Happy Friday! I'm back today with another card using the Birthday Smiles Stamp set.
My background is mostly one layer which I created by stamping the balloons on masking material and moving the masks around as I stamped the balloons in back. I like how this looks, but it would have been equally easy to stamp & color them on cardstock and layer them afterwards.
When I had my card nearly completed I realized my white background was a bit too stark so I lined up those masks again and came in with some light color using my Copic airbrush (the Tim Holtz Distress Marker Spritzer tool also works great).
I finished my card by popping up one smiley face balloon with foam tape and adding a matching sentiment on a piece of scratch cardstock which I inked up with Mustard Seed and Fossilized Amber distress ink.
You may have noticed there's a little tiny curved "sprinkle" in the Birthday Smiles stamp set. That was added as an extra stamp to layer over the balloon tie to make the appearance the dangling string is tied on. ;)
Thanks again for stopping by! I hope you have a nice and relaxing weekend! :)
Today I have a couple of girly birthday cards to share using some more of the Birthday Smiles stamp set.
My first card uses a snippet of everything offered from this set: Cupcakes, Balloons and Banners, oh my! I colored my stamped images with Copic Markers. The background was lightly watercolored using Tumbled Glass Distress Reinker and the sentiment strip was inked up by sponging on Mustard Seed and Wild Honey Distress inks.
I will admit that once I had all of the images adhered to the card, it felt like I had space everything too far apart, leaving a huge gap in the center. Crystal Reflections sequins from Simon Says Stamp came to my rescue and saved my card. I love the colors in this mix! They're so pretty!
My second card uses most of the remaining images in the set, focusing on the ice cream cone. Once again I colored the images with Copic markers and then matched them to distress inks for the background strips.
This was a fairly quick and easy card to create and yet it's one of my favorites. Because I knew I would be fussy cutting the simple ice cream images out, I didn't worry about coloring within the lines which made coloring and blending so fun and carefree. I finished off my card with some straight machine stitching using coordinating colors of thread.
With some simple changes to the color scheme (and switching the sequins to paint splats or epoxy dots) I think these would also look great with a masculine spin. I'd love to see your take on these stamps. As your orders start to arrive, don't forget to share your creations on our new Flickr group. ;)
