Mindy Made It

 If you like bling, sparkle and shine, this is the blog post for you! For my first card, I wanted to tell someone “I love everything about you” in a big way! So I die cut the large word “everything” from gold glitter paper and matted it on a black shadow to make it pop.  I had previously heat embossed the outline of a flower from the Golden Garden stamp set in gold (what else?) and painted it with pickled raspberry ink using the technique learned in the last class. I also die cut the flower.  The rest of the sentiment was stamped on white cardstock.  Now all that was left was to assemble the card. Knowing that a little glitter goes a long way, I added a thin strip on the right side of the card front near the fold, and added an even thinner strip of black down the middle of the glitter strip.  This resonates nicely with the black and glitter word which is the focal point of the card.  I added another strip of striped paper to the bottom to pick up the pink of the flower.  Following the

 I loved so many things about this class, but mostly I loved trying things I had never done before! For the first card, I heat embossed a large flower outline in gold on ecru colored cardstock.  Then I used my inks as watercolors!  I have a glass craft mat so it was simply a matter of stamping color on it, spritzing with water and then paining in the petals.  The embossed lines act as barriers to the ink.  I used my distress inks in spiced marmalade, mustard seed, and pickled raspberry for the flower.  To add the leaves, I made a mask for the flower so it looks like the leaves are behind it.  I decided not to heat emboss the leaf outlines since the flower is the star of the show.  Leaf color is cracked pistachio with a splash of mustard seed.  Gotta love those color names! When the painting was dry, I cut the paper to 5.25 x 4 inches.  I stamped the sentiment (which came from the same Hero Arts/AlteNew collaboration as the flower) directly on the panel.  Using the direct to paper inkin

 Why is it always such a challenge to make masculine cards—-for any occasion? Here’s my submission “For the Guys,” done after watching the videos in the AlteNew Academy on this topic.  I have to agree with the instructor that geometric shapes, angles and edges feel more masculine than flowers and swirls, so I used the AlteNew Duodec cover die to create a black on white background.  Man there are a lot of little pieces to weed out of that die cut! Another challenge was gluing the intricate cutting it to my card base but fortunately I have a super fine tip on my Bearly Art Glue which dries clear.  I then stamped, colored and die cut three presents from AlteNew’s Celebrations set taking care to use strong primary colors (no pinks or corals for the guys!). The sentiment is from a stamp in my stash.  It has a clean, straightforward font and I matted it on a black background to make it pop. I adhered the sentiment and presents using foam tape for some added dimension and now I’ve got a card