Rise and Procraftinate

Hey Procraftinators! Today, I have a rather fun collaboration to share with you! Renee, from Delaney Jane Cards and I are back doing another collab. This time, we each created 3 backgrounds and then mailed them to each other in a blind swap. Meaning, we didn't see them until we got them in the mail. In fact, until these videos/blog posts go live, we still haven't seen each other's completed cards yet. Which is kind of a big deal for us, because we share completed cards with each other quite often and we bounce ideas off each other a lot! Anyways, how this is going to work is, you are going to see me create 3 backgrounds in the first part of my video/blog post. I will walk you through how I made them. At least the best I can, because honestly, I was just playing around with some new to me products that I got for Christmas. Then, the second part of my video/blog post, you will see me build cards that I made with the backgrounds that Renee sent me. After you are done here, be sure to head over to Renee's YouTube channel, Delaney Jane Cards to watch her video. She will show you how she made the backgrounds she sent me and what she did with my backgrounds that you watched me create. The link to her video will be linked below and will also be in my description box over on YouTube. If you came over from her channel and have never been to my channel before, then welcome! I hope you enjoy what you see! Ok, let's get this craft party started!

Link to my video: https://youtu.be/NPZWtqBII_A

Link to Renee's Video: https://youtu.be/Hq_DkYhCudU

For my first background, I decided to do a little watercoloring with the Arteza gouache set that my husband got me for Christmas. Now, the only time I have ever used gouache is to prime my art journal pages before using watercolor crayons or other mediums. So, I don't really have any experience coloring with this medium at all. I started by using the Hero Arts Floral Lace die to cut some contact paper to use as a mask. I saw Kristina Werner use contact paper for a mask for watercoloring once and so I thought I would give it a try. If you are going to use it for something intricate like this, you need to be EXTREMELY careful not to stretch the mask while you are taking it off the release paper. You can distort the image and it may not lay flat. I managed to be careful enough not to have any issues. Also, be sure to rub it down REALLY well, so you don't get any seepage under your mask when you start applying your watercolors.

After applying the mask, I used one of my larger brushes to wet the entire piece of watercolor paper. I am using Fabriano Hot Press Watercolor Paper 140lb. I chose this paper because it is smooth due to it being a hot press paper. The contact paper mask would stick to it better and have less of a chance of the color seeping underneath it. I chose a couple colors of blues and purples to do my watercoloring. One of the blues and one of the purples were pearlescent to make things a little more interesting. In no particular order, the colors I used were Pearl Purple Iris, Lilac, Cerulean Blue. Pearl Aqua Blue. & Ultramarine Blue. I started by painting sections of the mask in, in a pattern that was pleasing to my eye. One thing that I like about using a mask like this is that you don't have to be extremely accurate. The mask allows you to be a little messy. My hands aren't real steady, so this is perfect for me. Of course, this particular mask has fairly fine lines. So, I couldn't go completely willy nilly, but I did have a little wiggle room.

I just continued to fill the sections in until everything was filled in. Then, I heat set the watercolor paint until it was completely dry. That is pretty important. It doesn't matter if you let it air dry or you heat set it, but it needs to be completely dry before your remove the contact paper mask. When you do remove the mask, you still need to be super careful and go slow. If it starts to rip for some reason, stop and then start removing the mask from the opposite direction.

Once I removed the mask, I still had leftover paint over on the white palette of my glass media mat. So, I took my paint brush and started splattering it all over the painting. I love this not only for using leftover paint, but just because I love the look of splatter and I truly love being messy. I had literally took almost everything off my desk and cleaned up alcohol ink splatters off my desk just before filming this video. Well, now, it has gouache splatters all over it. My desk will never be splatter free!

For my second background, I decided to play with the gouache again, but in a different way. I squirted various colors of yellow, orange and red onto the side of a pieces of Royal Langnickel Watercolor Paper. This is cold press, so it has the normal watercolor paper texture. I didn't care about it having texture for this technique. Anyways, I squirted the paint on the side of the paper until I got all the various colors all the way down the side of the paper.

