STENCILS, TEXTURE PASTE & DISTRESS INK

I’ll be the first to admit that it doesn’t sound like an easy summer project, but I really wanted to try it and share with you putting those three elements on a card, so here goes.  This is Charlotte C and I’m grateful to Sheila for having me here again this month.  Hope you all are enjoying your summer.

The first card I made, I really wasn’t sure where I was going with it, but I started with a piece of Strathmore watercolor paper.  Using painter’s tape, I stuck it to a silicone cutting mat, then used the tape to adhere the stencils onto the watercolor paper.  Using a small pallet knife, I applied Ranger Texture Paste over the stencil and smoothed it out.  I admit the photo doesn’t look smooth, but I forgot to take a photo when I reached the smooth stage, before removing the cloud stencil.

Here you can see the lattice stencil is smooth and there’s a bit of texture to the cloud stencil.

Now the hard part – waiting for the paste to dry.  I’m not sure how long that took because I went on to other things.  Once the paste was completely dry, I lined up the stencils over the dry paste and began adding color with distress ink.  You can see I had to mask part of the cloud stencil to just get the edges, but the lattice was easier to work in two colors. 

I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out afterall.   I cut the “happy” with my Cricut, stamped and embossed “birthday,” and applied the blue strip with foam tape. 

For the second card I followed the same principles of applying and smoothing the paste, this time using Tim Holtz watercolor paper.   I used several colors of distress ink over the dry paste, masking off each section as I went along.  I used the same distress ink to stamp and emboss “life is good.”  

Both card fronts had to be adhered to the card base with lots of foam tape because the watercolor paper is quite heavy and has a tendency to warp.   And I used a silicone cutting mat because I could easily clean it, number 1, and, number 2, I could move it around as I was smoothing out the paste and applying the ink.

Here's a closeup of the detail on the second card.  

 

This card I really like – hope you do too.   Thanks for being here today.