The Ton challenge blog card Oct-17

Hi!

Yep, I’m back already with my first actual crafting blog post even though my blog isn’t even 24hrs old yet. If you were to look up excited in the dictionary right now, I would not be surprised if there was a picture of me there! Very excited indeed!

I am a big fan of The Ton stamps and have been since from the beginning, so it feels very right that my first blog post on my very own blog (I might repeat that a few times, it sounds so great!) is a card made with stamps from them. A few days ago I received a rather large order I had placed and I was absolutely giddy with excitement! There isn’t quite anything like opening a package full of happy mail *cue craft nerd squeak* If you don’t believe me, I have video proof right here. Consider yourself warned though, there is a lot of shrieking and squeaking.

The current challenge over at The Ton Challenge Blog has a gorgeous mood board and using that for inspiration, I started picking out Distress Oxide inks to do some ink blending with.

 

Now, this is a heavily coffee inspired mood board so you’d think it’s right up my alley considering what a coffee addict/snob I am. Funnily enough, I just saw the soft colours like yellows and pinks… nuts, isn’t it? Well, the month isn’t over, I might actually make another card using this mood board.

The stamp set I decided to go with for this post is called Brushed Hello and is a big, bold scripty ‘hello’ and some great sentiment builders which makes this a very versatile stamp set. Using my MISTI I placed the stamps so it wrote ‘It’s been a while, hello friend’ and on Strathmore Bristol Vellum water colour card stock I stamped it in VersaMark ink. Then I drizzled a very generous helping of Rose Gold Embossing Powder over it and shook off the excess. Before I had done any stamping I used my anti-static tool all over my panel to avoid any stray bits of embossing powder sticking to it. A quick melting job with my heat-gun later and it was time to decide what colours to use.

Ink wise I used Antique Linen, Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Worn Lipstick and Picked Raspberry. I blended these in an ombré way over the panel and then splattered a generous amount of water all over it. Dabbing a paper towel on it I made sure it was all picked up before all the colours were bleached off. I simply love this look with the random droplets on the panel and I do this pretty much every time I do ink blending. I also trimmed off a bit of the panel so it’s now 4” wide. It was 5.5”x4.25” to begin with.

For my card base I used my favorite soft gray card stock from Simon Says Stamp called Fog, it’s a lovely shade of gray and I probably use it too much. Especially for project where I feel bright white is too harsh. I have a load of pre-cut and pre-folded card bases ready to be used as I have a terrible habit of making the card panel but not putting it on a card base if I don’t have one pre-prepared. It sounds silly but it’s one of those things I really don’t like doing… cutting and scoring, cutting and scoring… meh, it’s boring. #firstworldproblems or what??

To add a little bit of height and some dimension to the card, I adhered the panel to the card base using 1.4mm thick foam sheet that I had cut to size.

Now, no card is complete without a few sequins, right? As the sentiment is bold I thought a few clear sequins would be just the thing. Now, I say ‘a few’ but this is my idea of a few. Other’s may have a different opinion on what qualifies as ‘a few’. Seven might, in all honesty, be more than a few… so sue me, I love sequins, lol!

Using my pointy tweezers and some Glossy Accents I got to work adhering my few *cough cough* sequins. As a one last touch, I also drew a curved line with a white gel pen under the word ‘friend’ as it was kind of fading away with it being rose gold embossing powder and having pink inks all around it. With that, the card was done and I have my very first blog post done for my very own blog! I know, I know.. I’m repeating myself over and over! I’m sure the excitement will fade a little… soon.. ish… with time… eh, give me a few months, would ya?? 😉

Happy crafting and thank you so much for stopping by, you have no idea how much it means to me! Mwah!

Erica