Then, I took this ruler I have that has a flat lip on it, but you could use a large scraper or anything long and flat and I scraped the pain across my piece of paper. Now, since I had never done this before, I severely misjudged how much paint I was going to need for this and I only got about halfway across my paper.

So, I had to get out the paints and squirt some more on the side. Problem with this is, is that the paints have already sort of mixed together. So, if you try this, and you make the same mistake, be careful getting the nozzle of your tube too close to another color. I made a little mess on the ends of some of my tubes and had to stop and wipe them off. No biggie, but just a little annoying. Once I got to the bottom of the paper again, I realized that I maybe should've put some in the middle of the paper, just in case I didn't make it the whole way across. So, I did all the colors all down the middle of the paper. I kinda wish I had thought about it when I was doing them down the side. It would've saved me time. However, if you have been here before, I think we have established that I am not a pre-planner. I fly by the seat of my pants when making cards.

So, once I got all the paint on there that I wanted, I scraped my ruler across the card again. Yay! I had enough paint. I did swipe the ruler across a few more times to get the paint all the way across and looking exactly the way I wanted it, but I knew there was enough paint, at least.

I cleaned up my mess and let this dry. Ok, I lie, I heat set it with a hair dryer on warm, because I am impatient to wait for things to air dry. Either way, I got it dry and then I moved on to the next step - stamping.

I pulled on my Concord & 9th Marbled Turnabout Stamp & took the alignment guide and laid it over my background. I am only using this to decide where I want my stamp. Today, I am not going to turn the turnabout, I am only using it as a background stamp and stamping it once. I covered the background generously in anti-static powder tool before applying it to my Sizzix sticky grid, which was attached to my DIY turnabout jig. I stuck it on there so it would stay in place and be positioned far enough away from the walls of my platform that I could stamp the stamp central on my background. I decided where I wanted to stamp with the alignment guide, laid my stamp on top of it and picked it up with my stamp platform door. Next, I inked up the stamp in VersaMark, stamped it, removed the background from the sticky grid, covered it in Ranger Gold Embossing powder and heat set it.

My third and final background, I decided to play with a different medium that I also got as a gift for Christmas. I got some Dr Ph Martin Hydrus Watercolors. I am definitely no where near an expert. I wouldn't even classify myself as a beginner here. I'm just someone who likes to tinker with different things. For this background, I envisioned a plume of colors stretching from the bottom left corner to the top right corner. I wanted the flowy, natural look at watercolors get when you do the wet on wet technique. So, I started by wetting my paper with a larger brush. Then, I dropped in some color and started spreading it from the bottom left corner to the upper right corner. I started with Blue Aqua.

I kept adding more and more water, thinking maybe it would get the more flowy look of I kept adding water. At some point, I over-saturated or just didn't tape enough of the edge of my paper down. Not sure which, but either way, the paper warped and I had a mountain at the top left and a valley at the middle right side of my paper. So, all the water started to pool in the valley.

I had to keep blotting it up a few times throughout painting this background. After getting enough paint on here to satisfy me for a first coat of the Blue Aqua, I start adding the Quinacrindone Violet. For this one, I mixed the two colors at the edges slightly. Then, I would wash off my brush and go back in with just the violet and pull it out a bit further. This way, it looked almost like I used three colors, due to the mixing of the two. After I got both colors on and I was fairly happy with them, I heat set the piece. I know that watercolors tend to dry back a little once dry. So, I fully intended to do a second coat, but I wanted to heat set in between. Once it was dry, I got to work on doing my second coat and I just did pretty much the same exact thing, but this time, I tried to use less water then the first time around. I didn't start by using my larger brush to wet the whole paper. I used water on my brush I was painting with and I spritzed it a couple times with my water bottle. Once I was done with the painting, again, I heat set.

