Whimsy Stamps ~ It's The Boss's Birthday!

Hey crafty friends, I'm popping in today, with a fun mixed media card I've made for my lovely boss's birthday. Denise is the owner and heart and soul of Whimsy Stamps and I wanted to make her something beautiful and special. So I pulled out some mixed media elements and started playing.

I took this original photo under lights at night, so the colours are a little muted, but I wanted to be able to post this in time for her birthday. I followed up with some daylight photos the next morning, which make the colours much richer, but I did love the layout in the pic above, so sharing this as well. I've been working for Whimsy Stamps, not just on their design team, but in an administrative role for many years now, helping run the teams, events etc, so they are a huge part of my life and I consider Denise and Deb friends. I think my lil' coaster above was a perfect 'prop' for this image. 

I do love how rich the colours are under natural light the next morning though! You can really see the beauty of the Distress Crayon background. I used Saltwater Taffy and Worn Lipstick to create a grungy mixed media background. I used Matte Medium over Bristol Smooth Cardstock to create a base for the crayons and then randomly coloured, swiping with my fingers to move the crayons and occasionally wetting my fingers to get the crayons to move better. Very freeing and so fun to do! The base layer of Matte Medium I also added with my fingers, so as not to have any brush strokes. If you know me, you'll know much I am not that girl! I don't like getting my fingers inky or messy, so I had to put my big girl pants on for these techniques!

After creating the Distress Crayon background, I wanted to add some stamping and one of my favourite stamp sets for this, is the Whimsy Stamps Vintage Script Background Rubber Stamp. This stamp is a fabulous large 6x6 stamp, so you've lots of real estate to work with. I inked up two opposing corners with Honey Bee Gold Metallic Ink and stamped just the top left and bottom right corners of the panel. I always stick the back of my background stamps to my work surface, so it won't shift, a glass mat is great for this, but I often just use my stone kitchen counter. I ink up just a small section of the stamp creating a rounded edge and then bring my paper to the stamp, running my hand over the back to get a good impression. I got a clearer one in the top left, as I fumbled a bit with my lift off on the bottom right. But it's mixed media and meant to be a bit grungy, so I didn't let that stop me!

I heat set the gold stamping, which is what is recommended by the Honey Bee folks, so this would stay put and not smear. Then decided I wanted to add some texture paste of some sort. I opted for Distress Texture Paste Crackle. I pulled out my favourite stencil from Whimsy Stamps, their Harlequin 6x9 Stencil, and added the crackle medium through this. Just in sections and then allowed this to dry overnight for the best crackle. I love how this turned out, but it did seem to want to lift off the base when I touched it lightly, which freaked me out and I shelved it for a couple of weeks trying to figure out what to do to get the crackle to stay put! Then I watched a Tim Holtz tutorial, where he spoke about exactly this and how a lightly applied touch of Matte Medium could fix it in place and stop it lifting. So I did exactly as he suggested and lightly and carefully painted a little Matte Medium over the top, let it dry and hey presto, no more pealing crackle! He really is the master when it comes to his mediums and mixed media techniques!

Once all these mixed media layers had dried and were ready to be worked with I pulled out a little strip of lace and adhered this to the lower middle of the card folded in ways to add a little texture and interest. Then I set about creating my central bouquet with the Wild Weeds Die Set from Whimsy Stamps. I love this die set, there are so many shapes of foliage, the ivy is one of my favourites from this set as it works well for so many designs. I diecut a kraft version, which I edged with a little distress ink in Walnut Stain and then one from a lovely shimmery white cardstock from my stash. I laid these two down with glue dots, as these stick well to the mediums I used. Then I brought together other blooms cut from this Wild Weeds Die Set and inked the kraft versions again the same way. I gathered these together in a little bundle and wrapped the stems with May Arts Ivory Twine, finishing with a simple bow. I wanted this to be an accent, not a focal point, so kept the bow quite small.

 

I pulled out some kraft cardstock and the Whimsy Stamps Quick Strips 3 Die Set and cut a lovely banner for the sentiment. I kept a little extra space to the right of the sentiment when I stamped it, so that I could add a little butterfly there, to be the starting point of the kaleidoscope of butterflies across the card. I've been using the lovely new butterflies set a lot lately, but couldn't put my hand on it when I was creating this card, I clearly need a craft room tidy! So I pulled out an older die set, which has a beautiful kaleidoscope of butterflies as a stand alone die, perfect for this type of addition to a card. I coloured the white shimmery cardstock with three different Copic Markers to get a good tone match for the background. I used R22, R05 and R02. Then diecut several little butterflies from each colour and adhered them across the panel. I used VersaFine Clair Acorn ink to stamp the sentiment. I really like the font on this one, it comes from the Celebrate Champagne Stamp Set from Whimsy. I did edge the finished panel with some Ground Espresso Distress Ink, just to add to that mixed media feel. It looks great where the crackle has picked it up slightly.

I had popped in to a local craft store recently and bought a really pretty set of card blanks with this soft pinky peach coloured card base and a deeper peachy envelope. They both have shimmery finishes and are really pretty. They are NZ/UK size cards, so UK A5, not US A2. Simply they're slightly taller but narrower than a US A2 card. 4 1/8 x 5 3/4 is the actual size. I love how this card turned out. The background took me a little while to create, it's one of those panels I was slowly working on bringing to completion. So it was really nice to have one of my 'projects half done' come together in this really pretty mixed media birthday card for my lovely boss. She's one of the sweetest, most patient people I know. She always has our backs as design team members when life gets a little overwhelming. She's seen many of us through some pretty tough times and she's always so generous and gracious. So it's lovely to be able to celebrate her and share what she means to me. I hope you have people like this in your life too.

We've had a super fun release at Whimsy Stamps recently, it's filled with some really cool Western themed elements and there's about to be another stellar release, so be sure to check that out over in the store. You can click through on the banner above. It does show my name in the link, but it is not actually an affiliate link. Thanks for popping in today, I hope you enjoyed seeing this creation. I'll be back soon with another crafty adventure. Until then I wish you beautiful and creative week. Hugs, Wends xoxo

(I share thumbnails to the elements I design with in order to make your search for them easier, in case you like something I've used. I do use affiliate links where possible, which gives me a tiny commission but costs you no extra whatsoever. It helps the companies I design for to improve their marketing practice and track my contributions. I am deeply grateful if you use them for these reasons. I am proud to design for the companies I do and always feel happy to share where my inspiration and where my crafty stash comes from. I am occasionally gifted products to use, but I only design for companies whose products I absolutely love and buy for myself. My opinions are always my own.)

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