High Voltage Smile

Hello and Happy Thursday to everyone!

One can never have too many of those all occasion/everyday cards on hand… and today I have one that features a bold, black and white design with just some splashes of bright color.

I really like the little lightbulb in the Heidi Swapp “September Skies” stamp set, and thought this would make a great focal image for the card I had in mind.

I started off by stamping my sentiment in an ombre style using three pigment inks; Lollipop, orange and yellow. Using pigment inks for this technique is the best choice, as the ink will sit on top of your ink pad, allowing for more easier clean up and less “contamination” of color. Best results for controlling the amount of ink contamination is to stamp from light to dark.

The stamp that I used for the sentiment is also from the “September Skies” stamp set. Once I had my stamp all inked up, I pressed it down onto a cardstock panel cut to 3 3/4″ by 5″.

Next, I took the lightbulb and began stamping it in a random fashion around my card with some black ink. I was not being careful as to making sure it was lined up in any particular way, just making sure to fill in the panel completely. I then took a tiny heart stamp from the Simon Says Stamp “Sending Happy Thoughts” set and using some Smoke pigment ink, I filled in the rest of the areas around the lightbulbs.

With all of my stamping done, I moved on to coloring in my lightbulb with my Derwent watercolor pencils. With my Wink of Stella glitter brush, I added some shimmer to the lightbulb; and with the moisture of the glitter brush, this blended my shading for me, saving me a step! I also took some Glossy Accents and applied it to the lightbulb for some dimension.

The panel I created was then layered onto a piece of pink paper, and then adhered to my black cardstock card using foam tape. I brought in my Wink of Stella glitter brush once more and applied glitter to the card base, as well as to the little grey hearts on my white panel.

And that completes this fun, smile-maker card! I hope this has inspired you to try out some ombre stamping of your own, or perhaps creating a card in mostly black and white with just some splashes of color… or maybe something else entirely!

Thanks for stopping by! :)