Also, again, I had leftover paint on the white palette side of my glass media mat. So, I once again, took my brush and splattered the colors on the background. I heat set the whole background again, then I carefully removed the painter's tape, folding it back on itself as I removed it. Be sure to go slowly and if for some reason it does start to rip your paper, stop and pull it from the other direction.

After all that, I still felt like this background needed a little somethin somethin. I thought about it for a minute while I was cleaning up my mess and it came to me. The veining in it reminded me of the veining in alcohol ink paintings and how you can add foil to those when they are still wet. Well, foil isn't going to still to watercolor, but you can use glue. So, I grabbed my zig 2 way adhesive, any two way adhesive will work. Meaning, it has to dry tacky. I carefully drew along the veining of the background. I had to kinda careful because the nib on my zig isn't a fine tip. There are glue pens out there that do have fine tips, zig even has one. I just didn't have one on hand. Then, I let the glue dry. This particular glue goes on blue and dries clear.

Once it was dry, I took some scraps of foil. I save all my used foil and happened to pick out some Spellbinders Glimmer Foil that I use with my WRMK Foil Quill. However, in my experience it doesn't matter if it is heat activated or toner activated when it comes to applying it with glue. I started to apply a teal foil first along the Blue Aqua painted areas. Once I was happy with how much I had there, I started applying a silver Holographic Faceted foil along the Quinacrindone Violet areas. I use my bone folder to press the foil into the glue. I find that it gives me the best results. You will also see me using my finger to rub across the background piece. I am doing this to make sure that I have covered all the glue spots with foil. The glue will be sticky, if you haven't covered it. So, you can definitely feel what you haven't covered up and no one wants a sticky card!

Ok, now we are moving on to the backgrounds that Renee sent me. To see what she did with my backgrounds that you just watched me make, you will need to head over to her channel, after finishing my video. The link to her video is towards the top of this blog post and also linked in the video description over on YouTube.

For this first background, Renee cut the Birch Press Dazzle Layer dies out of Michael's 110lb cardstock. She left them loose for me, so I could do what I wanted with them. This way, I could choose not to use all three layers or do whatever I wished to the layers themselves. I have a hard time not using all three layers in dies like this, honestly. So, I knew I wanted to use all three. However, I wanted to add a little something to at least one of the layers. I thought the white on white was kind of pretty. So, I didn't want to add too much to it, as I planned to add some color behind the backgrounds.

I finally decided on adding Nuvo Embellishment Mousse in Pure Platinum to the middle layer. This would make it stand apart just slightly from the other two layers and add a little bit of shine. Who doesn't like shine? I set the other two layers aside and pulled out the embellishment mousse. I keep saran wrap over the jar and under the lid of my embellishment mousse. I do this for my glitter pastes too. I have found that this helps keep my mousses and pastes from drying out. In the past, it seemed like I only got to use them a couple times before they dried out. So, now I keep the foil over the top and add saran wrap to protect from this happening. Anyways, back to this card. I scooped a small amount of mousse out with my palette knife and put it onto my glass mat. I immediately close the lid to my mousse jar. I wanted the mousse to go on super smoothly and since the mousse is quite thick, I gave it one spray with my water sprayer and mixed it in with my palette knife. I then, applied it with my Ranger Mini Ink Blending tool and my DIY blending foams. I have a video on how I make the blending foams with my Cricut Maker over on my channel. I first applied it with a circular blending motion and then once it was completely covered, I kinda pounced the tool to give it a slight texture. Once done, I immediately cleaned everything up. I don't like to leave any medium like this on my tools. You can clean wash the blending foams, let them dry and re-use them. After cleaning up, I very carefully heat set my background, because I was too impatient to let it dry naturally. Since there was only a thin layer of the mousse, it didn't take long to heat set it.

When I hold up all three panels, you can see how the middle panel is more of an off white now. I wish you could see the shine better though. It's really pretty.

