A bling card? Shell Yeah!

Hi Roadies!

It’s Erica back on the Ink Road Blog today with a more in-depth look at the card I made for the Instagram hop collaboration with Spiegel Mom Scraps and the Mermaid bundle.

I tried thinking outside of the box and figured everyone would use the mermaids for their project, so how could I make my card different and stand out? Well, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do the latter but I certainly could try to make something different. The idea I settled on eventually was a rather simple one: Use all the other stamps in the set and cover a whole card panel.

I’ve done this by adding the stamps to one of the boxes of my MISTI multi-stamping grid sheet. This isn’t my idea at all, I have copied and adapted the idea of Channin Pelletier. You can see her video here.

I did each box in the following steps: dust the card stock with anti-static tool, stamp images with VersaMark ink, sprinkle white embossing powder on it and tap off excess, then set it with heat tool and let cool.

With the A2 sized grid you will only get two areas stamped and then you need to rearrange them on the other side. It’s quite quick though as you will know where they all go, just use your stamped panel as a guide.

When I had covered the whole panel with the heat embossed images, I got some Distress Oxide inks out. The ones I have chosen are all ocean hues to go with the mermaid theme.

As you can see, I started with a light colour in the middle and added darker and darker towards the edges. I did end up using all of these to get that awesome turquoise-y colour the ocean is. Tumbled Glass, Mermaid Lagoon (like, duh, of course I HAD to use that one!), Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch and Cracked Pistashio.

If you are wondering why there are two pictures of the background without anything on it, it’s because I wanted to show the difference it makes when you rub off the ink from the heatembossing. You don’t need to rub hard, in fact, a gentle sweep with a piece of kitchen roll or a towel will do the job fine. Avoid anything too wet as the ink will react with the water. Isn’t it amazing what such a small thing can do?

With the background nice and colourful, as well as tidied up, it was time to add that bling! This sequin mix was an exclusive to The Ink Road, mixed by Speigel Mom Scraps. It’s got all the colours I used on the background, it was actually the inspiration for the whole thing.

Now, for those who know me, it most likely did not come as a big surprise that I went totally overboard (pun intended, it’s an ocean theme after all, lol!) I added so many to this card to mimick , the sparkles of sand  and the light that filters through the waters.

Because the background was so wow on it’s own, I didn’t want too much covering that up. I toyed with the idea of having a mermaid behind the sentiment, but she barely showed so it ended up just being a big bold ‘Shell YEAH’. Sometimes that’s all you need to say, right?

That’s it from me for September, I can’t believe it’s nearly October already. I need to move to the sun and live by the beach. Shell yeah, that’s a good idea. This girl was not build for the cold!

Thanks for stopping by today, lots of love from Erica