Hey Procraftinators! Today, I have a birthday card to share with you that I made for a special guy in my life! For those that watched my last video, you know that I made my GPA a shadow box for his birthday gift. If you haven't seen that project, you can see it HERE. Anyways, today IS his birthday. I thought it would be fun to release how I made his card on his actual birthday and wish him a special Happy Birthday on my YouTube channel (you can see that in my video).
I thought that it would be fun to do a trapped heat emboss resist with a turnabout stamp. You all know how much I LOVE to ink blend. So, I thought I would try it out with a turnabout stamp. I just recently got the Birthday Basics Turnabout and of course, it's perfect for a fun birthday card. I started by ink blending Distress Oxide in Squeezed Lemonade on some Bristol Smooth Cardstock with one of my new Simon Says Stamp Rainbow Blender Brushes. I recently won these on a giveaway at The Collective Creators. So, I am trying them out. I've never had my blending brushes separated out by color before. I usually just clean thoroughly in between, because I am a bit OCD about color contamination. So, this should save me some time! I'm excited to have these in my stash.
After getting the cardstock completely covered in Squeezed Lemonade, I made sure to thoroughly dry the ink. This is EXTREMELY important since we will be doing heat embossing and Oxides stay wet on the surface of the cardstock for quite awhile. So, you either need to dry them with some sort of heat tool or you need to let them air dry for awhile. I, actually decided to use an old blow dryer on the warm setting, not hot, instead of my heat gun. My reasoning for this was because I knew that I would be drying my cardstock over and over again, plus heat embossing several times and I wanted to lesson my chances of warping my cardstock. This worked rather well for me.
Next, I set up my Turnabout stamp. I have a DIY Jig that I made on my Cricut. I have had this thing for ages. Before they came out with the ones you can buy. It has served it's purpose, so I haven't seen the need to buy one. I made mine 8x8in so it fits the entirety of my Tim Holtz Stamping Platform, but that really isn't necessary. It's laminated so it is easy to clean and that makes it somewhat heat resistant. I lined up the X on the template provided with this stamp set with the X on my jig and then, I lined up the images on the stamp with the images on the template. It's really quite easy and I love the ingenuity behind these stamps. Sorry, my head gets in the way. It's important for me to be able to see what I am doing when lining up the stamps. I cut the worst part of it out of the video, as you couldn't see what I was doing at all. After my stamp was lined up, I took some tape runner adhesive and applied it to my jig and attached my card base to it. I used permanent adhesive, as I am out of temporary. If you choose to do this, just be extremely careful removing your card base when you are done. I didn't have any issues due to all the heat used to dry my card base. Heat tends to break down the tape adhesives a bit, but just a warning, in case you might have a stronger adhesive on hand. It really is probably best to use a temporary adhesive.
Before applying the Versamark ink, I decided it was best to test the cardstock by pouring the embossing powder over the entire panel and dumping it off to see if any stuck. If it did, which it did on this one, I brushed it off and then dried it again with the hair dryer. This way, I made sure that I wasn't going to have any mishaps while heat embossing and have to sit there with a dry paint brush and brush off a ton of powder that ended up where it didn't belong. I have been there, done that more times than I can count while heat embossing. Anyone else? I think I missed the powder tool before testing the first time on this one, so the second time around I really laid that powder on thick, by removing the top of my powder tool and tapping out a bunch of powder. I used that technique the rest of the way throughout making this card. However, I don't show the drying and all the prepping of the rest of the layers. Only the stamping for those of you not familiar with turnabouts and the super sped up ink blending so you can see how this card came together. I was sort of surprised how some of the colors came out on the card. Some of them weren't really true to the ink color. Which is why I left that part in, even though I know some of you skip through the ink blending.
Ok, so after applying the Versamark, I applied Ranger Clear Embossing powder and heat set it with my Heat Tool. I let the embossing powder cool down and then, I applied Distress Oxide in Lucky Clover over the top. The reason I am using Distress Oxides for this is because of their pigment properties. I can completely cover up the ink that was used before that isn't trapped under the embossing powder. If I used Distress Inks, which are transparent, I wouldn't be able to do that. I would need to use colors that blend well together and not make mud. So, if you don't have Distress Oxides, you can still do this, but beware of your Color Theory or you might make mud. After applying the Lucky Clover over the entire card, I had to re-attach the card front to my turnabout jig, as it came off while I was ink blending. This was no big deal, since I have the marks on my jig that outline card base sizes. I applied more adhesive and stuck it back in place. Next, I took a tea towel, though a paper towel or any clean up rag will work, and I wiped the ink that was sitting on top of the embossing off. Now, you can see that the Squeezed Lemonade trapped under the clear embossing powder is showing through. Look how neat that is! Off camera, I dried the panel with my blow dryer on warm, coated it with my anti-static powder tool and tested it with the embossing powder to make sure nothing was going to stick.
Now, we are ready to move on to the next color. First we turn our jig to #2. Then, again, we stamp in Versamark ink, cover the panel in clear embossing powder and heat set. Once the embossing powder is cool, I applied, Distress Oxide in Mermaid Lagoon over the entire panel. I have to say, this is one of my favorite colors in the Distress line. Then, once again, I took my tea towel and wiped the excess ink off the entire panel. Now, we have both the Squeezed Lemonade and the Lucky Clover trapped under the clear heat embossing and showing through. Off camera, I dried the panel with my blow dryer on warm, coated it with my anti-static powder tool and tested it with the embossing powder to make sure nothing was going to stick. It's starting to come together and look pretty cool! But we still have a couple more turns to go!
