Easy layered cards with colored images.

Lately I have enjoyed spending time coloring in stamped images. I often have no rhyme or reason for which images I stamp, other than that I like them, find them interesting, or pretty. Only once in a blue moon do I have a particular type of card in mind, when I pick them out. Afterwards comes the challenging process of deciding which card style suits the image the best. Sometimes I manage, but other times the image lays on my desk for a longer periode of time, without being put on a card. I guess you can say I am not the best at seeing, or visualizing finished cards in my head, and therefore I could never be on a Design Team either. It takes me WAY too long to finish a card for that. I am not the best creator, I guess you could say. Don´t get me wrong, I can make really pretty cards, I just don´t have it in me to come up with the card style myself. However, if I am allowed to follow tutorials, I do OK. Although, following tutorials is in my head copying, not creating! Usually when I force myself to come up with my own cards, I more often than not, end up making a "safe" layered card, like the two I am showing in this blogpost.

In my first card I started with the alcohol marker colored (Spectrum Noir TriBlend Brush Tip Markers) Hibiscus flower, and tried to envision what kind of backgroud I could put it on. I decided to go with Distress Oxide Inks and a leaf stencil, and since I wanted a 5"x7" card base, I cut a panel that was 4 3/4"x 6 3/4". The stencil I had chosen is a bit smaller than the panel I had chosen, so I placed it in the on the top part of the panel, and started inking with mowed lawn, twisted citron and cracked pistashio. I then cut off about 1 1/2" of the bottom of the panel, found a matching green cardstock that I cut to a panel 1/8" smaller than my card blank and glued the stenciled panel on to this. I wanted to use some vellum on the card, so I cut a one inch strip that I glued on as an extention to my leaf background. I also love using ribbon on my cards, so I found a green that I felt matched my other greens, and attached it over where the vellum and the leafed panel met. I put some dimentionals on the back of my hibiscus flower and placed it in the right lower corner of the card. I die cut three "Thank you" in white and stacked them on top of each other for some dimension, and placed it on the left side, on top of the vellum. The finished panel was then put onto the white card blank, and finished off with some gems.

On the second card, I decided to utilize the ink that was still left on the stencil. So I spritzed it with water, and put a piece of watercolor paper on top of it. I think it turned out beautifully. The distress oxide inks left a faint negative space imprint on the paper, and since it was rather wet, I used my heatgun to dry it, before the wet ink ran all over and made a mess. I decided to cut the subdued negative space stencil imprint down to 5 1/4"x 5 1/4". I did the same as before with a strip of vellum, placing it vertically instead of horizontally, with a piece of ribbon placed in the middle. The colored image that I was planning to use on this card, two roses, was placed in the left-hand corner, on top of the vellum and the ribbon. I heat embossed "Du er unik" (you are unique)in green, and placed it in the right-hand corner on top of the image, cut a light yellow mat, 1/8" larger than my background panel, and glued everything onto a 5 1/2"x 5 1/2" white top fold card blank. Again I finished off the card with some gems.