Next, I glue all three layers to each other with liquid adhesive. It's easy to know which layer goes where with this one. However, if you have never done this before, the die cut with the thickest lines goes on bottom, the die cut with the medium thickness or the one that I put the mousse on is the middle one and the die cut with the thinnest lines is the top one. It's quite simple and once I get them glued together, you will see how stunning they look all stacked on top of each other. For die cuts like these, I don't put adhesive on every single bit. I tend to go completely around the edge of it and then, I dot some glue in cross sections. Most glue these days, is fairly quick drying. So, if I went to put glue on every single piece of this, the glue that I first put down would be mostly dry by the time that I got the rest of it down. Once the glue is applied, I like to start in two corners and line those up and then work my way to the other two corners. So, for this first one, I started at the bottom and worked my way up to the top pressing it down as I went. I do lay something heavy on this while it dies. Usually, my stamp platform. Then I did the same for the top layer. Glue all around the edge of the die cut and little dots of glue at the cross sections. To adhere it to the other two pieces, I laid it on top by lining up the bottom two corners and pressing it down until I reached to top two corners making sure everything lined up as I went.

Next, I cheated a little bit. Instead of creating an ink blending piece especially for this background. I went digging through my stash box of backgrounds that I haven't used. I have a box of quite a few backgrounds that I have made and either didn't make the cut for specific cards I was making or were just made in crafting sessions where I was playing around with new products and I wasn't really making a particular card at all. I'm fairly certain that this background was made during my video where I was showing how to make my DIY Ink Blending foams & I demonstrated how they work towards the end of the video. If that is the case, which I am pretty sure it is, then this background was made with Distress Inks in Dried Marigold, Mustard Seed & Carved Pumpkin. I glued the Birch Press background directly on top of this one as it already had quite a bit of dimension with being 3 layers of 110lb cardstock. I thought the yellow and orange background with this particular die cut background made it look kinda like a sunset, since the way the die cut is shaped, it almost represents a sun.

So, with that in mind, I thought a good image to add to it would be a flower. I pulled out a new to me stamp set - the Concord and 9th Concord & 9th Pretty Poppies Stamp Set. I stamped it in Gina K Amalgam Ink, as I planned to color it with my Master's Touch alcohol markers

Next, I took the Thank You sentiment from the same stamp set. I pulled out a strip of vellum, covered it in my anti-static powder, stamped my sentiment in VersaMark ink offset to the left side of the vellum, covered it in silver embossing powder and heat set it. You have to be really careful when embossing on vellum. Make sure your heat tool is good and hot before bringing it to the vellum. You also want to keep the heat gun moving. Don't stay in one place too long. Both of these things will help prevent warping. The biggest thing, I think, is making sure you have a good heat tool though. When I first started heat embossing, I had got some powders and a cheapo heat gun in a Craigslist find. I am always buying stuff second hand from Craigslist. I find such good deals and I am not afraid to buy second hand product. Anyways, that heat gun was crap. I almost gave up on ever heat embossing due to that heat gun. However, I decided to give it one more go and bought the Wagner one that all the YouTubers I was watching at the time, raved about. I gave that other one to my husband to use in his garage. He was always borrowing my heat gun to do things. Well, guess what? Now, he borrows my Wagner! So, that plan back fired!

Anyways, back to this card. After I heat embossed my sentiment on the vellum. I attached it to my card. making sure my sentiment was to the left side where I wanted it. Then, I wrapped the vellum around the front to the back side and adhered it to the back with half inch SCOR tape. I did this so that the adhesive would not show on the front of my card. Since vellum can be so tricky with adhesives showing through it. To make sure I got the vellum strip adhered straight, I used the grid lines on my glass media mat to help me.