Next, I put the jig back in the stamp positioner and turn it to the #3 position, Again, I inked up the stamp with Versamark ink, then covered the card panel with clear embossing powder, tap off the excess and I heat embossed it off screen. Once the embossing is cooled down, then I ink blended Wilted Violet over the panel. For the third time, I wiped the excess ink off of the embossed areas to reveal the Mermaid Lagoon ink trapped underneath them. This may seem sort of repetitive, but I thought it was kind of like magic every time! Anyone else agree? Off camera, I dried the panel with my blow dryer on warm, coated it with my anti-static powder tool and tested it with the embossing powder to make sure nothing was going to stick. I promise, we are getting closer!
Then, we put it in the stamp positioner and turn it to number 4! The last turn! For the 4th time, I inked it up with Versamark ink, covered it with Ranger Clear Embossing powder, tapped off the excess and then heat embossed it off screen. Once the embossing powder was cooled, I ink blended, Blueprint Sketch over the entire card panel and wiped off the excess ink from the embossing powder the reveal the Wilted Violet trapped underneath the heat embossing. This is where I was a bit shocked. The Wilted Violet came off as more of a blue color and not violet at all! I'm not really sure what happened there, but it certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I was hoping for more contrast between the Wilted Violet and the Blueprint Sketch.
After I got done with the trapped heat embossing turn about stamping stuff, I decided to spray my panel with water to get the oxidization. I had a few areas that I had either pushed my stamp too hard or over heat embossed. Either way, it was smooshed and I wanted to kinda distract from that. When I did that, I wasn't real happy with the outcome. I was envisioning something brighter, I guess. So, I grabbed Blueprint Sketch in Distress Ink and covered the whole panel in it. I REALLY liked that, but I couldn't just stop there! Oh no....I had to add even more! So, I grabbed Chipped Sapphire and went around the edges with that. Then, I needed to be a little darker around the edges and grabbed Black Soot and went around the edges again with that. I've said it before and I will say it again, I am addicted to ink blending! Is there a group for that? I may need help!
After all that ink blending and time spent on an amazing background, I needed to figure out a sentiment that didn't cover it up! I thought about it for a little bit and decided that I wanted to play with a new Christmas toy. My grandma on my other side of my family got me a laser printer for Christmas. I had it on my Christmas wish list for....you guessed it foiling! My husband also got me some of those fun, DecoFoil Watercolor Foils. I settled on the Lapis one. It's sort of a blue, silver, and gold mix. I printed the sentiment "Happy Birthday, GPA!" on vellum, so that my background wouldn't be covered up so much. Then, I used a circle die to cut it out. I ran the sentiment through my laminator with foil, pretty side up tucked into a folded sheet up printer paper. I just have a cheapo Scotch laminator. It's nothing fancy and it worked great. The only mistake I made was I used my fingernail to try to scrape the excess foil that was left in the holes of the A's, P's and whatnot and it also scratched off on the actual letters. I fixed that right up by just taking my Zig 2 way adhesive pen and dabbing it over the spots that came up, then using the scrap foil piece and dabbing it over that once the glue at dried. Just make sure that you are dabbing a blue piece of foil over the blue parts, silver over the silver and whatnot or it's going to look funny. I'm no expert, but my guess is this probably wouldn't have happened, if I would've foiled on paper, instead of vellum. However, more experimentation on my part is needed. I have only ever used my laminator to foil on pre-printed sheets, such as the Gina K FoilMates sheets. Having a laser printer to make my own stuff is a whole new ball game for me.
Anyways, I took some Distress Collage Medium in Matte to apply glue behind the foiled letters to adhere my sentiment circle down. After adhering it, I felt like the bottom was still a bit floppy, so I used a pokey tool to apply two small spots of glue to each side of the bottom. You can see two small blobs of glue, but I will cover those up later.
Next, I took the sentiment "May Your Day be as Wonderful as You Are" from Simon Says Stamp Tiny Words Birthday stamp set and stamped that in VersaMark ink and heat embossed that in white. I decided to do this on a blue cardstock, because I thought it would look nice with the blues that I already had going on in the background. Then, I die cut it out with My Favorite Things Slanted Sentiment Strip Dies. I used Xfasten foam tape to pop it up on the card, right over the glue blob on the left hand side of the card. For some reason, I had one heck of a time getting this on straight, so I cut a bit of that painful footage out to spare you and me that agony. Llike seriously, I think I ripped it off the card probably four times! Happens to the best of us! Haha!
Moving on to the inside, I decided to use Concord & 9th's Everyday Greeting stamp set to stamp "You're the Best Ever" in Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxide ink. I chose the sentiment, well, because, he is the best GPA ever! So, it was only fitting! Off screen, I finished off the card with some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Simply White, which you can see in the final card photos at the end of the video. I hope that you enjoyed the video today! The technique is a little labor intensive, but oh so worth it, in my opinion! Feel free to leave some birthday love in the comments below for my GPA! I'm sure he will love it! Don't forget to like my video, if you enjoyed it and subscribe to my channel and as always, have a great day!
Supplies
Concord & 9th Everyday Greetings (Retired)
Bristol Smooth Cardstock
Distress Oxides - Squeezed Lemonade, Lucky Clover, Mermaid Lagoon, Wilted Violet, & Blueprint Sketch
Versamark
MY Favorite Things - Slanted Sentiment Strips Dies (Retired)
Laser Printer (Brother HL-L2300D) to print out "Happy Birthday, GPA!" - I used a font called "Action Is"
Vellum
***I buy all of my supplies myself and am not affiliated with any company. The links I provide are not affiliate links. I do not make a commission when you buy using these links. They are merely for your convenience or clarification of which supplies I have used. I do not guarantee they are the cheapest prices. I suggest you do your own research and shop around.***
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