by Elina Stromberg

“Roll me in fairy dust, and call me a unicorn!” To lift my mood and to make a rainy day sparkle I took out my unicorn die set and started crafting with soft pastel colors and candy color papers. Die-cut collages are the perfect way to utilize little scrap paper pieces; I have one small box in which I store leftover pieces of solid color papers; in many cases, you only need a little piece of a specific color, and having a scrap paper box has proven to be handy.

These unicorn cards gave me the opportunity to play with my favorite Fireworks Shimmery Craft Sprays. Watching the colors mix is on a piece of white paper is true crafting bliss! My cards have two kinds of backgrounds; the soft solid tones are created with brushing Fireworks on a wet paper, and the more textured ones I made using a plastic freezer bag. I placed my hand inside the bag, sprayed some ink on the plastic, and pressed the ink on the paper. While the color was still wet, I repeated the steps with new colors, letting the colors mix on the paper. The soft tone background is sparkling. To maximize the sparkle, I sprinkled iridescent embossing powder on the ink while it was still wet. When drying the paper with my heat gun, I also adhered the embossing powder on the card. Pink clouds also have a shimmering texture finish. Using a palette knife, I added Iridescent Purple Creative Medium on the die-cut clouds.

Some backgrounds became a bit too busy, so I whitewashed the center using a Stipple Brush, white gesso, and a circle stencil. A thin layer of gesso is translucent and lets the background pattern show through. For adding opaque white details, I used white embossing powder. I sprinkled the powder on the dry background, and heat-set it by heating it from underneath. It’s a simple technique that can be used on most paper surfaces!

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Supplies

Imagine

• Fireworks! Shimmery Craft Spray – Lilac Posies, Bahama Blue, Summer Sky
• Creative Medium – Iridescent Purple, Metallic Silver
• Embossing Powder – White, Iridescent
• Memento Inkpad – Rose Bud, Summer Sky
• Stipple Brush
• Palette Knife

Other

• Sizzix – Unicorn die set
• White gel pen
• Pattern stencil
• Circle stencil
• The Crafters Workshop – Mini Corn Cob Etching stencil
• White gesso
• Water mister
• Cardstock – various colors
• Cardbase – white
• Glue