Sunday Spotlight: Soaring By

Happy Sunday Everyone!

Today’s Sunday Spotlight features a wonderful set of hot air balloons in an oh-so-cute “hello” card! I love using kraft colored cardstock as a card base. It has such a handmade feel to it and when paired with white elements, everything just pops right off the card.

For this particular design, I went more “neutral” with the colors so that it could fit any recipient, but you could easily make this card more masculine or  feminine by simply changing the patterned papers up a little… blues and greens for a boy, pinks and yellows for a girl.

I created the hot air balloons using the SVG Cuts “Hot Air Balloon” design. Importing the SVG file into my Silhouette Studio software, I converted the images into cut files by using my trace tool, and resized them to heights of 3″ and 2 1/4″ respectively (when resizing, I adjusted the height only, keeping the “lock aspect” ratio on so that the width would be resized to the same scale).

The clouds were from the “Kite” cut file by Silhouette America and resized to no exact dimensions; I resized them based on what I liked best with my hot air balloons.

On a kraft A2 card base, I sketched out the sentiment with my Cameo and a white gel pen; I then added some white faux stitching around all the edges of my crd base with that same white pen.

Inking all the edges of the clouds in Aquatic Splash chalk ink, I then adhered them in various positions as the background for my card. I added white faux stitching to the around each cloud as well.

After the balloons were paper pieced together, I attached them to my card base with dimensional foam tape. I also inked the edges of the hot air balloons in a dark brown pigment ink; this makes the white edges of the paper not stand out as much and really cleans up your card.

I added a few finishing touches by brushing parts of the balloons with Wink of Stella clear glitter, tying little bows from yellow bakers twine, as well as adding some little dot “trails” coming from each balloon.

And there you have it! I love how the stripes of the paper used for the clouds really accentuates a sense of “movement” for the balloons and adds an extra bit of flair to the overall look of the card. I hope you enjoyed today’s tutorial… See you again very soon!

Challenges

Simon Says Stamp “Work it Wednesday -December 2014 ”

Supplies

• Recollections Kraft cardstock
• Teresa Collins “Fabrication” paper pad
• Authentique “Renew” paper pad
• Silhouette Cameo cutting mat, ratchet blade and pen holder
• SVG Cuts “Hot Air Balloon” design
• Kite cut file by Silhouette America
• VersaMagic Dew Drop chalk ink Aquatic Splash
• Uniball Signo gel pen White
• Zig Wink of Stella clear glitter
• dark brown pigment ink
• yellow baker’s twine