Sending Lots of Love

Hello Everyone!

With its sparkling hues of pinks and reds, this sweet, little balloon card is perfect for Valentine’s Day! I absolutely love the stamps used for this card; the Paper Smooches smiling heart from the Stamptember 2014 stamp set, and the simple heart balloon from the Simon Says Stamp “Celebrate” set. Both pair wonderfully together and can be bought with coordinating dies.

I have a little video to share with you that show’s how I created this card… Enjoy!

Some tips & tricks I used:

You may have noticed I used Tim Holtz distress inks when stamping the balloons. On most clear stamps this ink does not leave a good impression due to its properties. However, when using an ink blending tool to apply the ink to your stamp, this puts a more even coating of ink onto your stamp and the result is like that of a regular dye ink pad.

When doing both die cutting and stamping of an image, it works best if you die cut your image first, then stamp.

Applying the spray ink splotches: I dried them for a few seconds with my heat gun before blotting up the rest of the ink. This helps for drying purposes, as well as for creating a more subtle ink splatter.

To create the pink ink splatters, I loaded my paint brush up with both water and distress ink before flicking the color onto the paper; the key here is a lot of water and a lot of ink!

For the background patterned paper I wanted a subtle color. When you don’t have a paper subtle enough, try using the backside! I used the back of a bright pink patterned paper, creating the exact effect I was looking for! :)

I applied Glossy Accents to the balloons for some added dimesion; however, this results in the faces of the balloons getting muted. To resolve this, allow the Glossy Accents to dry thoroughly before taking a white gel pen and add the eyes and mouth back in.

Finally, I wanted to have a matching envelope for this card. Just like the post on decorating the inside of the card, I enjoy adding some special details to the envelopes of my cards as well… imagine the happy surprise of the recipient to see a pretty-decorated envelope amongst all the bills and junk mail of the day? :)

I hope you all enjoyed the card for today and that it has inspired you to create some fun Valentine’s or simply a card for sending to a special loved one!

Supplies

• Recollections White Cardstock
• Ranger Inkssentials Watercolor Paper
• Paper Smooches “Stamptember 2014″ stamp set
• Simon Says Stamp “Celebrate” stamp set
• Simon Says Stamp “Sending Happy Thoughts” stamp set
• Paper Smooches “Balloons” Wise Dies
• Tim Holtz distress ink: Worn Lipstick and Festive Berries
• gray pigment ink
• StazOn Jet Black ink
• ink blending tool
• Recollections clear embossing powder
• Ranger Princess Gold embossing powder
• Recollections “Bright & Basic” paper pad
• Wink of Stella clear glitter
• Uniball Signo white pen
• ribbon

Challenges

This card has been entered into the Paper Smooches “Anything Goes” Sparks challenge, the Virgina’s View “Clean Slate” Challenge, and the CASology “Date” Challenge.

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