There is something to me that is magical about a night sky, especially at dusk. I love it in the warmer months when it gets dark enough to see those first stars sprinkling the sky with their tiny beams of light. If you don't live near a city, the stars are so incredibly bright in the night sky. When we travel up north to the family farm, that's one of the things I enjoy seeing most. I also love to see shooting stars. At home, we live about a half a mile outside of city limits, but still in a subdivision with lighting requirements, so it's not as dark as it is further away from town.
I started making my cards by ink blending a couple of background panels using Night of Navy and Blackberry Bliss SU! inks with a Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tool; one to stamp directly onto and the other to die cut a background. Both background panels were sprayed with a solution of perfect pearls and left to dry while I figured out the rest of my design.
For the first card, I arranged my greeting and some of the decorative elements on my craft mat and then picked them up with my largest acrylic block which is approximately 4.25 x 6 inches. I stamped them using Versamark and heat set it using Metallic Platinum Sparkle Embossing Powder from WOW! The color of this embossing powder is a bit warmer than Silver and I love the sparkle it gives like the stars twinkling at night. It was the perfect choice for these cards. Next I die cut that panel with the WPLUS9 Scalloped Stitched Rectangle from the Sunshine Layers Designer Dies Set. I had previously cut a Twist Cover Plate Die from some Eggplant card stock so I adhered that to the front of my top folding A2 sized Wisteria card base. Then I adhered the stamped, die cut panel on top to complete that card. I pretty much use the Scalloped Rectangle or the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles to die cut all of my card front panels. They are basics that I use over and over.
For my other card, I die cut the panel with the WPLUS9 Starry Background Die. This die cut doesn't cut an outline, but it cuts different sized stars in your background panel. It's a smaller die so I just repositioned it and cut my background panel twice to get the full effect. Next I layered that over a piece of shimmery white card stock that had been treated with Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz. I stamped the greeting and the shooting star using Versamark onto a piece of Eggplant Card Stock and heat set it using the WOW! Platinum Sparkle Embossing Powder and then cut the tag using the Love Showers Designer Dies. I love the tag in this die set and use it all the time for gift tags or other kinds of tags. It's a fantastic size and big enough to hold a nice sized greeting being 3 inches wide and slightly taller than 4 inches.
I wanted my star shaped brad to match exactly, so using a pair of tweezers to hold it I ran it across my Versamark Ink Pad and then dipped it into the same Platinum Sparkle Embossing Powder and heat set it. To make the moon, I cut a circle from a circle die and then cut a smaller circle lined up inside of it to make the shape of the crescent and went over it with my Wink of Stella Clear Shimmer Pen. Both of my card stocks are very heavy and when I tried to cut the stitched rectangle it did not cut through both layers so I had to use my Tim Holtz Scissors to finish the cuts. Then I assembled all of the pieces onto a top folding A2 Wisteria Card Base using Ranger Multi Medium Matte. I set two large acrylic blocks on top while it dried for a couple of minutes. These cards have pretty minimal layers which makes for easy mailing.
I hope you enjoy these cards that feature WPLUS9 Design Studio. Thanks for stopping by and I'll be back with another WPLUS9 product in my next post.
Thanks for sharing your creative process, Vicki! The results are amazing! The deep purple really depicts the night sky so vividly! Thanks so much for playing Simon Says Stamp Wednesday “Something New” Challenge!
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