – white
- Cardstock – blue
- Watercolor brush
- Heat gun
- Double-sided tape
Custom Pop Up Birthday Card by Neva Cole
What pre-teen boy doesn’t like blues, greens, and teals? For our teal challenge this month I wanted to try mixing two different Kaleidacolor ink pads to see if shades of teal could be created. I think this card illustrates success!
Kaleidacolor Blue Breeze and Fresh Green are alternately brayered onto glossy 8 ½ “ x 11” cardstock taking care to have the lighter hues line up in the fade. A light spritz of Ink Point No. 9 helps the inks blend neatly on the glossy cardstock. Half of the sheet is die cut with the Sizzix Framelits Step Up Card die. The remainder of the sheet is used to die cut the coordinating elements. The gifts were cut twice each so the bows could be trimmed for contrasting colors then adhered with On Point Glue.
A few days ago, I accidentally spilled part of a bottle of Fireworks! Dandelion on my craft mat. Not wanting to waste this pretty ink, I pressed Bristol Board cardstock into the inky mess and set it aside for later use. This little incident provided the perfect contrasting color for the candle flames and my son’s name. Each candle die cut is cut twice, once in Fireworks! Dandelion and once in the Kaleidacolor mix. After trimming off the top (flames) of the Kaleidacolor layer, they are adhered together with On Point Glue. The sentiment and cupcake layers adhered together with On Point Glue. Some elements are popped up with dimensional foam adhesive. The banner is held together with paper cord before it is adhered to the card front. I am pleased with the results of my little experiment and think my soon to be twelve-year-old son will be too!
Supplies
Imagine
- Kaleidacolor Inkpad – Blue Breeze, Fresh Green
- Ink Potion No. 9
- Fireworks! Shimmery Craft Spray – Dandelion
- On Point Glue
Other
- Glossy cardstock
- Sizzix – Framelits Step Ups 660142 by Stephanie Barnard
- Judikens – Decorative Paper Cord
- Brayer
- Lifestyle Crafts – Stiletto Alphabet
- Dimensional Foam Adhesive
Imagine Blog 
I love that image of the girl. What is your secret for getting complete coverage? I have a similar stamp and I just can’t get the entire image to fill in. It could be the stamp, but I’m leaning towards user error.