{Spotlight Project} Maria Stretches Her Border Stamps

Did you see my card for this month's CASEplorations? I created a fun frame by stamping a border stamp multiple times. Let's see how I did that.

Here's my card for today's tutorial.

STEP 1

Gathered my supplies - white cardstock, watercolors, circle dies and a paintbrush. Also had Artsy Border Maker and Born to Roam  ready to go.

STEP 2
Picking a circle I thought would fit my card front well, I die cut it from scrap paper.

STEP 3

Then I curved my border stamp, following the curve of the circle. Made pencil marks to see if I could make the complete frame with three stampings. Yep.

 STEP 4

 So I traced the circle onto my cardfront.

STEP 5

Then I stamped my sentiment and the suitcases with black Versafine and heat embossed them with clear powder.

STEP 6

Then it was time to stamp the "frame". TIP: Be sure to really follow the penciled circle to ensure your frame doesn't end up being a curve or two short. Ask me how I know. And watch for my next inspiration post ;)

STEP 7

I don't own a MISTI, so where the images were not perfectly stamped I used a Sharpie to correct that.

STEP 8

When I decided to keep the suitcases white and "rainbow" the background I nixed the Gansai Tambis and went for my tried and true and vibrant Distress Inks. 

STEP 9

Now this is how I "rainbow" with watercolors. I opted for warm colors up top and cool tones on the bottom. More or less. To avoid muddiness, I wet two sections opposite each other and dropped in some yellow and pink ink from my palette (acrylic block). Then I went to the left and right of the yellow and did wet-on-wet with orange and green. A little bit of mixing when the new wet colors run into the damp yellow is OK. (As if we can control watercolors. Ha.) 

STEP 10

So when I was done "rainbowing" the suitcases looked kinda boring. And it bugged me that I had ink leftover on my block. Hmmm - splatters. So I made a mask of scrap paper, adhered it temporarily over the rest of my card and splattered away. TIP: When the "rainbowing" was nearly dry, I touched it up in a few places with some of the leftovers to add a bit more depth and encourage a little more color mixing. You can see this on the finished card, especially on the pink and purple.

So here's the finished rainbowed and splattered card. A teensy strip of gold foil and B/W PP finished it off. Playful, eh?

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I'd love to see you use a border stamp to make a frame. Remember if you try out any of the techniques from our Spotlight posts and hook your project up at our Spotlight Project Showcase  you have a chance to win a $15 gift certificate (random drawing) OR your choice of 5x7 stamp set + a Spotlight Project guest designer spot (randomly drawn from the Top 3 picks).

Tschüss,
Maria


Products Maria used in today's project:

 

Artsy Border Maker | Born to Roam