Playing with my stash...

Hey,

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

If you are based in the US I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

I spent most of Saturday playing at my desk.

I decided to play with some of the more mixed media elements of my stash.

I broke out stencils, Ferro metallic paint/paste stuff, distress paints and my heat embossing stuff.

I made 3 cards, each using different techniques and materials.

The main card today is my fave. I went with stamping and heat embossing for this one.
I really love the colours and the fact that it's the first time I have ever got this uber detailed tree stamp to work (by Papermania 'Birdsong').
My colour scheme started because I came across the sheet of MME paper from a SSS card kit I have, it made me feel all Autumnal..
So I stamped the tree using Red Brick VersaMagic chalk ink - not a normal ink for heat embossing, but it worked. I used a clear embossing powder so the ink would show through. The sentiment is stamped with the same colour ink. I added a couple of pearls and some bling to the left corner to anchor the whole thing.

Card number 2 - Stenciling with distress paints...

A few weeks back I got a ton of distress paints in the sale. Having never used them before I surfed around for ideas for my first attempt. I settled on stenciling, seemed like the easiest way to get to grips with them.
I used a SSS mosaic heart stencil with Fired Brick and Spun Sugar distress paints. I totally love the way it came out, it's a bit messy, but it makes it a bit edgy I think. Because of this I added the You Rock sentiment and now it's going to be used as a birthday card for my friend who is an Art Teacher.

Final card - Stencil, texture paint/paste and heat embossing on to vellum...

So I bought the Ferro metallic paint/paste stuff a while ago, so I could finish my card course on stenciling. But to be quite frank, when it arrived it scared me a bit!
I had a play with it using a Memory Box texture splatter stencil and forgot all about it...
Then I stumbled across it this weekend and wanted to use it somehow. I heat embossed the Dear Lizzy sentiment onto vellum, which I then die-cut to shape. I chose the vellum so you can see parts of the texture underneath.
For a final touch I added some MME spotty washi tape and used a piece of solid tape from the same set to secure the vellum sentiment circle to the card.
I think this card should be used as an Anniversary card - bit weird, but I figure I know just the couple..

Playing with my stash was fun and gave me so many new ideas - my notebook has been out a lot this weekend. Note to self - do this more often!

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