Remember that Poppy, I stamped earlier. Not only did I color it off screen, I fussy cut it too. I do have the coordinating dies. However, the dies that come with it don't cut the stamped image out. They are meant to layer petal on top or cut colored pieces of cardstock out to make a dimensional poppy. Fun idea, but not what I was going for here. So, I fussy cut my poppy out for this card. Which is not my favorite thing to do, especially when a flower has such thin parts, like the stem on this flower. I managed to get it done though. I applied my glue to the flower and then I laid it glue side down on my media mat to get some of the excess glue off. Sometimes, I will do this to make sure that the glue does not ooze out onto my card when I have something with such small delicate pieces, like this flower has. I REALLY did not want glue getting on that vellum sentiment strip and messing up my card this far into this card. Then, I left a very small clip of me setting my stamp platform on top of the card front this time, so you can see that I do lay something heavy on top of things like this while they dry.

Moving on to the inside. I decided to use the other poppy image in the Pretty Poppies stamp set to stamp on the inside of my card. This image is a little different, as the stem has a gap in it. It's meant to either stamp one of a couple of the included sentiments through the stem OR you can stamp it laying across the other poppy without masking. That gap fits perfectly, if you stamp it a certain way. Concord and 9th has a video on the product page. It's quite ingenious. However, that's not the way I used it. They happen to also include the small piece of the stem to fill in the gap, as well. That is how I ended up using the stamp. I first stamped the flower and my sentiment, which also came with the stamp set. The sentiment I chose was "To me, you are lovely as can be." Then, I went back and carefully lined up the piece that closes off the stem. I honestly can't believe I got it lined up correctly. I mean, it wasn't a hard piece to line up, but I am usually fairly inept at things like this. Haha! I chose to stamp the image and the sentiment in black and leave them that way. I like to finish off my cards, most of the time, but often leave them fairly simple. I want them to be finished, but I don't want them to steal the show. The front of the card is definitely the part I spend the most time on and I don't want the inside to detract from that, but I usually like to put something on the inside too. Plus, the more I put on the inside, the less space I have to write. Honestly, I am a card maker, I am not a writer. I have a terrible time trying to figure out what to write on the inside of cards I send. Anyone else have that problem? Please tell me I am not alone!

Anyways, I attached the card front to my Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb card base. As a finishing touch, I added my Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Pen in Glitter Gloss over just the flower and the bud. I always shake my aqua shimmer pens before use, as the shimmer will settle while they are stored. If you have trouble with the shimmer coming out of your pen, all you have to do is squeeze it a little bit. However, I highly recommend that you do this off to the side and not on your project, because if you squeeze it too hard a burst of that liquid will come out and you might end up with a puddle on your project.

Look at all that shimmer! It's so gorgeous, isn't it?!

For this second card, I pulled out one of the stamps from the Simon Says Stamp Birthday Word Mix 1 Stamp Set. I had some sentiments previously stamped from this set and used one of those, but the other two sentiments that I wanted to use, I had already used and needed to stamp and die cut them with the Word Mix 1 Dies. I stamped them in Momento Tuxedo Black Ink. I stamped them once and then realized that my ink pad was super dry. So, I stopped and re-inked it and then stamped it again. I got a much better impression after that. It's amazing how solid stamps will show you how dry your ink pads really are. Haha!

I cut a piece of black cardstock to 4.25x5.5in, a piece of brick patterned paper from a Recollections Cedar Lodge 4.5x7in Paper Pad to 4x5.25in and then I cut down the background that Renee sent me to 3.75X5in. Her background was made from Tim Holtz Metallic Confections Cardstock & she heat embossed a Simon Says Stamp Diamond Pattern background stamp with Ranger Gunmetal embossing powder. I took 3 of the sentiments that I chose from the Birthday Mix 1 stamp set and lined them on the left side of my card. I looked at them for a minute and decided it was missing something to ground the sentiments. I didn't want to use ribbon. I wanted something that looked a little more masculine in the pattern and all my ribbon is fairly girly.

