When I first saw the new Round & Round Background set from Simon Says Stamp my first thought was how stunning it would look with each of the circles watercoloured so that the overlapping watercoloured areas formed new colours as the transparent layers combined. I made this card just as the new release from Simon Says Stamp was coming out and I saw that Shari Carroll had made such a card and it does look stunning! You should check that card out, I’ve always loved Shari’s designs they are spot on. I still wanted to use the Round & Round Background set though, and so I put my thinking cap on as to how I wanted to use it. I remembered a combination of Distress Oxide colours that Kristina Werner used the other day and thought they would be fun blended over the circles if they were white heat embossed. I’ve linked all supplies at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links used where possible at no cost to you.
VIDEO
Watch below or in HD on YouTube.
DISTRESS OXIDE INK BLENDING
So to get this card started, I placed a 5.5 by a 5.5-inch piece of hot-pressed watercolour card in the Misti, I treated the card with an antistatic powder bag to prevent embossing powder sticking where I didn’t want it to and then stamped the image in clear embossing ink. Even though I’m using a hot pressed watercolour card for its smooth texture, I still stamped this several times to get a good impression before sprinkling with white embossing powder and heat setting. Next, I pulled out the Distress Oxide colours I wanted to use – Squeezed Lemonade, Abandoned Coral, Tumbled Glass and Seedless Preserves. As I blend these colours over the card they will combine to form new hues and most of these colours will be fine to mix together, red and yellow for example will make orange, but two colours I don’t want to combine are purple and yellow as these are complementary colours and combined they will go a muddy colour.
To blend the colours onto the card, I used a Picket Fence blending brush. I like these brushes for smooth blending and tend to use the largest one from the set. To keep it clean as I swop from one colour to another, I used a baby wipe and rubbed the colour off the bristles with the wipe and then dried it on a microfibre cloth. And that gets the bristles lovely and clean and soft and ready for ink blending. If you’ve ever had trouble blending inks before then, please give this combination a go as it makes the inks go on like butter.
As I blended the inks over the heat embossed circles, the Squeezed Lemonade combined with the Abandoned Coral to give a beautiful orange where they overlapped. As I moved on to Tumbled Glass, my colour theory was ringing alarm bells for me again because blue and orange are complementary colours and I’d blended the orange area right next to the area I wanted to use the blue. To make sure these didn’t combine to a muddy colour, I kept the area where they overlapped to a minimum before moving on to the Seedless Preserves. I finished the blending with an extra going over with the yellow and blue as the stronger red, and purple colours had slightly dominated these colours, and then I gently rubbed over the whole of the card with the microfibre cloth to remove any of the ink on the white embossed lines and bring them back to their bright white colour.<
I spritzed the card with a mini mister filled with water. Distress Oxides are water reactive, and when they come into contact with water, they seem to come to life to me. The colour becomes more vibrant and although the colours are well blended anyway this extra spritz of water, helps to combine them more. I had a heat tool continuously moving over the piece to dry the areas as I spritzed more water, and I kept going with this process until I have a seamless blend of colours.
I liked this vibrant, smooth blend of colours, but if you know me, I also love the texture you get from splatters and so I started by splattered the card with the tube from the mini mister. I left the water droplets on the card for a moment to react with the Distress Oxides and then used a paper towel to mop up the liquid and the inks that it draws with it to leave lighter highlight spots. I then pressed each of the colours of Distress Oxide onto my glass mat and combined a little water on a brush and then splattered the mixture over the different areas. As Distress Oxides are opaque, the splatters sit on top of the background and still show up even if you have, for example, yellow over a darker red area. I also splattered with a mixture of Perfect Pearls for added sparkle and then finished off by putting a little white gouache on my mat and again adding a little water until the combination was of a consistency to splatter but still being thick enough to be opaque and leave white splatters over the card.
I made sure the background was fully dry before using a Rounded Corner Rectangles die to cut a card front from the panel. I think the rounded corners go well with the circular design of the heat embossed background and I love the blend of colours and all that splatter over the top. So now with the background made it is time to turn this into a card.
I picked a greeting from the Home Sweet Home set from Simon Says Stamp, and I thought this sentiment would work well white heat embossed on a circle of vellum to continue the circle theme of the background. I placed a piece of Simon Says Stamp vellum in the Mini Misti and stamped the greeting in clear embossing ink and sprinkled with white embossing powder before heat setting. Then I aligned a Nested Circles die around the greeting and ran it through my die cutting machine. This circle is more or less the perfect size of one of the heat embossed circles on the background and so I aligned the vellum over that circle and then folded the excess over onto the back of the card and secured with washi tape. I’ve often been asked how to adhere vellum to a card, and there are various methods such as folding it around the card, sewing it in place, using a clip or a staple and also as I did which was to hide adhesive behind the vellum by placing small pieces of foam tape behind the white embossed greeting.
I added foam adhesive to the back of the panel and adhered it to a side folding A2 card cut and scored from Ivory card. I find the colour of Ivory card tones better with the white embossing than a stark white. I love to add accents to finish a card off and for this card I’ve picked a few colours from the Nuvo Crystal Drops range; Pink Orchid, Duck Egg Blue, Bubblegum Blush and Sugared Almond as well as Nuvo Crystal Gems. I chose to concentrate the Crystal Drops in the areas where they coordinated with the Distress Oxide colours, so most of the Pink Orchid drops are over the Seedless Preserves area, the Bubblegum Blush over the Abandoned Coral, the Sugared Almond over the Squeezed Lemonade and the Duck Egg Blue over the Tumbled Glass. I then finished off by adding in a few Crystal Gems of varying sizes for some added sparkle. I used a Crystal Katana tool to help me pick up the gems and then kept them in place with Gina K Connect Glue.
COLOURING CHALLENGE UPDATE
I’ve managed to keep the Kathy Racoosin 30 Day Colouring Challenge going for over a week now – that’s quite a record for me! Here’s a quick update on my progress using the Philip Boelter (USA/UK) book for tutorials:
Day 5 Cosmos
Day 6 Marguerite Daisy
Day 7 Forget Me Nots
Day 8 Poppies (Side Profile)
SUPPLIES
You can find links to the supplies I’ve used below; click on the picture or shop icon to get taken directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you! Items marked with an asterisk (*) were provided by a store or the manufacturer. You can read my affiliate and product disclosure here. I genuinely appreciate your support.
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PIN ME
Summary of the project which gives all the views of the card in one photo :D I’d love if you pinned and called by on Pinterest :D
Beautiful card!
This is a really beautiful card Debby and I DID pin it! Looking forward to trying this out myself.
Also, your color challenge work is gorgeous, you are doing great keeping up.
I saw this last week on the SSS blog/YouTube and thought is was awesome and it still does seeing it again!
Your flowers for the 30 day Coloring Challenge are stunning.
Thanks for showing and have a nice Sunday.
Absolutely beautiful!!!
Love this card! The blended colors are wonderful!