Lexi’s Creations 86 Mother’s Day or Special Female Birthday

Our challenge at Lexi’s Creations this time is a card for either a Mother’s Day card or a special female birthday card, so no male inspired cards please. We realise that Mother’s Day in the UK was last weekend (although I actually celebrated mine yesterday because my Daughter was ill with flu the week before), but there are other Countries who have not yet had their Mother’s Day celebrations.

We are sponsored by Fairy Dust Crafts and the prize is 5 digi images from the store.

I was intrigued by some stencil work I saw on Create and Craft TV  a couple of weeks back and decided to get some supplies (room already bursting at the sames but yet I purchase more stuff! shoot me now).

I used a mylar stencil/mask called Blossom from Imagination Crafts, but this technique works really well with any stencil or mask, metal or mylar. This I taped down on some glossy patterned cardstock also from Imagination Crafts (I suspect that the Dreamweaver paste might work better NOT on glossy cardstock, more of that later), then using some Dreamweaver embossing paste I wiped it over the stencil, filling up the gaps. After carefully peeling it back I then sprinkled mica powder all over the paste areas. Be prepared to LOSE a lot of powder as obviously you cannot rub it into wet paste and it does tend to drop down in clumps, and even though  tried to tap off the excess between applications of different colours they tended not to want to shake loose, although when I had finally finished clearly there was a lot to be wiped away, but by then it was all one muddy dirty colour mixed together. I did three different colours. Then using a heat gun I heated it. I did try from underneath but suspect I would have been there all day, so heated from above. This made the paste (which you would normally just have left flat to dry so you would get a flat embossed area of the pattern) bubble up and form areas of different depths.

Now I mentioned earlier about glossy cardstock probably not being the best with this particular heating technique and that is I think because the heating makes the paste bubble up and therefore lift slightly off the card. I think the glossy cardstock didn’t hold it as well and I did notice it lifting off the edges of the card before I stuck it onto the mat I used. This might mean it would just peel off if handled roughly. I think plain cardstock would keep hold of it a little better as it would already have soaked slightly into the surface before heating.

It was matted onto DCWV plain cardstock before putting on a scalloped card. The sentiment is from our sponsor. It comes plain black, but I used my graphics programme to recolour it to match the image.

I am entering this into the following:-

2 Sisters Challenge - #135 Flowers for Spring

365Cards - #71 Textured

Catered Crop - Flower Power Recipe Swap

A Creative Need - #5 Birthdays

Docerela Creations - Pastel Colours

Forever Friends Monthly Challenge - Lots of Flowers

One Crazy Stamper - March Anything Goes

One Stitch At A Time - #155 No Design Papers

Paper Pretties - PWC249 Make Your Own Background Paper

Tando Creative - March ‘Flowers’