So, I pulled out my Sizzix Tim Holtz Alterations Stitched Rectangles Dies. In that set there are two strip dies. They both cut the fun stitched type patterns that the rectangles have in the set and they both cut straight down the middle of the strip, leaving you with two pieces. I could either butt the pieces together for a thick strip or use them separately. As you can see, I tried both ways, and ultimately decided to only use one of the strips. I thought that using both strips just was too thick for the sentiments that I was using. I didn't want something that would overpower the strips, just something that would ground them a little.

Next, I realized all my sentiments were birthday related, but none actually said "Happy Birthday." So, I looked through my stash and finally decided on a set of Happy Birthday dies from one of my Tonic Craft kits. This is from #24. It has both the word and the shadow, which I liked, because I could keep with the white and black theme of the other sentiments. I didn't want to just add it floating in space, so I used a circle die from that same kit to mount it on. It was slightly big, but that was no big deal, I just adhered the sentiment to the left and will cut off the portion of the circle that will hang off the card panel. I chose to adhere the three supporting sentiments on the left side down flat to my card, instead of popping them up. I didn't want a ton of dimension on this card. With all the layers, it's a bit thick already. Plus, the circle part will be popped up. So, I glued the black strip onto the card, centered down the first set of diamond plating...the middle of the first set of X's on the left side, if you will. Next, I took the sentiment that I planned to put on top of the card and adhered it. Then, I adhered the bottom sentiment. I did this so I could evenly space out my sentiments easier. I can better eyeball where the center sentiment needs to go, if my top and bottom sentiments are already in place. After those sentiments were adhered, I decided where I wanted my main happy birthday sentiment and laid it on the card. I flipped over my card panel and I cut off the bit of the circle that was hanging off. I did this before adding the foam tape and adhering it, because I find it easier to cut the excess off when it is flat to the card panel, rather than trying to make sure I get a clean cut when this piece is raised off my card panel. Once, I got it trimmed up, I applied my foam tape and adhered this piece to my panel.

Moving on to the inside of my card, I took the other half of that black strip that I didn't use on the front of the card and I glued it to the left side of the inside of the card. I cut down the pieces that stuck out past the edges of my card base. Then, I went back to those Simon Says Stamp Birthday Mix One sentiments that I stamped earlier and picked out another sentiment. This time, one with a white background and black text. I also die cut one of the smaller rectangles from the Sizzix TH Alterations Stitched Rectangles Dies set that would fit the sentiment width wise. Next, I took the sentiment and the die and lined it up to figure out where I needed to cut the die cut to make it fit my sentiment. I lined it up to fit the sentiment, but I also lined the die up to fit into the stitched edges of the die cut paper that I previously cut. You will feel your metal die kinda fit into place in those grooves of that paper. This is pretty important to make sure that your die cuts correctly and doesn't look funny. You want the die to line up with what your previously cut. Mine wasn't exactly perfect. It might have shifted in the machine, but it wasn't off enough to be extremely noticeable, so I left it. I adhered the sentiment to the black matting piece and then I adhered that to the card base. To finish the card, I just adhered my card front panel to my Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb card base.

For my third and final card, I started by stamping a few of the foliage and feather stamps from Altenew's Happy Dreams Stamp set with a Kaleidacolor Spectrum Rainbow Ink Pad. When using this ink pad, it has a little slider to push the colors together or spread them a part. You store the pad with the inks spread apart. When you go to use it, you want to slide it so the inks are touching each other. Then, when I was inking up my images, I did a slight shimmy back and forth across my stamps. Just a very, very small movement, back and forth. I wasn't looking to muddy up the images or my ink pad, but I did want to slightly blend the colors and not have harsh lines. I tried to position the images so the colors wouldn't be in the same order on each matching foliage piece. I also stamped each image twice, but I didn't quite use all the pieces on this card. After stamping them, I die cut them with the coordinating dies.

