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Sunday, April 17, 2011

Window Sheets and Watercolour

It seems my Mojo is back, let's hope it hangs around for a while!  Each week I look at a variety of challenges and if the mojo is around will give them a go.  This week two in particular caught my eye:  Less Is More's challenge this week is to use Acetate, and as soon as I saw this I just knew exactly what I wanted to do.  It is a technique that I saw at the Stampin' Up! Regional Training Day last year.  I knew the butterfly from Strength and Hope would be perfect for this, the only decision then was what colour scheme ... over to Colour Q Challenge which this week was to use Kraft (aka Crumb Cake), Cherry Cobbler, Kiwi Kiss (in my case Old Olive as Kiwi Kiss has retired and I used all mine up), Tangerine Tango and White.

I tried to keep the card fairly simple, and to that end have left off a sentiment, sometimes I think it is nice to have an all purpose card. Sometimes on a card like this I will just stamp the sentiment on the inside once I know what I want to use it for.  Now onto how the card was done.

Firstly I got a piece of Water Colour Paper and sprayed it all over both sides until it was quite wet and let the water sink into the paper.  I gently blotted it on some paper towel to remove the extra water so there was no surface water on the paper.  I carefully stamped the image of the butterfly onto the wet paper using Cherry Cobbler, holding the stamp down for about 5-10 seconds to help the ink run a little.  From here you can either let the water colour paper dry naturally, or if you are like me and itching to get on with the card, you can use your heat tool.   If you do use a heat tool make sure you turn the paper over as it dries and dry the back as well as the front so it won't curl up unevenly.  I then spritzed with Champagne Shimmer Mist (Shimmer Paint added to some rubbing alcohol) to make it sparkle.

To give the butterfly definition you then stamp the image onto some acetate or Stampin' Up! Window Sheets, you need to use StazOn ink for that to make the image permanent.  This is held in place at one corner with a brad, allowing it to move on the card.  I had cut the Window Sheet to size and then used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig (SAMJ) to position the butterfly just where I wanted it.

 Now, I know Less Is More is about clean and simple cards, but I felt that it was just a bit too plain, so thought I would try an additional acetate layer.  For this one I again used StazOn and my SAMJ to position the flourish stamp that comes in the Strength and Hope set into the corners.  I first saw this stamp used as a corner stamp by my friend Leonis Schroder.  I did it on a second layer to test out whether it was "too much" or not though you could do it on the same layer as the butterfly if you were confident!

I hope you like my creation, and are inspired to try this technique out for your self.  You don't have to use a single solid colour for your main stamp, using your Stampin' Write Markers to colour directly onto your stamp gives some stunning effects.

Happy Stamping

17 comments:

  1. Such a clever card, Monique! Love that new butterfly image! Lovely use of the colors. Thanks for joining us at the ColourQ.

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  2. Monique, this is stunning, you have done such a wonderful job with this technique. I haven't played around with window sheets much, but this is quite inspiring my friend, I will be looking at ways to use them in future. Beautiful work Mon. Cheers, Kasey. Oh and thank you for stopping by and leaving your comments on my blog. It's always lovely to hear from you and also what you think of the creations I've posted.

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  3. Pretty card Monique, like the 'hinge' effect by using the single brad
    Thanks for joining us, have a good week
    mandi
    Less is More

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  4. Very interesting technique Monique... we learn something new every day!
    Super image on a charming card!
    Thanks so much for joining us and have a great week.
    Chrissie
    "Less is More"

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  5. So pretty , I love butterflies and your card is very special:0) xxx

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  6. Thanks for all the great comments.

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  7. Beautiful card, what a great technique.

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  8. Very clever card and has such a stunning effect.

    Marie

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  9. Lovely card, very creative.
    Jenny x

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  10. Very pretty. I love that new set and you really did a great job on highlighting that wonderful butterfly.

    TFS
    Carole

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  11. Sounds like a lot of work, but definitely worth it!

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  12. a great job and to use watercolor papaer is pretty awesome - looks fine!

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  13. Thank you for commenting on my blog about this type of stamping because you definitely have it figured out (and I definitely don't!!) I hope you don't mind, but I added a link to your blog from my blog so people can see how it should be done!

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  14. Fabulous card, love the way you`ve done the butterfly.
    Lynne xxx

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  15. Lovely card Monique and a great technique. x

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  16. Fab card and super technique xx

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I love reading your comments, thanks for taking the time to write them.