Once I got all the images die cut, I played with how I wanted them placed for quite some time off screen. I had this picture in my head of them being a whimsical edge type piece laying on a piece of vellum to separate them from the background piece - which I know, I haven't shown yet. The background piece is very colorful and busy. It's gorgeous, but I needed something to separate it from this very colorful and busy piece I was adding to it. I saved this background until last because it was so pretty that I almost didn't want to cut into it. I was afraid that I would mess it up. I have this fear of cutting into pretty things. It's probably why, no...I know it's why I have so much patterned paper that I hoard away. Anyways, I pre-folded my vellum around my card base, so I knew where exactly I could lay out these pieces and they would fit on my card base. Then, I got these laid out the way I wanted them, and I took a picture with my phone and had that laying off to the side when I turned on the camera and got ready to adhere these down. I adhered two foliage pieces to each larger foliage piece and then adhered them to the vellum piece flat. Next, I adhered the top feather down with foam tape and took the bottom feather and only put foam tape on the bottom of it and put liquid adhesive on the top of it as, I wanted it to lay partially over the bottom of the top feather.

Once everything was adhered to my vellum piece, I adhered it to the background that Renee made. She used Deco Foil transfer gel through a Chic Style Stencil by Gina Marie Designs. After the transfer gel was dry, she applied the Deco Foil Rainbow Shattered Glass foil over the top. Again, just like the first card, I used 1/2in SCOR tape to adhere this piece to my card panel. I didn't have to worry about getting it on straight this time, because I had already done all that off screen when I pre-folded the edges of the vellum. So, I just needed to get those edges with the fold marks lined up right and I was good to go.

Moving on to the sentiment for the front of the card. I chose the sentiment "Follow Your Dreams" from the same stamp set. I grabbed a piece of black cardstock from my scrap bin and treated it with anti static powder. I stamped the sentiment in VersaMark ink, covered it in Ranger white embossing powder and heat set it. Once that was smooth and melted, I took a circle die from Spellbinders Nestabilities Standard Circles, LG set and die cut out the sentiment.

Moving on to the inside of the card, I took the feather stamp that I used on the front of the card and a sentiment from the same stamp set that says "The distance between dreams and reality is called action." I stamped both of these using that same Kaleidacolor Spectrum Rainbow Ink Pad that I used for the images on the front.

To attach my card front to my card base, I chose to use SCOR tape this time. It was slightly warped from the foiling process. I feel more comfortable using SCOR tape when my card fronts are slightly warped. If I don't, sometimes the liquid glue comes up a little around the edges. So, I applied the SCOR tape around the edges and put liquid glue in the middle. When I use dry adhesive like this, I like to just remove the backing paper a little bit and fold it over giving me a small handle and only exposing the tape in each corner of my card panel. This way, I only have to fight with the corners, if I happen to apply my card front on crooked, which happens more than I care to admit and you can see I did some adjusting on this one. Once I get the card panel on to my liking, I will pull each backing paper handle off and press down the card panel, adhering it fully to my card base.

Once my card panel was adhered to my card base, I chose to adhere my sentiment to my card front flat to the card. I already had the feathers popped up. Plus, the sentiment was rather large and I had to tuck it into the feathers a bit. So, popping it up would've made it tricky, unless I wanted to cut part of the circle off, like I did with my last card. I didn't want to with this one, so I chose to keep it flat on the card.

To finish it off I brought out my Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Pen in Glitter Gloss and cover the feathers with it. I will caution you that using this type of product over a dye based ink is risky business. I was very quick and light handed with it. If you aren't careful, it will cause your inks to bleed. I don't know about you, but I think this was my favorite of the three cards. Let me know down in the comments which one was your favorite card.

I hope you enjoyed this fun collaboration Renee and I did today. I know we both had so much fun doing this. Let us know what you thought of this and don't forget that if you haven't already, go check out her video. The link is towards the top of this blog post and in my description box of my video on YouTube.I would love to hear from you in the comments below and I sure would appreciate it if you subscribed to my YouTube channel. As always, have a great day!